Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that appropriate pastoral and other support is available in schools for people who identify as transgender.

We are committed to building a society where transgender people feel safe and supported. While individual schools are best placed to decide what pastoral support to put in place, they do this in the framework set by the public sector equality duty.

The provisions of the duty are not intended to be burdensome but set some clear expectations. The Department’s guidance on how the duty applies to schools can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/equality-act-2010-advice-for-schools.

It sets out that the duty includes having due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity for pupils with protected characteristics – including those who identify as transgender – and schools have to publish information on how they are complying.

The guidance also sets out that advancing equality of opportunity involves, in particular:

(a) removing or minimising disadvantages suffered by people which are connected to a particular characteristic they have;

(b) taking steps to meet the particular needs of people who have a particular characteristic; and

(c) encouraging people who have a particular characteristic to participate fully in any activities.

To further support LGB&T pupils we recently announced £4.4 million in funding over the next two years to support anti-bullying schemes. This includes £2.8 million for six projects tackling homophobic, transphobic and biphobic (HBT) bullying. Bullying is best tackled as part of a whole-school approach to create inclusive environments where pupils get appropriate support and the HBT-focused projects will support schools with doing that.