LGBTI: Human Rights Conference

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My noble friend is right to raise this. The UK Government believe that laws to criminalise consensual same-sex relations are wrong and should be changed and this underpins the work that we do, both as Ministers and throughout our posts around the world. We have, of course, carried out a lot of lobbying on this and I am very pleased to see that Mozambique recently changed its penal code so that “acts against nature”, which had previously been widely interpreted as homosexuality, have now been decriminalised.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

Would the Minister say that there were some positive results from the recent Commonwealth conference, and will she ensure that those who go to the next conference take those positive results with them?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

Indeed. That is a very important point. Both my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, David Cameron, and my noble friend Lady Verma, the DfID Minister, raised these issues at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. In fact, my noble friend Lady Verma held a side event on these very issues. I have undertaken to take these matters forward at the Human Rights Council and in the United Nations.