50 Years of Pride in the UK

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

As one of the co-chairs of the all-party group on global lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) rights, let me begin by wishing my constituents and everyone across the UK a very happy Pride as we approach London Pride this weekend. It is important to recognise how far we have come over the past 50 years, and it is pleasure to follow the excellent opening remarks from the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley). It is poignant that this debate follows the one on Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, because this shines a light on how far we have come as a country; when there are still countries around the world today where being LGBT+ is punishable by death, we are lucky to live in a country such as the UK that protects our rights in law. Of course that does not mean that there is not still progress to be made and things that need to be done.

I have been incredibly lucky as a young openly gay man growing up in the UK. I was very supported by my family and my school was miles ahead of its time; Carshalton Boys Sports College had a fantastic, inclusive, relationship and sex education curriculum before it was mandatory. I have had nothing but excellent experiences in every workplace I have been in, so I have been one of the lucky ones, but that is not the case for every young person growing up who is LGBT+ in the UK today. That is why Pride still matters to this day and why it is so important to continue shining a light on those issues, because there are still people who think that they may be better off dead than being openly who they are. As long as that is the case, we must continue to celebrate, to be visible and to raise these issues.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

On people who still struggle with their sexual orientation, did the hon. Gentleman happen to see the documentary Dame Kelly Holmes has just broadcast, where she demonstrates with great heartache the problems that were caused in her life by the ban on gay people serving in the military, the misery that that has caused her, despite all her fantastic achievements, and how she is now striving to overcome it? Will he join me in wishing her all the best as she is now out and proud?

[Elliot Colburn]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention and I will absolutely join her in congratulating Dame Kelly Holmes on her bravery. Indeed, sport is one of the areas where we continue to see struggle for the LGBT community. We still see homophobia, biphobia and transphobia; they are very pertinent in sport, which is why it is important to continue to raise those issues.

My first Pride was back in 2012, which coincided with this place deciding on whether two people of the same sex could get married. It was a new experience for me. I did not know anyone else who was going, so I went along on my own, which I do not think I would have the confidence to do now. The experience of my first Pride really struck me and stayed with me. What it highlighted to me was that I have been lucky but only because of the brave people who came before me and gave up so much to fight for the rights that I enjoy today. I am lucky enough to come to this place and say, “I am an openly gay man and I have had a pretty decent life so far.” I thank everyone who came before us.

There is always more to do. That was touched on by the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East, particularly in relation to conversion practices. I do not want to go over too much of the ground that I know has already been covered. The Minister was present in the debate that we led in Westminster Hall just a few weeks ago. I do not want to repeat all the arguments that were made there. I will just stress that conversion practices are still taking place in the UK today. The need to ban conversion practices is not symbolic; it is needed to protect people from undergoing harmful practices simply because of who they are. That surely cannot be acceptable in 21st century Britain, which is why it is so important to do so and, indeed, to make sure that such a ban is inclusive of gender identity as well.

I pay tribute to colleagues who, sadly, could not make it to today’s debate, but I know would have wanted to if their diaries had allowed. I am thinking in particular of my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Jacob Young), for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), for Darlington (Peter Gibson), my right hon. Friends the Members for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), and for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), my hon. Friends the Members for Southport (Damien Moore), for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) and many others. I am sorry if I have not mentioned all of them. I particularly pay tribute to the bravery of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Dr Wallis), the first ever openly trans Member of Parliament. I do not want to steal their story away from them; that is for them to tell. But I just wanted to put that on the record.

That leads me very neatly into my next point, which is on the current public discourse on trans issues. Again, the Minister was present in Westminster Hall when we had a debate on the reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. I do not intend to go over the specifics of that again, but I completely agree with the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East about the current public discourse and the toxicity of the debate that has arisen around trans issues in the UK and, indeed, in much of the world at the moment. We have a responsibility to try to take the heat out of that discussion and try to calm things down and actually talk about the real issues—what is actually needed.

