Far-right Violence and Online Extremism

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I do not, and neither do the police or the intelligence services I work with, in any way miss or fail to recognise the threat from the far right. It was this Government who first proscribed a far-right, neo-Nazi group—National Action—over 18 months ago. We did that, and we have subsequently taken action against a number of people and organisers. On hate crime, which is also one of the planks we need to take away from extremists, we have funded a £1.5 million action plan. We have asked the Law Commission to review the hate crime legislation to make sure it is fit for purpose. No doubt, the Law Commission will look at hate crime in the online space as well, and I hope it can feed into the online harms White Paper that is coming soon.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

We stand in solidarity with the Muslim community in Christchurch, New Zealand, and across the world. My mother with my grandparents emigrated there in the 1950s, and only by virtue of lack of employment am I a Scot and not a Kiwi.

The attacks in Christchurch are surely a tipping point for action by social media companies and this Government. I take on board what the Minister says about collaboration and co-operation, but the Government have been dragging their heels on the White Paper. I understand that he needs to collaborate with countries across the world, but surely now is the time to show some leadership, step forward and have proper legislation and regulation. Not only should no family lose a loved one in such horrific circumstances, but they should not then find out that the brutal murder of their loved one was streamed online for 17 minutes and is still going around online now.

[Mr Wallace]

I hope that when the White Paper comes out that the hon. Lady is not disappointed. Given the way the internet is constructed, we have to make sure that regulation works. There is simply no point in putting out a load of regulation if everyone puts their servers somewhere like Cuba or North Korea and nothing can change. We have to make sure we have a technical solution alongside a regulatory solution.

International Women’s Day

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. I think that the biggest amount of progress has been in the Government making companies publish their gender pay gap; for the first time ever, the pay gap has become an issue that is on the agenda of businesses throughout the country. However, in answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, there has not been nearly enough progress. Although the gender pay gap has all but evaporated for women under 30, for older women it is alive and well, and we need to resolve it. I will come to that issue later in my speech.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), I believe in equality of opportunity. We need to continue to look for ways of ensuring equality of opportunity for women in our communities. As women we are resilient, but we are so resilient that we sometimes need to stop and appreciate the blatant discrimination that still pervades our lives every single day, and which still denies some women the level playing field of opportunity. Too many women’s confidence is sapped—their career even destroyed—by bullying and sexual harassment at work. Forty per cent. of women in this country, and millions more around the world, suffer sexual harassment.

That issue was well highlighted this week by the day of action that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and I hosted, when women from across the country, supported by CARE International, came into Parliament to lobby Members of Parliament to support the new International Labour Organisation global convention, which will outlaw sexual harassment and abuse at work in every country in the world, if it gets the support of their Governments.

Discrimination is still blatant because so much of the enforcement of the laws that we have passed in the UK is not working as we would want it to. In the Government’s new good workplace report, they set out the importance of enforcement of workplace rights, and they are right to do so. However, I urge the Minister for Women also to look at the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and the laws that pertain to health and safety, as well as others that are being looked at as part of the good workplace report. Legislation puts enforcement powers for those anti-discrimination laws into the hands of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but if it is not exercising those powers, we should give them to somebody who does. No one should be prepared to stand by and watch more than 50,000 women a year leave their jobs simply because they are pregnant, even though we already have laws in place to prohibit that.

One in eight women in this country want to start their own business, often as a way to create their own business culture, yet they find that just 9% of funding for start-ups goes to women, despite women-led businesses delivering double the returns on investment for financial backers. When a woman looks to Parliament to fix the problem, she might see a very strong Prime Minister admired for her resilience, but on these green Benches—well, perhaps not today, but usually—she will see that just one in three MPs are women. As I have said, the most important way to build in a resilient equality between men and women is through women’s economic empowerment—women’s full participation in work, including here.

The truth is that many of the barriers in women’s workplaces, including those that remain here, are in need of reform. With regard to the laws that we are so proud of having passed in this place, the reality is that a lack of enforcement on the ground often makes them worse than useless for many women. Most women do not work in the City of London, in large accountancy or law firms or in City institutions that may have modernised their approaches. Our constituents face a very different workplace, often still stuck in the ’70s, with presenteeism, a long hours culture, a lack of flexible working, employers who routinely use non-disclosure agreements to cover up discrimination, and management who look down on dads who want to take parental leave to share in the care of the newest members of their family.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I know that the right hon. Lady’s Committee has been doing a lot of work on non-disclosure agreements and she has very much led the charge on that. It is a very complex legal issue, but does she agree that a starting point could well be to compel companies legislatively to publish the number of NDAs that they use, the reason that they use them, and how many they use each year?

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady brings up a very important possible solution, which our Committee will certainly look at. We have been struck by how many companies and organisations do not use NDAs at all, particularly the Government. Some people have said that the reason the Government—or the civil service—do not use them any more is the oversight of Ministers and the media, so, as she says, transparency may well be a way forward.

We have to shake free from the notion that a modern workplace will cost too much to deliver and be too much of a burden on business, because the fact that millennial dads tell us that they would rather downgrade their jobs than take a promotion or a pay rise because they cannot balance their family and work commitments indicates that productivity is really under threat. With more than 1 million economically inactive mums not working because there are not the jobs that allow them to look after their kids and work as well, we have a real problem to tackle. As labour becomes in shorter supply after we leave the EU, it is a problem that we cannot afford to continue to sweep under the carpet. We need modernisation and reform.

That message of modernisation is for this place, too. One of the very first reports by the Women and Equalities Committee was on women in the House of Commons. I was struck by the plans that all political parties have in place to address the under- representation of women in Parliament. The proof of the pudding will obviously be at the next election as to how many get elected. There is no way of disguising the real appetite for change among the parties, but can we identify the same appetite for change with regard to Parliament itself? Can we be so sure, when the political parties are recruiting a new generation of female MPs, that they will be arriving in a place that they want to stay in, or will it still look as though it is in a time warp?

Very good work has been done by Professor Sarah Childs, thanks to Mr Speaker’s significant commitment to modernising this place. He put his money where his mouth is and commissioned her to produce a report in which she painted a picture of what a good Parliament looks like. Some of those measures have been taken up—in particular, proxy voting for parents with new children. I note that Madam Deputy Speaker was in the Chair when that change to Standing Orders went through; we thank her for her support. We do not now routinely sit through the night, and there are some rudimentary family facilities in Parliament. The crèche is important. However, what someone whose children are beyond crèche age needs as a parent is certainty about what they are doing day by day, so that they can plan what they might be doing on a particular day. That certainty is wholly lacking in this place, as evidenced by this debate, which should have started about two hours ago. We need to do more to make sure that parents, whether they are commuters or need to get back to their constituencies to look after their children, have certainty as to when we will be sitting here. I can see one or two hon. Members nodding vigorously at these comments.

[Hannah Bardell]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that implementing a process such as the Scottish Parliament’s set decision time, together with electronic voting, which would seriously reduce the amount of time that we waste in this place, would be two very positive steps forward?

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady is probably pressing me a bit too far on electronic voting, but I definitely think that the Scottish Parliament has a very sensible way of organising its day. People know that voting will take place at a particular time, so they do not lose that opportunity to get together, to see each other and to have all the important conversations that they need to have as a body of people, but they do it at a regular time during the day. We can stay here until 1 o’clock in the morning debating all we like, but it should not be at the expense of people’s family life. One colleague has told me about the real problems of not being able to get home at night for her teenage children. We are neglecting this at our peril, because such good women will vote with their feet and not necessarily stand for re-election at the next election.

This is partly why the Women and Equalities Committee has decided to set up a Sub-Committee to scrutinise the implementation of a recent report, “UK Gender-Sensitive Parliament Audit 2018”, published by a group of MPs including my hon. Friends the Members for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) and for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), the hon. Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker) and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), as well as Members in the other place. The report looks at how we could make the House of Commons a better place to be a female MP.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

It is a huge pleasure to follow such an esteemed list of female parliamentarians and, indeed, our esteemed colleague from Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

The comments of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who is not in her place, were incredibly powerful. We could have heard a penny drop in the Chamber as she read out the names of the women who have died as a result of domestic violence and abuse in the past year. I am proud that in Scotland the SNP Government have brought in world-leading domestic abuse legislation, but we still face a huge challenge.

Today is World Book Day, and one of my favourite books I have read recently is “Eve Was Shamed” by Helena Kennedy, who sits in the other place. She talks about structural inequalities in the justice system, which we must continue to focus on across all jurisdictions in the UK.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is “Balance for Better,” and it is a great opportunity to talk about those structural inequalities for women, as well as intersectionality and discrimination against women from black and ethnic minority communities, from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, who are disabled or from any minority group.

I stress at the outset that it is essential to understand that women’s rights are not to be achieved at the cost of men. There is a huge role for men to play—husbands, fathers, sons, brothers and friends. I hasten to add that my own brother is an ardent feminist. He and I were brought up by a single mother, and he has a female partner and a female daughter, so he has been surrounded by women his whole life.

One of the things we have talked about recently—I raised it earlier at Digital, Culture, Media and Sport questions—is the scourge of online media, particularly social media and gaming. Much has been said about the abuse that female parliamentarians particularly receive, and about the creep of abuse online.

The streaming of the game “Rape Day,” which was recently released by developer Desk Plant, has, thank goodness, been stopped on the Steam platform. I find it incredible that someone would sit behind a computer and create a game based on verbally harassing, killing and raping women, with content including violence, sexual assault, non-consensual sex, obscene language, necrophilia and incest. In any world, why would anyone play that game?

There has been a huge outcry, including from Shona Robison, my colleague in the Scottish Parliament, who raised it at First Minister’s questions today. The First Minister herself called it out. A game of this nature has no place in our society, and I am glad it has been pulled but, at a time when one in five women will experience sexual violence in their life and young teens are learning about sex from online porn, I question the morals of those behind the game.

