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Lord Cobbold: I return to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. Clearly, they rule out the possibility of same-sex marriage. Is the Minister confident that the Bill, as it stands, does not open the door to same-sex marriage?
Lord Goodhart: The points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, are important, but by raising them at
this stage he has turned the discussion into a Second Reading debate. His points bear no relevance to any amendment in this group. Indeed, the relevant amendment is one to be moved by the noble Lord himself, Amendment No. 94. I recognise that the points are serious and that they will require consideration.
Lord Moynihan: It is very important indeed that we do not consistently return to the argument about Second Reading debates. I specifically attempted to address two issues, one of which came from the noble Lord's Benches on the subject of international legislation in this context. There is also the vital importance of the Minister's response to an earlier intervention about someone's gender becoming for all purposes the acquired gender, which is right at the heart of this set of amendments to Clause 1 and which is sought to be changed by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit.
I could not have been more careful in phrasing my comments. I focused not only on what his noble friend has said, but also on what the Minister has specifically said in his response to the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. I intend to do that throughout our proceedings in Committee because that is the issue before us. We have to look at the impact on all aspects of society and I shall be looking at the matter through the eyes of sports' governing bodies.
Lord Goodhart: With all respect to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, he believes that the appropriate action on a Bill of this kind in Grand Committee is to speak only to the amendments relevant to the subject matter of the speech. At this stage no amendment to Clause 9 has been tabled that raises the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. I shall move on.
I want to deal with the point raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester. I welcome the fact that he does not go the full length of supporting the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, recognising, as he does, that some of them, in particular Amendments Nos. 5 and 20, are genuinely wrecking amendments, because they would leave no possibility of recognising gender reassignment or gender change and would deal only with the situation, which I think can already be dealt with under existing law, where an actual mistake has been made as to a baby's gender at birth.
I also agree with the right reverend Prelate that Amendment No. 78 is not in itself a wrecking amendment. However, I believe that the ability to marry a person of the opposite sex is one of the most important features of gender. If someone is recognised by law as having acquired a new gender, but has no possibility of marrying a person of his or her previous gender, that person loses a central element of his or her acquired gender. Indeed, as I understand Amendment No. 78, a person in that situation could not marry anyone, because they would be prevented by Amendment No. 78 from marrying a person of their original sex, but the Bill would not permit them to marry somebody of their acquired sex.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Tebbit: That might be a very good argument if there were at this moment people who were in possession of one of these certificates saying that they had changed sex. If the Bill were amended as I have suggested in Amendment No. 78, people would take that into account before they decided whether they wished to possess one of those certificates.
Lord Goodhart: That would obviously be a very severe drawback to applying for a certificate. If one supports the principle behind the Bill, it is essential that a change of sex should be recognised for the purposes of entering a new marriage. Therefore, I am unable to join the right reverend Prelate or the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, in supporting Amendment No. 78.
Earl Ferrers: This is a very sensitive subject, and I am hesitant about taking part in this debate for fear of making a Second Reading speech. I have no intention of doing so. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has accused my noble friend Lord Tebbit of making such a speech and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, seems to think that it is a bad idea, so I want to be careful not to do so.
A fundamental question covers the whole of the Bill. My noble friend Lord Tebbit virtually said, "What is a gender—what is male and what is female?" When a child is born, one looks at the genitals and one discovers what it is. However, there is a deeper method, which is the chromosome method. The Minister said in what I thought was a slightly brush-away line that he did not want to engage on some fundamental issues. However, these are fundamental issues.
If a person is a male and has an XY chromosome and says that he wants to be a female, that is absolutely understandable. If he does not go through any surgical methods but says that he wants to be a female, goes through the process and "becomes" a female and has a certificate to say that he is a female, is he really a female? The answer, says my noble friend Lord Tebbit, is that he is not, because his basic composition is that of a male.
I find it difficult to say that by law, when a person's state has been changed, however much he may wish it to be changed, no one can refer to the fact that that was not what he was born with. In other words, we are making it a criminal offence to tell the truth. I find that terribly difficult, but perhaps the Minister can explain it. He said that there were not many cases in which people wanted to change sex. I have no doubt that we all know people who have, and one has great sympathy with the problems in which they find themselves. However, hard cases make bad law and it is important to ensure that the law that we pass is right and is credible. We ought not, by changing the law, to make people criminals if they tell the truth about what a person was when they were first born.
Lord Filkin: There is a lot to respond to. First, I turn to the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester. I thank him for the way in which he addressed his remarks in the difficult
discussions that we have had on the Bill between Second Reading and now. In passing, I believe that Lord Justice Thorpe was speaking ex cathedra, in giving his reasons why he had come to the conclusion that he had come to—but be that as it may. I agree, too, that the Bill does not fundamentally turn on the semantic distinction between gender and sex. However, I do not want to annoy the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, by saying that.I also note that the right reverend Prelate is genuine in what he said at Second Reading about having compassion for people in these conditions, and about seeing that it is possible to go with the basic premises for the easing of some of that suffering. I have a lot of respect for that.
The right reverend Prelate asked me a specific question about why Clause 9 refers to sex. The reference to sex in that clause is because sex "in law" is needed, as some legislation refers to sex rather than gender. There you have it. I do not believe that there is anything fundamental there; the clause certainly does not make any broader philosophical point in that respect.
The noble Lord, Lord Chan, is absolutely right in saying that it is important that the process ensures that there is a right diagnosis of gender dysphoria as one of the legs of the process to which we referred earlier, when the panel makes a decision whether to grant a gender change. One reason why I sought to read a little from the Chief Medical Officer's advice to the department was essentially to set out that it is not a sudden, one-consultation end decision. A careful and thorough medical process must be gone through before a doctor, or more than one doctor, comes to the conclusion that a person experiences gender dysphoria. That is absolutely right—it must not be a sudden process. A clear and definite diagnosis is needed, which is why that has been put into the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Chan, raised the question of whether two years was too short. In many cases, the time will be longer, but that seems to us a sufficient time for people to have experienced fully in their lives—in their work and social life—the effects of living with the gender that they believe to be truly theirs. No doubt, if the noble Lord wants to, he will come back to that.
The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, raised the question of whether sporting bodies were private or public bodies. Without engaging on whether his speech was a Second Reading speech or not, I might call it a trailer for our discussion tomorrow, to which I look forward. I shall repeat what I said to him at Second Reading, as it may save time later. If the noble Lord has evidence from the sporting bodies that they are seriously engaged in this respect, I should be most pleased to receive it, as it would increase the likelihood that I could give a full answer when we come to that point in the Bill.
A layman's summary of the issue—
Lord Moynihan: I understood from the Minister's response in writing, for which I am very grateful—as I
am for the time and trouble that he took with it—that he himself conducted research into governing body reaction and sent out 300 letters to governing bodies and international federations. No doubt, therefore, he has received a large amount of correspondence.
I shall refer to many of the governing bodies in the proceedings of the Committee. I can comprehensively inform him that a wide range of governing bodies, including the Badminton Association, Cycling Time Trials, the All England Netball Association, the Football Association, the British Judo Association and many more, have contacted me to seek an exemption for competitive sport. Indeed, not one governing body that I have contacted, while being sensitive to the issues, wishes to see anything but an exemption in the legislation.
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