Justice Minister Laura Farris has denied that the publication of the Cass report into gender care shows that the Government has been failing to protect children.
Asked if young people have been let down, Farris said on GB News: “I don't accept that. And I make that point very gently and respectfully.
“There has been a 20-fold, something like a 15 or 20-fold increase in the number of children using these services in the last 10 or 15 years and that's happened in many countries, many other countries.
“It's a problem everybody's been grappling with. We’re the government that asked Hilary Cass to conduct that review, she spent three and a half years doing it, there is nothing comparable in any other country that is remotely as in-depth as this.”
In a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, she continued: “We did it because we were worried about what was happening. And we were worried about the way that certain NHS procedures were happening.
“It's been incredibly helpful to hear from doctors, from mental health experts and to look at the way that she recommends that this should be dealt with holistically on a regional basis, on a multidisciplinary basis.
“Where sometimes children have problems with neurodivergence like autism, or they've got a mental health crisis in the background, that all of that should be explored and treated before you go anywhere near irreversible gender change drugs.”
She added: “Actually, I think we've acted responsibly. We recognised how it was emerging, with the concerns that people were raising, even though there was pressure on us actually to accept this.
“We've done this detailed piece of work and we'll be reading it incredibly carefully. I anticipate it will inform some of the work that we do going forwards.”
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