Lord Maginnis of Drumglass – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Maginnis of Drumglass on 2016-10-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Viscount Younger of Leckie on 12 October (HL Deb, col 1889), what correspondence there has been between the Department for Education and Brighton and Hove Council pertaining to questionnaires seeking information about children’s self-perception of their sexual orientation; and whether they will place a copy of that correspondence in the Library of the House.

Lord Nash

These questions refer to an answer given by Viscount Younger of Leckie on 12 October 2016, and also link to previous questions asked by Lord Macginnis, and answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford in April 2016.

As Baroness Williams set out in her previous reply, the Department for Education provides guidance on the Equality Act 2010 to schools which contains advice on the Public Sector Equality Duty and on the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

The Department is not responsible for the decision by Brighton and Hove Council to include gender identity information on the pupil registration form it issued in April 2016. The Council has the independence to make this decision. The Department has had no involvement and has not made any assessment of the questionnaire.

The Department does not hold details of any additional information collected by local authorities outside of those required by the Department for our centrally specified, mandatory data collections. Brighton and Hove Council is responsible for securing answers and restricting access to information generated by any questionnaire it issues.

The Department has not inquired into the gender identity of children in Brighton and Hove and has no correspondence on the matter.