LGBT History Month

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. The Bill we were debating last week was the product of extensive hard work and compromise, including meeting people who were both sceptical and incredibly pro banning the practices. The Bill attracted criticism from those in favour of a ban because, unlike in other countries such as Norway, it does not carry a jail sentence. None the less, it was an attempt to try and bring everyone together, take the heat out of the debate and allow us to finally make some progress. That did not happen; the Government were not keen to support it and it was talked out.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman and I both attended the debate last Friday. Was he as disappointed as I was that, despite how modest the Bill was and how reasonable it attempted to be, some of the arguments against it were so unreasonable?

[Elliot Colburn]

I agree with the hon. Lady and my co-chair of the APPG. She is absolutely right and I think it demonstrates that, sadly, no matter how much engagement and how much compromise is made, there will be those who are not interested in banning such practices. They do not see a ban as necessary; in fact, they are against it because they believe it will infringe on certain rights. I do not believe that argument for one minute. The only thing that banning conversion practices achieves is to stop people being subjected to harm—harm that is still legal here in the United Kingdom. That is why we have to continue with progress towards a ban.

There have been so many promises since the proposal was first made by the LGBT action plan in 2018 and yet, we have still not had sight of a Bill. We are often told it is complicated. No one is saying it is not, but we delivered Brexit faster than this and I argue that that was slightly more complex. Also, we are not working from a blank slate; there are many other examples from around the world where this kind of legislation has been successfully enacted and has not had the chilling effect that we are often warned about in terms of infringements on the freedom of speech and the rights of women, for example. That just simply has not happened in any example that I have looked at globally where such a ban has already been passed.

We have had ample time to bring forward a Bill. It has been promised in two Queen’s Speeches and at the Dispatch Box and yet there always seems to be a new reason to delay. The latest is that we are now waiting for the outcome of Dr Cass’s review into child and adolescent healthcare when it comes to treating people who are trans. However, Dr Cass has explicitly stated that her work should not be used as an excuse to delay passing a ban, and I argue that we must not delay any longer. We cannot go into an election without passing such a ban because it would represent a huge breach of trust. I feel slightly unfair targeting the Minister with this, because I know how supportive he is on this issue, but I sincerely hope he can pass the message back to those who might be less so to urge them to get on with it.

I worry that this issue has become part of a wider targeting of the LGBT+ community, particularly the trans community, on which there is an increasing focus, alongside the erosion of protections in law. I worry that this is not just the beginning; I am very concerned, as I am sure many of us are, that the targeting of LGBT+ people and the attempt to erode their rights is the first step on a journey to erode many of our hard-fought rights, not just for LGBT+ people, but for many people across the UK. We are seen as a convenient battering ram at the moment.

I hope that we can come together to continue to fight the erosion of our rights. It is a fight that LGBT+ people did not ask for, and we want no part in. I hope that, in this election year, parties can commit to not using these issues as wedge issues, and that they can instead focus on the issues that actually matter to people. Otherwise, I fear that once the election has come and gone, we will be back here again asking for the same thing. As much as I love seeing the Minister and spending time with him, maybe we can cross out this date in our diary for next year. I would like us to make some progress so that we do not need to bother him again, and repeat ourselves.

I end on a happy note: I hope that everyone had a happy LGBT+ History Month.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, in a room that is, for once, warmer than it is outside. Clearly, something is working better than it used to.

Today’s debate comes after LGBT History Month, due to, I think, logjams in Back-Bench business. It is an opportunity to celebrate the many events that have happened in the last month, in schools, libraries, pubs, clubs and across our country. LGBT History Month is a huge, ongoing event that has many different facets across the country.

It is also a time for us to remember our past, when we were, as my co-chair of the APPG on global LGBT+ rights, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), has said, more hidden than we are now; to celebrate the present and the progress that we have made; and for us to be clear-eyed about some of the potential problems we may face in the future.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend highlights, LGBT History Month was last month. Its theme was paying tribute to contributions in the field of medicine and healthcare. She may be aware that the Mayor of London recently named one of the overground lines that goes through my Battersea constituency Mildmay, after the hospital that played a pivotal role in healthcare for those suffering in the HIV and AIDs epidemic, which in fact became Europe’s first hospice for caring for people with AIDs-related illnesses. Does she agree with me that it is right to recognise our history and the progress being made, but also highlight the fight for equality and justice going forward?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I certainly agree.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that we are not pushed for time this afternoon. Interventions should be short and to the point.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

It is a great luxury not to be pushed for time these days in the House and, Mr Stringer, you tempt me; but let us see how we get on.

