Speaking on the issue, Ms Lockhart said:

“This decision is shameful and deeply concerning. Children in Northern Ireland are now being drawn into an experimental puberty blockers trial involving powerful, life-altering drugs, despite the fact that these drugs have been withdrawn from routine clinical use because the evidence of benefit simply does not exist.

“When a treatment is considered too unsafe or unproven for normal clinical use, the response should be to pause and protect children, not to expose them to experimentation in order to fill an evidence gap. Children cannot give informed consent to interventions that interfere with normal physical development and carry unknown long-term consequences, yet parents are being asked to trust a system that openly admits it does not know the long-term outcomes. That is not safeguarding.

“I have consistently warned about this issue indeed, a month ago in formal correspondence with the Health Minister, I raised again serious concerns about safeguarding failures, the lack of robust evidence, and the irreversible harm already experienced by young people placed on this medical pathway. I specifically asked the Minister to meet with Keira Bell, whose life was permanently altered after being prescribed puberty blockers as a teenager. Those warnings were ignored.

“This is not an ideological issue. It is a child protection issue. Northern Ireland could have chosen a different path by prioritising psychological support, evidence-based care, and genuine safeguarding. Instead, it is following a UK-wide approach that places experimentation ahead of child welfare.

“This is a moral failure. Children are not test subjects, and they should not be used to gather data on drugs with unknown long-term consequences. I will continue to oppose this trial in Westminster, challenge it at every level, and do everything in my power to see it stopped. Children deserve protection, not experimentation.”