We are very concerned to hear that trans activist groups who promote dangerous agendas are continuing to receive taxpayers’ money because of a loophole that ministers have now vowed to close.
Controversial groups including Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence are being given grants by other charities that receive government funding, because of a lack of oversight by Whitehall.
The Telegraph has found that “cascading” of public money from one charity to another means that millions of pounds are being given to bodies of which the Government disapproves.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency, has now pledged to set up a ministerial oversight board for government grants to make sure that money no longer “disappears” into the hands of such organisations.
Mr Rees-Mogg wants to impose new rules on government-aided charities so that all secondary grants to other organisations must be declared in advance for scrutiny by the new panel.
In extreme cases, the Government could even demand money is paid back by charities where it is deemed to have been mis-spent.
One of the cases that is understood to have prompted the move involved Sport England, which receives government grants and National Lottery money, paying more than £140,000 to Gendered Intelligence for transgender inclusion training over the course of two years.
Seminars on changing gender
Gendered Intelligence has caused 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 the 2019-20 financial year from a fund administered by UK Youth, a charity which receives hundreds of thousands of pounds each year in government grants and lottery funding.
The charity has been criticised over its campaigning for children to be allowed better access to puberty blockers and other medical options.
The new board would be chaired by Mr Rees-Mogg or his ministerial 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.
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 policy.
This includes Mermaids which was awarded a £500,000 grant from the National Lottery despite a huge public backlash. We have written to the new Chair of the National Lottery Community Fund, Blondel Cluff, to ask her to reconsider supporting Mermaids, in light of the Cass Review and the legal position of the government set out by then Attorney General Suella Braverman, about the harm done by promoting gender ideology to children.