I'd be interested in views on whether the July GE, proroguing UK Parliament, and 'purdah' rules for the Civil Service and Ministers will put a halt to the Tory 'culture wars' motivated consultations on:
England & Wales (statutory) schools guidance on sex education - aka Section 28 reprise
England & Wales (non-statutory) guidance on treatment of trans kids in schools
@Natasha_Jay keep an eye on https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/election-guidance-for-civil-servants something specific should appear soon (depending on how much notice the cabinet office had)
There is guidance from 2019 which will be generally the same I expect.
I'd expect any consultations to be paused or at least the results won't be looked at until after.
PS. It's generally not called purdah anymore, what with the sexist (or at least culturally different) origins of the word.
But I think
A) the sex education thing continues but the civil service cant advertise
B) they can analyse the responses but not announce a decision or any statements
@Tokamak_4d
These two consultations aren't legislation though, but they ARE highly politicised to appeal to social conservatives
So I suspect they'll be put on hold, but a lot seems to come down to senior Civil Service judgement, I assume the head of the government dept (Principal Private Secretary, I think)
@Natasha_Jay unfortunately the right wing media drives a lot of the conversation in this country
Starmer already goes out of his way to appease them and I seriously doubt that'll change once he's in power
they'll appeal to him by claiming to represent the Red/Blue Wall voters, who will all be very concerned by numbers of immigrants and what a woman is
I know it wouldn't take much to give trans/nonbinary people a small semblance of dignity in our society, but to expect it from a proven liar, nay a group of them, is folly
@Natasha_Jay all that stuff should be going on hold. All consultations and government policy activity are basically paused in the run up to the GE. My colleagues at work involved in policy stuff and consultations are already all putting their work on pause until after the GE.
@georgepotter
Thanks, that was my feeling too. There was a similar question asked by a Guardian politics editor on X regarding the extent the Civil Service could facilitate Rwanda flights in the pre-election purdah period given the political sensitivity ...
@Natasha_Jay the Rwanda one will be very interesting to watch for that reason. I suspect there may be tension between the government and the civil service on what is and isn't appropriate for purdah in that regard...