Westminster Hall

Thursday 7th March 2024 Westminster Hall

Thursday 7 March 2024

[Graham Stringer in the Chair]

backbench business

Thursday 7th March 2024 Westminster Hall

LGBT History Month

Thursday 7th March 2024 Westminster Hall

13:30

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered LGBT History Month.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. LGBT History Month was in February, and as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on global LGBT+ rights, which I am delighted to co-chair with the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for us to discuss the topic. It has become something of an annual debate, so I do not want to repeat too much of what we have said before. However, having looked through Hansard at some of our previous debates on the topic, it is a shame that we have to repeat a lot of what has been said on what we need to do in the UK and around the world to further advance the rights of LGBT+ people.

I want to stress a point that we as colleagues in this place have made on a number of occasions. LGBT+ people have always existed; we did not just pop out of the ground in the 1960s and 1970s and start marching through the streets of London and other cities. I worry about that idea sometimes, particularly with the rhetoric around trans people that has developed over the last few years. During the debate on the Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill last Friday, one colleague justified not supporting taking that Bill to Committee by saying, “Well, you know, we just never saw anything about trans people when we were younger.” Of course not—they were not allowed to be public. As LGBT+ people, we were legislated to stay in the closet. The law did not allow us to be open and free, so of course we did not have the ability to be open and free as we are today. That is a bit of a ridiculous argument.

I will begin by talking about some of the positive steps that have been taken around the world since we last held the debate. The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association maintains a database of laws around the world, which includes dashboards showing which countries criminalise same-sex acts, and a chart showing decriminalisation year by year. When we were here last year, we celebrated the fact that Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and Saint Kitts and Nevis decriminalised same-sex acts. I am delighted to report that in 2023 the Cook Islands, Mauritius and Singapore joined their ranks.

Same-sex marriage was legalised in the last 12 months in Andorra, Slovenia and Estonia. Same-sex civil unions have been proposed or passed in Latvia, Poland, Czechia, Hong Kong and parts of Japan. Conversion therapy bans have been proposed or passed in Portugal, Norway, Tasmania in Australia, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Other laws to improve the lives of LGBT+ people, such as adoption rights, anti-discrimination laws, advances in the rights of trans people to gender recognition and others, have been passed in places such as New Zealand, Colombia, Australia, Mexico, Cuba, Taiwan, Paraguay, Thailand, Iceland, Georgia, Italy, Cyprus, Germany, South Korea, Pakistan and more.

There is much to be positive about and we welcome that progress around that world. However, a point that has been made by colleagues in other debates is worth repeating: we cannot take progress for granted. We cannot assume that the hard-fought rights and freedoms that we have managed to achieve, in not only the countries I mentioned but the UK, are set in stone and that there is no chance of them ever being reversed. In this House we have spoken about some of the disgraceful measures taken around the world to row back on the rights of LGBT+ people, such as Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, with other African nations such as Ghana looking worryingly close to doing the same.

In fact, anti-LGBT+ laws have been passed or proposed in countries such as Bulgaria, Bahrain, Russia, Belarus, Niger, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Kenya, Hungary, Iraq, Lebanon, Malaysia, Oman, Jordan and Burkina Faso. There have also been worrying developments in countries where we would assume that things were only heading forward, particularly in Italy and Spain, and a huge swathe of state-level anti-LGBT laws in the USA.

LGBT+ rights have become increasingly politicised, and we can see that happening in the UK as well. Of course, we have made incredible progress and I always want to champion that. In the last decade alone, we can talk about the successes of same-sex marriage, becoming a leading country in eradicating new HIV transmissions, LGBT content in relationships, sex and health education, and more. There is still a lot to do, however, and I am afraid my right hon. Friend the Minister will not be surprised to hear me speak mainly about the need to make progress with banning conversion therapy.

I was incredibly disappointed that last week we did not manage to persuade the Government or the House to allow a very compromised Bill—so well compromised, in fact, that it was not necessarily universally welcomed by the LGBT+ community. Yet the fact that it was not even allowed to go to Committee stage so we could thrash out some of the challenges and finally make progress towards banning such abhorrent practices was disappointing indeed.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that it is disappointing that the UK did not feature on any of the lists he mentioned, apart from the last one, obviously? Would it not be good, since we have a whole history month, for the Government to come back to the table quickly with a conversion therapy Bill?

[Elliot Colburn]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. The Bill we were debating last week was the product of extensive hard work and compromise, including meeting people who were both sceptical and incredibly pro banning the practices. The Bill attracted criticism from those in favour of a ban because, unlike in other countries such as Norway, it does not carry a jail sentence. None the less, it was an attempt to try and bring everyone together, take the heat out of the debate and allow us to finally make some progress. That did not happen; the Government were not keen to support it and it was talked out.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman and I both attended the debate last Friday. Was he as disappointed as I was that, despite how modest the Bill was and how reasonable it attempted to be, some of the arguments against it were so unreasonable?

[Elliot Colburn]

I agree with the hon. Lady and my co-chair of the APPG. She is absolutely right and I think it demonstrates that, sadly, no matter how much engagement and how much compromise is made, there will be those who are not interested in banning such practices. They do not see a ban as necessary; in fact, they are against it because they believe it will infringe on certain rights. I do not believe that argument for one minute. The only thing that banning conversion practices achieves is to stop people being subjected to harm—harm that is still legal here in the United Kingdom. That is why we have to continue with progress towards a ban.

There have been so many promises since the proposal was first made by the LGBT action plan in 2018 and yet, we have still not had sight of a Bill. We are often told it is complicated. No one is saying it is not, but we delivered Brexit faster than this and I argue that that was slightly more complex. Also, we are not working from a blank slate; there are many other examples from around the world where this kind of legislation has been successfully enacted and has not had the chilling effect that we are often warned about in terms of infringements on the freedom of speech and the rights of women, for example. That just simply has not happened in any example that I have looked at globally where such a ban has already been passed.

We have had ample time to bring forward a Bill. It has been promised in two Queen’s Speeches and at the Dispatch Box and yet there always seems to be a new reason to delay. The latest is that we are now waiting for the outcome of Dr Cass’s review into child and adolescent healthcare when it comes to treating people who are trans. However, Dr Cass has explicitly stated that her work should not be used as an excuse to delay passing a ban, and I argue that we must not delay any longer. We cannot go into an election without passing such a ban because it would represent a huge breach of trust. I feel slightly unfair targeting the Minister with this, because I know how supportive he is on this issue, but I sincerely hope he can pass the message back to those who might be less so to urge them to get on with it.

I worry that this issue has become part of a wider targeting of the LGBT+ community, particularly the trans community, on which there is an increasing focus, alongside the erosion of protections in law. I worry that this is not just the beginning; I am very concerned, as I am sure many of us are, that the targeting of LGBT+ people and the attempt to erode their rights is the first step on a journey to erode many of our hard-fought rights, not just for LGBT+ people, but for many people across the UK. We are seen as a convenient battering ram at the moment.

I hope that we can come together to continue to fight the erosion of our rights. It is a fight that LGBT+ people did not ask for, and we want no part in. I hope that, in this election year, parties can commit to not using these issues as wedge issues, and that they can instead focus on the issues that actually matter to people. Otherwise, I fear that once the election has come and gone, we will be back here again asking for the same thing. As much as I love seeing the Minister and spending time with him, maybe we can cross out this date in our diary for next year. I would like us to make some progress so that we do not need to bother him again, and repeat ourselves.

I end on a happy note: I hope that everyone had a happy LGBT+ History Month.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Hon. Members who wish to speak should stand to indicate that wish, in the usual manner. I call Dame Angela Eagle.

13:41

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, in a room that is, for once, warmer than it is outside. Clearly, something is working better than it used to.

Today’s debate comes after LGBT History Month, due to, I think, logjams in Back-Bench business. It is an opportunity to celebrate the many events that have happened in the last month, in schools, libraries, pubs, clubs and across our country. LGBT History Month is a huge, ongoing event that has many different facets across the country.