A few weeks ago, the NSPCC published a report highlighting its research on social media and online harm, and I am sure the results will shock everyone in the Chamber and parents at home. Technology-facilitated grooming has become a major challenge. In 2017-18, across the UK, there were more than 3,500 police-recorded offences of sexual communication with a child. In England and Wales, 70% of offences, where the data was recorded, took place on Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram. We must do everything possible to challenge those online platforms to stop the scourge of online harm and abuse.

An average of one child per primary school class has been sent or shown a naked or semi-naked image online by an adult, and more than one in seven children aged 11 to 18 has been asked to send self-generated images and sexual messages. Terrifyingly, the Home Office says that an estimated 80,000 adults in the UK pose a sexual threat to children online. I am sure that is shocking for all of us.

The Scottish Government have implemented a huge number of progressive and world-leading policies to better support women and young people across Scotland. We have introduced legislation that makes Scotland the only part of the UK with requirements for gender parity on public boards. The Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Bill was recently passed in our Parliament and it sets an objective for listed public authorities that 50% of the non-executive members of their boards should be women. I hope the Minister will take that into consideration. I know that her Government have done a significant amount, particularly on getting companies with more than 250 employees to register their gender pay gap, but more must be done. We must look at the position in companies with fewer than 250 employees, because some of the worst discrimination often lies in those companies.

The Minister will know that as soon as Nicola Sturgeon became Scotland’s First Minister she had a Cabinet with a 50:50 gender balance—one of only three in the world. Many Members have spoken of pioneering women, and I want to pay tribute to my colleagues in the constituency, Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs, and Angela Constance MSP, who was until recently the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. Both women have represented West Lothian constituencies and both have been in the Cabinet. The Livingston constituency has fielded female candidates in the past six elections, including my mother in 2010.

I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) say that International Women’s Day was started 110 years ago, by women who were garment workers. My grandmother was a garment worker during the second world war. She met my grandfather when working for Rolls-Royce. When she returned to work after marrying, she was told that her job was a job for men and that she should not be doing it, and she was given her books—in essence, she was dismissed. Married women were not eligible for employment of this sort—she was told that it was “men’s work”. It took her until she was in her 80s to tell my mother and I:

“And the three men they kept on to do my job weren’t worth a tenth of me.”

It has taken four generations of women in my family to get to a position of what could be called “power and influence”, but we got there. In the words of Angela Davis:

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

May I start by saying what an honour it is to be part of this debate on such an important day in our national and international calendar? I thank and pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) who, as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, very much stands by what she addressed us on, namely speaking truth to power. I note the fact that she is the 265th of 491 women ever to have been Members of Parliament. The fact that we have not yet managed to fill a five-year term with female MPs does show us the scale of what we have to climb before we get true equality in this place.

I thank every Member, both female and male, who has attended the debate and contributed today. International Women’s Day is primarily a day of celebration. We have certainly heard speeches today that offer great hope and optimism for the future and that have demonstrated that, in many areas, we are making real progress towards a more equal society. At the same time, we have heard appalling details of inequality from a number of speakers and clear evidence of the prejudices that women and girls still face.

We heard what I consider to be one of the most important events in the parliamentary calendar, which was the reading by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) of the names of the women who have been killed by men since the last International Women’s Day. Their names have been read out. They are in the parliamentary records, and they are remembered.

I am pleased also that colleagues raised the issue of the domestic abuse Bill. This is a landmark piece of legislation and, of course, is accompanied by a raft of non-legislative measures. As if we had not already heard reason enough from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley for this Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) cited a particularly concerning case of coercive behaviour—a relatively new offence that we introduced in 2015, and I will of course look into that.

Yesterday, we launched an updated version of the violence against women and girls strategy because, sadly, violence against women and girls happens in the home, in the workplace and on the streets, and this strategy will implement a review of the criminal justice response to rape and serious sexual violence. Having visited several rape centres recently, I am concerned—as are others in the Chamber—about the drop-off between reporting and action to bring perpetrators to justice, so I hope this review will get the answers we require.

The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) rightly raised the matter of FGM and so-called honour-based violence. We have secured the first conviction for FGM only recently—not for want of trying by many police forces and those who support victims. In addition, a great deal has been going on over the last few years, including forced marriage protection orders, anonymity for victims and mandatory reporting duties for FGM survivors. Indeed, at this very moment in time there is an event at No. 10 to discuss what more we can do to tackle FGM and forced marriage.

[Hannah Bardell]

Does the Minister agree that something that has not been mentioned an awful lot in this debate is the responsibility of the media and victim-blaming? We hear far too much about violent men who “just snapped” and innocent women who have been killed or injured not taking enough responsibility for their own safety. That has to stop and the narrative has to change.

[Victoria Atkins]

I very much hope that the hon. Lady will be making those points to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which has been appointed to look into the domestic abuse Bill.

Several colleagues, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) and the first ever female MP for Plaid Cymru, the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), mentioned the role of social media and tech including games. We are due to publish our online harms White Paper very soon. Hon. Members may also be interested to know that I have commissioned research into the effect of pornography on attitudes towards women and girls; there is a lot that we need to look into there. We have also initiated projects tackling child sexual exploitation across the world, including WeProtect.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands]

I could not agree more; my hon. Friend makes a very sensible point.

As I was saying, these are all monumental and unforgiveable lies. Perhaps the remain campaign should have challenged them more effectively. Perhaps the national media were too complacent to hold the liars to account, or—more likely in the case of the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, The Sun and others—were actually complicit in those lies. Perhaps people like me, who opposed Brexit, could have been better at telling the real story of the benefits of EU membership and the privileges that we should never—but perhaps did—take for granted.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that it is an absolute tragedy that the UK came at the bottom of the list of EU countries that were able to give a positive view of the EU, and that it is only in the last year or two that newspapers in the UK have been reappointing EU correspondents?

[Gavin Newlands]

My hon. Friend makes a good point.

When confronted with these alternative facts as portrayed in the media and by some hon. Members here, who can actually blame some people for agreeing to what amounted to a quick fix? The difference between the attitude and actions of the Scottish Government and the Westminster Government following the referendum in 2016 was stark. Immediately after the result was announced, the First Minister of Scotland gave an open-hearted address to EU citizens and the message was crystal clear—“We want you to come to Scotland and we want you to stay”—whereas the Tories spoke of bargaining chips.

Scotland rejected the false promises, the hate-filled rhetoric and the lies. We did this because something greater is being offered in our country. In Scotland, the largest party has been proudly in favour of immigration and freedom of movement. Some politicians in this place are scared to follow this example, but it can be an easy argument to win; they just have to make it. I say to the Leader of the Opposition and some on his Benches that politicians are here not merely to follow public opinion, but to lead it—to persuade and debate the merits of a policy, not to cower meekly in the corner desperately waiting for 29 March to come and go. That is not leadership. It is a total abdication of responsibility.

Freedom of movement is the greatest achievement that we have reached together in the European Union, and it is the single greatest reason why we must remain members. Programmes such as Erasmus allow for an unprecedented exchange of ideas between the students who populate Europe’s rich universities. Millions of people from the UK’s constituent nations, including many Scots, choose to retire to quiet lives on the Mediterranean and millions of others travel across the continent, taking in Europe’s vast cultural heritage. Others have built careers abroad in every conceivable field, allowing us to advance every aspect of our shared society.

Just before the withdrawal agreement, I made a call on social media for people to tell me their stories and experiences of freedom of movement. During the withdrawal agreement debate, I raised the story of Ivan and his family. Ivan was born in Spain, studied in Italy and has worked all over Scotland in Scotland’s NHS. He met his Irish wife, who then went on to work in Denmark. They have had two daughters born in Scotland—one with an Irish passport and one with a Spanish passport, but both indisputably Scottish.

I have other constituents with similar experiences. My constituent Emma Hendrie is a 21-year-old student who studied for a semester at Ghent University in Belgium. Once her fellow students got past her apparently strong Paisley accent, she became lifelong friends with people from Europe and beyond. Alison Hughes lived in the Netherlands on two different occasions, which was a great experience for her children and her family, who got to meet other children from all over the world. Mark Harold emigrated to Lithuania in 2005 to work on music projects, and stayed for many years. Mark was eventually elected to the city council and is now the night mayor of Vilnius; he is the only non-citizen to have sworn on the Lithuanian constitution. Sandra and Steve Murray wrote to me to tell me their story of making a new home in a small village on the French-Spanish border that is populated by Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Belgian, English, Irish and Swedish people, as well as people from many other nations. Their only wish was that the UK would adopt the Scottish view that we all want the same things—peace, equality and opportunity.

This is what we are about to lose. How can we in this place rip this from our young people, who voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU? How can we rip Scotland out of the free movement area when the Scottish people overwhelmingly voted to continue to have this freedom? My message today is this: I understand that millions of people across England are disillusioned with politics and are yearning for something better, and I am sorry that there is no major party that can help them at this point. I do not blame them for their anger; I am often angry about the situation myself.

Gender Pay Gap

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the gender pay gap.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I feel very greedy for having just intervened in the last debate and now having my own debate, but both debates are on matters that are close to my heart, because both make a big difference to our local communities.

I mean no disrespect to the Minister present—the Minister for Women—but I see this subject as a matter for the Treasury first and foremost, because I think that closing the gender pay gap is one of the most positive economic policies that we could have in this country, given the benefits that it would bring to our country as a whole. We have spent the past eight years, since I was first elected to this House, arguing about austerity—I know that there are different views on it, but Labour Members are pretty clear that it has not been a good economic policy. There are probably different views across this Chamber as to whether Brexit is a good economic policy—many of us are certainly concerned about the impact on our economy—but I hope there is agreement across the House that closing the gender pay gap would have a positive impact on our economy.

