Gender Recognition

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement, although I would have welcomed a good deal more detail. I do not know whether it is because the UK Government have been missing in action on their own commitment to ban conversion therapy for the last five years, but they seem much more interested in culture wars than in looking after the rights of some of the most vulnerable people. Of course, this is the same UK Government who are intent on blocking the democratic will, expressed across parties, of the Scottish Parliament. Again, they seem to be more interested in constitutional shenanigans than in human rights.

The Minister talked about unintended consequences. Has she undertaken an impact assessment of the impact of this change on the safety, health and wellbeing of those affected? What conversations has she had with international counterparts, and what specific evidence did she receive ahead of the change that made her decide to remove these named territories? Can she tell us exactly what will happen to those already living here, and living under their new gender, who come from the places that she is now removing from the list? Can she say where this leaves the motion of reciprocal arrangements? What of those from the UK who are living elsewhere? Does she recognise that the UK is travelling rapidly backwards on the rights of LGBT people and that this decision is very much out of step with other progressive countries around the world? What consideration has she given to the UK’s international reputation?

From sending vulnerable refugees to Rwanda, placing barriers in front of care workers who want to come to the UK and now this, we can see the dearth of compassion at the heart of the UK Government writ large. We have all heard the reports that the Conservative party intends to fight the general election on the trans debate and culture wars, but nobody’s identity should be in question. As the Minister herself said, nobody’s identity should be used as a political football. We need to stop that. She needs to reflect and she needs to change tack.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I completely disagree with the hon. Lady. She talks about our using this issue as a culture wars football, yet the Labour Opposition spokesperson says that this is the first time that she has heard us say anything about this in the House. Surely both cannot be true. I think it is extraordinary that she is telling us that we are not compassionate. It is her Government in Scotland who were allowing rapists to be housed in women’s prisons while using self-identity as a cover, so I will not accept that. We are the ones who are thinking about women’s rights. We are the ones who are thinking about safeguarding. We are the ones who are thinking about vulnerability.

The hon. Lady asks me about reciprocal arrangements. The fact is that our system is a lot more rigorous, so there is no reason for others to stop accepting our certificates because they have not changed. It is because other countries have changed their process that we are updating this policy. We cannot have a situation where there are rules for people in this country and where we allow people from other countries with different rules to be able to access things that people in the UK cannot access. This is about equality before the law. This is about parity. Reciprocal arrangements will be fine. She also asked about people already living here. This is not retrospective legislation, so it will not impact people who are already here. We are just making it clear: self-ID is not something that this Government support. We do not believe that this is something that people should just declare, because that creates the very same problems that she saw in Scotland in the Isla Bryson case, with rapists going into women’s prisons. We will not allow that to happen on this Government’s watch.