Pride Month

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Angela Eagle

Thursday 15th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I agree, and I certainly hope that Pride in Anglesey is as enjoyable as Pride in London, and also as enjoyable as Pride in Liverpool, which this year will be hosting Ukraine Pride too. It will not be quite as glitzy as the recent party we had for Eurovision, but it will in its own way be just as glamorous.

I was talking about legal bans, and the situation in some other countries where people have not made the same progress as we have been fortunate enough to deliver in this country. Pride is about supporting their battles for human rights and dignity, and the all-party parliamentary group, which the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington and I are honoured to chair, does its best to bring those issues to the attention of the House and of Government agencies.

We use Pride Month to assess how we must plan to protect and advance the equal rights that we have fought for, and we march and we protest, but we do also party, as I think has perhaps been mentioned before—it seems to be a theme. We party, and we parade and march, because visibility is a part of the celebration that Pride represents. It is about our own pride in our authentic existence, because being out in the open is so much better than being afraid and in the shadows. We must bear that in mind as the debates that problematise particular parts of our community continue to rage around us.

Why do we do this? We do it because we have a collective memory of what it was like before we fought for change, and we do not want to go back to those dark days of prejudice, bigotry and oppression. What is the point of us carrying on doing it now that, apparently, we are accepted? It is because a diverse society is a stronger society. Everyone thrives better in an accepting society in which the norm is dignity and respect, rather than division and prejudice. I have a feeling that we are about to have to fight that battle all over again between those two visions of what a society should be like.

We want a society in which people are not discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and we can celebrate remarkable progress at home and abroad in the battle for liberation for LGBT+ people. This year is the 20th anniversary of the repeal of section 28 in our country. It is also the 19th anniversary of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, which first gave legal recognition and protection to same-sex relationships, and 10 years since the equal marriage Act—the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013—which opened up that happy prospect to same-sex couples.

There has also been very welcome progress globally for LGBT+ people. Just in the last year, same-sex activity has been decriminalised in five more countries—Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore, Barbados and the Cook Islands. However, as I said earlier, that still leaves 66 countries where it is illegal to be gay. Half of them are in the Commonwealth, where homophobic laws that were often imported during the colonial era still hold sway. We in the all-party group on global LGBT+ rights can celebrate some progress, but we know that the battles are far from over.

We also know that there has been bad news this year, as well as progress, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington mentioned in his opening speech. The odious anti-homosexuality law just enacted in Uganda and signed into being by President Museveni is especially extreme in mandating life imprisonment for homosexual conduct, and the death penalty in some instances. It outlaws any “promotion of homosexuality”, which is a familiar phrase to some of us who lived through the 1980s, including advocating for LGBT rights. People can now be jailed if they advocate for human rights in Uganda. There is also a 20-year jail sentence for providing financial support to LGBT+ people, which includes giving them somewhere to live.

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

My hon. Friend is raising the very concerning situation in Uganda, a country I have visited many times. A number of embassies in Uganda offer space for the LGBT community to meet and organise for safety purposes because of the awful backlash. We should celebrate that, and continue to push for the British embassy to do likewise, as other European embassies have done, so that we protect our friends and colleagues who are fighting the good fight for human rights there.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Well, certainly, and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington and I met the International Development Minister just yesterday to talk about this very thing. We also talked about what other response there might be to what is happening in Uganda, particularly in trying to protect LGBT activists there, but also to make it certain that there is no impunity for those advocating these kinds of laws. We raised the prospect of visa bans, travel bans and other ways of making our displeasure known, and we wait to hear what the Government will say about that. This is the most extreme law that has been passed on to a statute book, but similar statutes are now appearing in other African states. Notably in Ghana, but in other African states as well, there are big pushes to enact similar laws.