For me, it is interesting and telling that we do not see this matter first and foremost as one of economics. That is one of the challenges we have to address, because we know that closing the UK’s gender pay gap would add £150 billion to our GDP in the next couple of years and that an extra 840,000 women would be added to the UK workforce. Those figures reflect what the gender pay gap really is: untapped talent in our society. Given that we have gone through the horrors of austerity and we appear to be going through the horrors of Brexit, never more have we needed positive economic policies that tap into that talent, to help us try to redress the balance. To the person who tweeted me earlier this afternoon, saying that in debating the gender pay gap I may as well be debating “unicorns”, I say that today the “unicorns” are in the main Chamber, in relation to Brexit. This debate is very much a reality.

The gender pay gap is a reality that we have always known existed; we have always had data to show a general gender pay gap in this country. We know from the annual survey by the Office for National Statistics that the average gap is about 13%. However, what has changed in this debate in the last year has been the data about particular companies, busting open the argument in people’s workplaces and revealing to them the variations between different sectors. It has shown that 78% of companies in this country that have more than 250 employees are paying the men they employ more than the women—that is on average, so it is not just about individual men and women. That is a systematic undervaluing by those companies and organisations of the women who work for them, and of the possibilities that they could bring to their company or organisation.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady has secured this debate and it is a pleasure to join her in it. I was on the Delegated Legislation Committee that considered the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 and put them through. I was surprised, as I am sure she was, that the bar was set at 250 employees. I know that is a good start, but does she agree that some of the biggest challenges are in the small and medium-sized companies that have fewer than 250 staff, and that it would be fantastic to hear at least an expression of willingness from the Government Benches to extend that legislation as soon as possible?

[Stella Creasy]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady. At the moment, only about 60% of the British workforce are covered by that legislation, so when we talk about understanding the gender pay gap in this country, we still have 40% of the gap to understand. I will come on to that issue later because, like her, I am impatient and, also like her, I have a passion for that piece of legislation.

We should honour all of the parliamentarians involved in this, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), whose determination to get the Equality Act 2010 through set us on course to where we are today. Sometimes her contribution to this process is forgotten, perhaps by Members who are new to the House. Anyone who has ever dealt with her on these issues knows full well how passionate she is about them and everyone should recognise that.

The variation within sectors is also pretty telling for us, in terms of the kinds of experiences that women in our country—our constituents—might face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

Absolutely. One of the things I want to come on to is the rise in self-employment, and in particular how that affects a lot of women who have lost their jobs in industries where self-employment is now the norm. A lot of our equal pay legislation and gender pay work is out of date because of the way in which people are now working, and I would love to hear the Minister’s thoughts on whether we need an equal pay Act for the 21st century that can take account of what a comparator is for somebody who is self-employed. Certainly, for a lot of those women, that will be a live issue.

Equal pay is still a problem. The Equal Pay Act 1970 is older than I am, but we know that women are still facing basic problems in being paid the same as men to do the same jobs. We know that the 84% drop in the number of cases is more to do with the cuts in legal aid than with an end to the problem, as the legal cases involving the BBC and Asda prove all too well. However, the gender pay gap is not illegal; it is just immoral and, frankly, inefficient. That is the issue that we have to get right, because it is an issue that our competitors are getting right.

That is the third thing that I want to say to the Minister. We can argue about the data—I press her to improve the quality of the data we get with the second lot in 2019, because there is more we can do—but data is not enough. Indeed, the data and the reaction to it shows that people are quite comfortable with the idea that we should have a gender pay gap, in a way that they would not be comfortable with poor productivity in their firms. We have to change that culture, and when our competitors are doing that we have a real problem.

[Hannah Bardell]

On the matter of culture, does the hon. Lady agree that the erroneous and inappropriate misuse of non-disclosure agreements is making a massive contribution to poor culture, with women particularly being silenced, resulting in the suppression and oppression of women and their voices in the workplace?

[Stella Creasy]

I absolutely agree. Indeed, that hostility to women’s voices being heard at all is one of the things that has come out of the #PayMeToo data. The fact that someone is powerful and has the money to silence someone else does not mean that that person’s voice should not be heard. I will support any of the measures on non-disclosure agreements that I know the Select Committee on Women and Equalities is looking at, not just about sexual harassment but about harassment in the workplace, because it is clear from the data we are getting that women do not feel able to come forward and do not feel protected. Indeed, when we see the BBC—a major public employer—trying to silence women, what message does that send to women who want to talk about equal pay?

We can learn lessons from our competitors. We can learn from Iceland, which has brought in some very serious fines to make sure that there is enforcement of equal pay. It is no good having legislation if there are no real teeth to enforce it. In Germany, employees can now get the details of six of their colleagues’ pay so that they can do a direct comparison, which has had a big impact on changing conversations about the worth of women in the workplace.

However, I am also here to say to the Minister that time is up for asking nicely, because we have been asking nicely for some time for these issues around pay and progression to be dealt with, and the pace of change is glacial. When our competitors in Germany, Belgium, France, and elsewhere across the EU—even in California, for Christ’s sake, which is hardly a bastion of socialist public policy—are introducing quotas and recognising that pushing those quotas helps push the pipeline, the question for us is, “Why do we want to be left behind as a nation?” Left behind we will be, because even if we can struggle to get a few more women on boards to meet that target for 2020, we are not doing anything about that pipeline. We are not doing anything fundamental to ensure that the talent that exists on the shop floor that is currently underpaid is being picked up and fast-tracked. That would help change the country.

That matters because of the economic impact of failing to pick up that talent. It matters when we hear companies saying that when it comes to promoting women, “Most women don’t want the hassle or pressure of sitting on a board.” Of course, we know that women do not deal well with pressure, obviously. They say, “All the good women have already been snapped up. That’s why you can’t find them,” or, “We already have one woman, so that’s enough, surely.” Of course, all women can be represented by one woman on a board. They say, “Shareholders just aren’t interested in this issue.” Frankly, if shareholders are not interested, they are not watching the world or their bottom line.

A global analysis of more than 2,000 companies showed that companies with women in at least 30% of leadership positions had profits that were on average 15% higher. If shareholders are not pushing for and demanding change, clearly they do not want to make any money, but that is what is happening now. We can keep asking nicely and trying to improve the data, but even if we improve the data there is that comfort with having a gender pay gap that means our economy is going to be held back, and that needs to change.

We should be asking about part-time work and whether we need to lower the threshold, at least from 250 to 100 employees. We should hold to account those companies that try to avoid putting in their partnership data, and we should get the data on black and ethnic minority employment and disability within our workplace. But we should also make a commitment that we will act, and acting means doing what our competitors are doing. It means setting some clear targets and having consequences for those firms that fail to act.

We know that next April we might see data that is a little bit better. After all, they will have had a year to try to figure out how to game the system, but gaming the system does not get the economic benefit. Let us stop apologising for wanting to close the gender pay gap and start demanding that we do, because this country cannot afford not to. What will the Minister do to ensure that the data we get next year is better, clearer and more diverse? What does she think is the appropriate timescale to keep asking nicely? Will she commit to when we might bring in quotas if we do not see change? She will find friends and champions across the House if she does. I also know that if she does not, Britain will not get the productive workers it needs. Blaming women for the problem will not help our economy. Helping ensure that every firm, every public sector organisation and every charitable organisation makes the best use of its staff will give this country the brighter future that the Prime Minister claims she wants. We want more than one woman at the top; we want many. That is what Britain deserves.

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[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who delivered a characteristically eloquent and detailed speech. I hope that some of the statistics in it get picked up by the media, because they are so stark and so incredible. As she said, the Equal Pay Act 1970 preceded her entry into the world. Clearly legislation can be introduced, or repealed, as in the case of section 28, but that does not necessarily change culture.

It is the duty of any Government and their politicians to ensure that we introduce not only legislation that creates equality, but policies and cultures, and sometimes that requires affirmative action. I am somebody who is avowedly pro quotas. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister about Sarah Childs’s report on Parliament. Some of this must start from within. We must hold a mirror up to ourselves and ask whether we are doing enough as politicians, and within our legislatures, to ensure that there is gender equality, and equality across the board.

We are in the 100th year of women’s suffrage, but incredibly, when I was elected in 2015—I know that others in the Chamber were elected that year—there were more men in that Parliament than there had ever been female parliamentarians elected. We should never tire of reminding ourselves of that statistic. We have come a long way. We now have a rainbow Parliament of different cultures, with many people from black and minority ethnic communities, LGBT politicians, and politicians with disabilities, but we still have a very long way to go.

I want to pick up on some of the statistics that the hon. Member for Walthamstow mentioned. Some 60% of the British workforce work part time, but she eloquently made the point that women in lower-paid jobs in particular face inequalities. I met representatives of Asda recently, and discussed their equal pay challenge. In fairness to them, they said that they were trying really hard to address it, but the fundamental point was the difference between people who work behind the scenes in warehouses and those who work on the checkouts. Although one job involves more manual labour, the other involves much more emotional labour. That is the crux of the issue: do we really value manual labour over emotional or interpersonal skills and soft skills?

That is something that we sadly lack, across business and across politics. Think about the G20 photo in which Christine Lagarde and our Prime Minister were the only women. We have a global problem with patriarchal structures. It is not about attacking men and saying, “You’re rubbish, you’re not good enough, and you’re to blame for all the problems,” but there is a reality to be faced. If we have so little gender diversity, and so little diversity in the leadership of countries across the world, and collectively in an organisation such as the G20—if only two of those 20 people are women—then we have serious problems.

That brings me to the financial sector. The Independent Evaluation Office, an arm of the International Monetary Fund, published a really interesting report about the run-up to the financial crisis. The report said that two key failures led to the almost complete failure of the regulatory system: No. 1 was groupthink and No. 2 was a reluctance to speak truth to power. The reality was that in the run-up to the financial crisis we had largely men around the table, largely from similar backgrounds, who were unwilling to challenge each other and challenge the groupthink that ensued; and that eventually brought our financial system to its knees.

