Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Section 35 Power

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

We put in protections on the age limit in Scotland. We have the leader of the SNP at Westminster accusing the Scottish Labour party and the UK Labour party of different positions on this. There is nothing between the positions, but we should have devolution at the same time. The leader of the UK Labour party has made his position perfectly clear, and Anas Sarwar, the leader of the Scottish Labour party, and his team put in significant protections for 16 and 17-year-olds, including the notary public measure, which means that a person has to swear in front of a notary public for this to take effect and they have to get a responsible adult over the age of 18 to be able to do any of this under the age of 18.

Essentially, the hon. Gentleman is challenging people not to have different views on this, but two of his Front-Bench MSPs voted for the legislation. People are entitled to have slightly different views on what is an incredibly important subject. He has managed to do only one thing in the past week, which was not to get both Governments together to try to resolve this, but to write to me to ask my position on the Bill. I would rather that the two Governments came together. [Interruption.] We want the Bill passed and we want section 35 resolved; it is as simple and as straightforward as that. It has been our position for some time that we should modernise the GRA. That position has been eloquently expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, and it is still the one that we hold.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) made the crucial point—and this goes back to an earlier intervention—that gender recognition certificates can already be issued under the Equality Act. As we sit here today, single-sex spaces are protected by exemptions under the Equality Act. The adverse reasons that the Government are giving us on that are not about the process of getting a GRC, but about the process that is currently already in place. The Government are all over the place on this, and it is little wonder that the only result is to fan the flames for people who wish to break up the United Kingdom.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is it not right that, in the passing of the Equality Act 2010, it was noted then that the GRA needed to be reformed and depathologised? The party that came in straight after the passing of that Act—the party currently in Government—has spent 12 and a bit years twiddling its thumbs and fanning the flames of fear and hatred, and then, when one Parliament of this United Kingdom takes decisive action, rather than stepping up and working to resolve the issue, the party has constructed a constitutional crisis that will benefit its voting.

[Ian Murray]

That is what I have been saying. We desperately want the legislation to pass, but we also desperately want to make sure that the issues raised under section 35 are resolved. There are only two ways to do that: either through the courts, which is where I think this is heading, or through the Governments getting together. We do not have the power to make either of those things happen.

Opinion polling shows that the overwhelming majority of people in Scotland just want their two Governments to work closely together in the interests of the country, and, on this particular issue, in the interests of equality. Let me say to both Governments that these issues are not irresolvable. We can create an environment where protections exist for women at the same time as strengthening the rights for trans people. We can create a legal framework where GRCs issued in Scotland are entirely compatible with the UK-wide equality legislation. We can have a country where both the Scottish and UK Governments act like grown-ups, get round the table and resolve these issues. That is what used to happen. That is the way that Donald Dewar designed the legislation that this Government are now implementing. We need genuinely constructive discussions between the two Governments. Let us lock them in a room and not let them out until they find a solution. I can assure Members that there is a way through this, but both Governments are unwilling to take it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Goodness me, that speech was probably one of the worst transphobic dog-whistle speeches I have heard in an awfully long time. Linking the Bill with predators is, frankly, disgusting, and you should be ashamed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miriam Cates]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

No, I will not give way to you, or anyone else. [Interruption.] I mean to the hon. Member.

On the substance of this, ignoring that horrible speech we have just heard—

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Did you hear anything transphobic in the previous speech?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I have to say to the Father of the House that different Members of this House will interpret speeches in different ways. I suggest that we move on quickly, and I think the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) needs to calm down, moderate his language and move on to the substance of the debate, otherwise I will ask him to resume his seat.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is difficult when we are talking about these emotional matters.

The reality of this is that this section 35 is the new Tories’ section 28. It is their continuation of a war against a group of people—their culture war—that they want to pursue, and they think it will advantage them in the polls. That is what the Australian Conservatives thought as well and what the Republicans in the US thought, but I trust it will not, because the people do not like the bigotry that we hear from the other side.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I will give way, but it is bigotry that we just heard.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Could I just say to the hon. Gentleman that we are very short of time and I hope that, if he takes an intervention, he will stick to the four minutes?

[Alicia Kearns]

I recognise that the hon. Gentleman feels very strongly about this, but I would ask him to use caution about labelling a party as solely one thing, because it is Conservative party colleagues who led for the conversion therapy ban that has been announced today. When I was elected, no other MP talked about it for seven months, and we have delivered it today. I caution him to please not label all Members on certain sides of the House as transphobic or homophobic, and I also challenge anyone being labelled that in this House.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I will say that there are some very honourable Members on all sides of the House, including the Conservative side, who resisted moves from the Government and who, when trans conversion therapy was removed from that ban, pushed for it to get back in, and their work is to be applauded.

What this report says in reality is that there is no amendment this Government would accept or allow to pass. What this flimsy piece of paper indicates is that the only Bill they would accept is the current UK law, and anything that deviates from it would be blocked. I am afraid that is an undermining of the very concept of devolution. The Government should just be honest, and say that they want to remove the devolved competences in this area from the Scottish Parliament and return them back to Westminster. At least that would be an honest debate, rather than this dog-whistle debate about the safety of children, which, frankly, is not correct.

Of course there will be concerns and of course this Bill will not be perfect—no Bill is perfect—but one of the key principles of my job, and I think of the job of all of us, is not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Let us see how this Bill rolls out in Scotland. We could then see the flaws that might come from it, and the Scottish Parliament could have amended it and taken action, because all Bills are living, practical documents.

I say this as a gay man who loves all-male spaces sometimes and finds that the liberation of having such spaces is important—and I am sure that many women feel that the safety of all-women spaces is important to them—but this Bill does not change that law one bit. GRCs exist at the moment, and we already have a system for people to change their passport and their driving licence without a GRC. Going into a toilet, a public facility or a refuge is not contingent on a certificate at all, so all those arguments are bogus, and to continue a bogus argument knowing that it is bogus is, I am afraid, a form of bigotry.