Scottish Parliament bans rainbow lanyards following accusations of ‘bias’

Scottish Parliament staff will no longer be allowed to wear LGBT rainbow-coloured lanyards.

Speaking in Holyrood, Claire Baker of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body announced that its staff must wear their Parliament-issued purple lanyard. This does not apply to MSPs and their staff.

This came in response to Tess White MSP, who raised concerns that “parliamentary staff are, with growing frequency, subjectively enforcing” the policy on items such as “badges and suffrage colours”.

‘Impartiality’

A Parliament spokesperson said: “This decision will help minimise the risk of perceived bias” and “help avoid any potential misperception over the absolute impartiality of all Scottish parliamentary staff”.

In an email to Holyrood staff, Group Head of People and Culture Lorna Foreman reported that groups had complained that parliamentary staff “cannot be impartial” during debates on Government policy when wearing “personalised lanyards and/or pins and badges showing support for social movements and towards campaigns or organisations”.

But staff will still be permitted to wear ‘pronoun’ badges.

NHS

Last month, NHS England ditched its taxpayer-funded LGBT badge scheme which pushed hospitals to erase sex-specific language.

Since 2021, the NHS Rainbow Badge scheme had rated hospitals gold, silver or bronze based on their promotion of gender ideology. A coalition of activist groups which led the scheme, including Stonewall and the LGBT Foundation, awarded points for calling pregnant women “clients” and asking for patients’ ‘preferred pronouns’.

But NHS England has now closed the scheme across 77 trusts due to a “lack of funding”, after the Department of Health and Social Care decided it was no longer “value for money”.