It is scarcely necessary to open any financial paper any day of the week to see that, Brexit aside, we are heading for another financial crisis. I agree with the hon. Member for Walthamstow that we should not always couch the argument in financial terms, but we must tailor our message to those who are listening. I was heartened that when the data was released, Martin Gilbert, the chief executive of Standard Life Aberdeen, said:

“I’m welcoming new gender pay gap regulations despite the uncomfortable reading.”

We need to take men with us. We need men to come on the journey.

The hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) spoke about paternity and maternity leave, and I agree with so much of what she said. I hope that we can work cross-party on this issue, because men need to have the opportunity to take the time that they would like to take with their partners, to be with their children. They are parents as well. So often we hear men referred to as “baby-sitters”. They are not baby-sitting their own children; they have an equal responsibility.

Very often, having a missing parent of either gender, in terms of that parent being in the workplace, brings about huge challenges and issues for children. I am from a single-parent family. My mother worked full time, and she did a pretty decent job. I know she found it challenging. Whatever make-up a family is, in our modern society we must ensure that our structures encourage those families, and that every workplace, whether in the public or private sector, encourages families to flourish and staff to take the time that they need with their children.

In Scotland, we passed legislation in January 2018 to ensure that we have 50:50 gender representation by 2020 on our public boards. Our gender pay gap is smaller in Scotland; it is only 6.6%, as opposed to the UK gender pay gap of 9.1%. Our First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has done an incredible job, but in Holyrood we still have significant challenges. Interestingly, the gender representation of the press lobby in Holyrood is much worse than that of the UK lobby. That is also an issue. They are the people who report on our politics and help to shape the political arguments. I look up at the press Lobby every week at Prime Minister’s Question Time, and there is a serious lack of diversity, particular regarding gender. We must do everything that we can to close that gap.

The World Economic Forum predicts that it could take 217 years to close the gender pay gap. That is an incredible amount of time. We should not have to wait any longer. We must act, and what I always say to folk when I talk about quotas is that, as much as people may have problems with them, they are a temporary measure to redress the balance. They are not something that any of us want to see over the long term, but whether in politics or in business, they are absolutely the kind of policy that the UK Government and devolved Governments must introduce so that we can have fair representation.

I finish by quoting Talat Yaqoob, the director of Equate Scotland, who said:

“What we can be hopeful of is that the demand for fair representation is growing. Lobby groups, academics and women in parliament will, rightly, be vocal about the need for progress. But the evidence of women’s under-representation, the reasons for that under-representation and the positive impact more women in parliament have, is all well documented. The time now, is…for action. By the next election, we can and must have processes in place for fair representation.”

None of us knows when the next election may come, so now is the time to act. I hope that the Minister will be on board, and on side with us. I am sure that we will be able to work together on these issues to close the gender pay gap, and to ensure that our businesses, our Parliaments, our shop floors and our warehouses are representative of our society.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) on securing the debate. It is always great to collaborate with her on the work that she does on women and equalities to try to move the agenda forward.

We have heard some really great speeches today. I think we are almost in agreement that something needs to be done; I suppose it is about how it will be done, and when it will be done. Labour introduced the Equal Pay Act in 1970, but nearly 50 years later we are still discussing unequal pay, and women are still earning less than men. I loved the fact that on 10 November a lot of women put “out of office” messages on their email to show that they work for nothing from that day onwards. I thought about doing that myself, but the consequences would probably have been rather different.

We are still talking about the pay gap. The UK has slipped from 14th to 15th in the ranking of 33 OECD countries based on the five indicators of female economic empowerment. We really need to do better. There is a lot that we can and should do, so there is no excuse for not addressing the problem. After all, 51% of people in the country are women and the other 49% would not be here it were not for women. It is time we made those adjustments rather quickly.

Women have borne the brunt of Government cuts—87%—and everywhere we turn, women are struggling and suffering. My hon. Friend cited some really stark statistics that show that things are continually getting worse. Sometimes there are marginal gains, but they are really far too slow to work. The gap is at its lowest for women aged 18 to 21; I would call that good news, but the gap opens up significantly—to around 26%—for women in their 50s. What could that possibly be down to? Obviously it is a combination of sex and age, and we know that if we add race into the equation, the gap widens.

We need to take into consideration what is at the heart of the gender pay gap: discrimination. A lot of injustices globally are caused by the undervaluing and devaluing of women and the roles they play. The hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) mentioned the issue of manual versus mental labour, which really drives home the point about the jobs women do, the roles we play and the way we are talked about. Our body, our hair, our looks, how we speak, how we walk—all those are additional barriers that men often do not face.

We really need to think intersectionally and look after other women who do not look white or middle-class or have kids. If we are really going to move the agenda at the pace it needs, we have to think about all women, in the round, so that we are not still having this discussion in 50 years’ time. Tackling these issues should be the Government’s main priority. I have sat opposite the Minister many times, and I know that she will say that the Government have done this report and that audit—but audits and reports are just not enough, because they are not getting the job done. We need solid action.

Hon. Members may ask, “What would Labour do?” We will ensure better provision of parental leave and more affordable childcare. We will encourage women and girls to go into male-dominated sectors so that they can achieve high salaries. We will also look at mental versus manual labour—I quite like that concept, so I might nick it from the hon. Member for Livingston.

[Hannah Bardell]

The hon. Lady is very welcome to nick it; we can share it and make it a cross-party tag line. Does she share my concern about comments from chief executives—particularly in the aviation industry, which has one of the worst pay gaps? Ryanair said that its gender pay gap of more than 70% was just because more men are pilots. We must call that out, but we must also encourage the industry to do more and work with organisations such as the Civil Aviation Authority to make sure that we have more female pilots and better support for women to get into such roles.

[Dawn Butler]

I absolutely agree. It is easy to reverse those roles; it is a proven fact that women are very calm under pressure, which is one of the traits that pilots need. There is an organisation in the airline industry—I cannot remember which—in which the woman who is chief exec is making great strides in encouraging women to become pilots. Why not? And why not equalise things the other way by having more male cabin crew? I totally agree that silly excuses are made. Men continue to dominate the most senior and best-paid roles. I know that that will take time to change, because they may have been in the job for a while and discrimination has being ongoing for years, but there is no excuse—we must tackle equality.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission estimates that 54,000 mothers a year are forced to leave their jobs early because they are pregnant. It is outrageous that that figure exists. To address such deep-rooted inequalities, we must ensure that we mandate that employers put action plans in place. It is great that employers now have to tell us their gender pay gaps as a result of regulations made under the Equality Act 2010, but they need to do more—just telling us that there is a gender pay gap without doing anything to address it is not enough.

The Government could do more. They could say—as a Labour Government would—that if an organisation pays its employees well and has an agenda to close the gender pay gap, they will ensure that it has access to Government contracts. If not, it should not get a Government contract, because it does not deserve one.

There is so much to be said, but I know that time is short and I am sure that hon. Members from all quarters of the House will secure more debates on the subject. It has been said that it has been very difficult to win the hearts and minds argument on the gender pay gap because companies are often not interested—they just ask what the bottom line is. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow cited a figure of £150 billion that closing the gender pay gap could generate for our GDP. That figure fluctuates, but without a doubt, paying women well will ensure that we add billions to the economy.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I was at the same event, and a female electrician corrected me by saying that only 1% of electrical engineers are female. As in our earlier discussion about pilots, there is no reason why more electricians and electrical engineers should not be women.

Let me turn to the work we are doing to help the lowest paid. The Minister for Women and Equalities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), recently announced that the work of the Government Equalities Office will be broadened to include an explicit focus on low-paid, low-skilled women, who have often been left out of the conversation, despite possibly requiring the most support, given the multiple barriers they face. The message that she wants to give, and which I echo, is that this is not a question of forgetting about directorships or the highest-paid women; this is about multitasking and ensuring that we reflect the whole economy and women’s contributions to it. We know, for example, that the lowest-paid women tend to feature in four industries: retail, childcare, caring and cleaning. We are looking at those sectors to ensure that the figures for the gender pay gap translate into real-life policies that have the greatest impact for the lowest-paid women.

The shadow Minister mentioned some figures quoted by the OECD. She will have to forgive me—obviously I am doing this on my feet—but just to put them in context, we understand that the OECD figures use a different methodology and go much wider than our gender pay gap measures. We are working with colleagues across Whitehall to increase women’s economic empowerment. In terms of Government recruitment, those factors are very much taken into account when we look at contracts. I hope that reassures her.

I turn now to the drivers of the gender pay gap. This is clearly just one of the steps we are taking to tackle the gap; other steps include introducing shared parental leave and pay, and running a £1.5 million campaign to promote the scheme. Hon. Members have made the point about fathers wanting to play a much greater part in raising their children, particularly in the early years. I think there is a lot more that the scheme can and should do. We want to raise awareness of it, so that employers understand the regulations and can ensure that their male employees can contribute to family life in as powerful a way as their female employees do.

[Hannah Bardell]

I thank the Minister for her extremely positive contribution, which I know will be followed with actions. I have spoken to a number of male constituents who have asked their employer about paternity leave and received quite negative responses. Education and engagement with businesses across the UK is important in enabling men to take paternity leave without facing stigma and discrimination as a result.

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady raises a very important point. This is about changing conversations and attitudes in the wider society as much as it is about what we do in this place, which of course is important. Frankly, it is about ensuring that society modernises the way it treats men and women in the workplace. We know that some employers are better than others. I hope that employers who are not doing such a great job will recognise the business reality: given the choice, good people will not want to work for bad employers. This is very much part of us all contributing to the conversation to ensure that employers know how they should treat their workforce.

There is more to supporting people in the workforce. In addition to shared parental leave, we are extending the right to request flexible working. We are creating a £5 million fund to support returners and spending about £6 billion on childcare support by 2019-20. We know that closing the gap will require a collaborative effort from Government and businesses, but I am convinced that, to truly solve this, employers must be the driving force. Every single employer who was supposed to have reported has done so, which means that 10,500 businesses are having conversations—sometimes for the first time—about how they treat women in their workforce.

