Mike Nesbitt has defended his handling of Northern Ireland’s abortive involvement in a UK-wide puberty blockers trial, with him and a UUP colleague turning their fire on the DUP.

The exchanges in the Assembly today were sparked by DUP health spokeswoman Diane Dodds, who questioned what had changed between Thursday and Friday last week to make the health minister pull Northern Ireland out of the trial.

Mr Nesbitt had told the News Letter on Friday evening that he was ending the involvement of Northern Irish children because he is awaiting the outcome of an ongoing judicial review challenging the legality of the whole trial, which is still slated to proceed with GB children (and which Diane Dodds condemned as “experimentation on children”).

Mrs Dodds told MLAs that “no new evidence or no new clinical data emerged” between Thursday and Friday, and so “if the decision to be included in the King's College trial was unwise on Friday, why was it acceptable on Thursday when you and your party strongly defended it?”

placeholder image — Mike Nesbitt fielded questions on puberty blockers from all parties, and told the Assembly the DUP had shown no dissent to the planned NI involvement in a trial of the drugs

Mr Nesbitt responded: “Clinical trials have been around for very long time; they are, by and large, extremely effective in terms of advancing medical and social care into the 21st century.

"But it became clear to me that the judicial review has chances of success.

"As I said in my statement, I don’t want to drag children and families unnecessarily into the courts and into a squabble which might descend into party political interests.”

He went on to say: “I have come on a journey, and the position the journey has taken me to is to pause our participation in that clinical trial.”

Puberty blockers are a key part of what transgender activists call “gender affirming care”.

They halt a boy’s normal physical development into a man for example, in order that he can seek to change gender, and they are often followed by cross-sex hormones and surgery.

Dr Hilary Cass, who has reviewed the UK’s child trans services, had said there is “very weak evidence” that puberty blockers help children, and recommended a trial.

Mr Nesbitt told MLAs he had sat with parents who want puberty blockers for their child “because they love their child and they want to do the best thing by them”, and rebuked TUV man Timothy Gaston for saying that youngsters are being used as “guinea pigs for an ideology”.

He told Mr Gaston that such language is “most unwelcome” and “very emotive”, and said people should be “sensitive to these young people, to their families and to their communities”.

In a remark aimed at the DUP, Mr Nesbitt said the trial had been “widely discussed” at the Executive and had been “accepted with no opposition from any other minister or executive party”.

He added: “That is simply a matter of fact – yet at least one party now seeks to distance itself from the decisions it fully supported, both in establishing the [NI gender clinic] service over a decade ago, and then more latterly, in participating in the trial.”

Meanwhile his UUP colleague Alan Chambers said there was “obvious eagerness of one of our local parties to try to unsuccessfully distance themselves from this policy area”.

SDLP MLA Matthew O’Toole asked the minister to confirm that NI children would have only taken part “on the basis of their consent and not of their parents”, to which Mr Nesbitt replied: “You'd have to give your consent and be seen to be capable, have the capacity to give your consent, and you would need the consent of at least one parent.”

DUP MLA David Brooks asked: “Does the minister believe that children can give informed consent to drugs which were removed from routine clinical use because of serious questions about their impact on brain development, bone density, fertility, and mental health?”

Mr Nesbitt replied “there is certainly an accepted formula within clinical trials in terms of determining whether a young person is fit to give their consent”.

At one point the minister said “I am not standing here feeling I have done particularly well by the trans community – that would be their perception of me, I’d imagine”, but added that puberty blockers are a “very dangerous area”.

DUP MLA Pam Cameron told the Assembly that the suspension of NI from the puberty blockers trial came “only after my party intervened”.

Mr Nesbitt repeated that there had originally been “no dissenting voice to the idea of joining the clinical trials”, just as there was “no voice raised against” an £806,000 funding boost for NI’s youth and adult trans clinics last July.

During proceedings, Sinn Fein spoke in favour of the puberty blockers trial; Caral Ni Chuilin called his decision to suspend NI involvement in it “absoultely disgraceful” (echoing regional leader Michelle O’Neill) and said he is “effectively discriminating” against people, while Sinead McLaughlin said she was "very disappointed” by the minister’s decision, and demanded to know “what makes you wiser” than Dr Cass.

Gerry Carroll meanwhile, representing People Before Profit, said “time and again, trans and non-binary people have been let down by you and also this Executive”.