Why is the government facing a backlash from its LGBT+ advisory panel?

Revealing the results of one of the world’s largest ever surveys of LGBT+ people almost three years ago, the British government laid out some stark – albeit unsurprising – findings: two-thirds of respondents said they had avoided holding their partner’s hand in public for fear of negative reaction. An even greater number said they had avoided being open about their sexuality for similar reasons.

Insisting the government had a “proud record in advancing equality”, Theresa May’s administration responded with a widely publicised action plan detailing 75 commitments to “improve the lives” of LGBT+ people across the country.

Among the recommendations was to establish a new LGBT+ advisory panel to work with the minister for women and equalities, to guide the government’s work and to “hold us to account”. This week, three members of the panel decided to do so publicly and resigned from their positions on the body.

Jayne Ozanne,  the first to quit, accused ministers of creating a “hostile environment” for minorities, claiming that since the panel has met there has been “an increasing lack of engagement and the actions of ministers have frankly been against our advice”.

The second to resign, James Morton, suggested that ministers had ignored concerns that they were damaging the lives of minorities by “fuelling culture wars”. Ellen Murray became the third person to quit the panel, posting on social media that she had decided to leave “due to the government’s persistent and worsening hostility towards our community in myriad areas”.

Frustration among LGBT+ campaigners had mounted last year when ministers dropped long-delayed plans originally developed by Ms May’s government to allow transgender people to change their gender without the need for a medical diagnosis. The action plan had included a commitment to examine how the government could make the legal process “less bureaucratic and intrusive”. It was described as a “bitter blow for trans people” by the charity Stonewall.

But the resignations also follow weeks of anger at Boris Johnson’s government’s delay in bringing forward legislation to ban the practice of conversion therapy, which uses discredited methods in an attempt to suppress or change an individual’s sexuality or gender identity. The results of the 2018 survey found that five per cent had been offered the “therapy” while two per cent (some 2,160 people) had undergone it.

Ms May vowed to eradicate the practice in the summer of 2018 and her successor, Mr Johnson, also promised to do so, saying last summer that conversion therapy “has no place in a civilised society, and has no place in this country”. 

But it has now been nearly 1,000 days since the former prime minister’s promise to the LGBT+ community in Britain, and the government has failed to bring forward any plans to abolish the practice. There was also concern that ministers would seek to “end” conversion therapy, rather than bringing forward legislation to include a full ban on the statue book.

Seeking to ease tensions, Liz Truss, the secretary of state for international trade who also holds the women and equalities brief, said on Friday the government “will shortly be bringing forward plans to ban conversion therapy, which is an abhorrent practice”. While the words will encourage many of those campaigning for the discredited practice to be eradicated in Britain, ministers have lost not only three advisers but valuable political capital over the prevarications and delay that have characterised governments’ response to the LGBT+ action plan.