I absolutely accept what the shadow Minister and others said about the need for action plans. As she knows, we take a slightly different approach to this. I want businesses to come up with their own action plans—indeed, we understand that about 40% of eligible employers have done so. I want to bring businesses with us, but if in due course that does not happen, that option remains open. At this stage, we want the transparency created by reporting figures to be met and addressed further by businesses doing that for themselves through their action plans.

Self-identification of Gender

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Westminster Hall

[David T. C. Davies]

The hon. Lady is right, but if I over-simplify, it is partly so that she can have a chance to speak. We have only 90 minutes, and this is the first time we have debated the issue properly in the House of Commons. I look forward to hearing her longer explanation.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this debate to Parliament. It is such an important issue, and this is a great opportunity for us to have a respectful debate and discussion, but does he agree that as parliamentarians we have a duty not to over-simplify and to ensure that we properly educate ourselves to have an informed debate and discussion?

[David T. C. Davies]

Absolutely. That is why I have spent quite a lot of time talking to women who have concerns about the issue. Very few Members of Parliament have been willing to educate themselves and come along and meet people who have those concerns. It is notable that when we have had meetings in the House of Commons, very few people have turned up to listen to the concerns of activist feminist groups who feel that the potential change to the law will have a huge impact on their lives. I look forward to the hon. Lady’s support at future meetings we may have—we look forward to seeing her.

The Government are now considering legislation that would do away with the checks that are currently made and allow people to redefine themselves as any gender they wish. As far as I can see, that would mean that once the consultation has ended, if the Government do what the equal opportunities committee is recommending, people will be able to change their gender at any time. There would be no need to live outwardly as that gender, let alone to take hormones or have surgery. A 15-stone bearded man could simply define themselves as female and there would be nothing anyone could do to object. One might think that that does not matter—in fact, it does not, if that is what people want to do. I am a libertarian. I am a believer in freedom of choice. As far as I am concerned, it is absolutely fine, until it becomes an issue for other people and other people’s rights.

People who might outwardly appear to be male and possess a male body would, if they legally redefined their gender, suddenly gain access to women’s toilets, hospital wards, changing rooms, refuges and prisons. They would have the right to undertake roles that people would normally expect to be done by someone of the same sex as those the service is being offered to, such as nurses or carers conducting intimate procedures, prison or police officers carrying out searches or staff working in refuges for victims of domestic violence.

We saw an obvious example a few weeks ago of what can happen, and will happen more regularly, when a convicted male sex offender who had redefined himself as female was able to insist on his right to be put into a women’s prison. Within a matter of days, he had carried out four sexual assaults on women. Another example was given to me by someone who was the victim of long-term sexual abuse as a young person.

--- Later in debate ---

[David T. C. Davies]

No, I have not asserted that at all. I have said that prisons and schools are allowing self-identification of gender at the moment. The law may well change shortly following the consultation, to give that a legal footing and to allow people to legally register their gender as being different from the one they are born with. The practicality is that that is already happening. I have made that point several times.

[Hannah Bardell]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David T. C. Davies]

Yes, but I am conscious that others may want to speak, and I do not want to use up all their time.

[Hannah Bardell]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it seems strange to cite an example of a failure in the current system as a reason not to make improvements to the system? He mentioned women’s refuges. Linda Rodgers of Edinburgh Women’s Aid noted:

“The reality is that any service has the potential to be abused, and we would deal with that, whatever direction it came from on a case by case basis…I don’t think this should be used as a reason to restrict the rights of a particular group.”

Surely the hon. Gentleman recognises that we should not make policy on the basis of the incidents he mentions or of some individuals who may abuse the system. It should be about equality and fairness for everybody.

[David T. C. Davies]

Absolutely, but the point I am making is reasonable: if people are legally able to redefine their gender, the prison authorities, for example, will not be able to prevent a male who has redefined their gender from going to a female prison. That is already happening and is bound to become a lot easier.

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[Layla Moran]

Hear, hear—I completely agree. It is really important to ensure that we are talking about the right thing. Violence against women is still ubiquitous. It still happens in our society and on our streets, and it should absolutely be called out, but these reforms are entirely separate. We need to come together on this. I am curious about whether the hon. Member for Monmouth has attended meetings in this House on violence against women.

A 2016 report by the Women and Equalities Committee found that the process of gender recognition was bureaucratic and costly. The Government’s LGBT survey, published in July this year, reported that trans women were being deterred from applying for gender recognition for some of the same reasons that I spoke about earlier; it noted that 93% of those who wanted gender recognition had been deterred from applying for it. The respondents to the Government consultation are not people who are thinking about changing their gender on a whim, but people who have grappled with the issue for a very long time. Their concerns are worth listening to.

[Hannah Bardell]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that trans people, who face huge barriers and a medicalised process, are being damaged psychologically by our legal framework? The core of why we are here as elected representatives is to make the lives of our constituents better and to ensure a level playing field. If we do not act and work together, more trans people will commit suicide—we already know the statistics—and young trans people will face more significant barriers. We absolutely must work together to understand and address their concerns and make sure that their voices are heard.

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[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hosie. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), who raised a number of issues. It is important that the debate remains respectful and that we can have a reasonable and decent conversation. I commend the UK and Scottish Governments on their consultations. The Scottish Government consultation received a huge number of responses, more than 60% of which were in favour of the proposals.

On a number of occasions, the hon. Gentleman spoke in over-simplified terms. I must repeat what I said in my intervention: that is not helpful because deepening and expanding the debate about those concerns is vital. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) made an excellent speech. I greatly share her concerns about rolling back on the Equality Act. As her hypothetical example highlighted perfectly, we have to remember that what is essentially identity fraud would be a crime. The fact that 93% of people in the trans community have sought to get support and access services but have been turned away is a shame and a stain on our society.

Yesterday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance—a day when we took a moment to celebrate the incredible contribution that trans people make to our communities, and to reflect and remember our trans siblings who have been killed, committed suicide, faced prejudice or not been able to live or be recognised in a way of their choosing. I firmly believe that today’s debate is about exactly that: living in a way of our choosing, without fear or prejudice, under a legislative framework that supports people to do exactly that.

I started school in the year section 28 was introduced. Section 28 meant that schools and teachers could not talk to students openly about their sexual orientation or gender identity without fear of losing their jobs. So much legislation related to LGBTI rights has been, and still is, based on fear rather than acceptance, but we have come a long way in all parts of the UK. I commend the Minister and her Government on their work, as well as the other Governments around the UK—particularly the Scottish Government, who have gone a little bit further. I hope that at some point the Minister and I can meet to discuss how scrapping the spousal veto in Scotland has meant greater equality for trans people.

Section 28 was scrapped in 2003. By then I was halfway through my university degree. I grew up believing that, if I came out, I could not live a normal life and I would not have equal rights. I am an ardent feminist and an openly gay MP. I am not about to shut the door on the equality of trans people just because people like me now have greater equality. Those of us in the LGBTI+ community, and all of us who believe in equality and enjoy greater equality, must do all that we can to support others who are marginalised and discriminated against. Although the legislation on gender recognition was groundbreaking in 2004, it is now out of date. Medicalising and marginalising people who are trans is absolutely wrong.

We recently celebrated a new chapter in Scotland for LGBTI people. Inclusive education has become a reality—the UK Government are also working on that. I want to take a moment to recognise Liam Stevenson and Jordan Daly from Time for Inclusive Education, plus all the many organisations that have supported us with their briefings today, including Stonewall Scotland, LGBT Youth Scotland and the Scottish Trans Alliance, which worked on the legislation and policies in Scotland alongside John Swinney, Angela Constance and Christina McKelvie.

I appreciate that sexuality and gender identity are two very different things, but I faced challenges in terms of coming to my sexuality. I did not come out until I was 32. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be for somebody who is trans who is trying to operate in a system where their transition is medicalised, where they have to travel hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles—as the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon mentioned, many trans people feel that going abroad is their only choice.

I have met a number of young trans people in my Livingston constituency, some pre-op, some post-op. The challenges they have faced are truly heartbreaking. Even in Scotland, which came second top in inclusiveness on the LGBTI global index, we still have a significant way to go. Living in a country and society where someone’s orientation or identity does not have legal recognition, and where they do not have equal rights, is corrosive to the soul. At the core is the need to reform the legislation—changing our societal view and structures will follow from changing the law on gender recognition.

I recognise that the debate has become very polarised, which is a source of great sadness to me. I do not think it helps when the media sensationalise. There are cases where systems are being abused, and we must recognise and address those concerns, but we must not make policy based on a few individuals who seek to abuse the system. There will always be those who seek to abuse the system. That is regrettable and those people should be dealt with appropriately, but we should not make policy on that basis.

[Danielle Rowley]

As the hon. Lady has rightly pointed out, a small minority would seek to cause others harm. However, more than half of trans people in the UK have attempted suicide and 84% have said that they have experienced suicidal thoughts. Does the hon. Lady agree that a lot more needs to be done to protect and support them?

[Hannah Bardell]

I could not agree more. The hon. Lady makes a very powerful point. It is a stain on our society that many trans people feel so marginalised. In this debate and in the wider discussion, we must do all that we can to raise our voices to show our support and ensure that our policies and our laws properly support and recognise them.

The Scottish Government consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004 ran from 9 November 2017 to 1 March 2018. There were 15,697 responses and 60% of respondents were in support of the Government’s proposals. It is important to recognise and understand why 40% were not in favour, but those are the figures none the less.

The hon. Member for Monmouth raised a number of concerns about domestic violence and women’s services. I have a few quotes from organisations in Scotland for him. The chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland, Sandy Brindley, said that the most important thing to say was that the proposed legal changes

“should make no difference to the provision of women-only services – that’s where some confusion has arisen. There isn’t any Rape Crisis which would ask to see documentation of gender.”

