Caroline Johnson MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 30 Apr 2025 · Gender Incongruence: Puberty Suppressing Hormones · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I start by making a declaration of interest as an NHS consultant paediatrician and a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. My work in the NHS at times involves looking after children who may have gender dysphoria, although it is not specifically for that purpose. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) on securing this important debate, and on her excellent speech. Hippocrates’ dictum, “first do no harm”—although it does not actually appear in the Hippocratic oath—captures a core medical ethic, and is an important guiding principle in policymaking. When it comes to children and young people expressing gender dysphoria, we must take a compassionate but firmly evidence-based approach. The causes of gender incongruence are not fully understood, but they are likely to be multifactorial and influenced by both biological and social factors. It is of huge concern that diagnoses of gender dysphoria have risen over fiftyfold, and that vulnerable and same-sex attracted children are over-represented. There are legitimate licensed uses for puberty blockers, such as in cases of children who enter puberty very young, and in the treatment of certain malignancies. However, using puberty blockers for young people with gender dysphoria represents a significantly different context, both medically and ethically. With most children with gender dysphoria, symptoms resolve without treatment, with many finding that the natural process of puberty leads to a resolution to their distress. The Gender Identity Development Service began trialling puberty blockers for adolescents with gender dysphoria back in 2011. Preliminary findings in 2015-16 showed no psychological benefit from the treatment and, alarmingly, a deterioration of wellbeing in some children, particularly some girls. The Cass review, published last year, showed that there is insufficient evidence on the long-term effects of using puberty blockers to treat gender incongruence. I ask the Minister: why does the planned trial not look at long-term outcomes? The Cass review made the risks of these drugs explicit. Puberty blockers can seriously compromise bone density and can lead to adverse long-term neurodevelopmental effects. As for the purported benefits, the review added that, “no changes in gender dysphoria or body satisfaction were demonstrated.” The often repeated justification that blockers are for “time to think” was not supported by the evidence, with concern that they may instead alter the developmental trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity. In May 2024, the last Government passed emergency legislation to temporarily ban puberty blockers for new treatments of gender dysphoria. The current Government have renewed that order twice, continuing restrictions until the end of this year. However, that does not affect cross-sex hormones. Does the Minister plan to commission research on the outcome of masculinising and feminising hormones on young people? Do the Government plan to extend the ban to cross-sex hormones in the fullness of time? We heard in February that the NHS has announced plans to start offering puberty blockers as part of a clinical trial. There are questions about this trial. Given that most children’s symptoms will resolve anyway, and that the Cass review clearly states there is no method of proving in advance which children will have improved symptomatology and which will not, the trial will be essentially treating a whole cohort of healthy children with drugs to see the effect on the around 15% whose symptoms may not resolve in adulthood. Former Tavistock clinicians, including David Bell, have said that they would not refer patients to the clinical trial. The Government are taking direct control of NHS England, so it is now the Secretary of State’s responsibility to ensure that any such trial is properly conducted. The gold standard for a medical trial is the double-blind randomised controlled trial. Will the Minister confirm that if the trial goes ahead there will be a control sample? The trial still requires ethical approval from the Health Research Authority. Will the Minister provide an update on when that decision is expected, clarify how the Government are ensuring the impartiality and safety of the decision-makers, and clarify whether provisions are in place to pause or suspend the trial if safety concerns arise?

