LGBTI Citizens Worldwide

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Scriven]

That this House takes note of the treatment of LGBTI citizens worldwide.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, noble Lords may ask why I have chosen this as the first debate I initiate in your Lordships’ House. I am proud and honoured to be able to do so because when I came into your Lordships’ House, I gave a commitment that I would use this platform in this House and this Parliament to give a voice to people who do not have a voice, and particularly to people whose are LGBTI citizens of countries where their voice may not be heard at home. That is why I chose this as my first debate.

“All human beings are born free and equal”.

So says the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, yet not everyone is listening or acting on that. As a gay man, I am, by pure accident of my place of birth, protected by the law. My human rights are enshrined in law, and I can live a free life. That is not the case in many places across the world. LGBTI rights are fundamental human rights, and that is what we are talking about today.

Before I go on to the role that the Government and this country can play, even though we have a good record over a number of years, we still need to hold up a mirror to ourselves. If we are to have moral authority in promoting and supporting LGBTI rights across the globe, we need to be aware of our own performance. This country has made great progress under a number of Governments of different persuasions. We should be very proud of that. Sitting on these Benches, I am particularly proud of the work of my noble friend Lady Northover and my colleague who will soon join us here, Lynne Featherstone, in DfID. I have a question for the Minister regarding progress on the inclusive society fund, particularly around LGBTI issues. Which Minister has been allocated to deal with what and what progress has there been since the election on the fund and the programmes associated with it?

If we are to have moral authority, we need to be doing the right things here as well. On Tuesday I was privileged to be a guest of the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group, where 23 wonderful people who were seeking asylum or had been granted asylum in this country due to their sexuality were feeding back to me what had happened to them not only in their home country but, just as importantly, in the asylum process here in the UK. I have to say that I was mortified when one female from Algeria talked about being detained for six months on the grounds that she was trying to claim asylum due to her sexuality. It is not illegal to be gay or lesbian yet this woman, fleeing her country, came here and was detained for six months.

I say to Ministers that on immigration issues around sexuality the Vine report still needs to be enacted. It is a clear action plan for how we can provide security and safety yet also a clear asylum process for LGBT asylum seekers. Since I have taken an interest in this, it has become clear to me that there needs to be greater co-ordination between the Foreign Office, DfID and the Home Office. What work is being done to further improve that co-ordination, particularly around asylum and LGBT rights internationally?

I turn to what happens worldwide. I could give many statistics and I am sure that many noble Lords will do so, but in 75 UN states in the world consensual same-sex conduct is criminalised. Out of the 53 countries of the Commonwealth, where we should have much more influence on this issue than we do, 42 criminalise same-sex relationships. Two in particular—Brunei and a state in northern Nigeria—have the death penalty for same-sex relationships. What pressure are we putting on Nigeria and Brunei, and other countries outside the Commonwealth, that have the death penalty? That death penalty is for one thing—loving the person whom you naturally love. What action will be taken against those countries?

Since 2008-14, the Trans Murder Monitoring Project listed 1,612 murders of transgender people across the world. That is the equivalent of two per day. What co-ordinated work is being done to highlight the work that needs to be done and then to co-ordinate that particularly around transgender issues? Clearly there are issues around hate-motivated and honour killings, sexual violence, torture and the ill treatment of people, but I want to move away from statistics and talk about real people I have spoken to across the world and what I have heard.

I was in Istanbul a couple of months ago, speaking to the organisers of Istanbul Pride after they were water-cannoned and tear-gassed just for celebrating. They were telling me that international pressure, particularly from the British Government, is really important and they seek much more support from the British Government. They were saying that the official figures for the number of people who were going to hospital were understated because many lesbian and gay people in Istanbul would not have gone to hospital. One LGBT participant actually had a tear gas canister smash their face, but that person did not go to hospital for fear of persecution by the police. What is our ministry doing in Istanbul? This is a request from the people in Istanbul: will our embassy fly the rainbow flag on the date of the next Istanbul Pride to show solidarity with people who wish to march next June and take pride in their sexuality?

Russia says that it is not illegal to be gay there, but its anti-gay propaganda laws promote a culture where people can actually persecute and violently abuse in the street lesbian and gay people who are standing up and being who they actually are. I understand that Elton John wishes to have a meeting with President Putin. I have to say to Sir Elton that he needs to be very careful or else he will be subject to Russia’s laws. If he sings some of his titles, for example, one of which is, “All the Girls Love Alice”, he will be in conflict with its rules. If he says to President Putin, “Are You Ready for Love?”, again he could find himself in serious trouble. It is quite clear, though, to use another title of Elton John’s, that for President Putin, “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word”. He should be sorry about the culture that he has allowed, and we should be doing more to ensure that Russia lifts those issues.

I heard two stories from the group that I was with on Tuesday, one good, one bad. The good one—there are things we get right on immigration—was that a lesbian woman fleeing persecution from Uganda was granted asylum only three days into our asylum system. That is excellent. However, another woman, who had to flee her family and go underground because she was not able to tell anyone about her sexuality, eventually came here; her case has been ongoing for over 18 months and she has still not been granted asylum. My understanding of the Ugandan case is that one of the reasons why the change came about was not just government pressure but the pressure that multinational companies put on the Ugandan Government. What role will our Government play in seeking to co-ordinate our multinational companies in the UK which go into countries that have anti-LGBT laws, and what can we do to ensure that, first, they protect and promote equal policies within their own operations there and, secondly, they can put pressure on Governments to try to change things?