I mentioned Linda Rodgers of Edinburgh Women’s Aid, who said that

“there are concerns out there that our service could in some way be abused”

by allowing people to self-declare their gender. She said she had not heard that from the organisation’s staff or board. She continued:

“The reality is that any service has the potential to be abused, and we would deal with that, whatever direction it came from on a case by case basis...I don’t think this should be used as a reason to restrict the rights of a particular group.”

Many people are concerned about young people. Stonewall has said that accessing legal recognition would have a hugely positive impact on trans young people’s health and experience in education. Like all young people, trans young people get on better at school and college when they are supported to be themselves, which is particularly important given the alarming rates of transphobic bullying happening in Britain’s schools and the impact that that has on trans young people’s mental health. Lowering the age at which young people can obtain legal recognition would also raise awareness of trans young people’s needs and support schools and colleges to address the misconceptions and stereotypes that fuel transphobic bullying.

Stonewall provided a case study from a woman called Susan:

“My daughter deserves to have the legal status and identity that matches who she is. I don’t understand why people can’t accept that everyone has a right to live their life being true to themselves, as long as it doesn’t break the law or impact negatively on anyone else.”

Earlier in the year, I visited Malawi and met a number of trans activists and heard their stories. They live in a country where it is illegal not just to be trans, but to be gay. Trans people have no legal standing in that country. One of the activists had been attacked in their workplace purely on the basis of being trans. They went to the police, and were told to go home, dress in their proper identity and come back—only then could the crime be recorded. That is a world away from where we are. The mental and physical toll on those activists was terrifying.

We absolutely have to recognise that changing gender is not something that anybody would do lightly. Should it be done for nefarious reasons, it would be very rare and should be dealt with appropriately.

[Lilian Greenwood]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. She said that the experience in Malawi is a world away. Sadly, 41% of trans people have experienced a hate crime in the past year. I know from talking to some of my trans constituents that that is consistent with their experience. In reality, do trans women not need precisely the same protection from male violence and access to safe spaces that other women need?

[Hannah Bardell]

I absolutely agree.

I hope the hon. Member for Monmouth and others who have concerns will be reassured by the fact that women’s groups such as Rape Crisis Scotland, Scottish Women’s Aid, Zero Tolerance, Engender, Equate Scotland, Close the Gap and the Women 50:50 campaign have come out in support of the proposed changes in Scotland, as have their equivalent organisations in the UK. We must recognise that there are concerns and we must address them, but we absolutely must hold a mirror up to those who are marginalising and attacking trans people and their rights. There is a groundswell of support for equality and for a change in the law to ensure that gender identification and the processes that trans people have to go through are not discriminatory at their core. We absolutely must change the law to ensure that they are properly supported, that the law reflects that and that our society reflects that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dawn Butler]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Trans women suffer from abuse, violence, domestic abuse and assault in the streets, just as every other woman does. We need to recognise the intersectionality of women, including trans women; we often do not. Often, only some women are recognised and have a privileged position.

[Hannah Bardell]

The hon. Lady has made an excellent contribution. I just want to share with hon. Members an excerpt from Baroness Helena Kennedy’s excellent book, “Eve Was Shamed”, about the experience of trans prisoners, which illustrates the hon. Lady’s point excellently:

“One of the most distressing cases I ever conducted was defending a young transgender woman who had been raped and vaginally damaged by a former partner. She had gone to the police and reported the violation only to be greeted with ridiculing asides and suppressed laughter. The case pre-dated the Human Rights Act and reforms in rape law and the Equality Act. Her experience at the hands of the police was so wretched that she decided to withdraw the allegation whereupon the police charged her with perverting the course of justice.”

That was a long time ago and things have moved on, but such cases show that there must be no rolling back of rights.

[Dawn Butler]

I thank my hon. Friend—I will refer to her in that way—for that intervention. That feeds nicely into the letter from Heather, who has been trans for many decades. She said:

“Not so long ago, I was assaulted in a club when a stranger came over and roughly grabbed my crotch and breasts ‘to see if I was a woman’. I would call that sexual assault, but the police with stretched resources gave it low priority as it was a ‘lad having a laugh when drunk’. Being pushed over and abused in the street has also become common place again. When it happens now, myself and other trans people have to weigh whether it is worth reporting it to the police at all. Is your indignity worth the time it takes to go through all the police processes, the triggering of old memories of being sexually assaulted and the police’s lack of concern? For the more minor assaults usually it isn’t, but for the rapes and domestic violence support it is, and transwomen need support and safe spaces just as other women do.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

That point was raised in the consultation.

[Hannah Bardell]

The Minister’s point about the time being right is important. She mentioned a number of organisations that she has met, but I am concerned that some organisations suggest that gender identification is a trend. To me, that is deeply offensive, because it is akin to somebody telling me that my sexuality is a trend, which I absolutely refute in the strongest terms. In reality, trans people across the UK face murder, homelessness and violence. It is important that we change the law as soon as possible.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am about to move on to something that the hon. Lady spoke about in her speech. She may not know but I have said on record that I would never dream of using the word “trend” in this context, because its use risks demeaning or minimising the journeys that people are on or have been on. To my mind, that comes back to the point about being caring and careful in the way that we discuss the issue. If I may correct her for the record: the organisations I listed have met my officials.

Medicinal Cannabis

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s point. He has been a tireless and persistent campaigner for Alfie and others in this situation. I share his hope that we can process Alfie’s application as quickly as possible; it is now on a much better track. This is complicated and it is new ground for everyone, not least the clinical and medical community, but we are finding our way towards a legal, sustainable, long-term solution, as well as reviewing our processes in the handling of such cases, as I have outlined today.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Is it not the case that it is becoming policy by public outcry? It should not take such desperate cases for the Government to revisit and relook at their policy. A constituent of mine has relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, and suffers serious pain every day. Her specialist thinks that medicinal cannabis is the way forward for her pain relief. Will the Minister look at her case if I write to him, and will he look seriously at expediting provisions as quickly as possible for all our constituents?

[Mr Hurd]

I hope that I can do better than that by inviting the clinical panel, once it is set up, to look at the case raised by the hon. Lady. The point is that, within the rules at the moment—as we are trying to demonstrate through the Alfie Dingley application—we are prepared to look at individual licences in exceptional cases. Will it be as quick as I, or anyone, would like? No, but this is new and difficult. We need to get it absolutely right, not least to ensure that these licences stand up to scrutiny and legal challenge. I hope that we are going to get there very soon. I have given the family my absolute assurance that we are going to drive this process as hard as possible, as we will with other applications in the new system that we are setting up.

International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

That speaks volumes about the era we are moving on from and that which we are moving towards.

Operational effectiveness is not only affected by greater diversity; I would argue that our forces remain the best, most professional and most formidable in the world, but their culture has been vastly improved. When President Trump recently tried to ban trans people from serving in the US military the reaction from Britain’s military high command was not only revealing, but was something we should all be extremely proud of. The Second Sea Lord, Vice-Admiral Jonathan Woodcock, said he was:

“So proud of our transgender personnel. They bring diversity to our Royal Navy and I will always support their desire to serve their country.”

He added:

“I suspect many who doubt the abilities of our diverse service personnel might be more reluctant to serve than they are to comment.”

If I was in a fight, I would want a Sea Lord or two on my side. Well, we are in a fight and, as Bill Clinton warned, there are people not only trying to halt progress, but to turn the clock back. And it is crystal clear now, based on evidence, that excluding LGBT people from serving in our military would adversely affect operational effectiveness, not the opposite.

The same is true for gay marriage. The inclusion of same-sex couples into one of the oldest and most important of our institutions has not undermined its worth or value, but has proven it fit for the 21st century.

The lesson from these examples is clear: equality is not a zero-sum game. When a trans person serves in the military, it does not weaken the values that lead to an effective fighting team; it strengthens them. When a gay couple gets married, the value of a straight couple’s marriage is not suddenly diminished; it is strengthened by being in a partnership that is understood with empathy by more people. This needs to be understood as we look into the future and tackle the areas where more progress needs to be made. More than a third of lesbian and gay people disguise who they are at work, for fear of discrimination. That figure is even higher for people who are bisexual. It angers me that employers are overlooking so many lost opportunities, let alone productivity, because these are the things that come from a workforce that is at ease and able to celebrate the individual characteristics that make us who we are.

Here I want to pay tribute to Mr Speaker. In his time in office, he has relentlessly championed diversity and equality throughout the Commons. The results have been reflected in the Stonewall diversity index, but even more importantly, they have been part of the lived experience of people of the LGBT community who work here. I have worked in some pretty strange places in my time, especially during my years as an aid worker, but the Chamber here is by far the strangest. Sometimes, it is the most hostile work environment possible, but in my three years here, I have never experienced homophobia. The Chamber is a tough place to work, but it is a friendly place for lesbian, gay and bisexual people to be who they are. I hope that the time will soon arrive when the same can be said for trans people, too. The lesson from every other workplace is simple: this does not happen by accident. It happens only when good and determined people make it happen, and for that the Speaker has my full thanks.

Universities now need to learn the lessons, too. A third of trans students have experienced negative comments and 14% have considered dropping out due to harassment or discrimination by students or staff. The number of hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender has increased in recent years, not fallen, and the importance of engaging employers in the fight for equality is ever more important.

While researching for this debate, I was surprised to learn about some of the issues around bisexuality. For example, I did not know that only 12% of bisexual men were out, compared with 77% of gay men. Campaigners have spoken to me about the lack of bisexual magazines, apps, websites, groups and venues in which to meet and socialise. Because a lot of research covers the LGBT community as a whole, little is done to understand the specific sexual health issues surrounding the bisexual community, for example. These are issues that need addressing as we move forward.

