Conversion Therapy Prohibition (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) Bill [HL]

Earl Russell Excerpts

Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I speak in favour of this Bill; indeed, I would speak in favour of any Bill that outlaws abusive practices. As I see it, conversion therapy is happening, and it is harmful. It is long overdue that this practice be made illegal. I support this Bill, brought to the House by my noble friend Lady Burt, and I support a ban on conversion therapy. This is about ending degrading and inhuman treatment; it is about ending coercion and abuse. The idea that conversion therapy is a thing of the past and that it is not happening any more is just not correct. The idea that all harmful and damaging practices are already illegal under existing legislation is similarly just not correct.

Theresa May’s Government undertook a national survey in 2017 to gather information about the experiences of LGBT+ people. Of the 108,000 participants, the survey found that 2.4% of respondents had undergone conversion therapy and 5% had been offered it. In the introduction to the Government’s consultation, published in December 2022, the then Secretary of State said:

“we have identified gaps that allow other types of conversion therapy to continue. Having identified these gaps in the law, we are determined to close them”.

The Minister promised to deliver a ban as quickly as possible, saying,

“we will be preparing a draft bill for spring 2022”,

and adding, rightly, that

“it is the view of the government that one incident of conversion therapy is too many”.

Yet nothing to date has been delivered.

The harms these practices can cause individuals are severe. One 2020 study found that people who had undergone conversion therapy were twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts, and 75% more likely to plan a suicide attempt. Similarly, A UN expert on sexual orientation and gender identity has said that conversion therapy “may amount to torture” and has called for a global ban. Many countries have already banned it, including France, Canada and New Zealand. It is possible; we can find a way forward and agreed wording. Harm is taking place, and that harm cannot be ignored any longer. We have a duty of care—a duty to prevent unnecessary suffering.

A ban is long overdue. The Government have failed to deliver a ban to the promised timescale. This Bill seeks to move the debate forward. It seeks to make it an offence for any person to practise, or offer to practise, conversion therapy. The definition in this Bill—or any Bill—should be sensible and not cast the net too wide, nor restrict others’ rights to freedoms. It should set a high bar. Again, we are talking about banning coercion and abuse, nothing else. The Bill should not prevent legitimate professional health advice being given. It should not prevent conversations about gender identity. It should not tell people what to say or what they can believe. It should not restrict religious freedoms.

If this Government do not like the wording in this Bill, I call on them to bring forward an alternative Bill with alternative wording, so that this can be carried forward. This is about preventing harm. We must work together. This Bill is just one attempt, but we need to build a consensus, as this issue needs to be addressed. It is about finally delivering the change that the LGBT+ community have every right to expect. They have a right to demand it when it is not forthcoming. Time and again, the Government have broken their promise to deliver this ban. Five years on, we cannot afford to waste more time. I call on the Minister to listen to the strength of feeling in the House and for the Government themselves to take forward measures, in consultation with others across this House, so that we can find a way forward.

Succession to Peerages and Baronetcies Bill [HL]

Earl Russell Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I too must declare a personal interest in these matters. I am the seventh Earl Russell, and the last. My wife gave birth to two beautiful daughters, of whom I am very proud, and I have no male heirs or direct relatives. To be clear, I do not speak in favour of the continuation of the right of hereditary Peers to have a place in your Lordships’ House. I would vote in favour of my own abolition, as my father before me did.

No one wants to be the last of their own line. This is about a separate right for me to have a family life and to continue my family heritage. I will speak in favour of the Bill, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, for bringing it forward. I note the argument he made about the need for this to happen in stages. I thank others, both in Parliament and outside, who have campaigned for change on these issues. The Bill is a welcome step, and I support it as it allows women to inherit where there is no male heir. That is not possible at all under current legislation.

However, Clause 1(4) would establish that male heirs would be given preference in succeeding to the title over female heirs. It states:

“Within each group of siblings, males in order of birth and their issue are entitled to succeed before females in order of birth and their issue”.


Here I argue, as the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has, in favour of the absolute need for women to have an equal right to inherit a peerage and the need for the Government to enact their own legislation to correct this quirk of history. I am aware that there are many other more pressing issues that the Government face, and it is easy for me to look overprivileged and self-centred in these matters. I make my case with some humility for the Government to take a step further to fully enable the right of female succession.