I particularly welcomed the Mayor of London’s announcement about the renaming of the overland train lines after what I think are progressive causes, one of which my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) just mentioned, and a pretty fantastic football team—even if they have to keep proving themselves over and over again.

As I was saying, this is a time to remember the past but also to be clear-eyed about some of the potential problems that face us, as a global LGBT community as well as a community in this country. This debate gives us a chance to do that. LGBT+ History Month 2024 celebrated the community contributions to medicine and healthcare, as my hon. Friend said in her intervention. It also highlighted the community’s blighted history in getting access to healthcare, as well as the ignorance, prejudice and inequality that came about as the AIDS pandemic—which is a pandemic and has killed millions of people—raged around the world. All that we got was prejudice and ignorance, and the only thing that helped to make any progress in those grim times was the self- help that the community came together to provide in very many inspirational ways.

Hopefully, we are in more enlightened times now, although I have to say that I have heard similar arguments about the threat that LGBT people present resurfacing again in political discourse. It happens more abroad than here, but it rears its ugly head on occasion here, too. That is an alarm bell that we should all be listening to. We should all be ready to fight because, as my hon. Friend said, a battle for equal rights and equality in the law or for equal access to goods and services, and being able to live a life that is not blighted by prejudice, ignorance or the fact that one is a particular thing—be it black, Asian and minority ethnic, be it a member of a particular faith, or be it LGBT—is all really important. When we fight together to improve the prospects of everyone who might be subjected to discrimination, we create a better, fairer and more equal society in which people’s human rights are properly recognised and prejudice is pushed to the sides.

LGBT History Month is really all about remembering. It is also, I think, about teaching some of the younger members of our community, who breeze through life, never had to be in the closet and have never been subjected to the quite extraordinary vitriol that used to be a regular feature of the media in the 1980s. They do not really understand how far we have come and what gains had to be fought for and made. They take it all for granted, which is fantastic—I hope that they can continue to take it for granted—but I always think that if we do not know our history, there is an increased chance that we will have to repeat it.

It is, then, an important time to reflect on the huge legislative progress that we have made in campaigning for our rights and against prejudice—the kind of progress that I thought was probably unimaginable when I was marching against section 28 in the 1980s. Some of us are old enough to remember Margaret Thatcher’s conference speech in 1987. I used to watch all the conferences, including the TUC’s—they were all televised, constantly, at the time. I was a bit of a junkie when it came to seeing what was happening, and I remember watching the speech in which she declaimed that children were being

“cheated of a sound start in life”

due to the fact that they were

“taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.”

It is not about a right to be gay; it is about being what you are and being able to live a life that is authentic to what you are, not having to hide away or be berated for who you are, and not being frightened to walk the streets.

Some of us who are old enough do remember the prejudice-laden tabloid coverage and the bullying that that involved, as well as the weaponisation of prejudice for electoral purposes that led to the enactment of section 28, which made the lives of LGBT+ pupils and teachers in schools a misery for generations. Gradually, though, in the face of often open media hostility, the last Labour Government changed all that in a series of landmark changes to the legal statutes that created circumstances in which, largely, LGBT+ people got their equal rights in law.

Many of those changes were hard fought for, including the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, which reduced the age of consent for gay and bisexual men to 16. We had to put that legislation through Parliament three times and use the Parliament Act to get it on to the statute book, because the Lords simply would not pass it. Because we persisted with it, we were then accused on the front pages of the tabloids of being obsessed with buggery. Everything is created to make it look like you are the obsessive—the one who is trying always to go on about these things. There is no understanding that, actually, this is just a basic equality requirement that has to be there in law, otherwise that person will be discriminated against, regarded differently and treated differently. The world has not come to an end since we equalised the age of consent, despite some of the warnings, but it really had to be pushed.

Similarly, many here will remember the 2003 repeal of section 28, which talked about “pretended” family relationships and ridiculed LGBT people and their relationships and commitments to each other at a time when people could not get married or do any of the legal things that are available now. That legislation took us three years of persistence to finally repeal because the Lords would not pass it. Every time we were nearly losing our local government Bills, which had increasingly important things in them, we had to keep leaving the change out and putting it in again. It took three years to get that sorted out.