Other hon. and right hon. Members will give more detail about the international issues, and I look forward to hearing them, but I cannot conclude without briefly referencing the international situation. Seventy-two countries around the world still criminalise same-sex relationships, 36 of which are Commonwealth member states. Ninety per cent. of the Commonwealth’s citizens live in jurisdictions where same-sex conduct is a criminal offence. I certainly welcome the Prime Minister’s apology for the UK’s historical role in bequeathing those laws to many of those countries, and her setting up of a £5.6 million fund to help countries to reform their laws accordingly, but we must not relent in our diplomatic pressure to reform those laws wherever they exist.

Here in Britain, we are entering the Pride season, and we will be enjoying the freedom that is denied to so many people abroad. Brighton and Hove Pride is on 4 August, when 250,000 people, including Britney Spears, will be taking to the streets and parks of the great city of Brighton and Hove. The fact that Pride is wrapped up in one big party means that people often do not see how important it is to individuals and to the LGBT community as a whole. I well remember standing hidden in the crowds, watching from afar as people marched, danced and cheered, celebrating who they were. Even though it was happening right there in front of me, it seemed a terrifying distance away to someone who was not yet out. Several years later, after I had come out, I remember marching for the very first time. I had never been so self-conscious in my entire life, believing that every single one of the thousands of people lining the streets was standing there staring at me and judging. How things have changed! Now that I march as a politician, I would love every single one of them to be standing there staring at me. What they are doing, however, is enjoying Pride for what it is today. Everyone in that crowd is there for their own reason.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on a fantastic speech and on securing this debate. The big Prides across the UK and across the world are important, but does he agree that it is vital to have Prides in towns and villages across the UK and the world? The small towns and villages are where the biggest challenges lie for LGBT people.

[Peter Kyle]

That is a welcome and important intervention. We have big Prides in London and in Brighton, which is the biggest in Europe, attracting over 300,000 people, and those big celebrations have played a key role in our communities for a long time. I was on the board of Brighton and Hove Pride for three years and saw what it took to organise the event. I am well aware of its contribution to our community year-round, distributing the surpluses that it makes in one weekend. However, it is amazing how many other smaller communities along the south coast of England have started their own Prides. Worthing has launched its Pride for the first time this year, and Eastbourne started its Pride last year. I hope that smaller communities will see the benefits of a locally rooted opportunity to celebrate diversity in their community and to allow LGBT people to come out and celebrate who they are as individuals. I grew up in Bognor Regis, a town on the south coast, and I would love the day to arrive on which Bognor has its Pride, which I would visit happily and proudly to represent the people of Hove and Portslade.

How things have changed. Everyone who attends and forms part of the crowd at a Pride does so for their own reasons. Many go to show support for friends or family or the LGBT community in general. We see lots of parents with young children sitting on their shoulders, waving the pride flag, and for them it is presumably a tool to introduce the next generation to the issues surrounding equality, sexuality and gender. For me, however, when I cast my eyes around the crowds of onlookers, I am always wondering how many people are going through the same turmoil I once did. If they notice me, my greatest hope is that they see a comfort and confidence in who I am today, including my sexuality, and that that in turn will ease their journey towards allowing others to get to know all of them, not just the bits that are not hidden. That is what we all aspire to as individuals, and this country should aspire to create the conditions in which that is possible and do what we can to get other countries to follow suit. Until that is achieved, days such as the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia will need to exist, and debates like this will remain as important as ever.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow three excellent speeches, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) on securing the debate.

It is a pleasure also to see the rainbow flag flying from Government buildings today. That is not a token; it sends a signal. I hope that the Minister will be able to ensure that when Pride week comes, the rainbow flag will fly from high commissions and embassies all over the world. Again, that would not be tokenism; it would send a real signal to a number of people who happen to be gay, particularly in Commonwealth countries and throughout the middle east, and who are living in repression and fear simply because they are gay. Please, let us see the rainbow flag flying proudly for that week from high commissions and embassies around the world.

There is a big wedding on Saturday, and I wish Harry and Meghan incredibly well. I want to say to Harry and to Prince William that they have been amazing role models in promoting LGBT issues. They have been absolutely fantastic, and it is more role models that we need. Tom Daley has been a superb role model in the world of sport. I saw in one newspaper recently an article that implied that there was a premier league footballer who was bisexual but not out, and it seemed to be some sort of semi-scandal. The scandal is that in this day and age, in the 21st century, in 2018, anybody should fear coming out because they feel there would be catcalls from the stadiums or whatever. All I can say is that since I came out I have had the two best election results I have ever had. At the most recent election, I got more votes than I had ever had. I am not putting that down to the fact that I am gay, but it certainly has not done me any harm. That is the message that I wish to send out today.

[Hannah Bardell]

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about sport, particularly football, does he agree that it is incumbent on those in senior positions in organisations such as the FA to send a positive message about what it would be like to come out and the support that people get? Unfortunately, that has not always been the case in recent times.

[Mr Evans]

Absolutely. During Pride week a lot of the premier league teams wear rainbow laces, and that is superb, but it would be fantastic if in the 21st century more footballers were able to come out as who they are. I attend a lot of conferences with the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and I have great pride in telling people that we have more out gay MPs than any other Parliament in the world. That was not the case 20 years ago, and it may well be that football is 20 years behind the curve, but imagine the influence it would have throughout the world if some of the great footballers who are gay were able to come out openly and say that they were. They would be amazing role models.

In Parliament, we have Ministers, Secretaries of State and former Secretaries of State who have happily come out as gay and proved to be role models. The current Taoiseach of Ireland and Prime Ministers of Serbia and Luxembourg, and the former Prime Ministers of Belgium and Iceland are all gay. Again, they are sending a happy signal to the rest of the world that it is okay to be gay and that it is not going to hold back one’s career.

I mentioned the royal wedding earlier. A billion people will tune in to watch that happy event, and I shall certainly watch it, but while I am watching, one thing will flash through my mind, which is that I am a Christian. Clearly, I am a second-class Christian but a first-class gay. Why? Because I would not be allowed to walk down the aisle with somebody I loved and get married in a church in England. My message to Justin Welby is that I understand that the Church in Africa and some other countries is not as progressive as we are, but he really needs to show leadership in our country to ensure that gay Christian people can get married and enjoy a big day, just as Harry and Meghan are going to do on Saturday.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to be summing up for the Scottish National party on this extremely important day against homophobia, transphobia and biphobia. I again pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who opened with comments by Bill Clinton. In return, I want to quote his wife, Hillary, who I hold in great esteem in many regards. She said that

“gay people are born into and belong to every society in the world. They are all ages, all races, all faiths; they are doctors and teachers, farmers and bankers, soldiers and athletes; and whether we know it, or whether we acknowledge it, they are our family, our friends, and our neighbors. Being gay is not a Western invention; it is a human reality.”

I think that sums it up, Mr Speaker. I pay tribute to what you and your staff have done in this place. It is great to see the range of rainbows across the Chamber and the House today. I am working my way through the rainbow with my hair colour. Today is a blue day, which does not in any way reflect how I am feeling.

I will try to cover some of the excellent contributions that we have heard. We had so many. I will start by mentioning the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)—I apologise if I have not pronounced her constituency well—who made some excellent comments. She spoke particularly about the attacks on LGBT people abroad.

I was in Malawi recently and met a number of trans activists. I have to say, their stories were heartbreaking—stories of being attacked in their workplace. Laurence, whom I met, was told by the police to go home and dress as the right gender, and then to come back. Trans people are simply not recognised. Malawi has come a long way—it is an incredible country, with which the nations of the United Kingdom have great ties—but it still has a long way to go.

People ask whether we still need awareness days and campaign days. I think that the comments that have been made on both sides of the House today have reminded us of why we absolutely do. In a report published earlier this year, Stonewall said:

“Trans students experience harassment and discrimination at university…More than a third of trans university students (36 per cent) have experienced negative comments or conduct from staff in the last year.”

I find that utterly astonishing. It is something that we must challenge and change throughout the UK. As we heard from the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), 45% of trans teenagers have attempted suicide. That is staggering. It is, I suppose, ironic—and fitting, in some ways—that this is also mental health awareness week, because, as we know, many members of the LGBT community suffer from mental health issues.

When the Scottish Government legislated for equal marriage in Scotland in 2014, that was a landmark moment. I was not out at that point, but I remember watching the coverage. In particular, I remember Tom French, who is now one of our brilliant press officers but who then worked for an LGBT youth organisation in Scotland, and who was a leading light in the campaign. Until I came out in 2015, that moment in 2014 helped me to believe that perhaps one day it would be OK to be gay. Being elected and coming to this place helped me to move forward in my journey. Many other Members have spoken very movingly about their own personal journeys and the impact that this had on them.

As I said earlier, it is mental health awareness week. I must say, as someone who suffers from anxiety, that taking so long to come out had a huge impact on my mental health. The grey cloud of anxiety was never far away. Coming out has helped me to tackle that and get over it, but I think it important for us to recognise that many young people in particular, throughout the UK and beyond, suffer serious mental health problems as a result of being discriminated against.

I pay tribute to the Glitter Cannons in my constituency. We are celebrating our fourth West Lothian Pride event this year. When I was growing up in West Lothian, I could not have imagined a Pride celebration. Local Pride celebrations are hugely important to young people and families, because they have become very much family celebrations. We see people of all generations there, including children.

Last summer, I worked with the Victoria Derbyshire programme, doing a piece about the journey we have been on across the UK. I thank all the Members who took part in the programme. I will not name them all, because I cannot remember all their constituencies off the top of my head, but many Members spoke, and a couple of them were speaking for the first time about coming out. The programme tracked the changes in society through their personal experiences.

I pay particular tribute to people such as Lord Smith—Chris Smith. It is on their shoulders that we stand. People like me have been able to come out relatively easily, but for them it was hugely difficult and challenging. We must also remember—I think that this has been said by other Members—that when we change legislation, we do not necessarily change culture. It will take a major and concerted effort to roll back the discriminatory culture and atmosphere that was created in England by legislation such as section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 and section 2A of the Local Government Act 1986, which section 28 inserted.