It is also a time for us to remember our past, when we were, as my co-chair of the APPG on global LGBT+ rights, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), has said, more hidden than we are now; to celebrate the present and the progress that we have made; and for us to be clear-eyed about some of the potential problems we may face in the future.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend highlights, LGBT History Month was last month. Its theme was paying tribute to contributions in the field of medicine and healthcare. She may be aware that the Mayor of London recently named one of the overground lines that goes through my Battersea constituency Mildmay, after the hospital that played a pivotal role in healthcare for those suffering in the HIV and AIDs epidemic, which in fact became Europe’s first hospice for caring for people with AIDs-related illnesses. Does she agree with me that it is right to recognise our history and the progress being made, but also highlight the fight for equality and justice going forward?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I certainly agree.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that we are not pushed for time this afternoon. Interventions should be short and to the point.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

It is a great luxury not to be pushed for time these days in the House and, Mr Stringer, you tempt me; but let us see how we get on.

I particularly welcomed the Mayor of London’s announcement about the renaming of the overland train lines after what I think are progressive causes, one of which my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) just mentioned, and a pretty fantastic football team—even if they have to keep proving themselves over and over again.

As I was saying, this is a time to remember the past but also to be clear-eyed about some of the potential problems that face us, as a global LGBT community as well as a community in this country. This debate gives us a chance to do that. LGBT+ History Month 2024 celebrated the community contributions to medicine and healthcare, as my hon. Friend said in her intervention. It also highlighted the community’s blighted history in getting access to healthcare, as well as the ignorance, prejudice and inequality that came about as the AIDS pandemic—which is a pandemic and has killed millions of people—raged around the world. All that we got was prejudice and ignorance, and the only thing that helped to make any progress in those grim times was the self- help that the community came together to provide in very many inspirational ways.

Hopefully, we are in more enlightened times now, although I have to say that I have heard similar arguments about the threat that LGBT people present resurfacing again in political discourse. It happens more abroad than here, but it rears its ugly head on occasion here, too. That is an alarm bell that we should all be listening to. We should all be ready to fight because, as my hon. Friend said, a battle for equal rights and equality in the law or for equal access to goods and services, and being able to live a life that is not blighted by prejudice, ignorance or the fact that one is a particular thing—be it black, Asian and minority ethnic, be it a member of a particular faith, or be it LGBT—is all really important. When we fight together to improve the prospects of everyone who might be subjected to discrimination, we create a better, fairer and more equal society in which people’s human rights are properly recognised and prejudice is pushed to the sides.

LGBT History Month is really all about remembering. It is also, I think, about teaching some of the younger members of our community, who breeze through life, never had to be in the closet and have never been subjected to the quite extraordinary vitriol that used to be a regular feature of the media in the 1980s. They do not really understand how far we have come and what gains had to be fought for and made. They take it all for granted, which is fantastic—I hope that they can continue to take it for granted—but I always think that if we do not know our history, there is an increased chance that we will have to repeat it.

It is, then, an important time to reflect on the huge legislative progress that we have made in campaigning for our rights and against prejudice—the kind of progress that I thought was probably unimaginable when I was marching against section 28 in the 1980s. Some of us are old enough to remember Margaret Thatcher’s conference speech in 1987. I used to watch all the conferences, including the TUC’s—they were all televised, constantly, at the time. I was a bit of a junkie when it came to seeing what was happening, and I remember watching the speech in which she declaimed that children were being

“cheated of a sound start in life”

due to the fact that they were

“taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.”

It is not about a right to be gay; it is about being what you are and being able to live a life that is authentic to what you are, not having to hide away or be berated for who you are, and not being frightened to walk the streets.

Some of us who are old enough do remember the prejudice-laden tabloid coverage and the bullying that that involved, as well as the weaponisation of prejudice for electoral purposes that led to the enactment of section 28, which made the lives of LGBT+ pupils and teachers in schools a misery for generations. Gradually, though, in the face of often open media hostility, the last Labour Government changed all that in a series of landmark changes to the legal statutes that created circumstances in which, largely, LGBT+ people got their equal rights in law.

Many of those changes were hard fought for, including the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, which reduced the age of consent for gay and bisexual men to 16. We had to put that legislation through Parliament three times and use the Parliament Act to get it on to the statute book, because the Lords simply would not pass it. Because we persisted with it, we were then accused on the front pages of the tabloids of being obsessed with buggery. Everything is created to make it look like you are the obsessive—the one who is trying always to go on about these things. There is no understanding that, actually, this is just a basic equality requirement that has to be there in law, otherwise that person will be discriminated against, regarded differently and treated differently. The world has not come to an end since we equalised the age of consent, despite some of the warnings, but it really had to be pushed.

Similarly, many here will remember the 2003 repeal of section 28, which talked about “pretended” family relationships and ridiculed LGBT people and their relationships and commitments to each other at a time when people could not get married or do any of the legal things that are available now. That legislation took us three years of persistence to finally repeal because the Lords would not pass it. Every time we were nearly losing our local government Bills, which had increasingly important things in them, we had to keep leaving the change out and putting it in again. It took three years to get that sorted out.

The landmark Gender Recognition Act 2004 enabled transgender adults to achieve legal recognition in their acquired gender. That was because of important international court judgments that basically said they had a right to that. I suspect that the fact that the Gender Recognition Act has been on the statute book for 20 years has passed by quite a lot of people who have suddenly discovered that they are worried by transgender people. The fact is that transgender people were not really visible at all until after the Act was passed. It is an example of how our society gets kinder and more equal if people feel that they can present as they really are. That is what transgender people have been doing since then, until, for various reasons, that has become problematised in the last few years.

As well as that Act being put on the statute book, we had the Civil Partnership Act 2004, which established a new legal relationship for same-sex couples. Some people say that that was then upgraded, but I do not because I still have a civil partnership. I have not got married yet, partially because the Catholic Church does not recognise same-sex marriages and my partner will not do it anywhere else. It is important that we have recognised that civil partnerships can also apply to heterosexual people, because many worry about the baggage that comes with the chattelisation of women in a marriage. I know many feminists who felt that way, and are more than happy to have a civil partnership rather than a marriage in that sense. We are creating circumstances in society in which people’s loving relationships can be recognised, validated and made sound in law so that there is not a problem if somebody dies, is ill or needs to have an official connection as next of kin. That is really important.

The Equality Act 2010 included sexual orientation and gender reassignment as two of the nine protected characteristics. I think it is a pretty good Act. I know that various people have problems with it at the moment, but I think it is a well-balanced piece of legislation that does not need change. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 legalised same-sex marriages at a time when the party of the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington realised that it had got a bit left behind and that it ought to come into the modern world. The vast majority of them are still there, but not all of them, it seems, as we saw last Friday.

All that change was thanks to having a progressive majority Labour Government in the 1997 to 2010 period. We passed progressive legislation that made people’s lives easier and demonstrated that their relationships, their loves and what they did in their lives was properly respected. However, the progress has not been linear—progress very rarely is—and the community faces threats now that are reminiscent of what I hoped we had left behind in the 1980s. For four consecutive years, between 2015 and 2019, Britain was ranked the best place to be LGBTQ+ in Europe, in the Rainbow Europe index, but we are now 17th. There has been a cocktail of anti-LGBT hate crime on the streets, and anti-LGBT diatribes have featured increasingly in the media and some political discourse. Some members of the Government are trying to use that for their own purposes, when it comes to modernising and reform. I am not pointing the finger at anyone in this Chamber, because I know we are among friends, but there are some issues.

Police-recorded hate crime on the basis of sexual orientation is up 112% in the past five years, and against trans people it is up 186%. In Merseyside, where my constituency of Wallasey is, reported hate crime based on sexual orientation is up 162%, and against trans people it is up 1,033%. So let nobody say that the problematising of LGBT people, particularly trans people, does not have consequences on the street, because it does and they are often very brutal.

