Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to section 3 of the Government Communication Service's SAFE Framework: the 4 principles for HMG Brand Safety, whether the expression of gender-critical comments would be considered as "content that could be perceived as offensive to protected groups in society".

The current SAFE Framework outlines four principles to ensure brand safety in government advertising: Safety and Suitability, Ads Context, Freedom of Speech, and Ethics and Enforcement.

Within the 'Safety and Suitability' principle, the framework emphasises that government advertising must not appear alongside content that:

• Endorses or promotes illegal activity
• Encourages harmful behaviours and attitudes
• Contains hate speech, extremist, or anti-democratic messaging
• Could be perceived as offensive to protected groups in society

Protected groups are defined under the Equality Act 2010 as age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation.