Luke Pollard
Main Page: Luke Pollard (Labour (Co-op) - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)Department Debates - View all Luke Pollard's debates with the Home Office
Hate Crime Against the LGBT+ Community
Luke Pollard Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a privilege to speak in the debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) on calling it. I am proud to speak as Plymouth’s first-ever out Member of Parliament, which gives me a special responsibility not only to share my personal experience, but to speak up for communities who often feel neglected and abused by those in this place.
We know that hate crime is on the rise. It is on the rise in Plymouth; it is on the rise in all our communities. As politicians, we can choose whether we calm things or fan the flames of hate. That is a choice we can make. Despite progress over many years, LGBT hate crime rose by 186% in the past five years, according to Stonewall. How we tackle that hate crime matters, and it requires leadership from the top.
Like many people, I have been attacked because of who I am. I am proud to be a massive gay: it is part of who I am, it is part of my identity and I celebrate it. My office has been vandalised with homophobic graffiti; I have had homophobic threats and messages left on my answer machine; and I have received an enormous amount of abuse simply for tweeting a picture of me and my boyfriend on Valentine’s day. That is an experience that happens to far too many LGBT people throughout the country—being authentically themselves makes them a target. We should be in no doubt that we must call that out. That is why in the run-up to the next general election, it is incumbent on us all, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) said, to call out hate wherever it comes from—whatever dark recesses of the communities we represent—but especially from those people who aspire to and occupy the highest offices of our country.
We have had a Prime Minister who refused to apologise for calling gay men “tank-topped bum boys”. We have a Home Secretary who has accused LGBT asylum seekers of faking their sexuality. As an MP, I have campaigned hard to stop the Home Office deporting gay asylum seekers to countries where they would be killed because of their sexuality. We have had senior Tory MPs saying that marriage between men and women is
“the only possible basis for a safe and successful society.”
I believe in the family—I think the family unit is at the heart of things—but I will not tell any single person what their family should look like. That is what we should aspire to.
When we have a Prime Minister whipping up transphobia, that is right out of the culture war playbook. That is why I want to ask the Minister whether she has heard of the CAT strategy, which will apparently form the basis of Government policy between now and the general election. It will focus on climate, asylum seekers and trans people. The culture war playbook is deliberately designed to divide. Leadership matters. We need the right leaders who build bridges and take the difficult step to unite, not the easy step to divide.
Has the Minister heard of that strategy? What is she doing to police other Ministers who make such divisive comments? Has she called out the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister on their recent divisive comments? If she has not, who does that within Government? If we are to tackle hate crime, we need to tackle it from the top, which means making sure that all the words we use, all our behaviours and all the campaigns we run respect everyone being able to be authentically true to themselves and being able to do so safely in every part of our country.
Miss Dines
I will carry on a little and then give way. A lot of specific questions were raised, and I want to answer them. I will then give way.
The UK has a proud history of protecting and promoting LGBT rights and the Government are committed to preserving that record. We are clear that victims of hate crime should be supported and the cowards who commit those hateful attacks should be brought to justice. I want to mention that I was delighted to see the Minister for Equalities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), here. That shows the important work that he has been doing and I know through cross-departmental ministerial meetings that he is working incredibly hard on this. I too have spoken to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the deputy commissioner on these issues as safeguarding Minister. They are taken very seriously.
Whatever some Opposition Members may say, I ask them to consider that we still have one of the world’s most comprehensive and robust legislative frameworks for hate crime. Indeed, in 2018 the Government asked the Law Commission to conduct a review of the coverage and approach of hate crime legislation in England and Wales. The Law Commission provided a very long, detailed and considered report. We are grateful for those detailed considerations and for the work put into that. We have responded to and accepted one of the recommendations in that report and will respond to the remaining recommendations shortly.
On online offending, it is evident that in modern life intemperate and illegal remarks can be whipped up online. We continue to work to ensure that people are protected against criminal activity, including threatening behaviour both on and offline. In my work with the National Crime Agency and various police forces, I have found a high level of commitment to improving this arena. There are people doing some very good work, and we must not forget that.
We have robust legislation in place to deal with threatening and abusive behaviour or behaviour that is intended to or is likely to stir up hatred. That applies whether it takes place here, in the wider world, or online. Further to that, we are making hate crime a priority offence in the Online Safety Bill, which, as hon. Members will be aware, has recently completed its passage through Parliament and is awaiting Royal Assent. There are legal duties of care under which technology companies will need to prevent, identify and remove illegal content and activity online. That means that less illegal content, including content that incites hate on the grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation, will appear online and that when it does it will be removed quickly.
The Government have also worked closely to fund True Vision, which is just part of our commitment in this area, for online hate crime reporting. The portal is designed so that victims of all sorts of hate crime do not have to visit a police station to report. We also continue to fund the national online hate crime hub, which is a central capability designed to support individual local police forces in dealing with online hate crime. The hub provides expert advice to police forces to support them in investigating these despicable offences.
There is much other work being done by the Government to broaden education, such as providing more than £3 million in funding between August 2021 and March 2024 to five anti-bullying organisations. There is much work being done, too, in schools to tackle this sort of hate crime. Also, the curriculum in schools is drafted in a way that will promote greater understanding in the field. It would not be fair to characterise the Government as somehow not being engaged and working in this field.
Miss Dines
I want to go on to the issue of conversion practices, if I may; I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s patience. The Government have made it clear that conversion practices are abhorrent and have no place in our society. We are grateful to those who have responded to our consultation, which was very wide and well thought-out, and my ministerial colleagues will set out further details on that in due course. I cannot give a timeframe.
Miss Dines
As a junior Minister, I have learned that “very soon” is quite an interesting phrase. All I can say is that hopefully we will have some news very soon.