The Minister for Women and Equalities (Penny Mordaunt)
In July last year, the Government launched a national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) survey, which asked LGBT people about their experiences of living in the UK.
I am pleased to be publishing both the Gender Recognition Act consultation and the survey findings today. I am also publishing a LGBT action plan, which sets out the Government’s policy response to the survey results.
The national LGBT survey received over 108,000 responses, making it the largest national survey of LGBT people conducted in the world to date. Responses covered a range of issues, including safety, health, education and the experience of being LGBT in the UK. The findings will serve as a crucial additional to the evidence base. While there were many positives to take from the findings, they also show that there is more to do before we achieved equality for LGBT people in the UK.
The LGBT action plan contains more than 70 actions that the Government will take in order to address the survey findings. These include the appointment of a national LGBT health adviser within the NHS to tackle the health inequalities that LGBT people face, the extension of the existing anti-homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying programme and a commitment to end the practice of conversion therapy in the UK. This plan will be supported by the provision of £4.5 million from within existing Government Equalities Office budgets in 2018-19 and 2019-20. I want this plan to be delivered by the end of this Parliament and funding beyond 2019-20 will be agreed through the spending review process.
Finally, I am publishing a report that sets out the progress that the Government have made on delivering commitments made in two prior LGBT action plans that were published in 2011. The publication of this update meets a commitment that was made to the Women and Equalities Select Committee in 2016, following its landmark transgender equality inquiry.
Taken together, the documents that I am publishing today represent a significant milestone in this Government’s commitment to building a country that works for everyone, irrespective of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
I will also be publishing, later today, the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act and supporting documents.
I have arranged for copies of the documents to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
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