Progressive momentum has also stalled in our own country. The UK Government cannot seem to decide whether they are going to maintain their acceptance of the gains made by LGBT people, or tee up an even more vicious culture war against trans people ahead of the next general election. Almost five years since the Government first announced their intention to ban conversion practices, there is still no sign of the oft-promised draft legislation that would achieve that very laudable aim, which would have widespread support across this House. We are still waiting to see that, yet every day of delay from this Government puts more vulnerable, usually young, people at risk from this highly damaging form of psychological abuse. As I think I said last year, I hope that the Minister might be able to confirm today that the Bill will be published soon. We were hoping it would be a Bill last year, and now we are told it is a draft Bill, but we have still not had sight or sound of it. I am sure that behind the scenes he is absolutely on the right side of these arguments, and I do not want to embarrass him in public, but I suspect there may be others who are not. I wish him well with any battles that he is having, and I hope that the Bill will be published before the summer recess, so that we can check that it is trans-inclusive and that it is effective because it does not contain a gigantic “consent” loophole.

As the general election gets closer, the Prime Minister has decided to go along with an attempt to set up a response to what he referred to in his failed leadership bid last summer as the threat to “our women” from trans people. Daily screaming headlines in Tory-supporting tabloids have followed disgustingly, painting all trans women as potentially violent, predatory, and a threat to women and girls. That has created a climate of fear and hostility to all trans people, and seen levels of hate crimes against all LGBT+ people, and especially trans people, soar in the last year. There is a reason why Pride in London has decided to march in solidarity with trans people this year, and I hope that many of those who wish to see our society support everyone positively will join us on the Pride march on 1 July.

With this targeting, we must remember that there are only small numbers of trans people in this country. If we read the headlines, one would think that everything that goes wrong, and all violence against women, was somehow perpetrated by trans women. It is out of all proportion and doing enormous damage, and I wish it would stop. I wish the Government would take a stand against it, instead of standing back, letting it happen, and calculating whether there is any political gain for them in allowing it to go on.

I recognise a politically induced moral panic when I see one. I also recognise a discredited Government who are unleashing a culture war for their own political ends. All power to the elbows of those in the Conservative party who are trying to get this stopped: Labour is with you and we hope you will be successful. This kind of activity happened before in the 1980s, when the same tactics and tropes were used to demonise gay men. That led to section 28, which unleashed untold misery for a generation of LGBT+ young people, and for those who were perceived as “different”, whether they were gay or not. We cannot and must not let history repeat itself.

I am a feminist, I am a lesbian, and I am a trans ally. I do not believe that allowing trans men and women to live with dignity and respect threatens my rights or my wellbeing in the slightest. We all advance together, or not at all. Even at this late stage, the Government could do the decent thing and abandon their divisive tactics. Instead of endless prevarication, they could publish sensible and inclusive relationships and sex education guidance, which our schools have been waiting for since 2019. They could stop playing dangerous and divisive games with trans people by trying to set their rights against women’s rights.

All the anti-LGBT+ and anti-trans rhetoric is not spontaneously appearing out of nowhere. It is the result of carefully planned and well-funded efforts on a global scale. OpenDemocracy reports on a 2020 investigation that found that more than 20 US fundamentalist religious groups fighting against LGBT+ rights and abortion rights had spent $54 million in Africa pursuing those agendas—an investment that, shamefully, appears to be bearing some fruit.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The situation in Uganda is very similar. Uganda was the first African country to hold the UN world AIDS conference, and there Museveni gave out condoms to every person that joined. That was 20 years ago. When I last went to Uganda with the International Development Committee and former MP Stephen Twigg, we sat in classrooms where children were told that the way to stop HIV and AIDS was to not sleep with other men and to have a good wash after themselves. That is not just dangerous on an LGBT scale but dangerous for global health. Right-wing money has transformed that country, which was progressive, into a deeply regressive country.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

There is increasing evidence of that kind of global network operating in a reactionary manner. The Global Philanthropy Project reports that the anti-gender movement outspent the LGBT+ rights movement by three to one between 2013 and 2017, deploying $3.7 billion of resource, and creating an extensive network of organisations to push their divisive, pernicious agenda. Key funders were based in the USA and Europe, with Russian oligarchs playing a key role in Europe. We know that Putin talks about this a lot; we know that Orbán talks about it a lot. We know that in the Spanish election such anti-trans rhetoric is being used by the Opposition.

