Chechnya: LGBT Citizens

Debate between Lord Alli and Baroness Anelay of St Johns

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the Chechen Republic is a federal subject of the Russian Federation and comes under the authority of the Russian Government in Moscow, so with regard to issues in Chechnya the buck stops with President Putin. With regard to wider issues across Russia, we believe that the situation for LGBT people has deteriorated since the law banning the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations among minors was passed in June 2013. It is a very worrying situation.

[Lord Alli]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for all the work she has done and the support she has given to this cause, in particular her statement of 7 April. In that statement, she made clear that she was calling on the Russian Government to investigate these allegations promptly. The Minister quite rightly says that since then the Chechen President has threatened to “eliminate”—eliminate—all gay men and members of the LGBT community by the start of Ramadan, on 26 May. The Russian LGBT Network has been on the front line of trying to protect gay men in Chechnya, but so far the Russian authorities have refused to launch any formal investigation into the testimonies they have collected. May I ask the Minister to continue to put pressure on the Russian authorities to start the investigation into those testimonies? If they will not do so, will the UK, EU or UN do more to highlight the testimonies from those who are being persecuted?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes extremely valid points. I commit us to continuing to work on these matters throughout purdah, during which we can still do things, wholly within the rules, to uphold existing policy. I give him an assurance on that. It will be for a new Government to look at how they wish to act through co-operation across the international community, in both the Human Rights Council and the United Nations Security Council, but I would hope that any Government would wish to follow that course.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Lord Alli and Baroness Anelay of St Johns

Monday 24th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alli]

My Lords, the amendment is boring to most because it deals with pensions issues, but important to some because it deals with what happens to their loved ones once they have gone.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Alli, is being very courteous in hesitating a while. If I intervene for long enough, that may have the effect of clearing the Chamber almost altogether, and then we will have a little peace and quiet for him to present his amendment.

[Lord Alli]

My Lords, this amendment is about addressing an inequality in pensions in relation to survivor benefits that will affect a small number of people in a very unfair way.

Let me try to explain. The Equality Act allows occupational pension providers to ignore the service and contributions of gay employees prior to 2005 when it comes to paying out survivor benefits to civil partners. This stemmed from an original exemption in the Civil Partnership Act that I argued against at that time. This Bill would see the same thing happen to same-sex spouses.

I will say from the outset that the majority of occupational pension schemes have ignored this provision and pay out fully to survivors. They do this because they believe it to be fair and I recognise that and thank them for it. However, there are those that do not. Their reason is mostly cost. This is odd, as the Office for National Statistics calculates that it would cost only £18 million to the private sector.

In a past career, I was the publisher of a magazine with the snappy title of Pensions. In case your Lordships are interested, I also published Planned Savings, Insurance Age, The Savings Market and a statistical compendium called Rateguide. So I am pretty confident that no pension provider can accurately predict how many individuals within a pension scheme will be gay, how many will marry under this Bill when it becomes law or become civil partners and how many will outlive their partners, husbands or wives by a significant period. I am also pretty confident that for the one-third of schemes that do not pay out, the actuaries who run the numbers probably have already built in the additional costs associated with this amendment. Pensions actuaries—and I have met many of them—deal constantly in uncertainties around the length of life, the possibility of illness, the number of scheme members who are likely to marry and many more issues. Given that two-thirds of schemes already do, I do not understand why we cannot insist that the rest treat same-sex couples who marry in exactly the same way as heterosexual couples who marry. They have all paid in the same pension contributions.

I know from the other place that the Government think that this is a matter for the schemes themselves. However, in debating amendment after amendment we have discussed the rights of those who disagree with same-sex marriages to be able to do so, and we have resisted giving public servants the right to pick and choose what services they will give to whom based upon their deeply held beliefs. That is effectively what we would be doing here with employers and pension scheme trustees—we would be allowing pension fund trustees who genuinely believe same-sex marriage to be wrong to have the right to create two classes of spouses in their schemes. This legislation would permit it.

If we were not dealing with pensions, which are boring and complicated, but some other form of service, we would not allow this to happen. The cost to the Government is nothing. These changes were made for the public sector in 2004. I ask the Minister not to let the subject matter perpetuate an injustice into this Bill that is completely unnecessary. It is not a huge issue—£18 million does not set the world alight, but it is a kindness that we can give to a few people at the most difficult time in their life. I cannot demand that the noble Baroness do something about it; I can only ask, with the sincerity of those who have asked me to take up this issue, to take it away and see if we can do something about it. We should have solved this issue in 2004. The party opposite probably should have done so in 2010. People have waited far too long for the compassion that they deserve. I hope that we might find that in this Bill. I beg to move.