Much of the public discourse at the moment is completely nonsensical. It is driven in the most awful way. Again, the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East—I am embarrassing her by referencing her far too often—hit the nail on the head. Much of what is said about the trans community today could almost be copied and pasted from the text books of history: things that were said about openly gay men, lesbians and bisexual people in the past, particularly around the threat they posed to the safety of women, to the safety of children, and to the rights to practise religion freely. Much of that is completely nonsensical. I really hope that, in this place, we can start setting a better example for the public discourse that we need to have and really take the heat out of it. I think the debate we had in Westminster Hall on reforming the Gender Recognition Act was a good one and got to the heart of some of the issues. Serving with colleagues on the Women and Equalities Committee during our inquiry into the GRA, I was struck, when we were taking evidence both from those in favour of reform and from those opposed to it, by how much agreement there was between the two sides.

Both sides agreed that there needed to be much better healthcare support for trans people in the UK, ranging from mental health support all the way through to more physical interventions. It was agreed that many of the structures that exist in both legislation and institutions do not currently work for the trans community or for anyone else. They agreed that there was a lot of confusion, and that implementation of exemptions within the Equality Act 2012 and the GRA, for example, was confusing.

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[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), my co-chair on the all-party parliamentary group on global LGBT+ rights. I look forward to working with him over the coming period to try to ensure that a lot of the legal protections and acceptance that we have seen develop in our own country can be exported to other places around the world so that our LGBT+ friends across the globe can enjoy the same kinds of rights that we are here celebrating today.

We are here to celebrate an incredible journey towards the legal recognition and equal treatment for LGBT+ people that has been achieved in the UK in the past 50 years. This change is progressive and life-affirming, but it did not just happen. It did not just descend as an inevitability because time and history were moving on. It was campaigned for and won in the teeth of the most intense bigotry, ridicule, hostility, violence and intimidation. It has made our society better, safer, stronger and more respectful as a place to live and thrive than it was before. That is a tremendous achievement and it is what, essentially, we are here to celebrate on this 50th anniversary. It was won because LGBT+ people and their allies fought for it because they did not accept the status quo that they were born into and grew up in. They realised it was wrong, they wanted it to change, they had a vision of how it could change, and they went out and campaigned for that change.

But we know that LGBT+ rights are fragile and progress towards equality must never, ever be taken for granted. Look at the horrific attacks on Pride celebrations in Oslo just a few days ago if you think that Pride and LGBT+ people are accepted and respected as we would like to see across the developed world, let alone the rest of the world. Listen to the homophobic rantings of President Putin in Russia or Viktor Orbán in Hungary, scapegoating LGBT+ people for their own political advantage. Consider the Trump-enabler Steve Bannon’s comments as he celebrated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that he supported that attack because the Russians were not “woke” and knew “which bathroom to use”. When one thinks about those phrases and how they are weaponised across different countries, it is possible to discern that there are connections between people who are campaigning to get us back in the closet, to get women back in the kitchen, to get us to know our place, and to turn our society backwards. We have to beware of those connections.

Women in the USA are now experiencing the shocking reality of a bonfire of the rights that they thought were established and permanent with the reversal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court. In the USA, some of those fundamentalist justices now have their eyes fixed firmly on same-sex marriage, the legality—for goodness’ sake—of same-sex relations, and even the use of contraception. This means that all the progress that we have been celebrating, and perhaps in our more complacent moments thinking could never be reversed, has just been reversed in front of the eyes of half the population of America. We must never forget that those same reactionary forces are lurking here in the UK working to achieve the same goal, often with generous fundamentalist funding from various nefarious organisations.

Before I warn more about backlash and the dangers that progress will be reversed, I want to take this opportunity to celebrate just how far LGBT+ people have come since that first Pride march wended its way from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park 50 years ago. Unlike most of the people in the Chamber today, I was alive when that was happening, although I was not on the march. That would have been slightly too precocious of me, given that I was born in 1961—you do the maths.

The first Pride was organised by the Gay Liberation Front and attended by 2,000 people, as the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) said in her opening remarks. They were spat at, and they faced abuse on the streets for daring not to be ashamed of who they were, because repression and dissemination work best when people internalise the shame that those who want to keep them repressed try to put upon them. That is why the concept of Pride—of being proud and open and out about who you are—is such a powerful one. Again, it is the 50th anniversary of Pride in this country that this debate is celebrating.

