My Lords, I welcome this amendment and I commend the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in particular, for doggedly sticking with this issue. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, for organising the MoJ teach-in, which I found very interesting and useful. I learned a lot and I listened hard.
I thought this amendment was a nuanced and sensitive way of dealing with all the objections raised by the MoJ at that teach-in, so I am rather disappointed that the Government have not accepted the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, which is a bespoke amendment that protects women’s single-sex spaces while sympathetically and practically managing any challenges faced by transwomen prisoners.
The amendment might be a modest proposal—I think it is—but noble Lords may be interested to hear that it has created a huge amount of interest outside this place over the last couple of days. People on Twitter might look at #KeepPrisonsSingleSex. It has been trending for the last 36 hours. Do look because the messages on there are what I am talking about, rather than the fact that it is trending.
I want to read a few tweets that could maybe help us understand why this amendment matters. One woman said:
“I find it quite baffling that this is even up for discussion! How did we get to the point where we need a debate to include legislation to prevent something so damaging to women?”
Another said:
“Women in UK prisons must not be locked in with convicted male criminals. This is an appalling failure of the duty of care the state has for female prisoners. Female prison staff must not be forced to search male prisoners. Let’s hope the House of Lords shows sense.”
I would like to think the House of Lords would as well, but maybe not. The final one I want to read out says:
“I’ve been to prison and I’m telling you now that for some women it’s their only safe space, due to abuse on the outside. Allowing anyone who claims to feel like a woman to be put in that safe space is wrong! Women, criminal or not deserve to feel safe.”
I say hear, hear to that.
7.45 pm
I quoted that last tweet because it is important to consider what female prisoners think about this issue. At the teach-in, the MoJ—like a couple of noble Lords in their contributions—was keen to reassure us that operational staff say that policies are working well. I think we have to ask: who says they are working well and who are they working well for? I have been told by women prisoners and female prison officers I have been in contact with that they are not so happy with the arrangements and are concerned. That is why I read out that tweet. Anyway, all of this is hearsay. It is just what I am saying, or what a tweet says or what, indeed, the MoJ says about operational success. The whole area would benefit from the Government commissioning some independent research.
I wonder whether noble Lords have seen the research published in the British Journal of Criminology recently and reported in the Times. It was by Dr Matthew Maycock, a former employee of the Scottish Prison Service. It contained some valuable insights. For example, female prisoners interviewed suggested that some of those who identified as women while incarcerated with them had reverted to identifying as males again on release. The research also revealed that female officers in Scotland feel uncomfortable at being forced to do intimate body searches of prisoners who still have male genitalia.
We have heard of instances of people living for many years having transitioned. I note a freedom of information request on that. It revealed that of the 12 trans-identifying prisoners convicted of violent and sexual crimes and housed in Scottish women’s jails, only one had undertaken medical and surgical transition. Can we please remember that we are talking about something slightly different from what has been described? Unfortunately, the Scottish prison board has not used that research and has decided to develop its own policy, preferring to conduct its own research, which I am not sure about.
I know that the UK Government are keen on expert advice and I am delighted to hear that the Minister is going to look at more research. There are some great academic and independent experts out there who could shine some light on what is really going on in prison and how prison policy is working, or not, as far as prison officers and prisoners are concerned.
During the debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in Committee, and at the teach-in, I felt that all the spotlight was on the welfare and rights of the transwomen prisoners rather than on women prisoners. Whenever some of us raised the welfare and rights of women prisoners, they were almost treated as somehow secondary. For example, we were told that the female prisoners should not worry about sharing quarters with transgender prisoners because those
transgender prisoners would have been through a risk assessment process. That process, however, is all about which transgender prisoners are assessed as being suitable to be managed safely on the women’s estate. This puts the focus of risk on an institution’s organisational capacity rather than the risk to women or how women might feel about it. It was also argued that this present policy is necessary because a minority of transwomen could face unacceptable risk if housed in male prisons. We have heard that again from a couple of noble Lords.
Of course, these prisoners should be protected and kept safe, but let us be honest. They are not the only group of male prisoners who face risk or violence on the male estate. Vulnerable young men also can face violent bullying, even rape or sexual assault. Look at the levels of self-harm in the male estate. It is such a problem that suicide watch is too often an everyday reality for too many frightened male prisoners on the male estate.
This of course is unacceptable. The solution should be to make the male estate safer and fit for purpose for all, perhaps tackling overcrowding, understaffing, et cetera. The solution should not be, in any instance of any vulnerable male prisoner feeling unsafe on the male estate, to move said male prisoner into the women’s estate. Let us remind ourselves that the purpose of women’s prisons is not to protect vulnerable males, and women should not be buffers or victims of the male Prison Service’s inability to protect vulnerable male prisoners.
I know that some noble Lords may be feeling uncomfortable that I am using the word “male” to describe transgender women—such is the muddle that we have got into in conflating sex and gender. I was doing that to emphasise their sex, rather than to be offensive or cause any problems, but such is the weight of coercive control and political pressure around identity politics that it can be difficult sometimes to state biological truth—and the biological truth is that sex and gender are distinct. Sex is recognised in law as the basis of women’s rights. The prison estate is separated according to sex. Unless the Government are advocating mixed-sex prisons, women should have the expectation that they will not be locked up or housed with males.
Any male who wishes to transition is free to do so. In a tolerant society I would expect our approach to be, “Wear what you want, change your names and pronouns as you like and, of course, express your gender identity”. However, none of this changes someone’s sex, and people should not have expectations of the same rights as women. If any trans prisoners are mistreated in the male estate, prison authorities should punish perpetrators and protect the victims, of course. But we need to untangle this humane response from the often-bullying demand that we deny biological reality or that the rights of transgender women can be used to sideline women’s rights to single-sex provision—an important and hard-fought-for right which I as a woman am not prepared to sell out just for political expediency or because it is unpopular. If necessary, special provision should be made for transgender prisoners, of course, and maybe the details, as people have described them, are not what one would want. However,
an attempt at resolving this in a humane way is why this amendment is so important. It is a practical and pragmatic solution for transgender prisoners who feel unsafe on the male estate, but it does not force women to give up their rights, or compromise women and same-sex provision on the women’s estate.