Speeches by Goldman.

“As Member of Parliament for Chelmsford, I am proud to represent a city with a breadth of businesses, industries and educational institutions that do so much to support people from all backgrounds into employment. On today’s theme of getting Britain working again, over recent months I have held several roundtables with …”

“Nobody, and certainly nobody in my party, would argue that we should not pay the lowest-paid more, but businesses in my Chelmsford constituency tell me—I am pretty sure this happens across the country—that the issue is the knock-on effect on the differential. When businesses pay the lowest-paid more, they have to pay s…”

“Since I last raised the subject of suicides after domestic abuse, the domestic abuse homicide project has reported on the previous 12 months and seen a significant rise in cases. This morning, I held a roundtable with some of the organisations campaigning to ensure that suicides in cases of domestic abuse are investiga…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris, even though it was slightly unexpected for me to be speaking today. I thank the hon. Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) for securing this important debate. The Liberal Democrats wholeheartedly support the overwhelming majority of honest, hard…”

“I struggle with the idea that a trans person would go into the opposite sex’s changing rooms, which they are supposedly not allowed into, for the purpose of causing harm. That is surely what we are worrying about: harm being caused, particularly to women. I struggle with the idea that, at the moment, it is the sign on …”

“I will briefly answer the hon. Gentleman by saying that, although I do not have the stats in front of me, a huge proportion of women are, sadly, attacked in their own home and single-sex spaces will not prevent that from happening. Protecting the rights of women and ensuring dignity and inclusion for trans people are n…”

“One of the most important things is how we behave towards each other as a society. I do not want women, men or anybody to have fit into stereotypes. The hon. Lady is absolutely right—we want to live in a society where we accept people for who they are.”

“The hon. Gentleman might be confusing two very different issues. There are deeply upsetting impacts on cisgender women, too, including heartbreaking stories, as I mentioned earlier, of women who have undergone cancer treatment being questioned over which toilet they use because they do not conform with what a woman “ou…”

“The hon. Lady is making an interesting speech, and I thank her for it. I think we are probably on different sides of the debate, but it is still interesting. She says that none of trans people’s rights has been taken away. I wonder whether she can explain the legal limbo that trans people feel they are in when trying t…”

“I will make some more progress. That requirement is unworkable. There is not one of us here who does not know how stressed our local small businesses are. How could it ever be proportionate to require overstretched staff in these businesses to police gender norms for their own customers to access a facility as basic as…”

“That was a timely intervention because my next paragraph deals exactly with that. Separately, to deal with the unacceptable legal limbo that many trans people are in, I encourage the Minister to appoint a Joint Committee of MPs and peers, on a cross-party basis, to conduct post-legislative scrutiny of both the Gender R…”

“A lot has been said about common sense in this debate. Will the hon. and learned Gentleman will join me in reflecting that common sense used to hold that the Earth was the centre of the universe and that everything else revolved around it, and that common sense does not hold true forever?”

“That is exactly why we need the Government to come forward with proper guidance—so that organisations can work through this properly and understand when they are working within the rules, and so that they do not have to reinvent everything for themselves. We do not have that guidance, and it is desperately needed.”

“I am going to answer the hon. Gentleman’s intervention in a slightly different way. There is something called the 80:20 rule, which states that, in pretty much anything in life, we should put 80% of our effort into 20% of situations. The vast majority of the time, it is really easy to deal with situations, including th…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for securing this important debate, even though I know we are on slightly different sides of it. For far too long, trans, non-binary and intersex people have understandably been left anxious and fearf…”

“I do agree with that. The vast majority of women who are attacked are attacked by men, and those are men who they already know. If we are going to focus on protecting women, I would suggest that that would be a very good place to start.”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Everyone is being generous with their time today, and I am grateful. He said that people have transitioned “biologically”. I thought biology was either one thing or the other and was immutable. Could he explain that point?”

“The hon. Gentleman always makes such interesting speeches. I just wanted to ask about intersex. We have talked a lot about biological fact. Would he explain a little bit more about intersex and the potential decisions that need to be made in relation to intersex babies when they are born?”

“On the point about it being fairly obvious which gender someone is, I wonder whether the hon. Lady has heard about the case of the woman who had a double mastectomy and frequently gets misgendered as a man? What would she say to that woman?”

“Last month, The Guardian revealed that suicides following domestic abuse may be vastly under-reported, with research in Kent suggesting that they could be 15 times more prevalent. There has been just one manslaughter conviction from such a death in the whole of UK legal history. Liberal Democrats in the other place rec…”