PRESS RELEASE : Time for the Labour Government to cut ties with Mermaids, say Welsh Conservatives [November 2022]

The press release issued by the Welsh Conservatives on 24 November 2022.

A series of newspaper articles in recent months have called into question their safeguarding policies. The National Lottery Community Fund has since suspended future payments to them and the Department for Education has removed it from its mental health and wellbeing resources for schools.

Commenting, Welsh Conservative Shadow Education Minister, Laura Anne Jones MS said:

“I am glad to see that public bodies as well as the UK Government, in recognition of these controversies, are cutting ties with Mermaids.

“The Labour Government, here in Wales, have yet to see sense and are keeping the contact information for Mermaids on Wales’ digital learning centre, the Hwb. Labour have serious questions to answer about their stubborn persistence in partnering with this group.

“Supporting children must be a top priority, but clearly, this organisation is wholly unfit and should not be trusted to safeguard vulnerable young people or to receive taxpayer cash to provide so-called ‘diversity training’.”

Mermaids is an advocacy group that claims to support gender variant and transgender youth and provides ‘inclusion and diversity training’.