The landmark Gender Recognition Act 2004 enabled transgender adults to achieve legal recognition in their acquired gender. That was because of important international court judgments that basically said they had a right to that. I suspect that the fact that the Gender Recognition Act has been on the statute book for 20 years has passed by quite a lot of people who have suddenly discovered that they are worried by transgender people. The fact is that transgender people were not really visible at all until after the Act was passed. It is an example of how our society gets kinder and more equal if people feel that they can present as they really are. That is what transgender people have been doing since then, until, for various reasons, that has become problematised in the last few years.

As well as that Act being put on the statute book, we had the Civil Partnership Act 2004, which established a new legal relationship for same-sex couples. Some people say that that was then upgraded, but I do not because I still have a civil partnership. I have not got married yet, partially because the Catholic Church does not recognise same-sex marriages and my partner will not do it anywhere else. It is important that we have recognised that civil partnerships can also apply to heterosexual people, because many worry about the baggage that comes with the chattelisation of women in a marriage. I know many feminists who felt that way, and are more than happy to have a civil partnership rather than a marriage in that sense. We are creating circumstances in society in which people’s loving relationships can be recognised, validated and made sound in law so that there is not a problem if somebody dies, is ill or needs to have an official connection as next of kin. That is really important.

The Equality Act 2010 included sexual orientation and gender reassignment as two of the nine protected characteristics. I think it is a pretty good Act. I know that various people have problems with it at the moment, but I think it is a well-balanced piece of legislation that does not need change. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 legalised same-sex marriages at a time when the party of the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington realised that it had got a bit left behind and that it ought to come into the modern world. The vast majority of them are still there, but not all of them, it seems, as we saw last Friday.

All that change was thanks to having a progressive majority Labour Government in the 1997 to 2010 period. We passed progressive legislation that made people’s lives easier and demonstrated that their relationships, their loves and what they did in their lives was properly respected. However, the progress has not been linear—progress very rarely is—and the community faces threats now that are reminiscent of what I hoped we had left behind in the 1980s. For four consecutive years, between 2015 and 2019, Britain was ranked the best place to be LGBTQ+ in Europe, in the Rainbow Europe index, but we are now 17th. There has been a cocktail of anti-LGBT hate crime on the streets, and anti-LGBT diatribes have featured increasingly in the media and some political discourse. Some members of the Government are trying to use that for their own purposes, when it comes to modernising and reform. I am not pointing the finger at anyone in this Chamber, because I know we are among friends, but there are some issues.

Police-recorded hate crime on the basis of sexual orientation is up 112% in the past five years, and against trans people it is up 186%. In Merseyside, where my constituency of Wallasey is, reported hate crime based on sexual orientation is up 162%, and against trans people it is up 1,033%. So let nobody say that the problematising of LGBT people, particularly trans people, does not have consequences on the street, because it does and they are often very brutal.

We need to try to marginalise the people who think that a divisive war on woke is the way they can win the next election, shore up the blue wall or do any of the things they think they are doing by problematising trans people in particular and painting them as a threat. They think what happens on social media is real, and that those provocations are anything other than that—they are often generated by bots and agents provocateurs outside our country in order to divide us. It is called hybrid war, and it is not something we should indulge in.

I am disappointed—I hope the Minister might be able to cheer me up—that the Conservative Government dropped their LGBT+ action plan and dismissed their LGBT+ advisory board. Having such voices at the centre of where policy is made is always very important. The Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), has not seen any LGBT+ organisations except those that are gender critical in any of the meetings she has had when she has been formulating Government policy. That is, to say the least, regrettable.

The problems around modernising the Gender Recognition Act and the manifesto promise to ban the abusive practices of conversion therapy need not have happened, but we are where we are and we have to find a way through. There has been an authoritarian far-right backlash evident across the world, encompassing President Putin all the way to Steve Bannon, Trump’s guru, and a lot in between. We need to see what is going on globally and connect it to how the trans issue has been used as a wedge issue in order to take the “T” out of LGBT and destroy progress in this area.

Just last week hon. Members were lining up to stop a very mild private Member’s Bill. It was so mild that I wanted it to be toughened up considerably, were it ever to reach Committee stage. But we could not even get it there, nor would the Government even allow opinions on it, despite the sponsor bending over backwards to try to create a situation where the Bill could get to Committee. We have had Members of Parliament talk about LGB people, erasing the “T”, and equating conversion practices with families having a normal conversation about their children growing up and exploring ideas about themselves and their identity. That is not what conversion practice is. It is easy to recognise torture and abuse when we see it. Torture and abuse is definitely not a conversation.