--- Later in debate ---

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

No Pride event has a bigger impact on a place than Brighton Pride. Our population more than doubles that weekend, with more than half a million visitors coming to Brighton, and an additional £30 million is spent in the Brighton economy on Pride weekend. It is an international festival, of course, and Kylie, Britney and Christina Aguilera have sung in recent years.

Unlike many Prides that have become commercialised —we often hear that critique—our Pride is a community interest company. All the money goes into the Rainbow Fund to run our mental health support, our community activities and our community space for the year ahead. Like most Prides, Brighton Pride was established as a protest in 1972. It was a protest by the Sussex Gay Liberation Front, but it always had elements of fun.

Looking at the first programme, there was a gay dance, as they described it, the night before, with one dance for women and another for men. And there was a chill on the beach—“chill” is not the word they used—a fun time on the beach, afterwards. It was reincarnated in 1991 by Brighton Area Action against Section 28, which started the annual parade and party that we know today.

In 2023, there are more Prides than ever. They now often start not as protests but as community events promoting inclusion and celebrating diversity, but that is just as important as the protests that came before.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

New Brighton in my constituency had its first Pride last year. It does not make £30 million at the moment, but I am sure it aspires to do so.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Very good. There is competition looming for Brighton and Hove.

We now have Prides along the south coast in Seaford, Hastings, Eastbourne and Worthing, but it is a very recent development that we have seen such a huge number of public Prides. I lived in Bradford between 2005 and 2012 and, when I first arrived, our Pride events were held in basements. In fact, in 2008, we held one in a basement club with bouncers on the door to make sure we were safe.

The year after, many pioneers in Bradford—and I played only a very small role—decided that enough was enough and a public Pride would take place. The city centre square was secured and, as opposed to the protests in the 1970s and 1980s, the first public manifestation of Pride in Bradford celebrated diversity, and there was an awful lot of concern. Of course, we had had race riots only a few years before, and people were worried. Would Bradfordians really want something like this in their town square?

Well, the sun shone and the square was filled with families, friends and passers-by all joining in and wearing rainbow dresses. Drag queens mingled with people wearing football shirts because, of course, that year Bradford also got to the cup final. Everyone just got on and enjoyed the event. It seemed that Pride had not only come but had taken too long, because it was not an issue and people were enjoying themselves.

But, of course, when we talk about LGB, we cannot forget the T. Brighton has been at the forefront of acceptance and equality, and this year we are hosting our 10th Trans Pride on 14 July. It is the largest Trans Pride in Europe, and I have been a regular attender since its early years.

The trans community is under attack by fierce, hate-filled newspapers and right-wing culture warriors. For the trans community, Pride provides a sanctuary away from the hate, surrounded by fellow queers and allies, and stands as a beacon of political radicalism pushing against the political hate.

There is still a lot more to do. There are failures in the Commonwealth, and we have seen progress reversed. The asylum system lets down LGBT people too often, and it is intrusive in the answers and demonstrations that people need to show. We know that relationship and sexual health education is now under attack, only a few short years after it was introduced in our schools.

Conversion therapy has still not been banned, and I hope the Minister will give us reassurances. I am afraid the Government opened the trans Pandora’s box when they said they would review the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and then, for years, failed to bring forward concrete proposals on how it would be done. In those years, everyone’s worst fears and nightmares were put into a melting pot stirred by right-wingers who, of course, saw it as a great victory. They were able to question the very rights secured by the Act—that is the problem with opening up Acts without making positive proposals—and now we see the same happening with the Equality Act.

LGBT History Month

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Angela Eagle

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I thank my hon. Friend. I am not sure about him standing on my shoulders; I am not sure I could quite cope with that, but I understand absolutely the points he made and, unlike my response to them, they are very serious. They are a serious cause for concern and should concern everybody in this House.

Returning to the transformative work of the last Labour Government in this era, I recall that we needed to invoke the Parliament Act, no less, to equalise the age of consent in the face of massively ferocious opposition and ongoing vetoes from the House of Lords. This was the heavy lifting and it was done because it was the right thing to do. These progressive gains have made our society a better and more supportive place for everyone, and they finally allowed LGBT+ people to be respected and included and to enjoy equal rights before the law.

