Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, and he is absolutely right that we intend to issue a full public consultation shortly on how best to provide the legal protection that we want to see against caste discrimination. When we do that, I am sure that my hon. Friend and his community will want to participate fully in the consultation.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It took the Government almost a year to come up with a very thin eight-page review on the care and management of transgender offenders. That referred to

“a number of events linked to transgender prisoners”

that attracted attention last year. Those so-called “events” were, in fact, the deaths in the space of a month of two transgender women held in men’s prisons. Will the Minister tell us why the Government failed to acknowledge those tragedies in their review, and why their proposals are so meagre?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I question all those statements. The response is not meagre; it is thorough. The Government are firmly committed to ensuring that transgender offenders are treated fairly, lawfully and decently, and that their rights are respected. A revised instruction drawing on the conclusions of the Ministry of Justice’s “Review of care and management of transgender offenders” was published on 9 November. It is already being applied, and will be implemented fully by 1 January.