In On the 25th of May the Women and Equalities Committee called on Liz Truss, the Minister of Women and Equalities, to comment on the progress that the Government Equalities Office (GEO) has made in supporting LGBT+ people in the UK.
During the session, Truss confirmed that there had been ‘fundamental disagreement’ with the now disbanded LGBT Advisory Panel on the issue of Gender Recognition Act (GRA) reform – namely that ‘members of the panel supported self-ID for gender recognition certificates’ whereas she felt ‘very strongly’ that there should be a more checks and balances led approach.
In a previous committee session former members of the LGBT Advisory Panel, Paul Martin, Jayne Ozanne, Ellen Murray spoke candidly and with authority, highlighting that despite previous optimism, positive commitments, and progress by the previous Secretary of State and the Minister for Women and Equalities, current Ministers had taken a worrying change of direction and view on engaging with the former LGBT Advisory Panel & LGBT+ communities.
The Minister also announced that she would be appointing a new LGBT Panel, noting that the government wants to ‘bring in a wider range of people who can bring in a broad perspective’.