UK

Emergency puberty blocker ban was lawful, High Court rules

Trans rights protesters (PA)

By Jess Glass, PA Law Editor

Today 

A ban on puberty blockers introduced by the Conservative government with emergency legislation was lawful, the High Court has ruled.

Campaign group TransActual, and a young person who cannot be named, made a bid to challenge the decision of now-shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins to impose a so-called “banning order” on puberty blockers, which suppress the natural production of sex hormones to delay puberty.

At a hearing on July 12, the High Court in London heard the secondary legislation prevents the prescription of the medication from European or private prescribers and restricts NHS provision to within clinical trials.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Department of Health in Northern Ireland defended the claim and said the case should be dismissed.

In a ruling on Monday, Mrs Justice Lang dismissed the challenges which had argued the ban was unlawful.

She said: “This decision required a complex and multi-factored predictive assessment, involving the application of clinical judgment and the weighing of competing risks and dangers, with which the court should be slow to interfere.”

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Although the emergency ban was implemented by the previous Conservative government, the court previously heard that it might be made permanent by new Labour ministers.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting later said he was “treading cautiously” in his decision amid “lots of fear and anxiety”.

The MP for Ilford North has faced criticism from within his own party for the decision, with members of Labour’s LGBT wing writing to him earlier this month with “concerns” about an indefinite ban.