I see the effect of these gains especially in the increased visibility of LGBT+ people and their willingness to live their authentic lives in the open at last.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the real gains from being able to teach about LGBT people in schools is that young people—when I say “young” I probably mean those under 35 or under 40—in this country have a very low rate of problems with LGB and T people and they find many of the debates we are currently having on the roll-back completely bemusing, because for them it is just normal to have diversity in sexuality and gender?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

It is almost like my hon. Friend can read my mind—which is a slightly worrying prospect—because I am going to come on to make precisely that observation.

These gains have led to the increased visibility of LGBT people and confidence among our community for them to live their lives as they wish, in the open. I also see it in the recent census returns, which show an increased propensity of young people to define themselves as LGBT+ without the stigma that that label would have presented in the past. There are those who regard this as a bad thing and call it a “social contagion,” but I regard it as a welcome freeing of our society from oppressive norms which imprisoned people and narrowed their lives, depriving them of the chance to flourish and live their lives more truthfully.

None of this was easily accomplished. None of it happened automatically as if there was always going to be an inevitable progression from less enlightening times to a more enlightened present day. This progress was not inevitable. It had to be campaigned for; it had to be fought for; it had to be won. And it was won, often in the teeth of fierce opposition from the red-top tabloids and some in the Conservative party who put section 28 on the statute book and blighted the lives of generations of children—although I am glad to see that there has been progress there too, and I genuinely welcome Conservative Members to the ongoing fight to maintain and strengthen the gains we have made, because there is no doubt that there is a backlash, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) pointed out, and a threat that we may go backwards here and in the rest of the world.

In the UK, we are approaching the 20th anniversary of the repeal of section 28, the 10th anniversary of the equal marriage Act and, incidentally, the 25th anniversary of my own coming out, but there are still things on our immediate to-do list. First, the Government must fulfil their pledge to legislate for a comprehensive ban on conversion therapy. That must include all LGBT+ people and not be rendered ineffective by either a religious or a consent loophole. For let us be in no doubt: conversion therapy is torture, it is inherently abusive and damaging, and five years after pledging action it is past time for this Government to act. I hope we can hear from the Minister in his response some indication of precisely how and when the Government will do that. I note the recent announcement of a draft Bill, which is welcome, but as yet there is no detail on when it might be enacted, or what it will actually consist of. As the delay lengthens, vulnerable LGBT+ people are left at risk of this unacceptable abuse.

Secondly, the Government should be tackling the rising tide of anti-LGBT+ hate crime. Currently in the UK, the atmosphere is becoming increasingly hostile, with a 42% increase in reported hate crime targeting sexual orientation and a 56% increase in the targeting of transgender people. Some of this is associated with the backlash I mentioned earlier, to which I will return. Some of it, I am sad to say, has been provoked deliberately by the disgraceful targeting and problematising of transgendered people by some members of the Government and their enablers in the press.

We are currently in the middle of a full-blown hysteria which targets transgender people using many of the tropes and smears which those of us who lived through the ’80s remember only too well being used against gay men and lesbians. Trans people, especially trans women, are disgracefully being portrayed as automatically predatory, inherently dangerous to women and children and somehow responsible for all the violence against women which plagues our society. That is an offensive caricature which does not bear relation to the truth.

The Prime Minister spent his leadership election campaign pledging to save, and I quote him, “our women” from the supposed threat of trans people, and we currently have an Equalities Minister—not the Minister opposite, the right hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), I hasten to add—who feels able to use the term trans women and predator in the same sentence, as if the two were somehow inherently the same. Although she appears to have lost the battle, it was reported that she wished to exclude trans people completely from the proposed ban on conversion therapy even though they are more likely than anyone else to be subjected to it.

For the record, I believe that the cause of equal rights best advances when the interests of all those who have suffered discrimination in the past advance. We advance together. There is no contradiction between LGBT+ rights and women’s rights that is not adequately covered in the Equality Act 2010. Trans rights which grant them respect and dignity are not a threat to anyone, and I say that as a lifelong feminist and a lesbian.