We need to try to marginalise the people who think that a divisive war on woke is the way they can win the next election, shore up the blue wall or do any of the things they think they are doing by problematising trans people in particular and painting them as a threat. They think what happens on social media is real, and that those provocations are anything other than that—they are often generated by bots and agents provocateurs outside our country in order to divide us. It is called hybrid war, and it is not something we should indulge in.

I am disappointed—I hope the Minister might be able to cheer me up—that the Conservative Government dropped their LGBT+ action plan and dismissed their LGBT+ advisory board. Having such voices at the centre of where policy is made is always very important. The Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), has not seen any LGBT+ organisations except those that are gender critical in any of the meetings she has had when she has been formulating Government policy. That is, to say the least, regrettable.

The problems around modernising the Gender Recognition Act and the manifesto promise to ban the abusive practices of conversion therapy need not have happened, but we are where we are and we have to find a way through. There has been an authoritarian far-right backlash evident across the world, encompassing President Putin all the way to Steve Bannon, Trump’s guru, and a lot in between. We need to see what is going on globally and connect it to how the trans issue has been used as a wedge issue in order to take the “T” out of LGBT and destroy progress in this area.

Just last week hon. Members were lining up to stop a very mild private Member’s Bill. It was so mild that I wanted it to be toughened up considerably, were it ever to reach Committee stage. But we could not even get it there, nor would the Government even allow opinions on it, despite the sponsor bending over backwards to try to create a situation where the Bill could get to Committee. We have had Members of Parliament talk about LGB people, erasing the “T”, and equating conversion practices with families having a normal conversation about their children growing up and exploring ideas about themselves and their identity. That is not what conversion practice is. It is easy to recognise torture and abuse when we see it. Torture and abuse is definitely not a conversation.

This year, whether the Prime Minister likes it or not, there will be a general election. Labour will offer the country the chance to pick up on legislating to protect the LBGT community with a comprehensive, trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy. I would have liked to get it done sooner, but it will happen. We just have to make progress. It is very sad that, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington said, it has taken longer than the Brexit negotiations. That should make us stop and think about what has been going on. We will also strengthen the law so that anti-LGBT+ hate crimes are treated as aggravated offences, and there will be a much-needed modernisation of gender recognition processes, which are humiliating and overlong.

Progress on LGBT rights around the world was summed up very well by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. There are still 67 countries that criminalise homosexuality, 51 that restrict freedom of sexual and gender expression and 11 that apply the death penalty for same-sex offences. Uganda and Ghana have passed the two most recent pieces of anti-LGBT legislation that feature capital punishment. Just last week, Ghana passed its Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill unanimously. Even thinking about the title, there are a whole load of assumptions in there that are interesting to say the least.

That Bill criminalises being gay, prohibits adoption for gay people and forcibly disbands all LGBT associations. For same-sex intercourse, one is likely to be jailed for up to three years. For producing, procuring or distributing material deemed to be promoting LBGT activities, it is six to 10 years. For teaching children about LGBT activities, it is also six to 10 years. Just yesterday, on Ghana’s independence day, LGBT+ protestors demonstrated in solidarity outside Ghana’s high commission against this appalling Bill.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act passed last year. It includes the death penalty for the offence of “aggravated homosexuality”—whatever that is—life imprisonment for the offence of homosexuality and up to 20 years in jail for promoting homosexuality. A report was compiled late last year by the Strategic Response Team, which is a coalition of Ugandan LGBT+ rights organisations, which have been criminalised for even existing in their own country and have to operate in very difficult circumstances. They found that between May, when the Act became law, and September there had been 180 cases of evictions, 176 cases of torture, abuse and degrading treatment, and 159 incidents of discrimination.

All of those were against both real and perceived LGBT+ people. We have to remember that just because something is anti-LGBT+ legislation, it does not mean the people caught by it are necessarily LGBT+. They are marginalised or focused on for whatever reason the authorities feel that they wish to focus on them. We have heard that the first person arrested who faces capital punishment under the law was not even gay. They were homeless, and they were arrested for being shirtless, which was because they were poor, and they were charged under the legislation. The Ugandan authorities are using the law to brutally criminalise the LGBT+ community, but also to go for any marginalised groups they want to attack. It is one of those catch-all things that they can put people in jail for. As is often the case, an attack on one minority is only ever the beginning of attacks on many others.

On our own European shores, over a fifth of countries lack broad protections for LGBT+ people—again, mentioned by my friend the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. Discussions in schools on LGBT+ issues are outlawed in Russia, as is being LGBT+, and in Hungary, Lithuania and Latvia. In Poland, nearly 100 municipalities have self-declared as LGBT-free zones. I hope that President Tusk, who—thank goodness—has just been elected in Poland, can start to undo some of the damage done in this area by the previous long-standing regime.

Across the Atlantic, the American Civil Liberties Union is tracking 474 anti-LGBTQ Bills in state legislatures across the country. That was the number as of yesterday, but it is probably out of date already because several get promulgated every day. Florida’s so-called “Don’t say gay” law bans discussion on sexual orientation or gender identity in schools for children under 10—that is their very own section 28. That is being exported by American Christian groups, which ploughed more than $280 million into campaigning against LGBT+ rights and abortion rights worldwide between 2007 and 2020, targeting communities and Parliaments around the world with their well-funded and co-ordinated doctrine of hate.

The legislation in Uganda and Ghana is peculiarly similar because it was drafted in that context. That does not arise spontaneously; it is well organised, and it has to be fought. Britain, as a country that respects international human rights and has better standards on that, ought to be financing some of the battles to prevent the spread of that pernicious and damaging ideology.

Britain has to get back on the international stage to advance LGBT rights across the globe and has to support those campaigning to change those unacceptable laws at home. I know that the international development Minister, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), is very aware of that, and we as an APPG have been to see him about it. It would be interesting if the Minister said a bit about whether there is funding to help to support a battle against those worrying developments on the African continent.

We have made progress, stalled and progressed again, and are going forwards and backwards in a non-linear way. There are challenges ahead, but we have to redouble our efforts not only to be proud of who we are and proud of our communities, but to try to create a circumstance where once more Britain leads the world in LGBT+ rights.

14:09

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Stringer, and to follow two excellent speeches by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle). They have said many things that I agree with. I will touch on a few of those things but will also cover some other areas.

I join everybody else in belatedly wishing everyone a happy LGBT+ History Month. It is important, and I want particularly to thank the individuals who set this up many years ago. It allows us to reflect on where we were, where we are, and where we have to go. It also enables us to look at aspects of the LGBT+ history of this country and the globe. I declare my interest as a member of the all-party parliamentary group on global LGBT+ rights and as co-chair of the LGBT+ parliamentary Labour party group with my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey, who is sitting next to me.

It is worth reflecting on the hard evidence of how far we have come in a positive direction. The latest British Social Attitudes Survey report came out in September last year, and it details many of the positive changes in attitudes of the last 40 years. In 1983, only 17% of people believed that same-sex relations were “not wrong at all”; that is 67% today. The proportion of those who said that same-sex relations were “always wrong” has fallen from 50%—half of the population—to just 9% today. That is still far too high and amounts to nearly one in 10 people, but it shows the progress we have made as a result of campaigners, activism, Governments taking leadership and decisions on these issues, and change within organisations that have previously been extraordinarily conservative themselves, including in parts of many faith communities. I say that as a Christian. There has been huge changes within the Church—again, it still does not go far enough for my liking, but there has certainly been a lot of progress. We have many more inclusive places of worship and places of faith across this country than we did in the 1980s, for example.

However, it is also important to reflect on the negatives and where we are actually going backwards. That same survey showed that, since 2019, the proportion of people who described themselves as

“not at all prejudiced against transgender people”

has fallen from 82% to 64%. That is just since 2019—in the last five years. That is quite a rapid decline in support for, and awareness and acceptance of, those with transgender and non-binary identities. It should be a wake-up call and a worrying call to us all to see such positive changes in some aspects of rights but such backsliding on others in just a few years. The reasons why that has happened in this country, but not in all countries across Europe or the globe, have already been accurately reflected on. These changes are happening for a reason. Many of us have touched on it in debates in this place before. It is deeply concerning and worrying, not least when it is combined with hate crime statistics and the very sharp, violent and in some cases tragically life-ending circumstances that we have heard debated in this place in recent weeks.

