Three more ministries review links with Stonewall diversity scheme
‘The problem is they are giving advice about what they wish the law was rather than what it is’
AT LEAST three more government departments are considering their association with the LGBT charity Stonewall, amid concern over its influence and controversial diversity scheme.
After the Department of Health last week became the latest high-profile public body to distance itself from the lobby group, the Treasury, Department for Education (DfE) and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), are also reviewing their links.
Insiders at the Department for International Trade said that it had declined to renew its subscription to the charity.
Therese Coffey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is considering alternatives to Stonewall, while Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary, is alive to the concerns being raised about the charity.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is preparing to renew its annual membership of Stonewall’s diversity champions scheme but will no longer accept its legal advice.
A master document, apparently drawn up by Government Human Resources this year, suggests that the departments could also refuse to submit to Stonewall’s next Workplace Equality Index, which lists employers which the group considers to be the best. In June, this newspaper revealed that the Ministry of Justice would withdraw from the diversity scheme over Stonewall’s alleged “dubious” training and approach to free speech.
Stonewall argues that its initiatives help to ensure organisations and their workplaces are inclusive for lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer staff and free from discrimination.
But it has faced criticism over advice to organisations to replace the term mother with “parent who has given birth”, and to allow those who self-identify as a woman to use female toilets and changing rooms. Separately, critics argue that publicly funded bodies are effectively paying a lobby group to lobby them.
“The problem is that they are giving advice about what they wish the law was rather than what it is,” a senior source said. “Government should be able to do its own legal work rather than farming it out.”
In recent days it has emerged that the DfE has paid the charity more than £20,000 over five years, including on programmes which advise employees how to be positive allies for transgender colleagues, and in membership fees for its diversity training programme.
The Ministry of Defence spent £80,312, mainly on membership fees for the services.
According to the document, five departments which are members of Stonewall’s scheme are marked as “undecided” on whether to participate in the next annual league table.
Just four – the Home Office Ministry of Defence, and the Departments for Environment and Business – are definite participants in the next scheme. It comes several months after Liz Truss, the equalities minister, suggested that government bodies should withdraw from the scheme over concerns about its value for money.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission, the equalities watchdog, is also ending its membership over the same concerns.
A Stonewall spokesman said: “As with all membership programmes, organisations come and go depending on what’s best for their inclusion journey at the time. Supporting LGBTQ+ people in the workplace should not be seen as a political or controversial act.”