In Scotland, we have been working closely on that. My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) mentioned the TIE—Time for Inclusive Education—campaign, and I pay tribute to its excellent work. Our Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, is doing a huge amount—as, I know, are the UK Government, including the Minister—to wipe away the effects of the 1988 legislation, which banned the supposed promotion of homosexuality and

“the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”

That language, and that legislation, shames us all. It was a dark mark on this Parliament. However, working together across parties, and across the UK and beyond, we can change the culture and the language, and make the future better for people throughout the UK and throughout the world.

Windrush

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Forgive me, but can I make a little progress?

With respect to the intervention by the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), not only did the former Home Secretary apologise but she resigned over the issue. That is a significant event. It is rare in our politics today that Ministers pay the ultimate price and resign, and that is what has happened.

There is a great deal of contrition, and there have been apologies. Not only that, but a helpline has been put in place to make it as easy as possible for people to find the right documentation. We have also heard about a policy to compensate people who have suffered the excesses of the Home Office. There has been plenty of policy and plenty of speeches, announcements and contrition on the part of the governing party.

I am not suggesting that every Labour Member is exploiting this issue for political ends—I do not believe that at all. I have heard many compelling and sincere speeches, but there is a suspicion that one or two Labour Members are doing so.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s points about contrition and about the resignation of the former Home Secretary, but surely the issue is the underlying immigration policies—the hostile environment. Can he enlighten us as to whether he and his Back-Bench colleagues challenged some of those policies? He is a Conservative Member and his party is in government. What did he and his colleagues do? I am sure that, like the rest of us, his mailbox is full of constituency cases of people who are being treated in a hostile manner.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

It is no secret that the issue of immigration has been a matter of huge debate within the Conservative party. There is a wide range of opinions on the issue on the Government side of the House, just as there is on the Opposition side of the House. It is an issue on which both sides of the House are divided. Some Government Members want a very open, comprehensive, almost laissez-faire approach to immigration; others want to be more restrictive.

Modern Slavery Act 2015

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

I very much agree that there will be real challenges for the system in leaving Europol, Eurojust, and the other systems involved. As the debate progresses, we will have to ensure that if we do leave the European Union, as the hon. Lady says, we look to see how we replicate those systems within whatever deal is done. That is crucial for these victims. I totally agree with her point.

We have heard that each time survivors have left safe houses, they were made destitute again and targeted by traffickers. How destructive and destroying that is for the police, but also life-destroying for those survivors. We have to accept that the short-term system of support fails us all and we all need to look—the police, Government, all of us—at what more we do for victims. A refugee granted asylum receives five years of leave to remain in the United Kingdom. Surely if a person has been recognised as being enslaved, that should entitle them to some sort of similar provision, if not for five years.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing such an important issue to the House. He is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that our domestic justice system—particularly the UK justice system—is not set up to deal with these matters, and that the burden of proof is so high for a conviction that very often the person goes free? Leave to remain is dependent on a conviction when the two things should be absolutely separate.

[Vernon Coaker]

That is absolutely crucial. Often the victim is placed in an immigration situation where they are regarded as a victim of trafficking and yet have no certainty about their status in the UK. I know that the Minister is looking at that, but it is a real problem in the way that the system operates at the moment, as the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) points out.

The Work and Pensions Committee has made recommendations along these lines. Lord McColl’s private Member’s Bill, currently in the Lords, does the same. We cannot continue to lose so many survivors, many of them going back to the same traffickers. As Wilberforce himself said:

“You may choose to look the other way but you can never again say that you did not know.”

It is for us, as legislators, to say, “What are we actually going to do about this?” Survivors need time and assistance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) on securing this important debate, and also congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who has a huge amount of experience and passion; we are lucky to have someone with her background in this place.

Just this week, a highly critical report found that police forces are failing to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking because the cases are often too difficult and senior officers believe the public lack sympathy for the victims. This report should concern us all as we consider our international obligations and how we support those who have endured trafficking and modern slavery.

Sadly, I have my own constituency experience. As the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) said, when we come to this role we have an idea of what we might and might not deal with. I have to say that I did not expect to deal with the issue of modern slavery in my constituency of Livingston, and the case we have dealt with has been deeply distressing, both for my constituent and my constituency staff.

My constituent was trafficked from Nigeria to London at the age of 14 and subjected to horrific abuse, including rape, before she escaped to my constituency. The Metropolitan police worked incredibly hard to bring charges against her kidnapper, but told us that the burden of proof in these cases is often so high that they are not able to charge anyone. Unfortunately, the Home Office was predicating her leave to remain on the conviction of her abuser, which in itself highlights the flaws in the Home Office’s internal processes. I recognise the work that has been done by the Government on bringing in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the work that they have been doing subsequently, but my constituency case highlights some of the challenges and flaws. One of the officers in the Met who was dealing with my constituent’s case identified some of the issues, saying:

“I would advise that the burden of proof in a criminal case is far higher (beyond all reasonable doubt) than in a civil case (balance of probability). In light of this, I would suggest that any outcome of the criminal case should not adversely impact on any immigration appeal.”

I know that the Prime Minister, when she was Home Secretary, commissioned a report which found that

“slavery remained under-reported, but the operational response was improving.”

However, the review said that there were

“problems, including a lack of consistency between law enforcement and criminal justice agencies and poor quality intelligence at all levels.”

As things stand, due to the interventions from my office, my constituent now has a year’s temporary leave to remain and the right to work, but the clock is ticking. We need the Home Office to review its own processes and this case. Yes, the case might have been difficult, but those officers who worked on it fought tooth and nail for my constituent, and I want to pay tribute to the Met police today and put on record how grateful I am for the work that they and local police officers in West Lothian did to protect her when she was very scared. She was scared to send her children to school, for example, because she was worried that her attacker might come to Scotland and seek her out.

It beggars belief that anyone could lack sympathy for the victims, but that is what the report states. Anyone at home listening to the details of my constituent’s case and those of others would surely find it difficult not to have sympathy for them. At the age of 14, Temitope George was given some clothes, taken to an airport in Nigeria and told that she was going to leave the country. The woman who took her told her not to talk to anyone, and to do as she was told. She was brought to London and taken to a woman’s house, where she was told she would be staying and looking after the woman’s children. She asked the woman when she would be going back to school. That was the first time the woman slapped her. She also asked about her mother, but she was told to speak only when she was spoken to and that she was not allowed to make any friends.

Temitope George’s daily routine involved getting up at 5 am, getting the children ready for school, taking them to school and collecting them, and doing the shopping, cleaning and cooking. If she went out on an errand, the woman who was holding her would spit on the floor and tell her that she had to be back before the spit had dried or she would be beaten. She ran everywhere as she was frightened of being late. She was beaten on a daily basis, she had her head flushed down the toilet, and she was often privy to what we believe were drug deals in the house. She also had a kettle of boiling water poured over her chest. The details are very distressing, but my constituent gave me permission before I came to the House today to share them. I have not shared them publicly before, although I have raised her case, and I am grateful for the work that has been done by the Home Office today.

Temitope George was terrified that she would be killed and that no one would know she was there. She was told that if she ran away, nobody would believe her and that there was nowhere for her to hide and she would not be found. She said that there were often men hanging around, and when she eventually escaped at the age of 17, she was homeless and spent some time on the streets. She was held at knifepoint and raped in north London. She eventually managed to escape to Livingston with her now husband. They started a new life there. They got jobs and had three beautiful children, but when she applied for indefinite leave to remain, she was told that she could not work and had to leave her job. Since the Home Office’s intervention and the granting of temporary leave to remain, she and her husband have returned to work. Her husband recently won an award for social entrepreneurship. As I have said, it seems incredible in this day and age that anyone could face such persecution and terrible treatment. However, that has been the reality for my constituent and I ask the Minister to work with me and look again at my constituent’s case because it is so distressing. She has spent a significant number of years in Livingston bringing up her children and contributing to society there.

The Scottish Government have done a huge amount of work on these issues and recently published their trafficking and exploitation strategy, which identifies how to support victims, find perpetrators and disrupt activity. I know that the Scottish Government are hugely committed to that work, and I would encourage the UK Government to look at the good examples that are being worked on there. It is the duty of all Members in this House, and indeed of all Governments, to do everything we possibly can. The flaws that exist within the legal system and in the Home Office are real, and these are real constituency cases. I hope that the Minister is listening to us and that she will do all that she can to ensure that the flaws in the system are sorted out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and will of course join him in congratulating Northamptonshire police. I should add that his force is not the only one increasing recruitment and the number of crimes it is solving. Sometimes, listening to Opposition Members, one could think that the police were not doing the fantastic duty that they are; I urge Opposition Members to take the time sometimes to congratulate them on the phenomenal job they do.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

2. What her policy is on the residency rights of EU nationals (a) during any transitional phase and (b) after the UK leaves the EU.

[The Minister for Immigration (Brandon Lewis)]

The Prime Minister was clear in her Florence speech in September that people will continue to be able to come to, and live and work in, the UK. There will be a registration system—an essential preparation for the new immigration system required to retake control of our borders—and we will be setting out initial proposals for the implementation period in due course, and for our new immigration system later in the year.

[Hannah Bardell]

I have encountered numerous cases where documents supplied to the Home Office by EU nationals have been misplaced or permanently lost. Does the Minister think it is fair or reasonable to expect people to endure the financial cost of replacing these documents for the Home Office? What assurances can he give that this issue will be addressed, especially given the chaos that is about to ensue as we leave the EU?

[Brandon Lewis]

We are clear that we want to work with our partners in Europe to have a smooth and good system for EU citizens here to go through as they gain settled status as part of the fair and very serious proposal we made, and I am confident that we will be able to deliver that in a simple and clean system for them. Obviously, if the hon. Lady has particular cases that she feels we need to look at, I encourage her to write to me and I will happily look at them.