LGBT Veterans: Etherton Review

Joe Powell Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

Today is a moment to acknowledge the historical injustice endured by LGBT veterans, and to reaffirm our collective responsibility as a House to right the wrongs of the past.

I will share a story of one of my constituents, Professor Andrew Hartle, a man whose life epitomises the resilience and achievements of LGBT veterans against the odds. Andrew joined the Royal Air Force in the 1980s, full of ambition and a desire to serve his country. His early years in uniform were marked by excellence. He rose swiftly through the ranks as a medical officer participating in search and rescue missions and serving in the first Gulf war. But while Andrew was fulfilling his duties he was living a double life, weighed down by a constant fear of being discovered. At a time when being openly gay in the armed forces was not just taboo but illegal, Andrew faced an impossible conflict: to live authentically, or to preserve the career he loved.

In 1996, Andrew was outed in a tabloid newspaper with the horrifying headline, “RAF doc’s gay fling with an AIDS victim”. Andrew was suspended, subjected to demeaning accusations and eventually forced to resign. For seven agonising months, he was left in limbo, isolated from colleagues, forbidden to access his NHS place of work and ostracised by an institution he had dedicated his life to serving.

Andrew continued to face prejudice throughout his career. NHS administrators demanded he take an HIV test against his will. That was just one of many humiliating incidents that he experienced after leaving the military. Despite that discrimination, and the obstacles he faced, Andrew became the first openly gay consultant anaesthetist, working at St Mary’s hospital, a world-class hospital serving many of my constituents in Kensington and Bayswater. He rebuilt his life and career, became a trailblazer in his field and has been a powerful advocate for justice.

However, for Andrew and for so many others, the scars inflicted by the gay ban remain. As Andrew reflected in his own words:

“Coming out as I did was not my plan…My mental health deteriorated, and I buried the impact of my outing and dismissal.”

Andrew was one of the fortunate ones, however. He is here with us in the Gallery today, and he spoke so powerfully on the radio this morning. Many others were not as lucky, so I welcome the Government’s announcement today that they will move from apology to action.

The apology given last year by the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), was long overdue and was right. He was right to describe the ban on LGBT people serving in the military as

“an appalling failure of the British state”.—[Official Report, 19 July 2023; Vol. 736, c. 897.]

He was right to highlight the abuse, harassment and discrimination that many suffered, but words alone are not enough. This Government have been clear that they will tackle historic injustices head on, from Horizon to Grenfell, and from infected blood to the horrific legacy of the ban on and mistreatment of LGBT veterans. With today’s announcement, we take a meaningful step forward to support the veterans who suffered at the hands of the British state.

I welcome the scheme’s focus on simplicity and speed of payment, which are vital for veterans who have waited decades for justice. I also welcome the Secretary of State’s clarification that those reparations will be ringfenced, ensuring that veterans will not lose access to tax or benefits as a result. This moment would not have been possible without the tireless advocacy of organisations such as Fighting With Pride, so I thank them for their dedication in supporting LGBT veterans and for their crucial role in securing today’s announcement. I also thank Lord Etherton for his review.

Andrew’s story reminds us of the immense personal cost of injustice. His courage, perseverance and achievements should inspire us all. Andrew has waited 27 years, but some have waited as long as 50. Tragically, many veterans have died without ever seeing justice. As we approach 12 January, the 25th anniversary of the lifting of the ban, we must also focus now on the task ahead of us: to locate and support all eligible veterans to come forward and to ensure no one is left behind. I hope that the Minister for Veterans and People can provide further detail on that strategy in his closing remarks. We must honour those who served in silence, who lived in fear, and who were ostracised simply for being themselves and loving who they loved. That is not merely an act of kindness, but a moral obligation, and I am proud that this Government are resolute in their determination to deliver it.

Ukraine

Joe Powell Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

I warmly thank the Secretary of State and the full ministerial team for their hard work mobilising the additional money from frozen Russian sovereign assets. I hope that other countries will follow UK leadership on this. In mobilising every tool across the Government, and with winter approaching, may I ask the Secretary of State to continue the push to realise the assets from the sale of Chelsea football club—the £2.5 billion from Roman Abramovich that could go towards humanitarian needs, which are also increasingly urgent in Ukraine?

[John Healey]

The Government understand the case that my hon. Friend makes. The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), met him last night to discuss this further.

Foreign Affairs and Defence

Joe Powell Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke), and the excellent maiden speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) and for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher).

It gives me great delight to address this House as the new Member of Parliament for Kensington and Bayswater. I doubt that, for any of us, the last seven weeks have been easy. I know that many hon. Members will still be catching up on their sleep after the campaign trail, but having our twins born in the first week of the general election campaign took things to another level. If timing is everything in politics, that is certainly not a combination I would recommend anyone repeat—but my children will obviously have a great story to tell when they are older.

