Speeches by McKenna.

“I congratulate the Minister and his counterparts in the Gibraltarian Government on getting this treaty over the line. Along with many Members across this House, I went on a visit to Gibraltar a few weeks ago, as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. It was incredible to see our British forces in Gibraltar and …”

“I am a strong proponent of unitaries, given that the root-cause of many of the problems in my constituency is the fact that we have districts and the county council. There is no perfect solution for anywhere, and everywhere is special, but Kent has a lot of elements that are particularly special. We have three coasts, …”

“If sportswomen out in the field are saying they want more of this research, what is the impact of this data gap in practice in terms of performance, women’s health, and their general participation in sport?”

“You are not a politician; you are critiquing a good news story, which is a bad thing for a politician. Just on that light and shadow part, what areas has there been real progress in? Where would you say there is real progress in closing some of this gap, and what is the learning from that?”

“I would like to talk a little about the data that is available. Is there a gender data gap? Kirsty and Leanne, last year there was a study that suggested that of all the sports science research out there, about 8% is exclusively focused on women, whereas about 31% is focused on men, so there is quite a big gap. Why doe…”

“Thank you, that is very good on the impacts and some of the drivers. Is a driver of this gap related to the way the research is funded and, particularly, published? Who decides what research happens and what research is published on, say, the gender ratio in decision-making bodies, editorial boards and so on? Does the …”

“I suppose the thing is that because, obviously, this is typically migrant women—women from underserved communities full stop—notwithstanding all the issues around medical misogyny and all the layers of that, and the fact that quality is important, not moving this forward at an accelerated pace shows a lack of care for …”

“Is that true for countries like France, Germany and Australia, all of which offer reconstruction in these circumstances? Are they operating under very different medical guidance and decisions? Have you had discussions with clinical bodies in countries such as France, Germany and Australia about this?”

“The WHO slightly shifted its recommendation last year to a conditional recommendation for clitoral reconstruction. Has the Government or the NIHR taken that into account and maybe changed on an ad hoc basis?”

“Do you know why licensed and registered medical facilities and practitioners in those countries are offering these surgeries? What evidence base are they using?”

“Before I start, I have to declare an interest because Professor Moonesinghe and I worked very closely for quite a long time at UCLH in critical care and post-anaesthetic care. We have been at NHS England together but not in the same team. I just want to flag that up. I would like to talk a bit more about the evidence a…”

“What potential harms do you think there could be from this sort of surgery given that we know quite a lot about other forms of genital reconstruction?”

“If I am honest, from everything we have heard so far, it seems to me that there is no way we can generate the level of evidence to the threshold that you are looking for—that is what it feels like right now; that is what I think it feels like to a lot of service users—and that even if we do, it will not produce an answ…”

“I am so grateful that the Bill is finally approaching this stage in its journey towards becoming law. I think of my younger self, in the 1980s—a gay man in a religious household. Family relationships were put under so much strain because of religious pressure not to come out as gay and not to be honest. Frankly, the co…”

“This is quite a gnarly and intense subject, and it is something that the public care a great deal about. There were some technical changes to the code during its drafting and before it was laid before Parliament. What prompted the Government to suggest to the EHRC that it should revise the original draft in relation to…”

“Again, from the point of view of equalities law, we are likely to be asking everyone of every age to have to verify that. Everyone in this room would have to verify their age to access their Facebook accounts and so on. Does that have an equalities implication? To protect young people, we are asking adults to change ho…”

“I can see that there are some things which are very specific to young people at different developmental stages of a human being’s life, but as you have alluded to, some things that young people are being exposed to are also harmful to adults, for example inducing people to kill themselves online. There is some really t…”

“If that was from the EHRC’s point of view, what was your intention in asking for that revision? Why were you pushing for a revision to this?”

“Just to declare a personal interest, I have 11 nephews and nieces in Australia. We know that Australia went down the route of a ban; we also know that there is data that many children are still accessing social media. I know the Government’s argument, and part of the theory of change is that having a ban for under-16s …”

“In wider areas of equalities where social media has a big impact, we have had evidence that content produced by women about women’s health and enabling women to talk openly about women’s health issues is being shadow-banned and downgraded by social media companies because, frankly, it is less divisive and more inclusiv…”