Cass Review

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his careful and considered question. I very much hope that the Scottish National party Government will look at the evidence very carefully and find the recommendations to their liking. It is to NHS England’s credit that it has acted so promptly, and I would hope and expect that the devolved nations, let by the Scottish National party and the Welsh Labour party, will follow with similar speed.

As I have had to say, because it is in line with the atmosphere in which clinicians are having to operate, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, brought forward by the Scottish National party Government and supported by Scottish Labour, cannot help the considered debate that we wish to have about this very complex subject, and I encourage them to look at that as part of their overall approach.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I welcome the Cass review and its recommendations. Mistakes have been made that must never happen again, but the polarised public debate that she mentions reflects badly on this House. Does the Minister agree that making jokes about trans people and trans children is cruel, cheapens the debate and moves the focus away from ensuring that all our young people get the help they need when they need it?

[Victoria Atkins]

True leadership is not just about being careful with the words we use. I will not recite the many words that other Labour Members have used about trans issues. They say, for example, that it is factually inaccurate to say that only women have a cervix—[Interruption.] I am not naming them, but that seems an extraordinary things for a Labour Member to say. [Interruption.] They do not like to hear their words repeated back to them, but I will resist that temptation and instead focus on the application of policy.

Trans prisoners, including those who are fully intact and have been convicted of serious sexual offences, are demanding to be held in prisons that match their chosen gender. This Government, including me and many of my predecessors as Prisons Minister, set clear rules to ensure that situations such as the Karen White case are not repeated, so it was very troubling that Opposition Members did not appear to have the same concerns when it came to the placing of a trans double rapist, Isla Bryson, in Scotland. [Interruption.] I am being told that it is not true but, if Opposition Members want to factcheck, apparently it was the deputy leader of the Labour party who said that it does not matter.