I want to take a moment to thank the team at Queen Charlotte’s hospital and across the Imperial College NHS trust for their incredible care. Our NHS staff deserve our utmost respect and support, and I hope in the future that Saint Mary’s, Hammersmith and Charing Cross hospitals will finally get what they need to become the first-class premises that patients and staff in our community deserve, including the delivering of plans for a brand-new St Mary’s hospital.

I pay tribute to my two predecessors in this new constituency. Felicity Buchan worked hard for the residents of Kensington over the past five years, and I particularly commend her for her work on the Homes for Ukraine programme. Some issues are central to our national and international security, which transcends party politics, and supporting the struggle for a free Ukraine is one of them. I am grateful for her work on this issue. In Kensington and Bayswater, we have a Ukrainian cultural centre, the Ukraine embassy and a substantial Ukrainian population. Having personally worked to support democracy and anti-corruption in Ukraine for many years, I will make sure that our Ukrainian community continues to have a strong advocate in Parliament.

I was also fortunate enough to inherit part of Dame Karen Buck’s former constituency of Westminster North. Under previous boundaries, she represented north Kensington for many years. I know from experience that tens of thousands of residents have been directly assisted by Karen with expertise and empathy. I hope I can emulate even a small part of her unwavering focus on tackling poverty and our housing crisis, whether that is by holding our social housing landlords to account, by protecting private renters, including by abolishing section 21 no-fault evictions, or by finally ending the outdated feudal leasehold system. Karen did a monumental amount of work to advance those causes, and I am sure she was absolutely delighted with their inclusion in the King’s Speech. She has always exemplified public service over self-interest. I will do my best, along with my other colleagues who are inheriting her constituency, to live up to her legacy. I know how grateful we are for her 27 years of service in this House.

Kensington and Bayswater is an incredible part of London, as many hon. Members will already know—indeed, I canvassed many of them during the campaign and have already been picking up casework in the corridors. We are an amazing community, with fantastic campaigners and organisations, businesses, entrepreneurs, charities, heritage, music, parks and schools. There is so much going for it, but there is also a deep inequality that has widened in recent years.

There is now a 19-year gap in life expectancy between a woman born in Notting Dale in North Kensington and one born in Holland Park, only a third of a mile away. That gap that has increased by five years in the past decade alone. Over 6,000 children are living in poverty and over 3,000 families are on a growing housing waiting list. We are rightly proud of our contribution to the nation’s economy in terms of growth, talent, innovation and finance in so many different industries, and we celebrate the tourists who come to visit our museums, Portobello Road and our parks, but we must also tackle the underlying causes of the inequality that prevents too many people in my constituency from reaching their full potential, whether they are housing, education or employment opportunities.

I know from the thousands of people I have met across our constituency that far too many feel like government is not working for them. They see too many politicians putting political party before country and self-interest before community. I know that trust in government and politicians has plummeted as a result, but it does not have to be this way. I have spent my career working to make democracy work better in dozens of countries around the world by supporting reformers in government to work with civil society to be more transparent, more inclusive and more accountable and to deliver for people on the priorities that they care about. In Kensington and Bayswater, that means, for example, getting a grip on the dirty money in luxury property that still stains our community.

Despite recent progress in legislation, and despite the leadership that Baroness Hodge, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and many others have shown on this topic, we still have in our constituency one of the highest numbers of anonymously owned properties registered in tax havens, with loopholes allowing autocrats and kleptocrats to continue shielding their ownership. Many of those properties sit empty, hurting our local businesses and schools and hollowing out our sense of community. I agree that those that are frozen under sanctions should be utilised as soon as possible, so I am determined to build on our Kensington Against Dirty Money campaign and continue advocating for London to end its reputation as the dirty money capital of the world, and instead become the anti-corruption capital of the world.

There is no worse example of what happens when government stops listening to people and when transparency and accountability are discarded than what happened at Grenfell Tower over seven years ago. Seventy-two people lost their life in an entirely preventable tragedy, yet we still do not have truth, justice and change for the bereaved, survivors and affected community. These are people whose lives were changed forever on 14 June 2017 and who have had to wait far too long for justice and for those responsible to be held to account. In the coming weeks, the second phase of the public inquiry will report. I know that hon. Members here will join me in looking to those recommendations to ensure that a tragedy like Grenfell can never happen again.

I warmly welcome the inclusion in the King’s Speech of the duty of candour law for public servants. I applaud the effective campaigning of those affected by Grenfell, Hillsborough, infected blood and Windrush, and of others who have suffered because of an unacceptable defensive culture across many of our public institutions. I hope we can look at further measures to ensure robust oversight of the implementation of the recommendations from those inquiries.

Kensington and Bayswater is a special place making a huge contribution to our national life in so many ways. My hope is that, under this Labour Government, we will become a fairer place too, building on our strengths and addressing the inequalities that have held us back. It will not be easy and it will not happen overnight—as a QPR fan, I have learned over many years to be realistic—but we have an opportunity now to restore faith and trust in government and democracy, and to restore our reputation internationally too.

[Several hon. Members rose—]