Transgender People: Provision of Healthcare

Debate between Vikki Slade and Tom Hayes

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor) for such a passionate, incredible speech. Although she focused on adults, I would like to talk more about young people.

I am not sure whether the recent outrage about the puberty blockers trial is a result of misunderstanding, or whether those who do not accept that trans people have a right to affirmative care are simply using it as another opportunity to cause distress and harm to young people who are already marginalised and deeply frightened about their future. I am going to be generous and say it is the former, and I will help by providing some clarity.

Puberty blockers have been used since the 1980s. Although in a small number of high-profile cases, an individual has transitioned back to the gender assigned at birth, the vast majority do not. An Australian study found that 5% ended up identifying with their sex assigned at birth, but only 1% of those did so after receiving puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy. The others did so during their initial assessment at the clinic. That is significantly lower than the regret rate for breast implants, tattoos or any other change to someone’s body. Puberty blockers are not permanent; they are to delay puberty and pause development.

Imagine a young transgender child who starts to live as a boy as they end the primary phase of their education—taking part in boys’ sports and changing their name on documentation—then having to contend with breast growth and menstruation at school. Or think of a teenage trans girl, who is fully accepted by her friends, suddenly experiencing the growth of facial hair and a dropping voice, and waiting years for an appointment. Imagine how they feel sick, showering a body that physically repulses them, binding to ensure they pass among their friends, and hiding from any situation where they are exposed.

Children whose puberty is advancing too quickly can access these drugs, but trans children cannot. When the drugs were banned last year and the Government announced that there would be a trial, I thought that those who genuinely wanted fair and safe healthcare for trans children would have welcomed it. Instead, they described those children as guinea pigs. The trial must go ahead and needs to be expanded.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

Trans healthcare is challenging to access and afford. Waiting lists are ludicrously long and treatment options are limited. There is a massive gap between the treatment that trans people need and what they are being offered. Does the hon. Member agree that, as we just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor), trans people are human beings who deserve to be treated as such, with equal access to healthcare?

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Vikki Slade and Tom Hayes

Report stage
Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hayes]

No.

For me, border security sits alongside fixing potholes, tackling graffiti and fly-tipping, and stopping e-scooter and e-bike speeding. It is obviously more complicated—for one thing, it involves a great deal of international negotiation—but border security is security. It is vital for people’s safety and pride. It underpins so much. If people cannot rely on the basics, they cannot begin to enjoy everything else that life has to offer. If people cannot see pledges being kept, promises being delivered and things being improved where they live, they will not just lose trust; they will succumb to hopelessness. We must not allow the spirit of our people to break. We must get the basics right, and with the Bill we will do that.

We will secure our borders with this Bill and these amendments. We will have new powers on seizing electronic devices, a new law to protect life at sea, a new statutory border security command, tougher action on foreign national sex offenders, and the ending of asylum hotels that cost eye-watering sums. It is in our national interest to get our borders back under control against criminal smuggler gangs.

In order to understand the politics of where we are, I have been looking back at old debates, and Conservative Members may enjoy hearing what I am about to say. With our policies and politics on border security, as with much else, I feel that we could benefit from listening to a question that was put by the first Earl of Stockton in his maiden speech in the other place in 1985. He said:

“Should we just slowly and majestically sink…like a great ship—or shall we make a new determined and united effort… Let us do the latter and then historians of the future will not describe…the decline and fall of Britain but…the beginning of a new and glorious renaissance.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 January 1985; Vol. 459, c. 254.]

As the Member of Parliament for Bournemouth East, I want to work with all in this place who share the former Conservative Prime Minister’s moderation and determination to have a united effort to bring about a better Britain. That involves fixing the basics, such as border security. After all, it would be an absurdity for small boats to sink a bigger ship.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

The trafficking gangs that profit from the most vulnerable refugees do not care if the people on those boats live or die. It is obvious that we all want to see the end of this horrendous crime, but those who travel are not bad people; they are desperate. It is understandable that communities who see groups of mainly young men being economically inactive will be frustrated and angry, but asylum seekers are not responsible for people not getting a doctor’s appointment—it is the people who traffic them.

When I was the leader of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council, I backed the Lift the Ban coalition and met an inspiring young man from Cameroon who had arrived here legitimately on a student visa. While he was here, his village was torched and his uncle killed. He could not return home, so he claimed asylum from where he was in the midlands. He was immediately relocated to a hotel in Bournemouth and refused the ability to work—something that he had done legitimately right up to that point. Letting him work would allow him to contribute to our community, instead of being a great drain on it.

I will speak to the Liberal Democrats’ new clauses 24 and 33, which relate to our work with international partners. As a member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I recently learned more about the United Nations convention on the law of the sea. Article 99 covers the prohibition of the transport of slaves, but it does not cover human trafficking. Around the world, our international partnerships are being hamstrung as a result, and I urge the Minister to look at how we could use Interpol as a route towards developing UNCLOS further.

Finally, I will speak against new clause 16, which would increase the minimum income for a spousal visa to £38,000. This would mean that the average police officer, research scientist or nurse outside London—in places such as Mid Dorset and North Poole—would not be able to get a visa for their spouse. I was pleased that the Government paused the proposal and left the threshold at £29,000, as I am concerned that we could see a brain drain among many British professionals who choose to leave the UK for their partners’ homes countries, where they will be welcome.

I want to speak about the armed forces personnel I have met both in the constituency and through the AFPS, particularly those coming from Commonwealth countries. They have answered our call to fight for our country, but they are forced to leave their spouses behind, as the lower threshold provided for them only applies after an extended period of service. Pushing that threshold up to £38,000 would take reunification out of their reach, too. The current threshold ensures that families who can support themselves can stay together, and I urge the Government to leave it where it is.