Pride Month

Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Anneliese Dodds

Thursday 15th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that important point. I am also grateful to him and many others in the Chamber for the work they have done on that issue, with the amazing organisation Fighting With Pride, which has worked so hard on it. I encourage the Minister to do all he can to ensure that that review is published, because we need to act on it and act urgently. Sadly, that injustice lasted for a long period, so we are talking about some people who are reaching their older years now. They need to see the outcomes of that review. They have been incredibly brave in talking about their experiences and, having heard some of their stories, the manner in which they have responded, despite appalling, traumatic experiences, has been incredible to behold. They need that resolution and support so that they can move forward and have at least a little closure, if not justice, on what happened to them.

The fact that that ban endured for so long reminds us how difficult it was for LGBT+ people. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) for his reflections on what has changed, in one of many moving speeches we have heard in this debate. He referred to the 1985 vote for a resolution committing to lesbian and gay rights in the Labour party, and I was proud that Labour led the way in delivering a number of moves towards greater LGBT+ equality.

There are many people in this Chamber who pushed for and helped to deliver those changes. My right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) detailed that record; in the interests of time I will not repeat his word, but I want to be crystal clear in saying when Labour is next in government, as I hope we will be, we will continue to stand up for LGBT+ people and build on that proud history of breaking down barriers for everyone. To any LGBT+ person who is watching this debate I say, “Labour will always have your back.”

It is important to say that because, as so many have reflected, these are worrying times for many LGBT+ people. There have been many reflections on the appalling rise in hate crime. Hate crime motivated by sexual orientation has risen by almost 500% over the past decade; crimes targeting transgender identity are up by over 1,000% and violent offences have increased sixfold across all five strands of hate crime over the same period.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I need to push a point: when it comes to the Government’s invoking section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 against the Parliament of Scotland on its Gender Recognition Act, where does the hon. Lady’s Front-Bench team stand?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful for that intervention. I believe the hon. Member will be well aware of where Labour has stood on these matters, as we always stand on these matters: we believe it is incredibly important that LGBT+ people are not used as a political football in any circumstances. We have long called for a resolution to that issue and for the Scottish and UK Governments to work with each other, but I am afraid that they did not do that. We should have seen that, and above all we should have seen trans people treated fairly during this period. I am afraid it is they who have been let down.

I know that some on the Government side—not the Minister, I am sure—may say that the rise in hate crime is down to better recording of hate crime rather than an increase in crime itself. Although we welcome, of course, improvements in police-recorded hate crime, that does not explain the huge soaring of the levels of hate crime against LGBT+ people and other groups. My party will follow the recommendation made by the Law Commission five years ago to strengthen and equalise the law so that every category of hate crime is treated as an aggravated offence. This is not about redefining what hate crime is, as some have wrongly claimed; it is about fixing a basic inequality in the law so that everyone who falls victim to hate crime is treated equally. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) for her powerful words on that subject. The Government should have made that change years ago, and I hope that the Minister will commit to doing so today.

Labour will also seek to build consensus around modernising the Gender Recognition Act to remove indignities for trans people while upholding the Equality Act, its protected characteristics and its provision for single-sex spaces. We will also appoint an international LGBT+ rights envoy to raise awareness and improve rights across the world—rights on which many countries are, unfortunately, going backwards, as Members have reflected. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington rightly spoke about Britain’s influence in that matter. We can do more, however, and I praise the Kaleidoscope Trust for all its work in that area.

We have heard again, perhaps understandably, the claim that this is the gayest Parliament in the world. I know that there are gay, lesbian, bi and trans people in Parliaments right across the world, but sadly they are far too often unable to be public about who they are because of the appalling reprisals that they would suffer.