Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Meg Hillier and Julie Hilling(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
6. What steps he is taking to ensure that the CPS’s networks of specialist rape and child abuse prosecutors are adequately funded.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
9. What steps he is taking to ensure that the CPS’s networks of specialist rape and child abuse prosecutors are adequately funded.
Identity Documents Bill
Debate between Meg Hillier and Julie Hilling(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Julie Hilling
It is a privilege to move a new clause to a Bill in the House for the first time.
New clause 1 relates to a group of people who are often forgotten—in fact, they seem to have been forgotten by the Government because they were not covered by the equality impact assessment on the Bill—and for whom the identity card was a valued asset because they were able to have one card in their birth gender and another in their acquired gender.
Changing gender is not something that happens overnight; people have to go on a journey that might take several years. For the vast majority of people, it takes at least two years until they reach the position of saying that they wish to live as another person and are able to undergo gender reassignment surgery. However, many trans people choose not to undergo surgery, either because it can be dangerous, painful or unsuccessful, or for other reasons.
Gender identity is extremely complex and there is a broad spectrum of trans individuals. At one end of the spectrum are trans individuals who commit to living in another gender and undertake gender reassignment processes to help them to achieve that, while at the other end are individuals who feel trans, but continue to live in their birth gender, even though they feel trapped in that gender. In between those two ends of the spectrum are trans individuals who feel genderless and prefer to remain gender-neutral, as well as trans individuals who genuinely identify with both genders. There are also people who identify with their non-birth gender, but need to continue to live in their birth gender in certain situations.
In Committee, I talked about my friend who I will call Jane. Jane is still working as John in a very male-dominated industry. She is usually Jane at home, although she is not yet Jane with some of her family, especially her elderly parents, who she does not wish to upset. Jane is on a journey, but at the moment she has to live her life in two genders. It is hard to imagine the problems that arise in her life. What does she do when she wants to book a hotel room or a flight? The ability to have two identity cards has allowed her to go on holiday as Jane, but to continue to live her work life as John. Identity cards were not a full solution to the problem faced by dual-gendered people such as Jane, however. Although the scheme allowed individuals to hold cards in both genders, only one card was valid for overseas travel.
Another trans person—I shall call her T—has contacted me to tell me about her experiences. After feeling transgendered from a young age, T has just started to take active steps to make herself physically more feminine. Of course, it takes time for the physical aspects of gender to change, so T is not yet ready to start living as a woman all the time. Anyone who has had any contact with the transgender community will know the importance of people being able to pass as the opposite gender from their birth gender.
T is a professional working for a very conservative firm. She is only too aware of the difficulties she would face if she started to dress as a woman before she was physically able to pass. Although there is legislation to protect such people against discrimination in the workplace, she knows that she would face great difficulty in her field of work and that, if she was sacked, she would be unlikely to get another firm to take her on. She has therefore decided that she will not start living as a woman in the workplace until she is physically and mentally ready to do so.
T is a trans person with a life away from the workplace, however. She lives as a woman at home and goes out as a woman. It is when T travels abroad as a woman that she feels most liberated with her gender identity.
T has travelled abroad as a woman on a male passport, but that was never easy, even when travelling to relatively trans-friendly countries. Problems arose because when she presented her passport to immigration officials, not only did she look different from her passport photo, but the document stated that she was male, not female. That typically led to delays involving prolonged questioning and embarrassment, but on a few occasions the situation was more severe. In one country, she was taken for further questioning into a side room in which she was mocked and ridiculed by several male immigration officials. They refused to allow her to be frisked by a female immigration official and she was inappropriately molested by a male immigration official—one can only imagine the humiliation.
After that incident, T decided to apply for a passport in the female gender and adopted a female name. That has had a remarkable effect on her life because she no longer faces delays and prolonged questioning. There is no more embarrassment because there is no discrepancy between the person presenting themselves to immigration officials and their passport. When travelling in certain countries, she is confident of joining queues to be frisked by women, not men. Fortunately, she has not experienced any negative issues when travelling as a female on a female passport, and she is grateful for the protection that that female passport has brought.
