Clause 10 - Groups
Equality Bill [Lords]
6:00 pm
Eleanor Laing (Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, Scotland; Epping Forest, Conservative)
Although I support entirely the intention behind clause 10, and particularly the paragraph that the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) seeks to amend, I am extremely concerned that her amendment is too vague. She said that it was a probing amendment. Given that she is a learned lady, I am sure that she is also a good draftsman, and I shall therefore not criticise the exact words of her amendment. However, what is a “demonstrable commitment”? It is hard to understand what that is, if not a
“proposed, commenced or completed reassignment of gender”.
A “proposed ... reassignment of gender” is quite wide, because the person does not need to have taken any steps whatever, but needs merely to have stated, or proposed, an intention for reassignment of gender. However,
“a demonstrable commitment to maintaining a transgender identity for a significant period of time”
is much too vague; “significant period of time” is much too vague. Surely if somebody is to complete reassignment of gender, it will not be for a “significant period of time”, but for ever. I therefore oppose the amendment No. 50 as too vague and imprecise.
Having said that, I am pleased that there is a specific duty under subsection (2) not only on age, disability, gender, race, religion or belief and sexual orientation, but—properly—to people who are undergoing or wish to undergo a reassignment of gender. Earlier this year in Blackpool, I met a group of people who represented the lesbian, gay and transgendered community. I was very impressed by their arguments in favour of the Bill. Before I met them, I had thought that the transgender provision was possibly a fringe issue for a tiny minority and not desperately important. However, I completely changed my mind. People who undergo a reassignment of gender take an enormously brave step in their lives, usually because something does not fit in their personality. There is usually a good biological reason—something that medical science did not recognise properly until recently. That means that generations of people have lived incomplete lives, or lived their lives in some way out of kilter with themselves. It is a terrible thing for society to put a person through that experience, by deciding that nothing can be done to change the description as either male or female that was given to them at birth. Many people have benefited from being able to change their gender, not out of some frivolous desire to do so, but out of real biological and psychological necessity.
It is excellent that the Bill contains specific provisions to protect those people. The Government still need to go some way—in pensions legislation, for example, and in relation to marriage and divorce rights—but I fear that the Bill does not provide the right forum for that discussion. I merely mention that the subject should be examined elsewhere and that the rights of transgendered people should be brought into line with those of everyone else. However, although I respect the fact that the hon. and learned Member for Redcar has the best of intentions, my hon. Friends and I cannot support her amendment, because it is too vague.