I do not say this as any reflection on the two Conservative Members present, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington and the right hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), because I know that they are very strong advocates and have spoken out bravely against challenges in their own party over recent years, but I will always look back. I have a poster on my phone that somebody once sent to me. It was issued by Conservative central office in Smith Square in the 1980s. At the top, it says, “Labour Camp”, and it depicts people holding up banners in the street, reading “Gay Sports Day” and “Gay Lib”, followed by:

“Do you want to live in it? Think about it. Conservative.”

It was published privately by central office—the headquarters of the party, not by some activist or individual—in the 1980s. I know that is not the party as it is today, and I sincerely hope that it would never publish that sort of material in the future. It certainly would not be approved by the Members in this room from the party, but I worry about the language and divisive rhetoric of those who are perhaps auditioning to be a future Conservative leader or seeking to take their party in a very different direction.

One of the hallmarks of the work of the APPG on global LGBT+ rights and of many of the forums in this place and in our parties is our unity on basic principles of human rights, equality, and inclusion, regardless of huge divisions on other matters relating to the running of the country. There is unity on the fact that we should not have that kind of division, language and problematisation of minority populations in this country. I know that the two Conservatives here do not take that approach. They believe in an inclusive and open party, but it is a big problem to hear senior figures saying some of the things they have done in recent weeks. In our party, we know all too well that when things are being done and said that are completely unacceptable, it takes bravery and courage to speak up and stand up and be counted when it matters—even when that is on somebody’s own side. I certainly hope we will see a pushback against that kind of language. We do not want to go back to those days when Conservative party headquarters was putting out material like that.

I would like to reflect a little on my own constituency and some of the fantastic organisations and groups, not only in Cardiff South and Penarth, but across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. They are testament to our current vibrant LGBT+-inclusive communities and have been key to shifts and changes in social attitudes and behaviours in recent years. I think particularly of Pride Cymru, which organises our annual Pride parade in Cardiff, and our local Prides. Over the last few years, I have been able to attend a number of local Prides in Wales. They simply would not have happened when I was a young person growing up, completely repressed and closeted in south Wales. Llantwit Major, where I went to school—a town in the neighbouring constituency of Vale of Glamorgan—held its own Pride a little while ago. There was even an LGBT flag flying from the church. I literally could not have believed that as a child growing up in that town.

I was also proud to march alongside many others at Barry Pride. I went along to Newport Pride; again, that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. And we all come together for the national celebration in Cardiff. I really pay tribute to all the volunteers and organisers who do such incredible work with Pride Cymru. It draws on the history from the early days of the Mardi Gras in Cardiff, right through to what we see today, which is vibrant, inclusive to all people, all ethnicities, all races, all religions, all ages—it is a festival of inclusivity. It is a lot of fun, with great music—a great day out for all. Those festivals and coming togethers have been key and are indicative of the progress that has been made.

I also want to pay tribute to the key figures of the LGBT+ community, some of whom have great historical knowledge and perspective. There are two I want to mention today. The first is my very good friend and neighbour— I declare an interest, because she sometimes feeds my cat—the wonderful Lisa Power, who was one of the original founders of Stonewall, an original operator on the LGBT+ Switchboard and a former director of policy at the Terrence Higgins Trust. She is also a historian of the LGBT rights movement in the UK and has written some fantastic books and articles. She has been part of a team researching LGBT+ history and lost venues and locations in Cardiff and Wales. It is fantastic to be able to see how that heritage has developed over time.

Russell T. Davies is also a key figure on the scene, not only for his work on “Doctor Who” and other leading series, but, critically, his work on the series “It’s a Sin”, which showed very powerfully a few years ago the remarkable struggles of those who were involved in HIV campaigning and wider LGBT+ campaigning, which was so critical in the 1980s, and the tragic circumstances that many went through. It is by getting those stories to the screen and reminding people what happened that we can achieve progress going forward. Those are just two key people I wanted to mention from our local community.

Today, we see Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan as a hub of excellent TV and film production, including queer and LGBT-inclusive TV and film production. I think particularly of “Doctor Who”—filmed in my own constituency, with BBC Studios, Bad Wolf and now Disney+ —which has always had an inclusive approach to LGBT+ characters. In recent times, it was a real pleasure to join Ncuti Gatwa at the premiere with the BBC just before Christmas—many MPs went along to that fantastic event. There is also the famous series “Sex Education” on Netflix, which is filmed largely in my constituency. It is a hugely popular worldwide hit and is rooted in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan; some of it is also filmed in Newport.

I want to pay tribute to some of our incredible local venues. I mentioned the lost venues, but we are very lucky to have so many vibrant venues in Cardiff, with new ones opening up. Recently, we had a new venue open, the Dock Feeder, just down from the new canal in Cardiff, which is an uncovering of the old Dock Feeder canal. We are trying to do something similar to Manchester, although not quite on that scale. It is really positive to see. There are venues like the Golden Cross—I declare an interest as a regular visitor; there is Mary’s, Pulse and so many others. These venues are the lifeblood of our LGBT+ communities. It is important that we recognise the role that venues have played in providing safe spaces and places not only for expression but for bringing together LGBT+ communities, particularly in the past when being a member of those communities could have landed someone in a lot of trouble, or worse. Those venues still play a crucial role and it is important that we protect and recognise them as safe and welcoming spaces for the LGBT+ community.

I think of places such as the Queer Emporium in the centre of Cardiff, which provides an awful lot of material and clothing and which is, again, a safe place for people to meet. Also, we have the wonderful LGBT+ societies at our universities in Cardiff, organisations such as Glitter Cymru, those that work with black and minority ethnic communities in particular and the work done by specific organisations on issues not only affecting the LGBT+ community but more broadly, such as Fast Track Cymru, which is doing work to end HIV transmissions and wider work around sexual health in south Wales. I wanted to touch on some of those because it is important we recognise and celebrate not only what all those organisations have done in the past but what they are doing today.

I will now come to some of the issues already covered by my hon. Friends. On conversion therapy, I share the sadness, concern and disappointment at the failure of the very reasonable Bill put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) to progress through the House and some of the quite divisive and unhelpful speeches heard during the debate. Conversion therapy is abuse, and it is a vile and abhorrent practice. I have met survivors of conversion therapy and know what damage it has done to them. I do not want to name individuals, but there have been really harmful mental health impacts, such as self-harm and suicidal thoughts, and the lifelong impact of forcing someone to try and deny who they are.

The practice needs to be stamped out. It is hugely disappointing that the Government have not moved on the matter and I hope the Minister can say a little bit on that when he gets up. It was deeply disappointing that the House did not allow that reasonable Bill to make progress. However, I am pleased that if a Labour Government were elected, we have made clear that we would implement a fully inclusive ban on conversion therapy in all its forms. It is crucial we do that sooner rather than later and I am astonished that the practice still goes on in this country in 2024. It needs to be ended.

We have already talked a little about hate crime. I led a debate in this place just a few months ago on the subject and we have heard some of the statistics. It was deeply disappointing that the Minister at the time used the word “hysterical” in referring to some of the comments made in the debate. Hon. Members from all parties had spoken up against hate crime in a non-partisan way, telling real stories that had affected their constituents and other people up and down the country, and the statistics bear that out. To then have that slightly dismissive response from a Minister was deeply disappointing—it was not the Minister who is here today. I hope he can reassure us that that is not the position of the Government and that they take hate crime seriously.