This year, whether the Prime Minister likes it or not, there will be a general election. Labour will offer the country the chance to pick up on legislating to protect the LBGT community with a comprehensive, trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy. I would have liked to get it done sooner, but it will happen. We just have to make progress. It is very sad that, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington said, it has taken longer than the Brexit negotiations. That should make us stop and think about what has been going on. We will also strengthen the law so that anti-LGBT+ hate crimes are treated as aggravated offences, and there will be a much-needed modernisation of gender recognition processes, which are humiliating and overlong.

Progress on LGBT rights around the world was summed up very well by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. There are still 67 countries that criminalise homosexuality, 51 that restrict freedom of sexual and gender expression and 11 that apply the death penalty for same-sex offences. Uganda and Ghana have passed the two most recent pieces of anti-LGBT legislation that feature capital punishment. Just last week, Ghana passed its Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill unanimously. Even thinking about the title, there are a whole load of assumptions in there that are interesting to say the least.

That Bill criminalises being gay, prohibits adoption for gay people and forcibly disbands all LGBT associations. For same-sex intercourse, one is likely to be jailed for up to three years. For producing, procuring or distributing material deemed to be promoting LBGT activities, it is six to 10 years. For teaching children about LGBT activities, it is also six to 10 years. Just yesterday, on Ghana’s independence day, LGBT+ protestors demonstrated in solidarity outside Ghana’s high commission against this appalling Bill.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act passed last year. It includes the death penalty for the offence of “aggravated homosexuality”—whatever that is—life imprisonment for the offence of homosexuality and up to 20 years in jail for promoting homosexuality. A report was compiled late last year by the Strategic Response Team, which is a coalition of Ugandan LGBT+ rights organisations, which have been criminalised for even existing in their own country and have to operate in very difficult circumstances. They found that between May, when the Act became law, and September there had been 180 cases of evictions, 176 cases of torture, abuse and degrading treatment, and 159 incidents of discrimination.

All of those were against both real and perceived LGBT+ people. We have to remember that just because something is anti-LGBT+ legislation, it does not mean the people caught by it are necessarily LGBT+. They are marginalised or focused on for whatever reason the authorities feel that they wish to focus on them. We have heard that the first person arrested who faces capital punishment under the law was not even gay. They were homeless, and they were arrested for being shirtless, which was because they were poor, and they were charged under the legislation. The Ugandan authorities are using the law to brutally criminalise the LGBT+ community, but also to go for any marginalised groups they want to attack. It is one of those catch-all things that they can put people in jail for. As is often the case, an attack on one minority is only ever the beginning of attacks on many others.

On our own European shores, over a fifth of countries lack broad protections for LGBT+ people—again, mentioned by my friend the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. Discussions in schools on LGBT+ issues are outlawed in Russia, as is being LGBT+, and in Hungary, Lithuania and Latvia. In Poland, nearly 100 municipalities have self-declared as LGBT-free zones. I hope that President Tusk, who—thank goodness—has just been elected in Poland, can start to undo some of the damage done in this area by the previous long-standing regime.

Across the Atlantic, the American Civil Liberties Union is tracking 474 anti-LGBTQ Bills in state legislatures across the country. That was the number as of yesterday, but it is probably out of date already because several get promulgated every day. Florida’s so-called “Don’t say gay” law bans discussion on sexual orientation or gender identity in schools for children under 10—that is their very own section 28. That is being exported by American Christian groups, which ploughed more than $280 million into campaigning against LGBT+ rights and abortion rights worldwide between 2007 and 2020, targeting communities and Parliaments around the world with their well-funded and co-ordinated doctrine of hate.

The legislation in Uganda and Ghana is peculiarly similar because it was drafted in that context. That does not arise spontaneously; it is well organised, and it has to be fought. Britain, as a country that respects international human rights and has better standards on that, ought to be financing some of the battles to prevent the spread of that pernicious and damaging ideology.

Britain has to get back on the international stage to advance LGBT rights across the globe and has to support those campaigning to change those unacceptable laws at home. I know that the international development Minister, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), is very aware of that, and we as an APPG have been to see him about it. It would be interesting if the Minister said a bit about whether there is funding to help to support a battle against those worrying developments on the African continent.

We have made progress, stalled and progressed again, and are going forwards and backwards in a non-linear way. There are challenges ahead, but we have to redouble our efforts not only to be proud of who we are and proud of our communities, but to try to create a circumstance where once more Britain leads the world in LGBT+ rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) on securing this important debate, and thank them both for their efforts in doing so. [Interruption.] Have I done something wrong?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

No, I was just saying that I am not right hon.

[Ashley Dalton]

Oh, I assumed you were! Apologies.

