Visas: Certificates of Sponsorship

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

What I can do for my noble friend is check up on the advice that is given, but I am sure we are looking around this issue. I am sure that the advice is clear: we do not want artists who enrich our lives and our society to be impeded in any way.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

Will the Minister agree to consult with the talent unions such as the Musicians’ Union and Equity, which are often consulted on and engaged in the international exchange of talent?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I know that the Government have been engaging with the sector. I shall double-check with the talent unions and if they have not been engaged with I shall make that suggestion.

LGBT Action Plan: Gender Recognition

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register of interests and particularly thank Stonewall, Mermaids and the United Kingdom Lesbian & Gay Immigration Group for their advice. It is a delight to follow the wonderful introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and I thank him for initiating this important debate. As he started to outline, it gives us an opportunity to address the dangerous vacuum created by the failure to bring forward earlier the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act. Into this vacuum has crept myth, misrepresentation, hatred and the defamation of trans people, in particular trans women. It is therefore vital that, during consultation on the Gender Recognition Act, we move the debate back to facts and evidence.

I also unreservedly congratulate all those involved in the production of the action plan, in particular those rarely noticed: the civil servants. The action plan is based on the LGBT survey, which attracted more than 108,000 responses, making it the largest national LGBT survey in the world, but the survey shows that the fight for equality is far from over and in some areas—for example, the experience of hate crime—the progress made is being reversed. The survey paints a picture of a country where, despite almost legal equality for LGBT people, they still cannot be themselves. I say that in a personal capacity as a gay man.

Many face discrimination and live in fear of being harassed, outed or bullied. They are often unsafe on our streets and in their homes. In schools, they face bullying, misrepresentation and outing and feel marginalised in sex and relationship education. In that regard, faith schools should not be allowed to opt out of including LGBT in sex and relationship education. In the NHS, their physical and mental health needs are not properly serviced by the NHS or its practitioners.

The Government are justly proud of recent milestones, such as the same-sex marriage Act 2013, where a pivotal and dynamic role was played by the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone; the Policing and Crime Act; and Turing’s law. We must also acknowledge the work undertaken from 1997 by Labour Governments—I do not say this in a partisan way—which helped transform this country into a much more equal and accepting place.

Above all, we must recognise that the rights that we enjoy today are because of the sacrifices of thousands of generations. Therefore, despite the plan, I believe that we can do more. The action programme needs to be better funded and the Government should address reform of the way LGBT asylum seekers are treated in the United Kingdom. Equally, they should commit to roll out PrEP to high-risk groups throughout England.

There is a danger that inequality could continue and that devolution will become the excuse for doing nothing. It is simply not good enough to allow parts of the United Kingdom to opt out from equality. Same-sex marriage and a woman’s right to an abortion are both denied in Northern Ireland. This cannot be right and must be urgently addressed. The provisions in the Policing and Crime Act to extend pardons and disregards of historic sexual offences must not be held up any longer. I look forward to my meeting with the Minister, but it is now 19 months and we are no further forward. All reforms are complicated, but I once again ask the Minister to produce a timetable to achieve these provisions and ensure that those affected can finally secure justice.

The Ministry of Defence must address posthumous pardons for historic homosexual offences. Professor Paul Johnson of York has supplied a comprehensive draft to the Ministry of Defence, but there is still no action.

On gender recognition, Stonewall and the Mermaids organisation remain concerned at the omission of any specific question relating to trans people under the age of 18 in the consultation document. Other key objectives for reform are: self-determination of legal gender identity, similar to systems successfully in place in Norway, Ireland and Argentina; legal recognition of non-binary identities; and the same processes for 16 and 17 year-olds, with access to recognition for under-16s with—I underline this— parental consent.

We must not forget older LGBT people, in particular when they need social or residential care. Of particular concern are those older gay and bisexual men who are HIV positive and may go into residential care homes. The stigmatisation and discrimination that they face has been well documented by the Terrence Higgins Trust, and it demands urgent action.

We need to ask ourselves why so many young homeless people are LGBT—often shunned by their families and friends when they come out, so the street becomes their final yet dangerous refuge. On this, too, we need urgent action.

Let me end on this. We must always remember that we as a society are only as equal as the least favoured or the least understood. We advance together or we do not advance at all.