That first Pride was a very different occasion from the carnival attended by 1.5 million people when we last had a Pride in London, pre-covid in 2019. I sincerely hope that this weekend’s 50th anniversary will resemble the 2019 carnival, rather than the first one. LGBT+ people have come a long way together with our allies, and we should all be proud of the progress we have achieved. Male homosexuality was only decriminalised by that pioneering Wilson Labour Government in 1967. Until then, jail awaited anyone who tried to be open about their sexual orientation. Many police forces carried out campaigns of entrapment, and gay men were regularly blackmailed, beaten up and prosecuted for being gay. Lesbians were not even mentioned in the law, and though their status was unclear, they too felt that they had to hide away.

When young people today hear about this oppressive history, they can scarcely believe it, so much have we managed to change by working together. That is the nature of the progress that we have achieved. Indeed, I watched Dame Kelly Holmes’s documentary yesterday. She went to see some LGBT Olympian boxers training together, and they did not even realise that when Dame Kelly joined the Army, she could have been dismissed in disgrace for her sexual orientation. They were astonished. This is massive change within only a few generations, and we should all be proud of achieving that.

The march to legal equality had many setbacks, not least the arrival of the odious section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which put back the cause of equality for years and caused untold misery for many of the most vulnerable people in our society at the most vulnerable time in their lives. Even now, it leaves a legacy of unaddressed bullying in our schools, which some teachers worry about confronting. The decision of the Thatcher Government to write into the law of the land the ridicule of LGBT+ relationships as “pretended”, and to ban what they called the “promotion of homosexuality”, led directly to the formation of Stonewall in 1988. It was the beginning of a more focused attempt to push for basic human rights to apply to LGBT+ people. Meanwhile, trade unions organised to support LGBT+ people facing discrimination at work and incorporated the fight for equality into their workplace bargaining.

Today is the first day of the TUC LGBT conference, and I wish them luck from this Chamber and send greetings for the work they are doing, but the TUC published a poll of HR professionals today, which demonstrated that one in five of UK workplaces does not have any policies in place to support LGBT staff at work, and only half of managers said they had a policy prohibiting discrimination, bullying and harassment against their LGBT workers in their workplace. Although we have changed the law, we still have much to do to ensure that all employers treat their LGBT+ employees with the respect they deserve and that employees are properly protected from bullying at work.

There are fantastically good examples of great progress, but there are also some places where there has been no progress. We ought to support the TUC and the LGBT TUC, who are doing their best to change this reality in the workplace.

All the work I have mentioned helped drive real change and increased understanding of issues that had remained hidden for too long. The increasing willingness of LGBT+ people to come out brought these matters into the open, and there was a softening attitude to LGBT people among the public. As someone who became a Minister in the 1997 to 2010 Labour Governments, it was clear to me that public opinion on this issue had moved faster than the previous Government’s attitudes.

Throughout the 1980s, hostility to LGBT+ people was used explicitly by the Government in their political propaganda to portray the Labour party as loony lefties—that is the phrase that was always thrown at us. That effort was enthusiastically supported and highlighted by the Tory-supporting red-top tabloids in lurid and bullying headlines, which are still imprinted on my brain today. You know, it worked, Mr Deputy Speaker. I remember vividly canvassing in Battersea for the now Lord Dubs in the 1987 general election, only to have doors shut in my face after being told that Labour only stood for—the House will have to excuse me for using this language, but I think it is important in the context—the blacks and the queers. That is how well the weaponisation of this stuff, which all centred around section 28, worked.

For some of us, the so-called war on woke began at least 40 years ago. It has been waged, often unrelentingly and always irresponsibly, ever since. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) talked about wedge issues. He was absolutely right to call that out, because it is an example of the weaponisation of people’s vulnerabilities and personal characteristics to bully them, to other them and to make them feel that they do not belong in our society. It is that which we have to confront.

The fact that public opinion had moved beyond the ossified attitudes of many in the Thatcher and Major Governments created an opportunity for rapid legal reform to drive social progress when we returned to Government. We took that opportunity because we had a huge progressive majority in the House of Commons and public opinion was further ahead than even us in deciding that this change needed to be made. We lifted the ban on LGBT+ people serving in the armed forces—only after a court case, but that was how it was thought best to achieve it; we equalised the age of consent; we repealed section 28; we allowed unmarried couples, including same-sex couples, to adopt; we removed discrimination against LGBT+ people from the sexual offences statutes; and we legislated for civil partnerships, finally allowing same-sex couples to marry and to enjoy the same legal protections that were available in heterosexual marriage.

The House of Lords was then—it is not now—an implacable opponent of this crucial reform agenda. It delayed and opposed progress. It was especially stubborn in its refusal to contemplate the repeal of section 28 and the equalisation of the age of consent. We tried for three years to repeal section 28 and nearly lost three local government Bills in the confrontations we had with the Lords before we succeeded. We managed to achieve the equalisation of the age of consent only by using the Parliament Acts, as the House of Lords simply would not pass it.

All of this was done in the face of huge hostility in the tabloid press, which ran banner headlines about gay mafias running the country and Labour obsessing about gay rights. All we wished to do, as a Government, was to accord equal rights and freedom from discrimination in law to LGBT+ people, whom we wished to see treated as human beings in our society—equal and equally respected. The battle was hard and difficult, but it was worth it because we won.

When I first came into this House, I certainly never imagined that 30 years later, I would be sitting in one of the gayest Parliaments in the world. [Hon. Members: “The gayest.”] It is the gayest Parliament in the world. I often think that, particularly late at night when we are waiting for the votes that never seem to come. The fact that we are here in numbers, and across parties, means that we can work together to preserve the gains made and improve the situation for LGBT+ people in our country and internationally.

I end my contribution to this celebration of 50 years of Pride with a warning. LGBT communities are facing a backlash in the UK. Hate crime against the community is rising disproportionately. According to Galop, the LGBT+ anti-abuse charity, two thirds of us experienced violence or abuse last year, with nearly a third of that consisting of physical violence, and four in 10 trans people have suffered a hate crime this year. Much of that goes unreported in official crime statistics, but it all has a detrimental psychological effect on the individual victims.

The Government started with a positive agenda for LGBT+ rights, but that has now stalled. We look to the Minister to get it going again and ensure that it ends up at the destination that we all hope for, and I know he intends. Perhaps some in the Government are falling victim to that same temptation to pursue a divisive war on woke with a special focus on trans people. I know that he is not in that group of people, and I wish him all power in making his arguments. I hope that he can prevent that happening or getting any worse, because it singles out people who are already marginalised by portraying them as a threat or holding them up to ridicule.

All this official bullying has a familiar ring to it for those who were around in the 1980s, as I was. It is as reprehensible and destructive now as it was then, and it has to be defeated. We learned that the much-delayed yet long-promised ban on conversion therapy will now exclude trans people, and will contain a consent loophole that means it is not a ban at all. I have been a Minister, so I know how pragmatic the Minister will have to be to get the legislation on the statute book. Again, we will work cross-party to make that ban as effective, thorough and applicable across the board as we can. I hope that the Government will relent on the fact that there is currently no place in that ban for trans people. With that battle going on, it is no wonder that the UK has fallen from 1st place to 14th place in the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association Europe’s ranking of gay friendly European countries. I want to see us back in first place.

Sadly, it seems that the Government have chosen to use LGBT people as a useful wedge issue as the general election approaches. I hope that whoever makes those decisions will step back from doing that and think about the damage it does. Those of us who support LGBT people will do everything in our power to make certain that it does not work and does not succeed.

Despite those setbacks, working towards true equality and full human dignity for LGBT people remains an important priority cross-party for all those who wish to live in a fairer and more inclusive society. That is what I will be marching for at the 50th anniversary of Pride, and I expect to see Mr Deputy Speaker—in some T-shirt no doubt—and all other hon. Members present along the way. We hope the weather holds out. We will be marching with pride for what we have achieved, with confidence that there is more to do, and with determination that we will do it.

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[Luke Pollard]

I have been watching the notifications on the Annunciator about who is speaking in that debate, and I really hope that that Chamber is experiencing the same uplifting warmth and generosity that we are in here, but I suspect that it is not. That is why we need to make sure we keep challenging.