The problem has not been solved completely, however, because there are still instances when T is required to travel as a man. She has not disclosed her trans status to her employer, so she has had to refuse all international travel at work because any flights and hotels would be booked by her secretary and, of course, bookings have to mirror the name and gender on a passport. Her continued refusal of international travel is likely to have an adverse effect on her career.
The right to travel is an important aspect of the fundamental right to liberty, and T feels it is important that she travel as a woman in her early stage of transition. However, although she is dual-gendered, there will be instances when she is required to travel as a male. She is therefore in an impossible situation because how does she choose the gender for her passport? The most logical solution to the problem, as set out in the new clause, is that dual-gendered people should be allowed to be issued with two passports. Of course, some single gender people are issued with two passports, particularly when they want to travel to countries in which it is inappropriate to have the passport stamp of certain other countries, so there is a means by which two passports may be issued.
A small number of people make up the trans community. ID cards were not a perfect solution, but they gave those people some liberation. I suggest that people should be allowed to keep their identity cards as a valid means of travel until the Government bring forward an alternative solution.
The Government indicated in Committee that an alternative proposal would be put forward to solve the problem, but unfortunately it has not yet been presented to Labour Members. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us by telling us how the Government will resolve the problem experienced by a small group of people who benefited from identity cards, but will face difficulty due to the cards’ removal.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling).
In Committee and through subsequent correspondence, I have pressed the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), on the consultation that she and her Department undertook when putting the Bill together. However, I have received no answer, so I hope she will tell the House the groups that she consulted, given that the issue did not even feature in the Government’s impact assessment. This House is a tolerant House, and I know that the hon. Lady is a relatively new Minister, but if a mistake has been made, I hope she will have the decency at least to acknowledge that in the House and to apologise to the people affected, who have very little voice. However, there is a vocal group in her Department who have been influential in shaping policy across Whitehall and beyond.
We recognise that the problem is not easy to solve—either here and now on the Floor of the House or more generally—but a small but nevertheless important provision of the Identity Cards Act 2006 was introduced to bring about the existing benefit. We do not necessarily expect a detailed answer from the Minister today, but she has not reassured me, either through correspondence or in Committee, that serious action is under way in government to address the situation. The matter is not so much one for the equalities unit, which she indicated in her last letter was examining the situation, but one for the Identity and Passport Service, which deals with identity issues for the Government as a whole.
We want a real commitment to action today, but all I have heard from the hon. Lady—perhaps she will expand on this during the debate—is the suggestion that the Government are looking to work with international partners to remove gender markers from passports entirely. That proposal could be subject to a huge debate, and I am not sure that we would want that to happen—I think that Government Back Benchers agree. The approach would seem to be a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It would also confuse a lot of people, but even if it was an answer that could be agreed as a way forward, such international negotiations would take a long time, meaning that the proposal is a long-grass solution. We are looking to see a timetable for action and a commitment to action. I once again remind the hon. Lady that she is now a Minister. Whatever her previous record, words are easy. Action may be harder, but action from the Minister is what we are after today.
Julie Hilling
I was not a Minister and cannot answer that point, but I thought that we were supposed to have impact assessments before we made legislation. The Government are making legislation without them, and I am deeply shocked.
I wish that I were reassured, but I am not sure that I am. I listened to what the Minister said about the need to go forward on the issue and the transgender community being consulted on the solution. I hope that she will undertake that consultation.
Believe me, I recognise that the situation is difficult to resolve. I understand the difficulty of saying, “Let’s not have a gender in the passport” because that would not be a solution; and I understand the difficulty of issuing people two passports. The House should not misunderstand me; I understand that difficulty. However, it is so important for that small group of people that we do not allow our citizens to be humiliated as they go through passport control or people to lose their careers because of the difficulties that they face. On the basis of the Government’s guarantees that they will take the issue forward, take it seriously and work on it, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 2
Passport fees for holders of ID cards
(1) This section applies to a person (“P”) who—
(a) held a valid ID card on the day on which this Act was passed, and
(b) paid a fee for the card.
(2) On the first occasion after the passing of this Act on which P applies for a passport, the fee charged for the passport shall be reduced by £30.’.—(Meg Hillier.)
Brought up, and read the First time.