• 30 Apr 2025 · Gender Incongruence: Puberty Suppressing Hormones · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend raises important questions that I hope the Minister will answer. It is important to look at the data that we already have. That was the next part of my speech—my right hon. Friend is, as usual, reading my mind. Given that these drugs have been used on hundreds of patients at GIDS alone, why not look at that data, rather than conduct new experiments on further children? Despite the last Government legislating to ensure that data could be made available for research, several NHS trusts refused to participate fully in the Cass review. What are the Government doing to retrieve that data and to ensure that NHS trusts, which are now more directly controlled by the Government, comply with data-sharing requirements in the future? If the trial does go ahead, how will the Secretary of State ensure the genuine impartiality of those conducting the trial so that we can rely on the results? In conclusion, this debate is about the wellbeing of young people. Gender-questioning children are not solely defined by their gender incongruence and gender-related distress; they are whole individuals. They deserve holistic care and the same rigorous evidence-based care as any other young patient.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Black Maternal Health Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for giving way again. I confess that I thought I heard the hon. Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill say “structural”. However, if the word she used was “systemic”, does the Minister think the NHS is systemically racist?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Black Maternal Health Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) on securing this important debate today. As she said in her opening speech, the UK enjoys some of the best outcomes in the world when it comes to maternity health, but there is always more work to be done to improve our outcomes further. I hope we can all agree that equal access to the best care, for all across our society, should always be our target. That should be based on excellence across the board as standard. We are considering Black Maternal Health Awareness Week, which is part of National Minority Health Month, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss this topic and exchange views with colleagues from across the House. Colleagues will know that as a clinician myself, I am always guided by data when assessing current healthcare practices and new policy proposals. A 2023 report by the maternal, newborn and infant clinical outcome review programme found that in the period from 2019 to 2021, 241 UK women died during pregnancy or up to six weeks after the end of pregnancy. That equates to a rate of 11.7 women per 100,000 giving birth. Each of those cases represents a tragedy for the woman and baby involved and their family and loved ones, and we must do all we can to prevent them. The data does, as has been mentioned, also show that women from black backgrounds face a mortality rate much higher than the average; it is equal to 37.2 per 100,000. Women from Asian backgrounds also face a higher rate, at 17.6 per 100,000. Clearly, those figures present a pretty stark picture, but we must exercise care in the interventions that we make, and balance our desire to solve the problem with ensuring that we do that in a way that resolves the problem without risking creating others. At the outset, it is crucial to ask what the Government are doing to understand the specific causes of these outcome disparities, because if we understand the causes, we will be better able to manage and treat them. The Kirkup and Ockenden reports have already been mentioned. What are the Government doing to ensure that those recommendations are fully implemented, and to develop a strategy to ensure that all women have the opportunity for a safe pregnancy and birth? What kinds of data held by the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care might cast light on other demographic, economic or geographical patterns that contribute to these numbers, which we may be able to help to resolve? We know that the most significant factor in predicting death during the maternity period is a pre-existing medical condition, and we know that disparities exist in the incidence of some pre-existing conditions that are relevant between some ethnic groups in the wider population. For example, a 2018 research paper in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases found that rates of heart disease were 20% higher among the black community than those from white backgrounds, and rates of stroke were a remarkable 40% higher. Do the Government know how the rates of pre-existing conditions among ethnic groups are influencing the figures on maternal health, and how are they going to work to reduce the risks of such conditions among these groups to try to improve the care not just during maternity, but during the whole of black ladies’ or ethnic minority ladies’ lives? Maternal mortality itself arises from a number of conditions and causes. In the period from 2019 to 2021, for example, 14% of maternal deaths were attributed to cardiac disease, 14% to blood clots, 10% to sepsis and 9% to epilepsy or stroke. What are the Government doing to understand the prevalence of those conditions among ethnic groups, how the conditions can be prevented, how they can be identified in black women—indeed, in all women—how they can be better treated to save lives, how they can be better managed to save lives, and what research can be done to ensure that they are, if possible, prevented? Socioeconomic deprivation has also been mentioned, and it is important to consider the impact of deprivation. In the period from 2019 to 2021, 12% of women who died during pregnancy or in the year afterwards were at