Equality campaigns are not a military confrontation. We do not defeat the opposing side through their utter destruction and annihilation. We win an equality campaign by turning the people who oppose us so that they share our beliefs. We do that not with a big stick but with kindness, understanding and listening—but, my word, we will need a lot of kindness, understanding and listening if we are to win those fights. But win them we must, and that is why the culture of comfortable complacency must be challenged.

It is not for young LGBT people in our country to say that they are lucky to be here. It is not that they have been born by accident in a place: they are here and able to be themselves because of the work that was done in the past and that is being done today. This is not just something in our history books. The struggle is not something that is only in the past tense. That is something we must communicate to others as well. Telling our story means explaining where we are now, how we got here and where we are going—and that it matters. We need to recognise that, if we do not tackle that comfortable complacency, the attention will move to another group. It is targeting trans and non-binary people now, but who will be next? Which group will be targeted next?

There has always been hate against LGBTQ+ communities, and not just from those wearing fascist emblems and insignia. We need to recognise that hate turns up now wearing different clothes. It turns up wearing common sense, it is plain English, it is something about chipping away, not taking everyone on at the same time. Those forces on the right and far right of politics, and sometimes those with a perverted sense of religious values, have seen an Achilles heel in our democracy. They have seen the way in which they can roll back our rights by creating division within our alliances, our coalitions and our big families. Hate dressed up as common sense, fearful spectres, stereotypes and division must not pollute those big families, because at the heart of that big LGBT family are love, value and understanding. We must not lose sight of that.

This is not just about those who have a plan to divide us. It is also about those useful idiots who are content with breaking consensus, dividing communities and turning a blind eye to the violence that their actions encourage in order to get one step forward, a tactical gain, a partisan advantage or a few extra votes here or there by creating a wedge issue on which they can squeeze people and headlines that will bash a group so that they can avoid attention elsewhere. In Britain we know these people as those behind the culture wars. Every party has individuals like that within their movements, as the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) said.

We must each of us commit to engage and discuss this. It is hard sometimes, but we must do so to make sure that we are getting there, because as we have seen in America, we should be in no doubt that those who want to take us back have a plan. It is a long-term plan and will take many years for them to achieve it, but there is a plan and a direction of travel. The assumption that things only get better and that those who campaigned do not need to go as hard any more is part of their plan. That comfortable complacency is something they rely on.

We are seeing trans people being attacked in America, and the proponents of those arguments are now coming for a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body. Although we have a different set-up here in the UK, the US Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade has the same consequences on this side of the pond: an attack on women’s rights, on bodily autonomy and on an individual’s choice of what happens to them. So totemic is that decision, it is not just American women who will feel the ruling’s consequences. When they come after a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body, who is next? We are already seeing it in Florida with “Don’t Say Gay,” with rainbows being painted over, with the status of LGBT-safe classrooms being removed and with LGBT young people being marginalised by their allies being afraid to say something. It is the return of section 28, and we need to be very conscious of that. Once it happens there, next it will be equal marriage and the other rights that LGBT citizens currently enjoy.

There are songs by Katy Perry and One Direction that are older than my right to marry my boyfriend. Hell, we all probably have spices in our kitchen cabinets that are older than the right to equal marriage in this country. This is a young right, a new right, and we know that young and new rights can sometimes be the easiest to sweep away. Let us commit ourselves not only to clearing out our kitchen cabinets every now and then—

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Get your spice cupboard sorted out.

[Luke Pollard]

Indeed, let us sort out our spice cupboards. We must make sure that we embed these rights, protect them, talk about them, value them and defend them.

I have spoken about the villains, so I will briefly talk about the heroes. These heroes do not wear capes. They are the allies and supporters of the LGBT community who create safe spaces for young gay kids to come out, they are the guys down the pub who have quiet words with their mates when their language gets too tasty, and they are the teachers who create spaces where LGBT bullying is not acceptable and is called out, but who also explain why so that it never happens again. They are not only politicians and celebrities; they are the army of ordinary citizens who know that love is love, that being different is not a crime and that our society is better and stronger when we can all be our authentic selves.