First, this is the right thing to do. This is the last dusty corner of sexism in a now much-changed and evolved modern world. Also, it is having real political impact. Today, according to my bad maths, some 11.6% of this upper Chamber is reserved exclusively for men and is occupied by them alone. I am here because I was born a man of my father. I love this place and am honoured to be here, but, at the same time, I feel embarrassed, frankly, to be the holder of a position that is reserved only for men. Now I am here, it is only right for me to call for equality for others.

Secondly, this is a relatively easy fix for the Government. Penny Mordaunt promised this a long time ago, and I do not think it is an overly complex or arduous task for the Government to achieve.

Thirdly, as others have said, it is likely that, at some point sooner or later, a legal case, either in our jurisdiction or in the European court, will end up making these changes. I kindly ask the Government to consider bringing forward their own legislation to take these matters forward.

Industrial Strategy

Earl Russell Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rosenfield, on his maiden speech and the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Wyre Forest, on bringing this debate.

Our economy is largely stagnant, and productivity remains poor. This is harming living standards. The UK does not have a coherent industrial strategy. Lots of changes have caused uncertainty. We need a green industrial strategy to support the future green economy. Markets need certainty in political outlook and an industrial strategy to have confidence to invest, and we need huge levels of private investment.

On green issues, Rishi’s change of course has been hugely damaging to our place as a green world leader and to UK plc. Industry is now wondering if we are still a safe partner for large-scale green investments. Ministers tell me that this is the greenest Government ever. I recognise the scale of the ambition but, time and time again, their plans for implementation are not happening at speed and to scale.

The anti-green rhetoric grows ever louder as we approach the election—a convenient stick to beat the Labour Party with but not necessarily good for the UK. Labour responds by putting up its flagship £28 billion green pledge as a sacrificial lamb almost daily. We need to stop playing politics with the environment. The next industrial revolution, if there is to be one at all, must be green.

The UK is near the bottom of the table in the G7 for investment and the outlook is bleak. We are predicted to see a decline in investment from 2.6% of GDP in 2023-24 to a predicted 1.8% in 2028-29.

The EU, America and China have all made huge green investments. China developed more solar power last year than the rest of the world did in the whole of 2022. Instead of investing £78 billion in burning more fossil fuels, as we have been with the price cap and other measures over the last two years, we could have invested in renewables, creating long-term energy security and jobs. We must also invest in energy efficiency. Our interconnectors are out of date, we have a lack of storage and our homes are not fit for purpose in terms of energy.

The transition to a green economy is an opportunity to enhance productivity and create new growth, jobs and private investment. Jürgen Maier, the former UK head of Siemens, said yesterday that massive investment is needed to rebuild the UK economy and make it fit for the future, and that it should concentrate on low-carbon energy, transport, and industry. He said:

“These are the growth areas of the future”.

Extreme Weather: Resilience

Earl Russell Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I very much echo what the noble Baroness said about the emergency services and all who are involved in this. Indeed, without the changes we have made and the effort they put in, these recent storms would have caused much more damage and perhaps more loss of life, so that is very good news.

The COBRA system, which the noble Baroness mentions, is of course already baked into standing cross-government flooding response mechanisms, as the last tier of escalation for the most severe flood events. These mechanisms are stood up to support the operational response at local level, which is obviously necessitated by the increasingly sophisticated weather warnings that we see coming through from the Met Office. We managed well across the country on this occasion and the COBRA unit in the Cabinet Office—the ministerial unit—was not needed. That does not mean to say that officials did not get together. They worked well across the country with local people and the devolved Administrations. In some sense, it is a success that it was unnecessary to have the full COBRA ministerial meeting on this occasion. I have referenced the future resilience work that we are doing. We have brought these much better co-ordination systems into the Cabinet Office and work very closely with Defra, which is responsible for building up long-term flood protection. We have also invested a lot of capital in recent years. There is £5.2 billion available for flood defence projects, which I think is a doubling on the previous period.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Statement. I join her and the Labour Benches in offering our condolences for all those who lost their lives, and in thanking the emergency services for everything that they do. UK winters are getting warmer and wetter; there is a lot of variation year to year, but winter rainfall has increased by 27% overall since records began in 1837. The impacts of climate change are here now. The NAO report Resilience to Flooding found that the Government do not have clearly defined targets or an effective strategy in place for making the UK resilient to extreme weather. They do not even track or evaluate spending on resilience to extreme weather. When do the Government plan to publish an extreme weather strategy, to include defined targets, risk assessments, and measures of outcomes?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank the noble Earl. I am glad he mentioned the NAO report, because it did welcome the work that had been done—I know this has been welcomed across the House—on setting up the Resilience Directorate and, indeed, publishing the resilience framework in 2022. Setting appropriate targets and ambitions for the level of flood resilience—in particular, for critical infrastructure because that is a key part—is part of the Government’s broader thinking on resilience standards.

