Stonewall banks £1.1m of taxpayers’ money

Controversial pro-trans lobby group Stonewall received more than £1.1 million from the public purse last year, new figures have revealed.

The think-tank TaxPayers’ Alliance found 14 per cent of Stonewall’s total income of £7,779,924 for 2022-23 came from the taxpayer.

The Foreign & Commonwealth Development Office gave £173,034 to Stonewall  – the group’s largest single public benefactor.  The Scottish and Welsh Governments both donated at least £100,000 in support of the Stonewall cause.

‘Wasteful’

Callum McGoldrick of the Taxpayers’ Alliance said: “Hard-working Britons haven’t signed up to be a part of controversial campaigns.”

Freedom of Information requests made by The Times show that a number of government-funded bodies subscribed to the  group’s discredited Diversity Champions scheme in the same financial year.

It found that the Pensions Regulator, the Care Quality Commission, Historic England, Sport England, Arts Council England and the Tate all paid £3,000 to Stonewall for 2022-23 membership of its discredited employers’ scheme.

A Government source responded: “No body funded by taxpayers should be paying external organisations to do their diversity and inclusion work. It is a gross waste of money and Stonewall push several ideologies that are not recognised by the Government.”

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 trans activist organisations such as Stonewall which were “pretending to be neutral”.

Health Minister Will Quince also 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.