If we are to win and if equality is to triumph, it needs to be visible. Those in the public eye, like me and every Member who has spoken in this debate, need to shake ourselves of any notion of comfortable complacency. We need to amplify the voices of LGBT communities because, for all the pitfalls and perils we currently face, equality should be a one-way street. Things should only get better, but that will happen only if we have the determination to say “no U-turns ahead.” That requires constant campaigning, which is why visibility matters.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sure you were watching Glastonbury at the weekend when Olly Alexander, the undefeated king of queer pop, said

“any attack on any human being’s bodily autonomy is literally an attack on all of us. It doesn’t matter who you are, this affects us all.”

Olly is right. Trans, straight, gay, bi, male, female, queer and non-binary—they are all different and all equal. It affects us all. That is why we have to spread the positive message that progressive rights are hard fought for and can be easily lost. Solidarity in fighting for other people’s rights is a key part of protecting our own.

A few weeks ago I spoke in the Westminster Hall debate on the case for banning trans conversion practices, in which I spoke about my love of “Heartstopper.” Since then, I have been inundated with messages from young people telling me their story and what the series means to them. We need to recognise that this “Heartstopper” generation of young people is not just a cultural phenomenon. It is a political force, too.

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[Dame Angela Eagle]

I thank the Minister for giving way on that point and for his contribution to this debate in general. Given that trans-inclusivity is likely to be carried either in this House or in the House of Lords when the Bill comes in, would the Government consider drafting such a clause so that, if such a decision is made, we can make certain that parliamentary draftspeople have done the appropriate job in what is a difficult drafting area? That would be a very positive thing that the Minister might be able to commit to today.

[Mike Freer]

The hon. Lady is tempting me down a path that I cannot go down. I am sure colleagues are well aware of how amendments get drafted, but the Minister for Women and Equalities and I have made recommendations on how we believe we can get to a more inclusive conversion practices ban, while addressing the concerns that have been raised elsewhere.

On hate crime and policing, we are also working with the Minister for Crime and Policing to ensure that police services are fully aware of all the complexities of addressing the issues of drug and alcohol abuse, and how that may present itself in crime, so that our police forces are entirely sensitive to all the factors that might lead to certain behaviour. We have talked about the issues of survival sex, and I would again link that to the work we will be doing on LGBT homelessness.

The shadow Minister was a little bit harsh about the action plan—that is the name of the game—but I am not going to be bothered about whether I have this document or that box ticked. I am focusing on practical steps to make genuine changes to people’s lives.

On education, £4 million has gone into boosting the anti-bullying campaign, whether that is homophobic bullying, biphobic bullying or transphobic bullying. The whole bullying piece has been funded to a better degree to ensure that schools are well equipped to deal with all the issues that our teachers may have to deal with. We will also ensure that our sex education programme is fully inclusive, and that guidance has been issued.

One problem we face when dealing with these issues is a lack of data. We have made a call for evidence, and we are encouraging partners and the private sector to do more work to get accurate data about the make-up of their workforces, client banks and customers, so that we can base our decisions on real data, rather than assumptions. That is the right thing to do.

We spoke about the armed forces. Many years ago it is true that the Ministry of Defence did not cover itself in glory—that is being polite—but the MOD of today is transformed in terms of the work it is doing to address those historical injustices, by restoring medals, expunging dismissals, and with the work currently being done to consider the wider implications of such treatment. That is a welcome step, and I pay tribute to my colleagues in the MOD. We must also mention the work on looking at historical convictions in civil society. The disregards and pardon schemes are still there, but we must do more to ensure people are aware of that. Too few people are coming forward to look at their previous convictions and see whether we can get them expunged.

I know we were disappointed that we had to cancel the conference, Mr Deputy Speaker, but that does not mean that the work we are doing on the international stage is abated. We continue to spend money, and funds are available to help NGOs to challenge legal discrimination in many countries, especially in the Commonwealth. That is often a powerful way of changing the law. Lord Herbert is leading that work overseas with the full backing of the Foreign Secretary, and both domestically and internationally the Government are working on practical steps to improve the lives of LGBT+ people.