It is obvious that we are now in the midst of a well-organised global backlash against LGBT+ rights. It is well-funded, ferocious and potentially deadly for LGBT+ people. Its adherents range across the globe, from President Putin to Steve Bannon, from Viktor Orbán to ex-President Trump. Its aim is to reverse progress and, sadly, our own country is by no means immune to these global issues. The Government’s announcement of a review of those countries whose gender recognition certificates they will recognise is ominous, with rumours circulating that the Government are seeking to delist as many as 18 countries whose gender recognition certificates we currently accept. That is so that they can justify their use of section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to strike down the recently passed Scottish law on gender recognition. Surely the best way forward would be to have, not that confrontation, but a sensible discussion to find a way through. I urge the Government to reconsider their confrontational stance. I hope the rumours of delisting are not true and that the Minister can reassure us on that point, because such a move would take away existing rights.

Many countries are at risk of going backwards on LGBT+ rights. Russia legislated for a modern version of section 28 and then extended its so-called anti-LGBT+ propaganda laws across society. That follows the vicious persecution of LGBT+ people in Chechnya; legislation has been passed in Hungary, with so-called LGBT-free zones appearing across the country, and anti-LGBT law is also being passed in Ghana, accompanied by open persecution of LGBT+ people.

On that point, I wonder if the Minister might be able in his response to scotch persistent rumours that the Government are in the middle of trying to negotiate a Rwanda-style deal with Ghana. The implications of that for LGBT+ asylum seekers are too horrendous to contemplate, so I hope the Minister will be able to put all our minds at ease that that is not currently on the Government’s agenda.

Kurdish Political Representation and Equality in Turkey

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Angela Eagle

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

It is very worrying. During our report, the Turkish Government withdrew from the Istanbul convention—it is slightly ironically named now—which is about the prevention and combating of violence against women and domestic violence. The convention had only come into force in Turkey in 2014, and we are yet to see any strong diplomatic effort from the British Government to really condemn that.

The evidence that the APPG took shows that the situation is becoming dire for women, so may I ask the Minister what support the Government will give to international organisations aiding women in vulnerable situations in Turkey? What steps is she taking to ensure that the UK Government aid is directed to women-led organisations in Turkey, and that that aid reaches majority Kurdish areas? Will her Government call in the strongest terms for Turkey to rejoin the Istanbul convention and fully implement it?

Turning to freedom of the press, the APPG heard from a journalists association, and those who gave evidence said that it becomes harder to work every day with the intimidation that they face. In October 2020, five journalists were arrested for publishing a news article about two tortured civilians from the city of Van. They were flown in a helicopter and then thrown out—one of them to their death, the other very seriously injured. The governor of Van said that the people who threw them out were acting for the PKK. That is disputed, but either way, the reporting of the action should not see a journalist arrested. Some of these journalists have now been released, but still have international travel bans imposed against them, and others remain in jail awaiting trial.

There are attacks not just on individual journalists, but on publications and radio stations in Turkey. The APPG received evidence that “following the state of emergency” 62 newspapers, 24 radio stations, 19 magazines and 29 publishing houses had been shut down. In total, 177 media organisations were shut down, and 2,500 journalists were repressed, restricted or out of a job.

According to Amnesty International, one third of all the world’s jailed journalists are imprisoned in Turkey. That is a disgraceful statistic, so may I ask the Minister: will the Government condemn the measures to restrict freedom of speech implemented in Turkey and remind the Turkish Government that criticism of the Government —criticism of any Government—is a fundamental aspect of the public’s right to participation? What will the Government give to support journalists so that they are able to uphold their freedom of speech?

Finally, I will turn to the PKK, but before I do, please may I ask this? I know that in much of the correspondence Ministers are focused on the PKK element, but the other elements are really important for me and I really want a strong focus on them. That was one of the reasons why I was initially nervous about raising the PKK issue at all. I thought that maybe we should just ignore it. The problem is that, as we heard evidence, it became clearer and clearer that we cannot delink these issues, because of the Turkish Government’s expansive view of what supporting the PKK is. As I have mentioned, journalists, politicians and other civil society actors are routinely accused of terrorism if they support the wider beliefs of the PKK.