severe and multiple disadvantage. That included, in particular, women who had suffered mental health conditions or domestic abuse, or had a history of substance abuse. How do the Government understand these factors and their influence on mortality rates, and what are they doing to help to resolve those issues? Closer to home, in February 2022 the NHS Race and Health Observatory published “Ethnic Inequalities in Healthcare: A Rapid Evidence Review”. The authors of that report noted: “Tackling poorer care and outcomes among ethnic minority women and babies continues to be a focus within the…NHS England and NHS Improvement Maternity Transformation Programme Equity Strategy, which includes pledges to improve equity for mothers and babies and race equality for staff.” The Government’s abolition of NHS England risks placing that ongoing programme of work, like many others, in jeopardy. Will the Minister tell us the current status of the maternity transformation programme and the implementation of the equity strategy under the NHSE and DHSC reorganisation? How is that work being prioritised, given the many other demands on the Department’s time and resources—not least from the reorganisation—that might previously have been spent on improving care? The previous Government improved the number of midwives per baby and made progress towards the national maternity safety ambition of halving the 2010 rate of stillbirths, neonatal maternal deaths and brain injuries in newborn babies. When will the Government set out their ambition for the next decade? The Labour Government promised more than 1,000 new midwives in their manifesto last year. Will the Minister update us on how many of those 1,000 midwives are now working for the NHS? The Minister for Care recently stated that the 41 maternal mental health services are now live and will be active in every integrated care system by the end of 2025-26. How will the Government ensure that access to those services can continue when ICSs face such high cuts in funding? Colleagues have mentioned the possible influence of systemic racism or unconscious bias in maternal outcomes. The NHS has an employed population of 1 million, and it is likely that some bad apples will be found within that overwhelmingly brilliant staff cohort, but I dispute that the NHS overall is a racist organisation. I work in the NHS—I should declare that interest—and I have not seen evidence of structural racism. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists reported that, as of 2024, 45% of obstetric and gynaeco-logical doctors identify as of a black, Asian or minority ethnic background, and 26% of births were to women of black or other minority ethnic backgrounds. Figures for midwives are harder to assert, because they are collated with nursing staff, but the proportion among nurses is 22%.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Black Maternal Health Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way on that point?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Black Maternal Health Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  The Minister talks about the importance of setting an achievable target and working on how it will be delivered, but the Government have now been at this for 10 months, and it was a manifesto commitment. Will she at least commit to a date by which it is likely to be set? Nothing will happen until there is a target and a plan. The Government are spending time deciding when to make a target, and all the while women are waiting.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Black Maternal Health Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  I did the junior part of my medical career in Nottinghamshire. I am describing what happened in the junior part of my career, which is about 20 years ago now. My experience 20 years ago was that it was very difficult to get interpreters, and that the people used to interpret were not proper interpreters and not the appropriate people. That should not be happening. The service is still not perfect, but over time we have seen translation services improve. Many hospitals have instituted new iPad systems where one can choose a country of origin or the language that the person speaks, and a dial-up system of interpreters working from home is used to provide an interpreting system. That is much better—it is more available to the patient than the services we had in the past, which required someone in person—but it is still not perfect. We still see areas across the country where those services and that interpretation are unavailable to people. How will the Minister ensure that women who have difficulties with the English language are able to access interpreters when they need them—not just for appointments, but for out-of-hours emergencies? That is when interpreters are most difficult to obtain, particularly for languages spoken by fewer people in the United Kingdom. I want to ask about the Government’s plans. The previous Government instituted a three-year plan, which comes to an end next year. When will the Government produce the plan? They talked about their 10-year NHS plan, which they said they would produce in the spring. I believe we are in the spring now—if we look outside, it is a beautiful day; the flowers are out and the lambs have been born. Where is the plan that the Government promised? What targets are they going to set, and when, to improve maternity care for all women, and specifically for black women?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Black Maternal Health Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  That is not what I said.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Black Maternal Health Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for giving way. I think we all agree that racism is wrong and must be weeded out wherever it happens. Could she say, in answer to the question posed by the hon. Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) at the beginning of her speech, whether she believes that the NHS is structurally racist?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Black Maternal Health Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  I think we have both made our positions clear. I accept that some people will have received poor care and that the people who delivered that poor care need to be hauled over the coals. They need to be called out for what they have done and we must ensure that such care does not happen again. But I do not accept that the NHS is a racist organisation. Another issue is language barriers. It is well recognised that it is difficult for people who have a language barrier to access health services. Can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to help with that? In recent years in my medical career I have seen improvements in the delivery of language services, but when I was a more junior doctor an appointment needed to be booked in advance and an interpreter had to attend in person. Sometimes they were available and sometimes they were not. Sometimes other members of staff or family members would be used to interpret, which is a poor standard of care, relatively speaking.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Black Maternal Health Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  I understand the hon. Lady’s point. I do not dispute that some women, men, boys or children have awful experiences at the hands of bad apples. That will happen within any organisation of that size—the NHS employs more than 1 million people. That is wrong and should be rooted out; it is absolutely clear that that should stop. However, I work in the national health service, and I think the vast majority of people who go to work in it do so to care for the patients in front of them as best they possibly can. Care should be provided on the basis of clinical need and should not be affected by the ability to pay or by any other socioeconomic, ethnic or other demographic data. Although I accept the point that some individuals will have experienced poor care, which is reprehensible, I do not think that is the majority situation by quite some margin. I think most people receive extremely good care in the NHS, and care that is delivered on the basis of their clinical need, not the colour of their skin.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Black Maternal Health Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  I think we can both agree that any examples of racism are reprehensible and should be rooted out and that, in the examples given, people are speaking truthfully of their perceptions and what they have experienced. No one is denying the experiences of individuals or groups who have experienced poor care and that that poor care should stop. I just do not think that that suggests the NHS itself is a racist organisation, because I do not believe that it is. That is our point of difference. I think the staff who work in the NHS are overwhelmingly not racist. They want to care for people on the basis of clinical need to the very best of their ability, regardless of any ethnic minority status.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  We can all agree that we want a world-class NHS, and that includes having the very best hospitals, technology and staff. I have been delighted to see the brilliant facilities created in my area, including a new A&E in Boston, new mental health wards at Lincoln county hospital, and new operating theatres at Grantham and District hospital. These upgrades mean that patients can receive the best possible care in appropriate settings, and staff can go to work each day proud of their workplace environment. However, we must be alive to the challenges that face the NHS. We live in an ageing society where people have more complex comorbidities. We also have a growing population, so there is more demand for services. In fact, the NHS treats 25% more patients every single day than it did back in 2010. New treatments, technologies and procedures have been developed, saving and improving lives, but they come at an ever more expensive price. We also had the covid pandemic, which I noticed the Minister did not mention. According to the King’s Fund, in 2023 prices, spending on capital in Labour’s last year in office, 2009-10, was £6.9 billion. In 2023-24, that had nearly doubled to £11.4 billion. Even before the pandemic, capital spending was nearly £1 billion higher than when Labour left government. That helped us to open 160 community diagnostic centres and more than 100 surgical hubs, and to invest more in scanners, beds and operating theatres to deliver a million more checks, scans and procedures closer to home. We were committed to delivering the new hospital programme in full. There was more to do. The challenges were evolving, the demand for care was growing and the pressure on the NHS was ever increasing. It now falls to the Labour Government to address those problems. I want them to succeed—that is in all our constituents’ interests—but what we have seen so far does not fill me with hope. One of the Health Secretary’s first choices on entering government was to pause the new hospital programme and put its future at risk. That was despite the fact that he and the Chancellor travelled the country throughout the election period, meeting candidates and promising a new hospital in their area. Just like the Government’s promises to the farmers, the pensioners and businesses, those were hollow words.