As has been reported, we have seen a 11% increase in hate crimes against trans people in just a year, a 186% increase in the last five years and although there was a slight fall in crimes against people on the basis of their sexuality last year, that is masked by a 112% increase in hate crimes in the last five years. Again, I am sorry to have to declare an interest, but I too have been victim of an aspect of homophobic assault in my constituency. I have also experienced online and other abuse, as I am sure many other hon. Members have. It is a sad fact that these days, particularly for those of us in public life or in the public eye more generally—I think of people in all lines of work, such as journalists, public officials and others—if someone is a woman, if they are black, if they are brown, if they are Jewish, if they are Muslim, if they are gay, if they are trans, if they are lesbian, the reality is that they will face a substantially higher level of abuse and, I am afraid to say, risk as a result of their work. That has to end; it has to stop. Frankly, social media companies and others need to do a lot more to crack down on the matter, but unfortunately, it is being fuelled by the divisive rhetoric and language being used by some in senior public positions. That has a real-world effect on the ground.

We also know from the Government’s own reporting that they believe there is significant under-reporting and fewer than one in 10 people who are victims of hate crime in that way are actually reporting it. I know that my own police force in south Wales takes these matters very seriously, and I commend it on its work in this area. It does not get everything right, but it has certainly been active and proactive on the issues. However, that is not the case in all parts of the UK. Trust levels in the police in some parts of the country are not what they should be, not least in the Metropolitan police. After some of the incidents in the past, we all know why that might be.

I do not want to go into this too much, because of my shadow Front-Bench role, but the global statistics on LGBT+ issues are of grave concern, not only in relation to the UK, which, as has been said, has fallen from first to 17th in the Rainbow ranking since 2015, but because of what we see in a number of countries across Europe, Africa and globally. That is before we mention places such as Russia, China and so on.

I share the great alarm at some of the recent developments that we have seen, particularly in countries in Africa. There are real questions to be asked, if those worst fears are realised in due course, about the terrifying impact that that will have on citizens in those countries. People will also ask serious questions about trade and investment. Businesses will be asking questions about where they choose to trade with, the sorts of relationships that they choose to have and the safety and security of staff, tourists, others and even Members of this House; I have travelled to one of those countries as part of a delegation. I would certainly think carefully about my involvement in such a visit in the future if I thought that I would be penalised for being who I am, at risk of jail or worse.

There are serious questions that need to be considered. I certainly hope that those things do not come to pass in the way that they have been travelling at the moment and that those countries will think again. However, our primary concern must be for those who, just like in this country, exist and have always existed; they should not be criminalised or subject to the types of abuse and punishment that they face. We need to ensure that we always listen to those activists about the best ways in which we can work with, assist and empower them to go forward and have their circumstances heard.

As I said, there are deep concerns in a number of countries across Europe as well. I engage regularly in these matters. Indeed, we have seen many of our UK overseas territories move forward in areas of inclusion and equality over the years. However, there are some discrepancies, particularly with regard to equal marriage, civil partnerships and other rights for LGBT+ individuals. I believe firmly in the autonomy of, and devolution of responsibility to, our overseas territories, but being part of the British family comes with responsibilities, which include the upholding of basic human rights and equalities.

I will end by saying, as others have, that we see worrying backsliding. Progress clearly cannot be taken for granted. We have only to look at the powerful book written by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) about the experiences of secretly gay Members of this House in the relatively—for the time—permissive environment of Berlin in the 1930s, which changed subsequently and dramatically. That ended with LGBT people alongside 6 million Jews, Roma, Gypsies and others being taken to concentration camps. I am not suggesting that we are suddenly on the brink of that in this country, but we must all learn from those terrible examples in history where progress, open-mindedness and inclusivity seemed to be on the way, but were closed down suddenly and rapidly. We have seen that happen in a number of other countries.

We still have far too much to do in this country and, indeed, even in this place. I am pretty sure that if I asked to be married in a same-sex wedding in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft, I would not be permitted to do so, because it is an Anglican church. I might be lucky and be able to get a blessing now, but that is direct discrimination in this building against Members of this House. I took the young son of a friend on a tour recently. I took them into the beautiful Chapel of St Mary Undercroft and explained that, and the child said, “The Church is mean”. I said, “I am afraid it is on this”—I say that as a member of the Church. The reality is that unless we see progress in all our institutions and all parts of society to fully respect and include every member of society, regardless of their sexuality, gender identity or other protected characteristics, then we still have a very long way to go.

I am very proud that our party has set out a number of key commitments were we to form the next Government. We saw a radical reforming Labour Government in 1997 in this area that made huge changes, whether that was on section 28, civil partnerships or the GRA. I am pleased by what my colleagues have set out regarding GRA modernisation, a ban on conversion therapy, and aggravated offences on hate crime. I am pleased by what my Labour colleagues in Wales have done on an inclusive curriculum, an LGBT+ action plan, and clear commitments to all of the community. That is the sort of society that we need to build—a society where everybody can be who they want, and one where we can all be who we want to be in this House too. That is why moments like LGBT History Month are so important.

14:30

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I thank my glass ceiling-smashing hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for calling this important debate, and for being visible and an inspiration to young LGBT+ people across the UK. I was happy to support it when it was proposed as a Backbench Business debate, and I thank the Committee for allowing us time to discuss this important issue. It is important that we continue to make LGBTQ+ people and the issues that affect us visible, and that we continue trying to build a world where we are not only tolerated but celebrated for who we are. That seems truer now than it has in a long time.

I am married to a Roman historian, so I could bore everyone senseless on the LGBTQ+ history going back to Roman times and much further, but I will not. Instead, I will focus on my short life instead. I was born in March 1990, three years after the parliamentary debate on section 28. In the decade before I was born, attitudes to LGBT+ people had shifted dramatically. In 1983, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) mentioned, 50% of those questioned by the British social attitudes survey believed that sexual relations between two adults of the same sex were always wrong. However, by 1987, that proportion had risen to 64%.

The horrifying truth is that, in the years immediately before I was born, society became less tolerant of LGBTQ+ people. That is frightening, because it shows that attitudes do not automatically become more progressive over time. The shift in opinion did not fall out of the sky; it was driven by the debate on section 28 and a Prime Minister who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey already mentioned, said that no one had an “inalienable right to be gay”.

In the years that followed my entry into the world, things began to change. While I attended secondary school, when I was 13, section 28 was repealed, and new rights for trans people had been enshrined in law, as has been mentioned. As I grew up in the decade that followed that, I saw a wave of legislation affirming the rights of LGBTQ+ people. I am so proud to be a Member of Parliament for the party that brought in so much of that legislation. It is the accumulation of those things that led me to the firm belief that we absolutely do have an inalienable right to be gay. I am not alone. Where once, 64% of people thought that same-sex relationships were always wrong, now 67% of people believe that they are never wrong.

That is why now is a frightening time for people like me. I grew up under progress, and now for the first time since I have been alive that progress is not only stalling but feels like it is going backwards—and backwards quickly. It was only in 2018 that the then Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) told the House that,

“trans women are women and trans men are men.”—[Official Report, 3 July 2018; Vol. 644, c. 184.]

Obviously, things have changed since then, and not for the better. Now we are more likely to hear a joke at the expense of trans people from the Dispatch Box than an affirmation of their identity. Despite the lessons we should have learned from section 28 and the damage that it did, we are still haunted by the premise that some people do not have the inalienable right to be who they are.

That has consequences. As has been mentioned, hate crimes against trans people went up by 11% last year, nearly double those committed in 2010-11. It also has consequences for the wider community. In the previous year, we have seen far-right and fascist pickets outside LGBTQ+ events, and while there has been a reduction in hate crime directed at LGBTQ+ people in the last year, I think that probably has more to do with reporting. If we look back over the past two years, there has been an overall increase of 37.5%, and anecdotally, I know that people are feeling much less safe.

Britain is part of a pattern. Across the United States, we have seen shootings at LGBTQ+ venues, alongside legislative attacks on queer culture and performance spaces. In Poland, anti-LGBTQ+ zones that ban symbols like pride progress flags, which show that a place is safe for queer people, have now been banned, making it harder for people to live freely and in supportive spaces. In Hungary, section 28-style laws that ban the depiction of LGBTQ+ people in culture are causing havoc. In Australia, fascists are marching to strip trans people of their rights. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist party has banned municipal authorities from registering the children of same-sex couples. How have we got here? Our steps towards progress, both domestically and internationally, are faltering, and we are being pushed backwards.