LGBT History Month is an opportunity for us to look back and remember what we have achieved. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey highlighted the fact that it is an opportunity to know our history so that we might be less likely to repeat its mistakes, and pointed out that the Government’s LGBT action plan and advisory panel are now things of LGBT history—perhaps not the kind of history we would want. As the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington pointed out, LGBT people have been around since time immemorial. We are not new. But we are still debating LGBT rights on at least an annual basis, and we must be ever vigilant about how fragile the rights we do have can be.

LGBT History Month is also an opportunity to reflect on the current state of LGBT+ rights both at home and overseas, and there is much to celebrate. I am delighted that same-sex couples can finally receive at least a blessing from the Church of England. Religion and religious expression is as intrinsic to the identity of some people as sexuality. The fact that same-sex relationships can now be recognised by the Church of England is a long-awaited milestone for the LGBT+ community, and one we all hope will be followed by more progress in this area in the years to come.

I was also pleased that the Government decided last summer to expand the scheme to pardon people who served in the military and were convicted of homosexual activity, including allowing female veterans to wipe their offences from the record. Sexuality is not a crime, as the last Labour Government recognised when they first lifted the ban on LGBT+ people serving in the armed forces in 2000. I am glad that the Government issued an apology to all LGBT+ personnel impacted by the ban. It is a step in the right direction, but we are still waiting for news on the progress of financial reparations and other recommendations in the independent review. Will the Minister provide an update on that today?

In Europe there have been several advancements in LGBT+ rights that are worth highlighting. Greece became the first Orthodox Christian country to legalise same-sex marriage in February, and Latvia will join its neighbour Estonia in legalising same-sex marriage this year. Several European states, including Norway, Portugal, Cyprus, Ireland and Belgium, have achieved what this country has so far failed to do by passing bans on so-called conversion therapy across their nations. It is with much disappointment that I mark LGBT History Month in this House today with no ban on conversion practices on our statute book.

However, the international picture on LGBT+ rights is far more mixed. Across the globe, LGBT+ individuals remain criminalised, persecuted and at risk of death. Last month, Russia began enforcing new legislation criminalising the display of “extremist symbols” such as the pride flag. In Saint Vincent and the Grenadines last month, courts upheld laws criminalising gay sex, while in Uganda, as has been noted, merely identifying as LGBT was criminalised in 2023.

In some nations where the legal system may not directly persecute or diminish the rights of LGBT+ people, societal attitudes may do so. In South Africa, which remains the only nation in Africa where same-sex marriage is legal, 59% of South Africans still oppose same-sex marriage. Similarly, a minority of the Greek public supported gay marriage when polled late last year. Those figures are a stark reminder that although legal progress may have been made, the LGBT+ community continues to face the same or similar attitudes to the ones that once legally prohibited the free expression of our sexuality.

My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), who is no longer in her place, raised the recent recognition of Mildmay Mission Hospital in the renaming of London underground lines, and its deep connection with the LGBT community through its provision of services to those affected by HIV and AIDS, particularly at a time when prejudice was rife, even in our NHS.

Last summer marked a decade since same-sex marriage was introduced in this country—a significant moment for the LGBT+ community—but many LGBT+ people will not feel able to celebrate that anniversary, because although it is welcome that anti-LGBT+ hate crimes have fallen 5% over the past year, hate crimes motivated by transphobia have increased by 11% over the same time, and the rate of violent hate crimes targeting all groups has not fallen.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) mentioned the importance of venues in providing safe places for LGBT people to meet, congregate, socialise, network and build a community. The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) highlighted the importance of role models, particularly in sport and popular culture, for young people who are LGBT—and, I would argue, also for those who are not. Too many members of the LGBT+ community still do not feel able to be who they are in public, and hide their identity or sexuality. The statistics on anti-LGBT hate crime do not tell even half the story, because the Government’s own figures acknowledge that 90% of anti-LGBT hate crime goes unreported.

It is the responsibility of us all in this place to make our country a safer place for LGBT+ people. Last week, we had an opportunity in Parliament to start the ball rolling on an inclusive ban on conversion practices. I am glad to see the Minister here for this debate. I know that he has personally been very supportive of a ban, so it was a shame that he could not be in the Chamber last Friday.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth also told us about the large and rapid decrease in people saying they are not prejudiced against trans people. We have to consider how the language and leadership, or lack of it, shown on the Government Benches might contribute to that. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) reminded us that the shift in public opinion in the late 1980s away from general support to more negative views of LGBT people and same-sex relationships came in the context of the section 28 debate. That is a reminder that progress is not inevitable and that we can go backwards as well as forwards.