Registration of Marriage Bill [HL]

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 29th June 2018 Lords Chamber

Meanwhile, I seek clarification that in future, following the passing of the Bill, the children of same-sex marriages will be able to include the names of both their parents. I beg to move.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly in favour of this amendment and the eloquent way it was introduced into your Lordships’ House. The principle of equality must surely be embraced by us all, particularly in the words of my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester. Including people within families, including children within families, and the registration thereof, is something upon which I hope all of us will agree.

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, I supported the Bill at Second Reading. We had a good debate, but it was made quite clear that for the Bill to have the best chance of reaching the statute book, it had to leave your Lordships’ House unamended—apart from the technical amendments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. I have great sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, said and I am very glad that he does not seek to press this, because I think it would be very wrong if we were to lose the best opportunity to right the long-established wrong that the Bill addresses by seeking to address another, equally important matter. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to give the noble Lord the reassurance that he seeks and that therefore there will be no need to amend this important and long overdue Bill.

Homosexual Activities: Pardons

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Cashman]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they plan to commence the provisions in the Policing and Crime Act 2017 to implement pardons and disregards for homosexual activities which are no longer crimes.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and refer noble Lords to my entry in the register of interests.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to tackling the historic wrongs suffered by gay and bisexual men and are actively considering with partners possible extensions to the list of offences eligible for a disregard or pardon in line with commitments made during the passage of the Policing and Crime Act 2017.

[Lord Cashman]

My Lords, before responding, I congratulate the Government on flying the LGBT rainbow flag from government buildings on this, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. I cannot help but reflect that the country is a very different place from the one where, 30 years ago, Section 28 was introduced.

I know that the noble Baroness is deeply committed—and so, too, are officials—but I am extremely frustrated that, 17 months ago, this House passed provisions to enable the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 to be amended so as to extend the disregard scheme in England and Wales. These provisions have not been used and, as a consequence, gay and bisexual men continue to live with convictions and criminal records, which blight their lives and futures, and for which there is a human cost. Therefore, will the Government use the power that they have to end the misery still inflicted by old homophobic laws and set up a task force to address these provisions? Will the Minister commit to return to the House with a timetable to implement the provisions?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As the noble Lord knows, I totally share his frustration. I also note that he has spotted the flags flying on government buildings today for what is strangely known as IDAHOBIT day—the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. I also share the anxiety that there are still people today who are being discriminated against and losing their job because of discrimination. As he knows, we abhor discrimination of any kind. He knows that I am pressing for a parliamentary timetable, and I want to continue to work with him in terms of looking at those laws—some of which are more complex than others—to try to disaggregate and deal with some of the outstanding matters.

Public Sector Pay Cap

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I join my voice to those who are calling for the public sector pay cap of 1% to be lifted. I apologise in advance to my noble friend Lord Haskel in that I think that I will generate heat rather than shed light. I have read the debates in another place and elsewhere, and I find it infuriating to read time and again praise rightly heaped on our public service workers, only to be followed by myriad excuses for not paying them properly or rewarding them even adequately for the work that they do on our behalf. As Shakespeare rightly wrote in King Lear,

“Nothing will come of nothing”.


My fear is that we will continue to drive people away from working in our public services, we will exhaust their good will and their vocational qualities, and we will witness public services suffering as a result. The people who work in all our public services are the weave and fibre that hold our society and our different communities together. In extremis, we rightly recognise and applaud them, but let us remember, too, that they undertake their work day in, day out, often unseen, unnoticed and unrecognised, and sometimes pilloried by a judgmental press when things and matters go awry—never more so in the case of social workers, the brunt of tabloid attacks, stereotyping and misrepresentation. Social workers are often called upon to weave the fabric of society back together.

Public sector workers operate in extremely difficult circumstances and often with diminishing departmental budgets. They work unsociable hours and carry out unsociable work that many others would not undertake. Sadly, I have witnessed at first hand when the workforce feels unrewarded, unnoticed and demotivated, when that public service crumbles into dysfunctionality.