I also have hope. Three years before I was born, more people than not thought that being gay was morally wrong. Now attitudes have changed. To turn the tide, we must learn the lessons: to support and celebrate people, not force them into the closet; to treat people with dignity and respect, not as objects of fear or ridicule; and, whatever anyone may say, to insist on their inalienable right to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, or every other identity represented by the pride progress flag.

14:37

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer, and I am grateful to the hon. Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) for their leadership in the debate today. It is a pleasure to speak in the annual LGBT+ History Month debate, and to reflect on the journey that has been made and also on where change still needs to come. I welcome the opportunity to speak about the positive progress that we see in a whole range of areas, but as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington pointed out, there is no inevitability about progressive change. We can all see this playing out. We can see the statistics showing hate crimes against LGBT+ people rising, and we need to be prepared here to speak out and to speak up for their rights.

It is quite extraordinary to think that it was only 10 years ago that same-sex couples were allowed to marry, and that only came 10 years after civil partnerships were introduced, which same-sex couple could enter into. It is almost inconceivable that those changes, which I think are so overwhelmingly accepted as part and parcel of partnership and marriage, were made so very recently. I think the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) put it very well when she called for us not just to tolerate but to celebrate LGBT+ communities. It is true that we have come a long way in relatively recent times, but we have obviously been playing catch-up because change was well overdue. It is beyond time for further change, such as a ban on conversion practices, which we have heard so much about today. The SNP Scottish Government are very clear on the need to act to end conversion practices and to ensure that everyone, regardless of their identity, is protected from them. That is progress that we need to see all across these islands.

I am very sorry that I was unable to join the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) last week in the debate on his private Member’s Bill—the Conversion Therapy (Prohibition) Bill—but I saw enough to think that unfortunately this place did not come away looking particularly good. We need to be able to discuss and listen to others without some of the heat that seems to be inevitable at the moment. Unfortunately, that heat is ramped up to some extent by the U-turning, stopping and starting, and obfuscating on this topic from this Government—not this Minister—and by the desire in some quarters to polarise, demonise or to problematise, as the hon. Member for Wallasey described. It is a clearly a direction of travel that is mirrored and influenced by increasing populism and division across the globe. But we do not need to do those things, and we do not need to accept that direction of travel as inevitable. Nobody benefits from it, and it causes such significant worry and harm to LGBT communities.

That worry exists with good reason when we look at the statistics. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation are reportedly up 112% from five years ago, and hate crimes against trans people are up 186% over that same period. I was struck by what the Law Commission’s hate crime report said about how members of Governments and legislatures across the UK should not engage in “culture war” targeting of the trans community, or use their positions to stir up fear and hostility towards trans people, and that all Governments across the UK should commit to addressing the causes of rising LGBT+ hate crimes. Surely it is difficult to argue with that.

Amidst all this, it is really important that we do our best in this conversation to make sure that young people are provided with constructive and conclusive education. I am always really proud to stand up in this place and talk about the exceptional work that the Time for Inclusive Education campaign has done to deliver that inclusive education in Scottish schools. That is important and welcome to me as a mum, and I know that my views are shared by the vast majority of parents—a recent survey found that 70% of parents support the national LGBT+ inclusive education programme.

I have said before that the current situation is a far cry from my school days, and it was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) reflect on his school days. It was admittedly not yesterday that I was at school, but it was really clear to me when I was that no child in my school was LGBT+. I went to a perfectly nice school, but I was at school in the 1980s, when section 28 was big news.

The hon. Member for Wallasey spoke powerfully about the hugely difficult times in the 1980s and the terrible impact they had on people. I, too, looked back to what was being said at that time, and it is very easy to see why people felt that they should keep their identities hidden. Margaret Thatcher said in her 1986 Conservative party conference speech that

“children are being cheated of a sound start in life”

due to

“being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.”

It is quite hard to read and say that now. Of course gay people have an inalienable right to be gay—because they are gay. In my school, the truth of course was that many pupils were gay. There were LGBT+ pupils in the school, but they felt they needed to keep that to themselves and move on in their lives, and move on in time, before making that known. We cannot go backwards, to a time when being LGBT+ was some kind of taboo—how can it be taboo to be yourself? I think the attitudes of young people will be instrumental in making sure that that rowing back, which some people would unfortunately like to see, will not happen.

I want to mention someone who is a real inspiration to young people, and to some of us who are a bit older as well—someone who is a change maker and very much to be admired. In September 2022, Zander Murray became the first senior Scottish footballer to come out as gay. He currently plays for Bonnyrigg Rose, a professional club in Scottish League Two, and he is a bit of a goal-scoring machine. He is now the first openly gay player in Scottish football since Justin Fashanu.

Since he has come out, Zander has been really passionate about and committed to being a role model to the sporting community, and to empowering young people—particularly footballers—to be their true authentic selves. That is incredibly powerful and important. To quote Zander:

“Whilst growing up, unfortunately I felt my life in football and my sexuality could not coexist. I felt that I needed to keep it hidden and fight against it for years which resulted in numerous missed opportunities and internal struggle. Fortunately, I am now at peace with myself and more importantly I have found an amazing community that I want to stand up for and be an active ally for. It is now really important that I play my part to ensure no one experiences what I did and that all young LGBT+ people know that football and any other sport is a place where they can thrive.”

That is surely a sentiment that all of us would agree with.

Zander is clearly making a huge difference. He is retiring at the end of this season, and I have no doubt that he will continue to make a positive difference and be a really important voice in this conversation. We all need to engage in that conversation a great deal more—not just the people in this Chamber, who I know do so with good will and enthusiasm at all times. We need a much broader conversation that people such as Zander will be able to inspire others to take part in.

14:44

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) on securing this important debate, and thank them both for their efforts in doing so. [Interruption.] Have I done something wrong?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

No, I was just saying that I am not right hon.

[Ashley Dalton]

Oh, I assumed you were! Apologies.

LGBT History Month is an opportunity for us to look back and remember what we have achieved. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey highlighted the fact that it is an opportunity to know our history so that we might be less likely to repeat its mistakes, and pointed out that the Government’s LGBT action plan and advisory panel are now things of LGBT history—perhaps not the kind of history we would want. As the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington pointed out, LGBT people have been around since time immemorial. We are not new. But we are still debating LGBT rights on at least an annual basis, and we must be ever vigilant about how fragile the rights we do have can be.

LGBT History Month is also an opportunity to reflect on the current state of LGBT+ rights both at home and overseas, and there is much to celebrate. I am delighted that same-sex couples can finally receive at least a blessing from the Church of England. Religion and religious expression is as intrinsic to the identity of some people as sexuality. The fact that same-sex relationships can now be recognised by the Church of England is a long-awaited milestone for the LGBT+ community, and one we all hope will be followed by more progress in this area in the years to come.

I was also pleased that the Government decided last summer to expand the scheme to pardon people who served in the military and were convicted of homosexual activity, including allowing female veterans to wipe their offences from the record. Sexuality is not a crime, as the last Labour Government recognised when they first lifted the ban on LGBT+ people serving in the armed forces in 2000. I am glad that the Government issued an apology to all LGBT+ personnel impacted by the ban. It is a step in the right direction, but we are still waiting for news on the progress of financial reparations and other recommendations in the independent review. Will the Minister provide an update on that today?

In Europe there have been several advancements in LGBT+ rights that are worth highlighting. Greece became the first Orthodox Christian country to legalise same-sex marriage in February, and Latvia will join its neighbour Estonia in legalising same-sex marriage this year. Several European states, including Norway, Portugal, Cyprus, Ireland and Belgium, have achieved what this country has so far failed to do by passing bans on so-called conversion therapy across their nations. It is with much disappointment that I mark LGBT History Month in this House today with no ban on conversion practices on our statute book.

However, the international picture on LGBT+ rights is far more mixed. Across the globe, LGBT+ individuals remain criminalised, persecuted and at risk of death. Last month, Russia began enforcing new legislation criminalising the display of “extremist symbols” such as the pride flag. In Saint Vincent and the Grenadines last month, courts upheld laws criminalising gay sex, while in Uganda, as has been noted, merely identifying as LGBT was criminalised in 2023.