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is not correct. The previous Government, and the previous Chancellor, made a clear commitment to providing the money, and to the hospital building project, but the current Government have not chosen to meet that commitment. These are choices that are being made. For now, patients and staff are being denied the quality facilities that they have deserved for decades. For some hospitals, construction work will not even begin until 2039. Will the Minister write to me, giving the date on which each hospital will be completed? We can see the Labour Government’s lack of ambition. There are 40 hospitals in waves 1 to 3 of their programme—40 hospitals over 15 years—but there are 515 acute, specialist and community hospitals in England. At this pace, the replacement of the NHS estate will require a cycle of nearly 200 years. That is the equivalent of a hospital built in 1825 not being replaced until this year. That is Labour’s ambitious programme. We can all see the pressures facing the Chancellor as her economic mismanagement hits the country. We cannot tax our way to growth. Perhaps that is yet another reason why growth forecasts have been cut yet again. How do we know that Labour will not come for those already delayed new hospitals in a year or two, and that there will not be further delays or cancellations? The Government have made it clear that the new hospitals are not their priority. Will the Minister give us that guarantee?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I must confess to not being terribly au fait with the position of Charing Cross hospital in 2012, which was before I was elected. It is not a hospital in which I have worked as a doctor, but I am advised that it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), when he was Health Secretary, who kept it open, and I am sure that local residents will be disappointed that this Labour Government have chosen not to rebuild it until 2035. Will Labour—in an attempt to fill the black holes of their creation—return to private finance initiative contracts, to bridge the gap between the spending that they want and the fiscal situation that they have created? I saw at first hand the disastrous agreements that were reached, which led to extortionate costs and ridiculous inflexibility. Let me give just one example. I remember being very pleased to have an office of my own for the first time when, as a doctor, I was promoted. I was given a desk, a computer and a large whiteboard. When I asked, “How do I get this put up on the wall?”, I was told, “You can’t have it put up on the wall, because it would cost £800.” That was more than a decade ago. I thought, “Why is it costing £800?” and I said, “I can go and buy some ‘no nails’ from the local hardware store and put it up myself!” I was then told, “You can’t do that, because a deal was negotiated, and it would be against the contract.” In total, there are about 700 PFI contracts with a capital value of £57 billion, and there is about £160 billion still to be paid for them and their maintenance. During covid, in 2020-21, analysis from The Guardian found that nearly half a billion pounds was being spent purely on interest charges. That is money that is not being spent on patient care, and it is a long-lasting legacy from the last time a Labour Government were in power and trying to get around their fiscal rules. These were fundamentally bad deals. Yet again, we see that when Labour negotiates, the taxpayer loses. Despite 14 years in opposition, Labour came to office without a plan for what it actually wanted to do for the NHS. Instead, we have seen review after review and consultation after consultation, with very little action or delivery in return for what this means for patients and the taxpayer. The Labour Government hiked taxes on general practices, community pharmacies and even children’s hospices, only to give them some of that money back and expect them to be grateful for it. They cut the winter fuel payment for millions of the most vulnerable people in the country, and then sat back and watched as the number of pensioners attending A&E this winter soared. They caved in to the trade union demands with an inflation-busting pay rise in return for no modernisation or productivity reforms, and the threats to strike again are already back. They scrapped our productivity plan, which we had already fully funded and which would have unlocked billions in savings by the end of the decade.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  Actually, we use the definition of “new hospitals” that Tony Blair used when he was Prime Minister. Let us turn to where we are now. We welcome the capital funding to continue the programmes that we started in government for new surgical hubs and diagnostics, but how much of the additional capital funding allocated in the last Budget will be used to carry out repairs in hospitals that should be rebuilt? Let me repeat the question asked by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan). Will those delays cost more money, both because work that would otherwise be unnecessary will have to be done to keep hospitals open and because of inflation, which is rising under this Government? How much extra will the national insurance jobs tax cost the contractors building the new hospitals and undertaking maintenance and repairs? Those additional costs will be passed on to the NHS. Will that mean less repair work being undertaken, or will the Government make cuts elsewhere—and if they do, where will those cuts fall? The Chancellor has already hiked taxes on working people and businesses, and today we saw that borrowing has also increased by £30 billion a year, with debt piling up and inflation on the rise. How does the Minister intend future repairs and builds to be funded—through yet more tax rises, more borrowing, bringing back PFI, or cutting other areas of spending? Ultimately, these are decisions for Governments. To govern is to choose. This Government must own their choices, but sadly it is the public who will have to pay for them.