Against that background, we as a nation are doing things but we could do more. We have to be resolute, as a Government and a country. We have to make it clear that we will not tolerate any dilution of human rights for LGBT citizens across the world. Action from the Government could include more diplomacy, soft diplomacy and pressure, helping to co-ordinate multinational and economic muscle.

Ahead of this debate, I did something that the leader of the Opposition also did but he got there before me: we crowd-sourced this. We agreed that All Out, an online organisation that works with ordinary citizens to promote LGBT rights across the world and to put pressure on Governments and multinationals that are falling below standard, would email all its citizens in the UK—some were LGBT, some were straight, and so on; that aspect was irrelevant—to ask them what questions they wanted to put to the Minister on this issue. So noble Lords can see that I was there first; it is just that the leader of the Opposition was able to ask his questions yesterday before me. Nearly 6,000 replies came in. These are the sorts of things that ordinary citizens in the UK seek answers on regarding this issue. Of the 5,624 people who responded, 97% said that they thought the Government were not currently doing enough. We need to be clear that we need to do more. There are things that happen where we are not fast enough. I give the example of the Pride demonstration in Istanbul; we could have been faster in calling in the ambassador. However, the things they wanted to ask were very simple.

One of the big issues that came up was the push for global sporting events such as the World Cup and the Olympics not to go to countries with anti-gay laws. The winter Games in Russia show why that kind of action might be useful. I hear some people say that sports and politics do not mix. Actually, I was not aware that sports was separate from promoting anybody’s human rights. That is an example of one thing which people, through this All Out survey, asked to be done. Interestingly, they suggested accepting more lesbian, gay and trans refugees fleeing persecution specifically by ISIS. Therefore, in the new wave of people whom we will take in and look after, and, I hope, grant asylum to, we should be aware of the sexuality of those fleeing being flung off roofs and stoned to death. That is the way of the world is for people in those countries.

This was another idea:

“Remove accreditation from anti-gay foreign diplomats”.

I do not know whether that is possible, but it is one of the questions that has been asked. Another suggestion was:

“Stop selling weapons to countries with anti-gay laws”.

Can the Minister say whether that is a policy initiative that is in place, and if not, could it be looked at?

The following idea not be the Minister’s responsibility, but it is quite interesting: to require British holiday companies to make holiday-makers aware of the LGBT track record of the countries that they wish to visit. Could that be looked at by the Government? It would be an interesting way of taking a significant step forward. This is also quite an interesting idea:

“An LGBT tour by the UK government to anti-gay countries, speaking in venues or on streets, delivering workshops”.

That might be hard to co-ordinate, but it could be looked at. I ask the Minister to enact the following suggestion:

“Fly the rainbow flag at all UK Embassies for Pride”.

Another issue raised was to pointedly and proactively send LGBT government reps abroad to represent the UK at high-level meetings in anti-LGBT countries.

We must make the protection of LGBT and gender identity rights central to the work of the Foreign Office and DfID. It has to be systematic and co-ordinated across government. It is no good us pressuring a Government abroad to protect and give people equality in their human rights if we have not sorted out our own asylum system here, so we need to do that. We must make this an issue that we champion, not just of LGBT rights but of human rights. With that in mind, and those questions—and I am sure that many contributions will be made—I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for taking part in this debate, which has been thoughtful, informed and excellent. It has been powerful for a reason that many noble Lords will not know. In the Chamber watching and listening to us are some people I met on Tuesday who are either going through the asylum process or have been granted asylum. Probably for the first time ever they have seen a number of politicians, including someone from the church, who have articulated their human rights and have come together to try to defend their human rights in their country. The debate has been very powerful purely for that reason.

I was deeply moved by some of the interventions, particularly that of my noble friend Lord Paddick in terms of his personal experience and comparing that with what happens internationally. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for his intervention, and agree with what he had to say. This is the foremost human rights issue of our time and it needs to be systematically addressed by government. I thank the noble Lord for all the work he has done over his long career on championing human rights and LGBT rights. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Cashman. I know that he has a long history on these issues, having been one of the founders of Stonewall.

I welcome what the Minister said, but I want to raise two issues for further thought; I know that I cannot ask questions at this point. The first one is that three noble Lords asked her which Minister has been given the role in DfID, and I noticed the absence of any response. I know that she cannot answer me now, but perhaps she will write to the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, my noble friend Lady Northover and me. The other issue that we may have to come back to on another day is the Minister’s reference to DfID’s refreshed approach. However, she did not say what that refreshed approach is. I am sure that it is a more robust one, but we look forward to hearing what it is. I also want to refer to an issue that was raised in an important point made by my noble friend Lady Barker—smart economics. We have to do more thinking both as a country and as a Government about how we use economic and business muscle to deal with these matters.

We had a mountain to climb in our own country. We have not quite reached the top, but we are getting close. However, many people around the world feel that they are at the bottom of the mountain and that they cannot tackle it and get to the top. The role of our Government and of our policy—not only through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office but in DfID, the Home Office and other departments—is sometimes to provide the rope, sometimes to offer encouragement and mentoring, and the whole time to make sure that we are climbing that mountain with people across the world to ensure that their human rights are fundamentally enacted, so that they can love who they wish to love and live in the same way as us, in a free democracy with our freedoms intact.

Motion agreed.