In some nations where the legal system may not directly persecute or diminish the rights of LGBT+ people, societal attitudes may do so. In South Africa, which remains the only nation in Africa where same-sex marriage is legal, 59% of South Africans still oppose same-sex marriage. Similarly, a minority of the Greek public supported gay marriage when polled late last year. Those figures are a stark reminder that although legal progress may have been made, the LGBT+ community continues to face the same or similar attitudes to the ones that once legally prohibited the free expression of our sexuality.

My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), who is no longer in her place, raised the recent recognition of Mildmay Mission Hospital in the renaming of London underground lines, and its deep connection with the LGBT community through its provision of services to those affected by HIV and AIDS, particularly at a time when prejudice was rife, even in our NHS.

Last summer marked a decade since same-sex marriage was introduced in this country—a significant moment for the LGBT+ community—but many LGBT+ people will not feel able to celebrate that anniversary, because although it is welcome that anti-LGBT+ hate crimes have fallen 5% over the past year, hate crimes motivated by transphobia have increased by 11% over the same time, and the rate of violent hate crimes targeting all groups has not fallen.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) mentioned the importance of venues in providing safe places for LGBT people to meet, congregate, socialise, network and build a community. The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) highlighted the importance of role models, particularly in sport and popular culture, for young people who are LGBT—and, I would argue, also for those who are not. Too many members of the LGBT+ community still do not feel able to be who they are in public, and hide their identity or sexuality. The statistics on anti-LGBT hate crime do not tell even half the story, because the Government’s own figures acknowledge that 90% of anti-LGBT hate crime goes unreported.

It is the responsibility of us all in this place to make our country a safer place for LGBT+ people. Last week, we had an opportunity in Parliament to start the ball rolling on an inclusive ban on conversion practices. I am glad to see the Minister here for this debate. I know that he has personally been very supportive of a ban, so it was a shame that he could not be in the Chamber last Friday.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth also told us about the large and rapid decrease in people saying they are not prejudiced against trans people. We have to consider how the language and leadership, or lack of it, shown on the Government Benches might contribute to that. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) reminded us that the shift in public opinion in the late 1980s away from general support to more negative views of LGBT people and same-sex relationships came in the context of the section 28 debate. That is a reminder that progress is not inevitable and that we can go backwards as well as forwards.

It appears that the Government have no immediate plans to bring a ban on conversion practices to the House. Will the Minister tell us whether he supported the Bill last Friday? The Government may choose to sit on their draft conversion therapy Bill for fear of unleashing a Back-Bench rebellion that could bring down the Prime Minister, but Labour has a proud record of leading the way on LGBT+ rights. It was Labour that repealed the appalling section 28; introduced civil partnerships, which paved the way to equal marriage; ended the ban on LGBT+ people serving in our armed forces; equalised the age of consent; gave LGBT+ couples the right to adopt; introduced the Equality Act; made homophobia a hate crime; and brought forward the Gender Recognition Act. That record made our country a safer and more hospitable place for LGBT+ people to grow up, work, love and thrive. The next Labour Government will continue that work.

It is Labour that will legislate to give longer sentences to criminals found guilty of LGBT+-motivated hate crimes, deliver a new deal for workers that tackles the workplace harassment of LGBT+ people, and put a full loophole-free trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices on the statute books. It is Labour that will always treat LGBT+ people fairly and with dignity, respect and, crucially, equality.

14:54

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stuart Andrew)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) for securing the debate, which is an important one for so many reasons. For too long, the history of LGBT people’s lives, their stories and their love were hidden. The achievements of people, including the advancements and breakthroughs that they made, were recorded but never acknowledged or celebrated, simply because they were LGBT.

We have had some really thoughtful contributions this afternoon. In opening the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington rightly talked about the international changes that have happened —some good; some really very worrying indeed—and how we cannot take progress for granted. The hon. Member for Wallasey agreed, reminding us that we need to be mindful of the risks that exist and that by fighting together we can make sure that progress continues to be made.

The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) talked about Pride events in Wales and how things are different today, including in villages. As someone who grew up on the Isle of Anglesey back in the 1970s and 1980s, I remember that if you wanted to go to a gay club, you had to travel miles into Llandudno on the first Monday of the month. It really has been interesting to listen to the debate, although one of the most shocking things I heard was that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) was born in 1990, which makes me feel incredibly old.

As the hon. Member for Wallasey said, it is important for us as LGBT people to remember our past and understand it, to celebrate our present and to create our future. Those are the principles of LGBT History Month, and they are the principles that I and many people here in Parliament are proud to stand up for today, in a House that has more LGBT people than ever before.

We have rightly remembered many of the battles for rights and the fact that persistence was often the way to ensure things happened. Whether it be in respect of section 28, the gender recognition certificate, the age of consent or equal marriage, the remark by the hon. Member for Wallasey about the sky not falling in was very true indeed. In fact, I remember that after the equal marriage debate people were very quickly boasting that they had been to a gay wedding, and celebrating that fact.

The theme for LGBT History Month this year is the celebration of the contributions made by LGBT people in the fields of medicine and healthcare. We are asked to look “under the scope” and recognise the invaluable contributions of LGBT people across the medical and healthcare sectors—including in our world-renowned NHS—which have often been overlooked, so for a moment I will reflect on that.

The UK has long been known for trailblazing healthcare professionals, and I am proud that this debate gives me a chance to pay tribute to some of those trailblazers who were LGBT. Dr Sophia Jex-Blake was a 19th-century Scottish physician who was most widely known as Scotland’s first ever practising female doctor, and for her pivotal role as a member of the Edinburgh Seven. Sophia devoted her life to the advancement of women’s rights in the field of medicine and helped to lead the campaign to secure women’s access to university education. After qualifying as a doctor, she helped to found two medical schools for women, in London and Edinburgh, at a time when medical schools were training only men.

Sophia retired to Sussex in 1899, where she moved in with Dr Margaret Todd, a fellow physician who many believe was her partner. Sophia was never openly a lesbian, but upon her death Margaret published Sophia’s private musings, many of which confessed her love for women.

Another extraordinary and hidden story is the life of Sir Ewan Forbes. On the surface, his life might appear to be one of genericity. Born into an aristocratic family in Aberdeenshire, Ewan graduated as a doctor in his early 30s and began practising as a local GP. Not long afterwards, he married Isabella Mitchell. From a young age, Ewan was open about his transgender identity, at a time when being trans was not understood and certainly was not socially acceptable. Although registered female at birth, Ewan recognised that his legal sex was not his true self and, with the support of his family, was believed to have undergone pioneering gender-affirming care.

Upon marrying his wife, Ewan sought to make the marriage legal by seeking legal gender recognition in 1952. Although a taboo topic at the time, it was relatively smoothly awarded upon that request. However, Ewan’s legal recognition was later questioned when his older brother died and he was set to inherit the fortune and become a baron. At the time, this was seen as scandalous, as many did not accept the legal gender recognition. Ewan took the case to the Scottish Court of Session and won. Despite the case being conducted in secrecy, it marked a pivotal moment in transgender rights. The fascinating details of Ewan’s life were recently recorded in a book, “The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes”, which is a much-recommended read.

As others have said today, we should think not just about the past, but the future, and the present day. That gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to my colleague, Dr Michael Brady. Michael is a sexual health and HIV consultant at King’s College Hospital, as well as NHS England’s first ever national adviser for LGBT health, where he leads work to tackle health inequalities faced by the LGBT community.

Michael has long worked for better healthcare for LGBT people. Alongside his role as national LGBT health adviser, Michael spent 15 years as the medical director at the Terrence Higgins Trust. He played a huge role in advocating for the national roll-out of pre-exposure prophylaxis—PrEP—the HIV prevention drug. He consistently strives to improve healthcare provision and outcomes for LGBT people in his everyday role. I pay tribute to all the others we could mention under the theme of LGBT History Month.