So I call on the Government to be magnanimous and lift the 1% pay cap. We can afford it, and we can find the means, as my noble friend Lord Haskel said—and if we cannot, we must ask ourselves why. Why do we demand world-class, vital public services and expect them on the cheap? We must step up to the plate and reward our public service workers instead of relying on their good will, good faith and sense of public duty. That means a commitment to fair pay rises, too. We must no longer try and do things on the cheap. Failure to take action now, and to signal that we will match praise with financial commitment, will inflict long-lasting damage on our public services across the board.

HIV and AIDS

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, before I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the all-party parliamentary group under the chairmanship of Pamela Nash, I want to make a personal statement of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. As a gay man growing up in the 1980s, I think many people on other continents and some in this country thought that we were a group of people who were expendable, but because of the noble Lord’s courage, leadership and determination, we were not seen to be so in this country. There are generations of gay men, lesbians and men who have sex with men, not only here but elsewhere, who owe the noble Lord a deep debt of gratitude, and I am privileged to echo something which, if they had the opportunity to do so, they would say.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for securing this important debate and for her speech, and I will try not to repeat some of the things she has said, but sadly for noble Lords I will repeat much of what the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, has said. Unbeknown to me as I sat down and wrote my speech earlier today, the themes are the same: human rights and civil liberties are at the very core of what we do.

Perhaps I may say, as I have on numerous occasions since I joined your Lordships’ House just over a year ago, that given my experience working with NGOs and UNAIDS and my time as a member of the Committee on Development of the European Parliament, I remain deeply concerned about the Government’s decision to direct ODA away from countries which they define as “middle income” countries. In so doing, and by insisting that the Global Fund should also control and curtail its work in middle-income countries, decades of work and investment in those countries are undermined. Once again, that places marginalised communities and vulnerable key populations, along with women and children, at risk. If we are seriously to make AIDS and HIV history, we will not do so by scaling back our work and our commitments, especially when using such questionable factors as GNI to define general income levels, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. South Africa, a country I know only too well, along with India, are two countries where our approach is unhelpful, to say the least.

Outlined in the excellent material supplied by the House of Lords Library, I note—and, sadly, must confirm that I am deeply alarmed and worried about—the criminalisation of homosexuality in parts of Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific and Asia, as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, referred to. These attacks are on fundamental human rights, which in turn affects access to treatment, increases the transmission of the HIV virus, and piles on greater harm with stigma and discrimination, and that it is often done in the name of religious belief is even worse. Those people of all people, preaching tolerance and understanding, should extend it and not control it or rein it in. However, in this regard I welcome the announcement of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury—Justin Welby—who said that he hoped the Anglican community could lead the argument for decriminalisation of homosexuality worldwide. That is not a direct quote. However, I am deeply concerned at the sanctions against the United States Episcopal Church for its open and liberal attitude to homosexuality and its acceptance of same-sex marriage.

My concerns are also, as I said, for other vulnerable groups—men who have sex with men, trans women and trans men, sex workers, women and young children. Access to healthcare, access to medicines and early testing are absolutely necessary if we are to continue the battle against HIV/AIDS, ignorance and stigma. Every year I take the trouble to have myself tested for HIV, and it is incredibly shameful that so many men and women still fail to do so.

We need to create a global research and development fund, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, referred to, and transparency, as she said, is key. Where is the funding coming from? Are we robbing HIV/AIDS Peter to pay Paul? We need to invest our way out of this crisis and prepare for the challenges of the future. We need to give access to first-line antiretrovirals and second and third-line treatments. If we ask people to test for HIV, we must assure them that they will receive treatment throughout their lives.

We have seen great progress, but there is much more to be done. There is a new epidemic among men who have sex with men, and it is vital that we make available the preventive method. I can see that the Whip is getting slightly agitated on the Front Bench, so I will move to my conclusion.

Will the Minister outline the plans her department has to ensure that key populations in middle-income countries are not forgotten and are not left behind? Furthermore, can she assure me that the Government will not prevent the Global Fund operating in so-called middle-income countries? I thank your Lordships.

