Taxpayer cash channelled under radar to trans charities
Rees-mogg to scrutinise practice that sees funds put at service of ‘divisive, dangerous agendas’
TRANS activist charities that promote “dangerous” agendas are receiving taxpayers’ money because of a loophole that ministers have vowed to close.
Controversial groups such as Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence are being funded by other charities that receive government funding because of a lack of oversight in Whitehall.
The transfer of public money from one charity to another means that millions of pounds are being given to bodies of which the Government disapproves.
Taxpayers’ money is also being handed to groups that oppose government policies such as the Rwanda deal for processing migrants.
Jacob Rees-mogg, the minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency, has pledged to set up a ministerial oversight board to make sure public money no longer “disappears” into such organisations.
Mr Rees-mogg wants to impose new rules on government-aided charities so that all secondary grants to other organisations must be scrutinised in advance.
In extreme cases, the Government could demand money is repaid by charities if deemed to have been misspent.
One of the cases that is understood to have prompted the move involved Sport England, which receives government grants and National Lottery money. It paid more than £140,000 to Gendered Intelligence for transgender inclusion training over two years.
Gendered Intelligence has courted controversy by going into schools to give seminars on changing gender to children as young as four. The charity exists to “increase understanding of gender diversity”, but parents’ groups have expressed concerns that young children will become confused and could misinterpret feelings of unhappiness as a symptom of being the “wrong” gender. Neither Gendered Intelligence nor Sport England responded to requests for comment.
Mermaids, another transgender charity, received £10,000 in 2019/20 from a fund administered by UK Youth, a charity that receives hundreds of thousands of pounds per year in government grants and lottery funding.
Mermaids has been criticised over its campaigning for children to be allowed better access to puberty-blockers and other medical options.
Mermaids declined to comment and UK Youth did not respond to requests for comment.
The new board would be chaired by Mr Rees-mogg or his successor and would include ministers from the Treasury and grant-giving departments, such as the Home Office and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
‘It is an essential principle that there is democratic oversight of how government spends money’
Mr Rees-mogg said: “The grants ministerial oversight board is designed to ensure that taxpayers’ money cannot disappear into organisations that push divisive and dangerous agendas. It is an essential principle that there is democratic oversight of how government spends money.”
Other groups have received direct government funding despite trying to stand in the way of government policy.
Migrant Help, which wrote to the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary urging them to drop its “unthinkably cruel” policy to send illegal migrants to Rwanda, receives around £4million per year in grants.
Migrants Organise, which promoted a protest outside the Home Office against the Rwanda policy, has received more than £10,000 in government grants, and the law firm Instalaw, which challenged the legality of the policy in court, received £2,000 for an apprenticeship scheme.