Schedule 3
Equality Bill
3:00 pm
Vera Baird (Solicitor General, Attorney General's Office; Redcar, Labour)
Essentially, the amendment is not necessary, because the Bill prohibits blood services from excluding people who share a characteristic, unless there is evidence
“from a source on which it is reasonable to rely”
that donation presents a risk to the public or to the individual donor. The Bill also requires that refusal, even if grounded on that evidence, to be “reasonable”.
The issue is not just about gay people. Blood services sometimes need to exclude all people who share a protected characteristic from giving blood. For example, the EU requires blood services to refuse donations from people who are HIV-positive, and HIV-positive is a disability in the Bill. Therefore, it is not just about gay men. However, an issue about them has been raised. Let me see if I can deal with it as well as possible.
In the explanatory statement for the amendment, the hon. Lady suggests that sexual orientation is an example of a protected characteristic that would be covered by the amendment. However, I am told that blood services do not ask questions about sexual orientation—there has never been a blanket ban on people who share a protected characteristic, either of homosexuality or bisexuality. Lesbian and bisexual women, who share the characteristic, are not banned from donating on the grounds of their sexual orientation, nor are gay or bisexual men who, as she put it, are virgins, who have not had sex with another man. Excluding everyone who identifies as gay would be unnecessary, and it would be unlawful, so it is not a blanket ban in that sense. There is no evidence of people presenting a risk just because they are gay.
The hon. Lady raised the issue in a bit of detail, so let me deal with it in detail, in all fairness to her. The policy, which is to exclude men who have had sex with men from donating, is in place because the blood services have an ethical duty of care towards recipients for the sole purpose of protecting public health by minimising the risk of transmission of HIV in particular. My information is that men who have had sex with men are at higher risk of carrying such viruses. A review of the evidence on risk-based sexual behaviour will begin in July.
Men having safer sex with men was touched on by the hon. Lady. While safer sex through the use of condoms reduces the transmission of infection, it does not eliminate the risk. Men who have sex with men are found to be disproportionately represented among the small number of HIV-positive donations identified. Epidemiological evidence in the UK also shows that there has been a significant increase in other sexually transmitted infections that can be blood-borne, such as hepatitis B and syphilis, among men who have sex with men.
The hon. Lady’s answer to that—I understand why—would be to assess each donor’s risk individually. However, blood services advise that there would be a large number of practical problems. For example, it would not be feasible in a blood donation session to take a detailed sexual history from an individual—apparently 7,000 people per day, which is excellent, give blood, so that would be impractical. The blood services need to use broad categorisation for donor selection.
The hon. Lady referred to other countries having reversed their policies.