Lesbian Visibility Week

Mims Davies Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) for securing this debate and all Members for their important contributions. It is always a pleasure to speak on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition.

Today has been a real celebration of the role of lesbians in our society and the contribution we can all make, irrespective of who we are and who we love. That should be no different whoever we may be. I am very proud of our party’s action on civil partnerships and equal marriage. It is important to recognise that around 1.2% of women identify as lesbian. The hon. Member for Jarrow and Gateshead was with her uncle just last night in East Grinstead as we celebrated Rotary’s 39th birthday. We have different views on politics, but representation for all is something we very much agree on, so it is a pleasure to speak in this debate.

It is also a pleasure to speak opposite the Minister for Equalities, the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), who has shared her sexuality openly for many years, and added real value to this House since 2016 while sharing her personal journey. What is so amazing about being in this House is that we can share our personal journeys, our friends and families, and that enriches our debates.

I want to celebrate some party colleagues of mine who made their contributions at the very top in Cabinet. Conservative Justine Greening became the first lesbian Cabinet Minister in 2016. As she memorably put it:

“I campaigned for Stronger In but sometimes you’re better off out!”

Movingly, she said afterwards:

“It really struck me in my constituency how many parents wrote to me saying: thank you because you made it easier for my child at school.”

As many others have said, having visible role models is vital. Many women today are visible role models, making it easier for people to discover their true selves, which is what this week is really about.

Wider society having come so far, it is astounding that my former colleague Margot James, who was the MP for Stourbridge, was not only the first out Conservative lesbian MP, but the first MP to be out before her election back in 2010. I am pleased to see many others across this House continuing to come forward and being proudly who they are.

It was in 2011 that the Scottish Conservatives elected the first openly gay or lesbian leader of a mainstream political party, the magnificent Ruth Davidson. As a proud Unionist, it is hard to overstate the debt owed to Ruth for keeping nationalism at bay and Scotland’s precious place in our Union. I notice that there are former colleagues in the room today who may feel differently, but being proudly who they are is surely something that unites. I am proud that we to continue to have the voice of Scotland in this place, for our party or otherwise.

Today in the shadow equalities team, we are ably supported by the first out peer, Baroness Stedman-Scott, whose contribution as a Minister in various Departments, not least to our shared work in the Department for Work and Pensions, was second to none. I apologise for continuing with the slightly backwards glance—I am conscious that I am very much on my own today as the only member of my party here—but I was proud, when part of Government, not only to work alongside the inspirational women I have mentioned, but to work with them on policy.

We see people who are out and proud, such as the author Jaqueline Wilson and the TV presenters Sue Perkins, Sandi Toksvig and the wonderful Clare Balding. It is brilliant for us to see out and proud lesbian women on our screens.

The hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington), who is not in her place, spoke about guidance and help for young girls. That is very much needed. I enjoyed her welcome contributions. The hon. Member for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (Olivia Bailey) spoke about the historic gaps, which was very powerful, and about the power of being seen and the challenge of being a visible lesbian mother. I thank her for sharing that today.

As we heard from the hon. Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East, the theme of this year’s Lesbian Visibility Week is rainbow families. As a single parent—a straight woman, but a single parent—who quite often feels that people judge the shape of my family, I understand that. Access to fertility care, a theme of this year’s Lesbian Visibility Day, was actively worked on under the Conservative Government through the women’s health strategy, which removed barriers and requirements to prove infertility before access to IVF treatment. The regulations announced by Maria Caulfield, the former MP for the Lewes area, which I now partially represent, and the Health Minister at the time, came into effect last November and scrapped various tests for reciprocal IVF that potentially added an additional £1,000 to the cost of the treatment course. That cost has been mentioned today.

As far as I can see, the women’s health strategy has been somewhat scrapped. Perhaps the Minister can confirm where the Labour Government are on that and assure the House that work is continuing in that area. That was touched on by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome), who asked for clarity around the women’s health strategy. We agree on that, and I too look forward to the revised NICE guidance in that regard.

Removing barriers to IVF is important, but, as we have heard today, that is only one route for family formation. One in five adopted children are adopted by LGBT+ parents. When the necessary changes in the law were so recent, it is remarkable that we have come so far. Having a child in the right loving home can make an amazing contribution and difference, which is truly wonderful to see. I hope the Minister will use her good offices to push her Government on the women’s health strategy.

The modern iteration of Lesbian Visibility Week is quite new, as the hon. Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East said in opening the debate, having been founded in 2020. Given the, dare I say newly understood, ambiguities in the Equality Act and elsewhere, it was no surprise that last year’s debate got somewhat heated and entangled around biological sex, as we can probably remember. For many women, a lesbian—a same-sex attracted biological woman, of course—should not have her identity subsumed among other identities. I think all of us in the Chamber today can be very clear that we support others and how they identify, and that is perfectly valid. It is important not to allow this to continue to be toxic or hateful, and for any lesbian to feel that they need to identify in any other way.

Indeed, those points were made by organisations and submissions to the court ahead of this week’s landmark ruling; I am thinking particularly of the Scottish Lesbians and The Lesbian Project, which allows me to talk about the importance of Kate Harris and the LGB Alliance. She was greatly moved by having to defend the very definition of what a lesbian is in court, and I had the pleasure of chatting to her not that long ago at an event celebrating the Equality Act. It has been reported in the media recently that lesbian-only spaces have been forced underground or cancelled entirely for women who to stick to this view, which the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) spoke about. Those places all sound marvellous, I must say.

This week we, the official Opposition, have roundly welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling, which has given much-needed clarity on the Equality Act. It will rightly allow lesbian-only spaces where they are free from intimidation and threats of cancellation. That has been very evident today in this afternoon’s debate. We await guidance from the various bodies, directed by the Labour Government. Perhaps the Minister will say more about this, but hopefully, as the Minister for Women and Equalities has promised, that will be produced at pace. I hope it gives clarity on the law and in practice, which is exactly what the debate is about today. Our communities and our opportunities for lesbian women or any women must be fair, equal and safe. Women’s rights and freedoms cannot and must not be eroded, but celebrated and protected, particularly as we approach the 100th anniversary of universal suffrage.