It appears that the Government have no immediate plans to bring a ban on conversion practices to the House. Will the Minister tell us whether he supported the Bill last Friday? The Government may choose to sit on their draft conversion therapy Bill for fear of unleashing a Back-Bench rebellion that could bring down the Prime Minister, but Labour has a proud record of leading the way on LGBT+ rights. It was Labour that repealed the appalling section 28; introduced civil partnerships, which paved the way to equal marriage; ended the ban on LGBT+ people serving in our armed forces; equalised the age of consent; gave LGBT+ couples the right to adopt; introduced the Equality Act; made homophobia a hate crime; and brought forward the Gender Recognition Act. That record made our country a safer and more hospitable place for LGBT+ people to grow up, work, love and thrive. The next Labour Government will continue that work.

It is Labour that will legislate to give longer sentences to criminals found guilty of LGBT+-motivated hate crimes, deliver a new deal for workers that tackles the workplace harassment of LGBT+ people, and put a full loophole-free trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices on the statute books. It is Labour that will always treat LGBT+ people fairly and with dignity, respect and, crucially, equality.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That is exactly the opportunity presented by the work of our colleagues in the FCDO in helping us to share our experiences. There are challenges bringing through these pieces of legislation and these reforms. I remember all those emails coming in when we were having the equal marriage debate, but the next day, as the hon. Member for Wallasey said, the sky had not fallen in, and most people cannot even believe that 10 years ago LGBT people could not get married. That is what we need to do to spread the gospel, as it were.

The hon. Lady also mentioned how far we have come on HIV and AIDS. Given the topic of this year’s history month, it is important to talk about that. She rightly said we are all aware of the scars that the HIV and AIDS crisis left on so many in the LGBT community and on their friends and family, and sadly we lost far too many. Thanks to the advancement of medicine, HIV is a preventable and treatable condition that is no longer seen as the death sentence it once was. Instead, it is easily manageable, and people can live long, happy lives post diagnosis. That is why I am pleased that we have committed to investing more than £4.5 million in our national prevention programme and to ending new HIV transmissions and AIDS and HIV-related deaths in England by 2030. It is an ambitious target, but we are on course for it.

Great progress has already been made through our national HIV action plan. NHS England has committed £20 million to expand opt-out HIV testing in emergency departments in local areas with the highest prevalence of HIV levels. That has helped identify more than 1,000 people with untreated or undiagnosed HIV in the first 21 months, which is truly fantastic. The message still needs to be that people need to keep testing, because the sooner someone is diagnosed, the sooner they can get treatment and live that happy and normal life.

I will move on to the issue of conversion practices—my favourite part. Hon. Members will know my personal views on the matter, and I am pleased to say there is a consensus among the vast majority that no one in this country should be harmed or harassed for who they are, and that extends to the threat of conversion practices. I want to make it clear that attempts at so-called conversion therapy are abhorrent. To stand up for LGBT people, it is key that we end any practice that falsely claims to cure or change a person’s identity. We are clear on our stance that such practices are harmful and simply do not work. That is why we are still committed to publishing a draft Bill on this topic for pre-legislative scrutiny soon. That will include targeting efforts to change someone from or to being transgender. It is a sensitive area and one of great debate. I have always wanted to do this, but even I have recognised that there are challenges, and I have to be honest about that.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) for the considered way he presented his Bill. I am sorry that I was not there; I was at a ministerial meeting in Glasgow. As I say, I recognise the considerable effort he took in drafting the Bill and know that he did that with criticism from both sides of the argument. The Government still want to introduce their own Bill, and that is why there was that decision to oppose it. The Government have rightly taken time to carefully consider the issues and ensure that our Bill is as robust as possible. Moreover, it is right and proper that the Government present it for pre-legislative scrutiny, so that we can have a further safeguard, ensuring that it does what we expect it to do.

In the meantime, I am keen to remind the House that the Government fund a victims support service, run by the anti-violence charity Galop. That enables those at risk of or undergoing conversion practices to report their situation and access tailored support and guidance. I keep repeating that because I want people to know that there is somewhere they can go to get help should they need it.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I know how difficult it is for a Minister to get the entire Government to agree to do what they want them to do, when they want them to do it. However, that formulation of words has been used many times and we are coming to the end of the Parliament now. Can the Minister give us even a hint of whether this Bill will appear at all, or will we have to wait until after the general election?