Without getting into a debate on the nature of terrorism, it is clear that terrorism that has the aim of national sovereignty is a slightly different beast from terrorism that aims to impose fundamentalist ideology on a reluctant people, but the age-old debate about whether someone is a terrorist or a freedom fighter has been debated over decades in this place. However, there is a set of international definitions of what it means to be a terrorist and the legal consequences of acting in a terrorist manner. Those that do so should be prosecuted and proscribed, but the UK Government already make a distinction for Turkey. They recognise that the YPJ and YPG—the Kurdish units in the Syrian defence forces—are not terrorists but are anti-terrorist in their nature. Although the Government call on them to distance themselves from the PKK, they recognise that, in reality, many of their views, and some of their activities and training, are shared. That has been recognised in the British courts, and the Government have rightly diverged from the Turkish Government, who still regard the YPG and YPJ as terrorist organisations. The Turkish Government are so obsessed with the YPG and YPJ but they have supported jihadis who are often proscribed in the UK.

I have mentioned the Turkish Government’s expansive definition of terrorism: anyone who supports Kurdish political leaders or even just gender equality. It becomes an extremely slippery slope. Therefore, will the Minister make it clear that supporting Kurdish aspirations for some form of autonomy, supporting Kurdish political leaders, or even supporting those who have renounced violence and who call for dialogue should never be a reason for someone to be fearful of an accusation of terrorism? I do not ask the Minister that for an academic purpose; I do it because recent cases in Belgium, and potential cases in other European countries, show that the Turkish Government are increasingly and proactively trying to persuade their so-called NATO allies to prosecute those who support the Kurds. That is producing a chilling effect in Kurdish communities in this country and around Europe. Any listing must be based on evidence of indiscriminate violence, a determination to undermine and destroy democracy, and an intolerance of other people’s views.

The second line of defence in the Belgian court case, where the Supreme Court failed to convict the defendants for running a Kurdish newspaper and radio station, was that they were simply not terrorist acts, and that the listing of the PKK was based on information that had been discredited. I have a list here but will not go through it, because I know my time should have been up already. Here is the list of the pieces of evidence that were given to the European Union in the listing of the PKK. One can go through each one of them and show that they are not acts of the PKK. A number of them have been acts of the Turkish police force or Turkish army, and Turkish courts have prosecuted Turkish authorities for such acts, but they are still listed as PKK acts, even though Turkey and its courts recognise that they are not. There needs to be a review of this situation, as the Turkish courts have shown.

More interestingly, the Belgian court case and the APPG heard from the lead defence lawyer. The court upheld their defence on the first point: that the PKK are a national movement of self-determination in a legal civil war. The treaties on definitions of terrorism that Belgium has signed up to are the same treaties as Britain has signed up to. All bar one explicitly say that if civil war actors are covered by the laws of war, they cannot be regarded as terrorists, and the one that does not mention that is just silent about all definitions. That is of course quite right; it is to stop anyone just labelling their opponents as terrorists when there is a legitimate internal conflict taking place. Under the Geneva and Hague conventions, the laws of war outline the requirements to be classed as an actor. One of the things is a command structure, and another might be an identifiable uniform. Suffice it to say that the Belgian Supreme Court found on all counts that the PKK fulfilled those requirements. Therefore, it could not be classed as a terrorist organisation. In finding that the PKK was involved in a belligerent and internal conflict, the court struck down the terrorist listing.

The same process also happened in the European Court of Justice, where a Europe-wide listing was struck down, and the justices found that the PKK had not met the European or international listing definitions. Although we are not a member of the European Union, the laws of war that interpret treaties are now directly part of our domestic laws and we are signatories to the international treaties that they interpret.