There are more than 100 risk priorities in our risk register; we are working on all of these and have committed to create by 2030 common but flexible resilience standards right across critical national infrastructure, as well as across the private sector more broadly. One of the lessons of the storms we are seeing is that it is important to work with the private sector as well. One reason that people have been less affected has been the improvements that have been made in power, transport, trains and the rest—partly having early warning, partly working together, and partly having this sense of mission that we must try to respond to the warmer, wetter winters and the arrival of a certain element of Mediterranean weather in our beautiful island, as the noble Earl said.

Climate Change

Earl Russell Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I rise to speak very aware of the history of this great Chamber, and very aware of my small part in the narrative. I am honoured to be a Member of this House and I wish to thank everyone, particularly the doorkeepers, who have made me so welcome.

Thank you for the kind words I have received about my father, Conrad. I know he is still remembered, particularly for his unique historical and constitutional knowledge. If I might share with your Lordships: one of his proudest moments was when, during one very late-night sitting, he out-quoted the Bishops one by one with the Bible.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for bringing this important debate forward. I am passionate about the environment. My commitment and care come from my personal experience of adventure, long-distance walking and a love of wild places. Climate change is happening now. It is real and it is truly frightening. No longer the stuff of dystopian films, it is our present reality.

I recognise the work the Government have done to date, and the ambitions they have set to be a global leader and to reach UK net zero by 2050. However, all the present political mood music is pessimistic. The Government’s new climate adaption programme does not go far enough. The Government are on course to miss every target to hit net zero, according to their own advisers. This month, we heard that the Government plan to drop their own flagship £11.6 billion climate and nature funding pledge.

Halting climate change at 1.5 degrees Celsius has passed, and 2 degrees Celsius may be passed as well. On current trends, the world will be 2.8 degrees warmer by the end of this century. We do not know where the ultimate tipping points are, but we know that we are getting way too close. The one thing we do not have is time. In the words of Bill McKibben:

“If we do not win very quickly on climate change, then we will never win ... It’s what makes it different from every other problem our political systems have faced”.


The questions of what to do and how we fight for our common survival must be addressed and solutions found and implemented with utmost urgency. We have to adapt our ways of life, our cities, our transport systems, simply for our society to continue to function and survive. We must have hope and inspire confidence that change is possible. The costs of adaption and of preventing climate change may be high, but the costs and consequences of not doing so will be higher still. The UK cost of net zero is estimated to be around £10 billion per year. UK GDP is £3.1 trillion per year: we can afford to do this.

Systems must be found to distribute costs equitably, both within individual countries and within the international system. We can change. We can accept that solutions are global, not state-centric, and that survival is collective not individual. We can set aside our short-term national and political self-interests and work collectively for the survival of all humanity. Internationally, much more must be done urgently to encourage and leverage international finance to pay for adaption in developing countries. We must continue to conduct international climate research to better understand our climate systems. The UK must join Europe’s Horizon programme.

Big companies and businesses must adapt: they will be part of the solutions we need for a functioning society. The biggest polluters must be held accountable. We must give nature and the ecosystem an economic value and assign it worth. We need a new economics and a global green economy. We must pay to start reversing climate change now, or we will pay more and we may not be able to stop runaway climate change later. We must fight for a secure future for humanity.