I come on to some of the other points raised today, including the international picture. I absolutely recognise the great strides that many countries have made—colleagues have raised many important points—but, clearly, there are some awful things still happening. As many have mentioned, the laws in Uganda, Ghana, Hungary and Russia are extremely concerning.

I assure hon. Members that, as a Government, we continue to raise these issues whenever we have the opportunity. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has a new five-year, £40 million LGBT rights programme. That programme will hopefully transform the lives of millions of LGBT people around the world, by reducing the violence and discrimination that they experience, and by offering support to those who campaign, sometimes very bravely in hostile environments.

[Kirsten Oswald]

I am interested in the Minister’s point about the situation in different countries overseas. What are his reflections on the situation for LGBT+ people in Rwanda? Is he able to tell us his thoughts in relation to his Government’s plans there?

[Stuart Andrew]

My view is very clear. Wherever there are challenges for LGBT people, we have a duty to raise them at every point. That is not just in Rwanda. There are lots of other countries in which we have lots of different agreements. It is important to raise the issues, even with good friends of ours, when we think that they are making decisions that are not in the best interests of the community that we all want to support.

[Elliot Colburn]

I pay tribute to the FCDO’s work in this area. I was invited by the British embassy in Prague to go and speak with our sister party and parliamentarians in Czechia last year, to persuade them that the sky would not fall in if they passed legislation for equal marriage. I pay tribute to the work that our officials are doing internationally in this area.

[Stuart Andrew]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That is exactly the opportunity presented by the work of our colleagues in the FCDO in helping us to share our experiences. There are challenges bringing through these pieces of legislation and these reforms. I remember all those emails coming in when we were having the equal marriage debate, but the next day, as the hon. Member for Wallasey said, the sky had not fallen in, and most people cannot even believe that 10 years ago LGBT people could not get married. That is what we need to do to spread the gospel, as it were.

The hon. Lady also mentioned how far we have come on HIV and AIDS. Given the topic of this year’s history month, it is important to talk about that. She rightly said we are all aware of the scars that the HIV and AIDS crisis left on so many in the LGBT community and on their friends and family, and sadly we lost far too many. Thanks to the advancement of medicine, HIV is a preventable and treatable condition that is no longer seen as the death sentence it once was. Instead, it is easily manageable, and people can live long, happy lives post diagnosis. That is why I am pleased that we have committed to investing more than £4.5 million in our national prevention programme and to ending new HIV transmissions and AIDS and HIV-related deaths in England by 2030. It is an ambitious target, but we are on course for it.

Great progress has already been made through our national HIV action plan. NHS England has committed £20 million to expand opt-out HIV testing in emergency departments in local areas with the highest prevalence of HIV levels. That has helped identify more than 1,000 people with untreated or undiagnosed HIV in the first 21 months, which is truly fantastic. The message still needs to be that people need to keep testing, because the sooner someone is diagnosed, the sooner they can get treatment and live that happy and normal life.

I will move on to the issue of conversion practices—my favourite part. Hon. Members will know my personal views on the matter, and I am pleased to say there is a consensus among the vast majority that no one in this country should be harmed or harassed for who they are, and that extends to the threat of conversion practices. I want to make it clear that attempts at so-called conversion therapy are abhorrent. To stand up for LGBT people, it is key that we end any practice that falsely claims to cure or change a person’s identity. We are clear on our stance that such practices are harmful and simply do not work. That is why we are still committed to publishing a draft Bill on this topic for pre-legislative scrutiny soon. That will include targeting efforts to change someone from or to being transgender. It is a sensitive area and one of great debate. I have always wanted to do this, but even I have recognised that there are challenges, and I have to be honest about that.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) for the considered way he presented his Bill. I am sorry that I was not there; I was at a ministerial meeting in Glasgow. As I say, I recognise the considerable effort he took in drafting the Bill and know that he did that with criticism from both sides of the argument. The Government still want to introduce their own Bill, and that is why there was that decision to oppose it. The Government have rightly taken time to carefully consider the issues and ensure that our Bill is as robust as possible. Moreover, it is right and proper that the Government present it for pre-legislative scrutiny, so that we can have a further safeguard, ensuring that it does what we expect it to do.

In the meantime, I am keen to remind the House that the Government fund a victims support service, run by the anti-violence charity Galop. That enables those at risk of or undergoing conversion practices to report their situation and access tailored support and guidance. I keep repeating that because I want people to know that there is somewhere they can go to get help should they need it.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I know how difficult it is for a Minister to get the entire Government to agree to do what they want them to do, when they want them to do it. However, that formulation of words has been used many times and we are coming to the end of the Parliament now. Can the Minister give us even a hint of whether this Bill will appear at all, or will we have to wait until after the general election?

[Stuart Andrew]

As I said, it is our intention to publish a draft Bill, but I cannot give a specific date. The hon. Lady helpfully outlined some of the challenges she faced as a Minister. I assure her that it is our intention to publish a draft for scrutiny. Equally, I have heard the message from my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington and others, and I will certainly relay that.

All Members have mentioned the issue of violence and hate crime, which is incredibly important. We are aware that, sadly, many LGBT people in the UK and across the world still experience violence and discrimination just because of who they are. The sentencing following the horrific murder of Brianna Ghey recognised that her death was caused in part by hostility towards her transgender identity. Once again, I send my condolences to her family, and I hope that no other families have to endure what they have had to go through.

We expect the police to prosecute the perpetrators of violence and the courts to consider the aggravating factors when determining sentences, in line with our hate crime legislation. We have been doing more to tackle hate crime head on. We have made hate crime a priority offence in the Online Safety Act 2023, and under new legal duties of care, technology companies must prevent, identify and remove illegal content and activity online. That means that illegal content, including content that incites hate on the grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation, will be removed quickly when it appears. However, I recognise that this is still a worrying time. Since the many attacks last summer, I have made it a priority to meet the Metropolitan police and others to understand what they are doing to make people feel supported during the process of reporting crimes, and not like they are the ones being grilled.

I will end by sharing how proud I am to stand in this House, to represent my constituency and to hold my ministerial positions as an openly gay man. We must remind ourselves how far we have come in progressing LGBT rights, but we must remember that we have some way to go. The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) referred to the footballer Zander Murray. As the Sports Minister, I am acutely aware that for many in the LGBT community, sport can sometimes feel intimidating. That is why making it more inclusive and welcoming as part of our strategy is a personal priority.

I hope that we can all take away the importance of remembering all those who came before us—all the LGBT people who made great contributions to the world around them, but were sadly forced to hide who they truly were, were never accepted or even persecuted for their true identity. Looking ahead, I look forward to the invaluable contributions of LGBT people that we are yet to see. If this year’s theme of LGBT History Month shows us anything, it is that LGBT people can make changes that better the lives of all of us.

15:14

[Elliot Colburn]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship at the end of this debate, Mr Robertson. I thank all participants, but particularly the co-chair of my APPG, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle): I just assumed that she must be right hon. I am incredibly grateful for her friendship and diligent work in this area as we co-chair the APPG. I have been very lucky to share that privilege with her. It has been great for us to bring this issue to the House again today.

I do not want to make the Minister feel even older, but I want to end on the point hon. Member for Wallasey made, that younger LGBT+ people have perhaps taken their rights for granted. As someone who was born in 1992—apologies to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake)—I think that can sometimes be true. I am glad to say that I was very lucky. My school was very progressive in that sense, and I had a great childhood. I did not necessarily come up against some of the barriers that those who came before us did.

It is important for us to remember that we should continue to fight together. If we allow them to remove the trans from the rest of the LGB community, they will come after us next. If we allow them to come after us next, they will surely go after women’s reproductive rights and other human rights. We know that these things are intertwined. It is all heading in the same direction: the eradication of certain hard-fought and hard-won rights. I am grateful to the Minister for his considered response. I know that in him we have a friend, as the Government’s chief gay, as it were. I appreciate him taking the time to respond to this debate today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered LGBT History Month.

15:16

Sitting adjourned.