Environment Agency goes woke for Stonewall

The Environment Agency (EA) has beefed up its diversity credentials for Stonewall approval, it has been revealed.

In a Freedom of Information request, The Times found the quango had introduced a raft of ‘LGBT-friendly’ measures for inclusion in the lobby group’s annual list of ‘Top 100 employers’.

The EA applied for the scheme in both 2020 and 2022, where Stonewall ranked it as the 35th and 43rd best employer for LGBT people, respectively.

‘Inclusion’

According to The Times, EA’s applications show it adopts “non-gendered” language for staff polices, allows employees to officially “express different identities on different days”, and champions “gender neutral restrooms/facilities”.

Prospective EA suppliers and contractors are asked to submit their policies on “diversity and equality”, and asked about their approach to “homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying and harassment”.

An EA spokesman claimed: “The Environment Agency is a politically impartial body whose focus is protecting and enhancing the environment. The work we undertake on inclusion is designed to make the agency more effective.”

Stonewall responded: “The Workplace Equality Index is a voluntary, free programme that helps employers to assess against a broad and robust criteria for promoting LGBTQ+ inclusion in the workplace.”

Backlash

In November, Minister for Women and Equalities Kemi Badenoch said that the Government must never again let “activist groups” such as Stonewall dictate policy.

Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship 2023 conference, Kemi Badenoch said ministers proceeded on the “wrong track on gender ideology” because it pandered to activist organisations such as Stonewall which were “pretending to be neutral”.

Also last year, Health Minister Will Quince cautioned NHS England trusts against succumbing to Stonewall capture, after a Daily Mail investigation uncovered the involvement of the LGBT lobby group in writing gender policies for dozens of NHS trusts in England.

Several public sector organisations – including the Crown Prosecution Service, the Government Equalities Office, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission – have quit Stonewall schemes in recent years.