Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if she will make it her policy to reference “sex” rather than “gender” in future departmental publications.

The Department will continue to use the word 'gender' when it is appropriate to do so, as the Hon Member himself has done ever since arriving in Parliament. Indeed, looking back at his past contributions to oral debates, I was struck by the number of issues he has addressed with care and sensitivity over the years while using the word 'gender'.

In 2015, he talked movingly about his ambitions for his own young son and daughter, but said there was "far, far more to do if we are to eliminate the gender pay gap altogether and build the equal society that we all want". The following year, he talked with great moral clarity about the "gender inequalities" and "gender-based violence" facing young women affected by the conflict in Yemen. In 2018 and 2019, he talked again about the "gender pay gap", and in 2022, he praised the "almost identical gender balance" in pub trade employment, an observation he repeated in 2024. Finally, last year, he struck a chord with members across the House when talking about a close colleague and friend who had been affected by illness, stating: "Cancer does not care about politics. It does not care what background we come from, our age or gender, or what party we belong to. It strikes indiscriminately. It takes what it wants, and it leaves devastation in its wake."

In all these cases, the use of the word 'gender' seems perfectly appropriate, and in some instances - such as 'gender inequality', 'gender based violence', and 'gender pay gap' - these are commonly-used and widely-understood terms, which it would make no sense to strike from our collective vocabulary. I would therefore urge the Hon Member to reflect on his proposal, and possibly have a conversation with his former self on the matter.