A quirk of terrorism law is that organisations are proscribed at the European and international level annually, so although they have been struck down from previous listings they are currently listed, and the courts are now going through a process of striking down their current listings, adding them again after the case, but of course no new evidence has been provided as to why they should be re-listed. That makes a mockery of the proscribing process, with people being arrested and prosecuted for being part of a proscribed organisation, only to find midway through their trial that the organisation is no longer proscribed.

The British Government need to re-look at the case for the proscription of the PKK and take into account the latest evidence from the Turkish courts and the terrorist acts that were not committed by the PKK but by others. The Belgian and European courts have said that they should be classed as internal belligerents, not terrorists.

A strong fight against terrorism can be achieved only if the listings that the Government maintain are accurate and not liable to change. Will the Minister commit to conduct an immediate review with her Home Office counterparts and report back to this House? To those who say that designating the PKK as a belligerent might give credence to those that target civilians, I say that the crime of targeting civilians in war under the Geneva and Hague conventions is a more serious crime with a higher prosecutable level in international courts and a higher punishment than the crime of terrorism, so de-listing and classing them as belligerents provides less incentive for civilian attacks.

If we are to seek peace in Turkey, we must see how organisations can go from being classed as terrorist to seeking political solutions through political aims. The UK’s role in Colombia, although not perfect, and incomplete, shows how the FARC could be brought into a mainstream political discussion. If we look at our history in Northern Ireland and the African National Congress in South Africa, each is different and unique, but each had a process that has ended politically and not violently, and that is what we all want to see in Turkey.

Finally, what serious discussions have the Government had with Turkey about restarting the peace negotiations? What practical support have the Government given for domestic and international channels for the discussions? What role do the Government see in third pillar negotiations between civil society actors, trade unions and women’s organisations to ensure a peaceful settlement of the conflict? Although the death toll might not be large, the APPG found that political representation was high and increasing. It found that the basic principles of democratic freedom were being undermined, and terrorism laws were being misused to shut democratic spaces rather than keep them open. The APPG and I are sure that Members here today would like to work co-operatively with the Government. I hope that we might be able to get fuller responses to the APPG in time.

[Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)]

I intend to call Front-Bench speakers from 10.28 am, so anyone who wishes to contribute should please bear that in mind.

Youth (Services and Provisions)

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Angela Eagle

1st reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to promote and secure youth services and provision of a requisite standard; to impose a duty on local authorities to provide youth services and establish local youth service partnerships with youth participation; and for connected purposes.

There is no doubt that youth services improve the life chances of individual young people, taking them beyond the constraints of the contours of their neighbourhoods and offering them new experiences of everything from the arts to outdoor adventures. Young people gain from those experiences. Youth work supports but does not replace formal education. It enhances the readiness for learning in the classroom and learning in life, but it does not only help young people in the classroom; it also helps them to develop the skills and attitudes that are needed for the employment about which the Prime Minister was so boastful today, and, of course, for general adult life, by giving them a chance to learn to relate better to each other and to different adults in a safe and challenging environment. They are enhanced, and our communities are enhanced.

Despite all that, however, a 2016 study showed that 600 youth centres had closed around the country, 3,500 youth workers had lost their jobs, and 140,000 places for young people had been lost. We should bear it in mind that those figures are two years old, and the cuts have only continued. Research carried out this year by the House of Commons Library has shown what the cuts have meant in terms of funding. In 2010 we spent £1.2 billion on youth work, youth services and related youth activity; last year we spent £358 million, which amounts to a 68% cash-terms cut.

I do not know what service or provision would survive that, and the youth sector certainly has not. Many parts of our country now have no youth service at all. Young people simply seek somewhere to go, something to do and someone to speak to. That is the simplest of mottos, but it sums up what youth work is about. Youth workers can prevent young people from undertaking harmful behaviour, and give them advice so that they can make informed decisions. So starkly is all this being felt that young people aged between 16 and 24 are now the highest demographic age group for feeling lonely. One in 10 say that they always or often feel lonely, which is a disgrace. When young people do reach out for help, in my city alone they can face 12 months to see a professional while their mental health continues to spiral downwards.