Sustainable Development Goals: HIV

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Cashman]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in order to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, how they plan to invest in key populations in middle-income countries where it is expected that by 2020, 70 per cent of people living with HIV will live.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Verma) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK is proud to be the second largest international funder of HIV prevention, care and treatment. We have pledged up to £1 billion to the Global Fund and £9 million to support key population groups through the Robert Carr civil society Networks Fund. The UK’s support to the Global Fund will prevent approximately 8.4 million new malaria, HIV and TB infections.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. Today is World AIDS Day. AIDS is the biggest killer of women of reproductive age. AIDS is the second-biggest killer of adolescents. In 2014, 1.2 million people died of an HIV/AIDS-related illness. There are 36.9 million people living with HIV, and most people living with HIV are in middle-income countries. Therefore, it is vital that when addressing the possible withdrawal of programmes and funding from middle-income countries, the Government look at indicators other than the blunt instrument of GNI.

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting: Human Rights

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

The noble Baroness raises some important points. We have to make sure that no space is created where freedom of speech is not allowed. The UK Government raise this issue regularly as a matter of course. Wherever we can, we will make sure that all countries, including Bangladesh, that are closing the space for freedom of speech address these issues so that the Commonwealth meets its commitment to the Commonwealth charter.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, the criminalisation of homosexuality is a relic of our colonial past. Forty out of 53 Commonwealth countries criminalise homo- sexuality. At CHOGM, will the Government advocate and promote the decriminalisation of homosexuality within the Commonwealth, support those countries that have already done so and express regret for the UK’s historic role in the global criminalisation of homosexuality?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord to his post on the Front Bench and I look forward to working with him, particularly in this area. At CHOGM, I will be chairing the round table on LGBT issues. It is absolutely unacceptable in the 21st century that we are still looking at these issues, but we have to do it with sensitivity. We have to work with countries where these are sensitive issues and make sure that we continue to raise them while also working locally on the ground, with grass-roots organisations, to offer help and support.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Friday 6th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but I want to introduce a degree of realism that is somewhat missing. The comparisons that he is making, and where they are being made, bear no relation to the suffering and needs of people in other parts of the world. No matter how we dress these words up, outside this House it will be read as an intention to deny and delay the very projects and needs which the poorest of the world are calling out for. Think only of this: not of the child that needs to go to bed with food in its stomach but of the woman who loses her life and her child in childbirth because not enough money is going into that maternity service. Think of that and then choose your words.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for making my argument, because if he really is concerned about these people, he will be concerned about what the NAO report says.

[Lord Cashman]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I will, if I may, reply to the noble Lord’s noble friend first. This is the National Audit Office. It has no partisan view. Its report says that rescheduling had to take place, leading to,

“£250 million … of planned activity”—

meaning the very people the noble Lord is talking about—being moved from the first three months of 2014 into 2014-15. It was delayed. The NAO claims that the rescheduling,

“is likely to have delayed some of the benefits those activities were designed to provide”.

If the noble Lord is sincere in what he is saying, as I am sure he is, he is on my side of this argument.

[Lord Cashman]

I am again grateful to the noble Lord, and this, I promise your Lordships, will be my last intervention, but with all due respect he cannot represent my argument and I do not believe that he ever could. Audits are there to look at something through a particular lens. The economic arguments that we have heard have been dressed up as an exact science. If that is so, I would be interested to hear why economists and certain Treasuries have got it wrong for so long. At the heart of the debate is making sure that commitments that we have made globally are met and that we imagine that we are the poorest, not that we sit in this noble House and go home and afford ourselves the services that we do. I will not intervene again but, with all due respect to the noble Lord, he does not and could not make my arguments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tugendhat]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak a second time, but I feel that I cannot allow the words of the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, to go unanswered. I and a number of other noble Lords have made it clear that we support the British aid programme and its objectives and we understand that DfID is a very good administrator in these fields. The suggestion that in trying to improve the Bill one is in some way trying to deny the needy or trying to take food from the hungry is quite unjustified. I very much hope that he was not uttering those words in a personal sense.

Let me continue, because there has been a certain amount of moral indignation, which I find very difficult to take. Noble Lords, including two former Chancellors of the Exchequer and a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury—I am a former Budget Commissioner in the EU and have had a lot to do with large expenditure programmes in the private sector and the public sector—owe it to the House to draw on our experience to seek to improve the legislation that comes before us. I recognise that, as my noble friend Lord Fowler says, we are in a minority. I also recognise that although the Economic Affairs Committee, which is made up of members from all parties, reached a unanimous conclusion, its view is in a minority in this House.

