Labour moves to ban puberty blockers permanently as new Health Secretary Wes Streeting plans to stop them being given to children by any means

The Labour party is considering banning puberty blockers permanently as the new Health Secretary is said to want to renew the Tory ban on the drug for under-18s.

Laws to stop puberty blockers - which suppress the natural production of sex hormones to delay puberty - from being supplied to children by private or off-shore clinics were passed by Health Secretary Wes Streeting's predecessor Victoria Atkins in emergency legislation ahead of the general election. 

However, these are set to expire on September 3, but it emerged on Friday that the ban may be made permanent by new Labour ministers.

Campaign groups TransActual and Good Law Project, and a young person who cannot be named, are making a bid to challenge the decision of now-shadow health secretary Atkins to impose the so-called 'banning order' on puberty blockers.

At a hearing on Friday, lawyers for the groups and young person told the High Court in London that the secondary legislation made by the previous government on May 29, which prevented the prescription of the medication from European or private prescribers and restricted NHS provision to within clinical trials, was unlawful. 

The Department of Health and Social Care and the Department of Health in Northern Ireland are defending the claim, and have said the case should be dismissed. 

The legislation came after the publication of the long-awaited Cass Review by Dr Hilary Cass into children's gender services in the NHS, which said children have been let down by a lack of research and evidence on the use of puberty blockers and hormones. 

In a statement after the hearing, Mr Streeting said: 'We will always put the safety of children first.'

'Our approach will continue to be informed by Dr Cass's review, which found there was insufficient evidence to show puberty blockers were safe for under 18s.

'This ban brings the private sector in line with the NHS. We are committed to providing young people with the evidence-led care that they deserve.'

JK Rowling was quick to back the move in a string of X, formerly Twitter posts on Friday and praised Mr Streeting for doing the 'right' thing. 

During the hearing, Judge Mrs Justice Lang was told that the emergency order, described by the campaign group's barrister as a 'criminal prohibition introduced with a few days' notice', could have a 'very real human cost' for more than 1,000 children and their families.

Jason Coppel KC, for the group and young person, told the court that the order was made under an emergency process used to prohibit the sale and supply of medications 'with immediate effect to avoid serious danger to health'.

Mr Coppel later said that Ms Atkins 'acted on the basis of her personal views about the conclusions of the Cass Review' and said the review did not identify puberty blockers as a danger to patient health but instead concluded there was a lack of evidence about their use.

Also on Friday, barrister Jolyon Maugham hit out at the Health Secretary for wanting to make permanent the emergency restrictions introduced at the end of the Tory administation. 

He said it was time for families to travel to Europe or move abroad so young people can still get prescriptions for the drugs.

The barrister, whose Good Law Project has raised almost £60,000 for a legal challenge to the temporary ban, wrote on social media as the case began in the High Court yesterday: 'My feelings about Wes Streeting are unprintable: These measures will kill trans children.'

The decision to make the ban on puberty blockers is one of the first major steps made by the new Government in regard to trans issues.