Lloyds Bank comes under fire for offering free counselling to staff 'appalled' by language 'targeting the trans and non-binary community' at the Tory party conference

Lloyds Bank was under fire last night after offering free counselling to staff 'appalled' by talk from the Conservative Party conference. Lloyds Bank has reportedly offered its staff counselling if they were affected by remarks made about trans and non-binary people at the Tory party conference Several speeches at the Conservative party conference referenced transgender people including one in which Rishi Sunak said it was 'common sense' that 'a woman is a woman' Kemi Badenoch told the conference she would not 'apologise for knowing what a woman is', while Suella Braverman criticised 'gender ideology' In her message to staff, Lloyds HR boss Sarah Underhill told trans and non-binary staff: 'You are valued. You are welcome here' Following the event Sarah Underhill, human resources director at Lloyds - who declares her pronouns are 'She/Her' - wrote in an email to employees last Friday: 'Like many of you, I was appalled to hear the rhetoric coming from the Conservative Party Conference this week, targeting the trans and non-binary community. Health secretary Steve Barclay used his party conference speech to announce that he plans to ban transgender patients from single-sex hospital wards Former Tory minister Sir John Hayes said that using a 'position of power' to propagate 'extreme views' amounted to 'exploitation' Former minister Sir John Hayes weighed in to the row over Ms Underhill's counselling offer to Lloyds staff, saying: 'This woman is clearly hugely out of touch, and she now needs to be out of time too.'