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  The previous Secretary of State made it clear that the hospital was fully funded and would be built. What has changed since then is that we have a new Government who made the choice not to build it. These are choices that the new Government must own. When the Government came to power, the Secretary of State commissioned the Darzi review, which highlighted the need for more capital investment in the NHS, but decided not to prioritise the delivery of the new hospitals. To govern is to choose, and the Secretary of State has chosen not to deliver the hospitals. We set out our commitment to delivering them on time, with the agreement of the then Chancellor. Of course, spending decisions cannot be made for a future Parliament, but the Secretary of State has chosen not to make the same commitment.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree that the Labour Government should do that, but unfortunately, we have learned that their promises do not mean much at all.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Draft Medical Devices (Amendment) (Great Britain) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  My understanding is that the US Government are reviewing whether the tariffs will affect medical pharmaceutical products. However, some manufactures of medical devices, as per this SI, are concerned that the tariffs that have already been announced affect medical devices. Can the Minister please give more clarity on that?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Draft Medical Devices (Amendment) (Great Britain) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. We can all agree that we want safety. We want the equipment that doctors such as me use to be safe, reliable and regulated to the highest standards. We also want strong support for the science and technology sector, and patients in the UK to have early access to the best and most innovative medical devices. The instrument removes the revocation dates currently attached to four pieces of assimilated EU law, currently enshrined in the Medical Devices Regulations 2002. By doing so, it keeps those EU regulations in force until new, bespoke UK regulations are introduced. There was significant concern that allowing that assimilated EU law to expire under the sunset clause would disrupt the UK medical devices regulatory framework and could negatively impact patient safety. In response, the MHRA conducted a public consultation involving device manufacturers, healthcare professionals, patient groups and businesses. Based on the results of that consultation, the MHRA proposed removing the revocation date for those four pieces of EU law. That proposal was welcomed, with 83% of respondents favouring maintaining the status quo. Opposition Members support these pragmatic measures, and we welcome any legislation that protects patient safety. However, it is essential that the new UK regulatory framework is delivered in a timely manner to provide clarity for industry stakeholders. In that spirit, I would be grateful if the Minister could provide clarity on a few points. First, the retention of these laws is intended as a temporary transitional measure, with the first phase of the new UK regime—the pre-market regulations—expected in 2026. Is that information up to date, and when can we expect further details on the timeline, publications and upcoming consultations? Looking ahead to the new UK regulations, particularly those on post-market surveillance of medical devices, are the new UK replacements for assimilated EU regulations expected to diverge significantly from the current EU frameworks when they take effect, or will they remain broadly aligned with them? Although the amendment regulations extend across the UK, in practice they apply only to England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland remains subject to the 2017 EU medical device regulation and the 2017 in vitro diagnostic medical device regulation. If these frameworks impose additional regulatory or administrative burdens on manufacturers and distributors in Northern Ireland, what steps will the Government take to support those businesses and help protect their competitiveness? Finally, will the Minister comment on how she expects US tariffs to affect medical devices, including their manufacturers and their availability, in the UK?

• 22 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Lady is making the important point that the Sentencing Council is comprised of senior and learned individuals. Given that, what circumstances does she think conspired to let it get the guidelines so very wrong? It is clearly felt on both sides of the House that they are wrong.

• 22 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  Can the right hon. Lady clarify whether the guidelines proposed under the previous Government were the same as those with which she is dealing now, or did they differ—and if they differed, how did they differ?

• 22 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Lady is making a point about the wider justice system and the importance of equality before the law. What has she done to assure herself and the House that, in all aspects of her Department’s work, people are being treated equally under the law—whether in relation to parole, how they are treated in prison, bail conditions and so on?

• 22 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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• 22 Apr 2025 · “For Women Scotland” Supreme Court Ruling · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to get the clarity from the Supreme Court judgment. Those of us on the Conservative Benches have always known what a woman is. The right hon. Lady says the Government will ensure that public services are fully compliant with the legislation, which is good. She talked about NHS single-sex wards and the provision for biological females and biological males. Can she confirm whether that means trans women will be cared for on male wards?