LGBT+ History Month

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) not only for taking the initiative on this debate, but for making a fantastic opening speech and saying so much about our trans community that is so important. I will come back to that in a moment.

In this LGBT+ History Month debate, it is important not only to acknowledge how far we have come on LGBT+ rights, but to renew our determination to protect the progress we have made and to do more both here and abroad to enable LGBT+ people to enjoy the same opportunities that non-LGBT+ people enjoy.

I will not repeat much of the excellent speech that my hon. Friend has just made and will keep my remarks fairly brief. I welcome the fact that through amending the Crime and Policing Bill, the Government are moving ahead with making LGBT+ and disability hate crime into aggravated offences, bringing them in line with racial and religious hate crime. But changes in the law need to be supported by cultural change. Unfortunately, too often we hear of denigration, taunting and bullying of LGBT+ people, sometimes through ignorance but also, I am sorry to say, through open prejudice, even among those who we would hope knew better in our public services.

Research by the TUC into harassment, bullying and prejudice of LGBT+ people in the workplace revealed that over half of respondents, rising to 80% of trans respondents, have been subject to one of those. There should be no rolling back of equality, diversity and inclusion programmes, whether that is LGBT+ inclusive relationship education for young people in schools or in a public or private sector workplace. I am pleased that our Employment Rights Act 2025 gives formal recognition to trade union equality officers and has strengthened employer duties against harassment. That will certainly help, but we should be under no illusion that there is not still much to do. I know a lot of work has been done on the conversion practices Bill, and I appreciate that the Minister is absolutely committed to bringing it forward and ensuring that it is fully trans inclusive, but time is ticking on, and I would be grateful if she could tell us when she is likely to publish a draft Bill.

Turning to the trans community, I have met many trans people and their families this year, as I expect the Minister has, who have been deeply upset since the Supreme Court ruling last April—not just by the ruling itself, but by the way in which the ruling has been seized on by some, interpreted far more widely than the context of the Equality Act 2010 and used as a weapon against trans people. We must find a way to enable trans people to live their lives peacefully and with dignity without having to come out repeatedly in all sorts of circumstances. I ask the Minister to ensure that, however we get to the final guidance on the practical implementation of the ruling, it really does respect the rights of trans people to privacy and to living their lives in their acquired gender, and that it also offers protection to all those organisations that find themselves under attack for being trans-inclusive. We need to see guidelines that focus on inclusion and not exclusion.

Turning to the international scene, we all appreciate that there are significant financial pressures at this time, but I would like to make a specific plea to ministerial colleagues to protect the support given to LGBT rights programmes through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s foreign aid budget. In the great scheme of things, it is not a huge amount of money, but it is nevertheless extremely important for several reasons—first and foremost, because it is not just a minority rights issue. Sadly, we see attacks on LGBT+ rights around the world used as a weapon to undermine our democracies, sowing division and dividing societies, and such attacks are often as a precursor to attacks on wider minority rights and to greater authoritarianism.

I will not repeat all the comments I made in Monday’s debate about the interference of Russia in our democracy and politics, but research by the Kaleidoscope Trust and its international partners, alongside UK Government and Equal Rights Coalition statements, has shown that hostile states, such as Russia, systematically promote anti-gender and anti-LGBTI+ narratives, which are used to polarise electorates, mobilise nationalist and populist movements, and even undermine trust in institutions, such as NATO, the EU and the UN. That is a threat to us, but it is an even greater threat in countries where democracy is more fragile.

Secondly, the UK still commands respect abroad, and strong support from the UK for programmes supporting LGBT rights sends a clear signal to other donor countries of the importance of this aid. Conversely, the cutting of UK aid for LGBT rights programmes may influence other donors negatively. Thirdly, any retreat from supporting LGBT rights is likely to embolden those who weaponise them and to exacerbate existing difficulties.

I am pleased to hear that the UK will host the IDAHOT—International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia—meeting in 2027. I ask the Minister if we could use that meeting both to improve our position in the rankings and to support LGBT rights internationally.