However, the fact that one is in a minority does not mean that one should be constrained from drawing on one’s experience in trying to improve legislation. I believe that this Bill is flawed and that the amendments will improve the Bill. If the Bill can be improved, it will be more effective. However, if the Bill falls, that will in no way interrupt the flow of British aid or inhibit the Government’s ability to spend 0.7% or 0.8%. I hope that noble Lords, such as the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and others who think like him, will accept that we are speaking with good intentions.

[Lord Cashman]

I thank the noble Lord. I am happy to go back to the record but I think that it will show that I stated to your Lordships that that is how this debate will be reviewed and viewed outside this House.

[Lord Tugendhat]

Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord whether he believes that the way in which one’s words are viewed and reviewed should be an inhibiting factor in drawing on one’s experience in order to seek to improve legislation.

[Lord Cashman]

My Lords, I have always believed that we must speak in defence of our principles without hesitation and bring to that our wisdom. However, one must also be aware of the weight of one’s words and how those words will be represented. In terms of one’s experience, I also said that economics is being viewed as a science. If it is such a science, how come economists and Chancellors have got it so wrong for so long?

[Lord Tugendhat]

I am afraid that the way in which human beings are constructed means that error is endemic in all our assessments, but that should not be an inhibition in drawing on our experience to try to improve the proposals before us. I quite accept the point made by the noble Lord about how statements may be viewed and reviewed. I would also say to him that there is a danger of them being misrepresented and that what he has said will encourage that.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, on his excellent introduction to this discussion. I welcome this Bill from the other place and applaud its author. While we are congratulating, I also congratulate the Government on their commitment to 0.7% of GNI as ODA, and successive Labour Governments on their unbroken commitment. This promise to place in law 0.7% of GNI as ODA is long overdue and we should work to ensure that it becomes a reality before the election of May 2015.

Some have argued that they do not believe in this target or that it will create an overflow of funding that will be washed out through the doors of Whitehall. I believe that argument has already been dealt with, but I will return to it later. The fact is that over recent years, since the global economic crisis, programmes have been shortened or cut by other EU countries. Indeed, there have been attempts to recalibrate funding by creating the dubious concept in development terms of “middle-income countries”, where instead of looking at poverty and inequality indicators, the overall GDP of a country is used as a crude basis for funding decisions, often undoing the good that has already been done. As I said in a previous debate, the UK Government are actively pursuing this approach, and it has detrimental effects.

Reductions of programmes and funding hit those in need the hardest—South Africa, a country I know well, springs to mind. But let me repeat a few statistics—oh, how we repeat and use statistics on different sides of the argument. In its 2013-14 programme, DfID provided 43.1 million people with access to clean water—something we take for granted—better sanitation and improved hygiene; supported more than 10 million children, half of them girls, to go to primary and lower secondary school; ensured that 3.6 million births took place safely with the help of nurses, midwives or doctors—something that we take for granted; prevented 19.3 million children under five and pregnant women from going hungry; and reached 11.4 million people with emergency food assistance. The multilateral organisations that DfID supported provided food assistance to more than 80 million people in 75 countries, immunised 48 million children against preventable diseases and detected and treated 1.5 million cases of tuberculosis—I could go on and on with these statistics.

Why do I repeat these statistics? Because some people say that ODA does not work and that to do more would be to throw money away. I say: tell those millions that ODA is not necessary and that ODA does not give value for money; tell the child whose life is saved and whose mother survives childbirth; tell the girl who goes into education and the child soldier given a future; tell the farmer now able to grow and sustain; tell the pregnant mother now able to prevent the transmission of the HIV virus to her unborn child; tell the person whose life is saved by access to medicines and antiretroviral drugs; tell it to the AIDS orphans who now have a future where before there was none; tell it to LGBTI communities and individuals given hope and support in the face of hatred; tell the neediest and the poorest that theirs is not our case—and let civilised societies and individuals give their judgment.

What happens elsewhere in the world does affect us and does matter. It makes sense—as my mum would say, good old common sense—to continue our investment in developing countries. It affects us and protects us, whether our borders, immigration, trafficking, anti-terrorism policies or sense of decency. I will repeat this again and again, as I did in the European Parliament: we are not committing a sum of money; it is a percentage of our gross national income, and if our income goes down, so does the amount of ODA. Therefore, let us do the decent thing and pass this Bill swiftly and with pride.