However, the problem is not just mental health, but crime as well. Young people who are devoid of positive influences can fall foul of negative ones. The Office for National Statistics has found that knife crime has increased by 22% in a year. We have also heard that the Ministry of Justice is cutting youth offending budgets in real terms this year—and so the misery goes on.

Our news media, and some of us in the Chamber, often characterise young people as the problem. The language used to describe some of the problems that they face is a constant reinforcement of that, referring to “youth gangs” and “young offenders”. The empowerment of young people as actors for positive change is constantly diminished in the narrative that they are a problem to be contained, to be ignored, or to be dealt with. Well, I think we are the problem. Youth work has a positive impact on young people’s lives, and what have we done? We have cut, and cut, and cut again, and then we blame young people when things fall apart. Our young people are not the problem—our inability to support and listen to them is.

I say proudly that I worked in my local youth service for many years and at the National Youth Agency, and I am proud to say that I was also a voluntary group leader in my local youth group, the Woodcraft Folk, and its national chair. Of course, before that, I was a young person involved in the Youth Parliament and British Youth Council.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Not so very long ago.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Thank you. These three roles—young person, voluntary youth leader and professional youth worker—are distinct, but so often they are confused. In times of cuts, voluntary youth organisations are now having to step into professional statutory youth services, with volunteers overworked and frankly under-qualified for the technical detail. Young people have to organise their own activities without the previous support of the voluntary youth leaders who are so busy picking up the pieces. My Bill seeks to clarify the position following the guidelines set out by the Council of Europe and give registered youth workers a footing in law.

Most parents and members of the public will be surprised that the role of youth worker has no professional standards, as there are, say, for teachers, and anyone can profess to be a youth worker. My Bill seeks to redress that while celebrating the important role of voluntary youth leaders in our voluntary youth sector. Youth workers are all too often dismissed. They work long hours in difficult circumstances, often without a “thank you”. For my part, I would like to place on record a sincere thank you to the youth workers who have come to Parliament today to help to lobby for this Bill and for the importance of youth work generally. Thank you for staying back late and having a chat with that young person going through crisis. Thank you for organising those weekend trips or sports activities. Thank you for applying for those grants to give your young people the opportunities that they would never have had. Youth workers’ work is important and that is why they need support, but their support needs resource.

Some may say that councils already have the power to provide resources and to choose to fund youth services, but we know that in times of tight budgets, councils up and down the country are unable to spend what they would like and focus only on statutory provision. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 places a duty on local authorities to secure access to provision, but there are no definitions in that Act of what access to provision would look like, and the Government and councils have largely ignored it. There is little guidance on securing access. There is no requirement to develop plans or monitor the sufficiency of these services. There is no redress if councils fail in this duty and importantly, there is no funding to make sure that it happens.

My Bill rectifies that. It requires each authority to establish a youth services board with young people, parents, professionals and councillors—just like a school governing body—that will assess and plan the provision in that area. My Bill requires the plans to be submitted to the Secretary of State to nominate a body to review those plans. Many bodies exist: the National Youth Agency, for example, hosts much of the standard setting and the joint negotiating bodies for youth work already, but since 2011 it has received no Government funding and has had no statutory underpinning for its work. So bad has the situation got that the all-party group on youth affairs, which I chair, is launching an inquiry into youth services across the country, seeking out good examples and challenges. We have asked MPs to join us and we hope to develop a parliamentary scheme for MPs to visit youth clubs and youth centres around the country during recess. While that cross-party work goes on separately from the Bill, I hope that it too will raise the plight of youth services in our country.

It was the UK that first established clubs such as the YMCA and the Scouts and which pioneered a voluntary youth work sector. The UK, first in Coventry and then in councils around the country, established municipal youth clubs and showed the world how youth services could be run, but these gains have all been whittled or even swept away along with the futures of our young people. This is to our shame. A country where every young person has somewhere to go, someone to speak to and something to do is surely not too much to ask.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Emma Hardy, Emma Dent Coad, Thelma Walker, Catherine West, Alex Sobel, Rosie Duffield, Liz Twist, Danielle Rowley, Grahame Morris and Karen Lee present the Bill.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 26 October, and to be printed (Bill 221).