Heritage Sites: Sustainability

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to take part in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on securing a debate on the sustainability of heritage sites across the UK.

I should like to discuss the Llanelli railway goods shed in my constituency. When the local planning authority conservation officer deals with the application for solar panels, the matter will of course come under Welsh Government guidance, which has much in common with the guidelines elsewhere; the same issues are raised. It is a huge challenge to finance the renovation of a large, grade II listed building. The building has featured in TV programmes by Michael Portillo and Huw Edwards. The dedication of volunteers, and the desire of local residents to see it restored to its former glory, is immense.

If a building is commercially viable, it will be snapped up, and there will be plenty of options—it can be done up for flats or whatever—but so many of these buildings are not in that category. The costs of renovation far outweigh any easy profit for commercial investors, so the buildings remain there until local volunteers get together, start raising money, including through grant funding, and make a business plan that stacks up. It is very important that they can show that the building is sustainable. In our case, we have gone for a mixture of commercial and business start-ups, plus community and educational use. We are already bringing in schools and showing the children material about Llanelli’s industrial heritage. For us, putting on solar panels is extremely important, because we want to tackle climate change. Every level of Government—the UK Government, the Welsh Government and the local county council, which is the local planning authority—has professed its commitment to getting to net zero. We have a huge south-facing roof, which is not visible from the front of the building—from the road, where people go in. The building backs on to the railway; somebody has to be right over the other side of the railway to see that part of the roof.

We were concerned not only to tackle climate change, but to make the building more viable and save on running costs, all the more so given that energy costs have soared recently. However, our local planning authority conservation officer has been adamant that the guidance will not permit solar panels. It was strange; they would not contemplate the modern solar panels that we liked, which look so much like slates that it is hardly possible to tell the difference. We were told that we had to have the ones that stand proud. I can understand the theory, which is that restoration to the original would be required; that might be the reasoning. Anyway, neither option is apparently acceptable, and we have been flatly refused permission to put solar panels on the roof.

This is a listed building that we want to be preserved and to look as it has looked. It is an industrial building, and we want to move with the times. We want to use technologies that are up to date, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross mentioned, just as the builders used the technologies of their day. We want to conserve the building and preserve the planet. We want to contribute to tackling climate change, and make the building more viable.

Even well known buildings with high footfall do not necessarily find it easy to make ends meet, because running costs can be so high. With a building in a less well-off part of the country, which probably will not attract such high footfall and is wanted principally for community use, it matters even more that we should have the opportunity to put on solar panels, out of sight, and in a way that helps the sustainability of the building, and ensures its preservation for the future.

Legislative Definition of Sex

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Equality Act 2010 protects against direct and indirect discrimination, but there has always been provision in the Act for different treatment where it is a proportionate means to a legitimate aim—that is, different provision for those whose sex is assigned at birth and those whose legal sex has been acquired through a gender recognition certificate.

For example, although I know of one rape crisis service that has been providing women-only services for 30-years, and uses trans-inclusive language and has been trans-inclusive for 30 years, many other organisations providing services for those who have suffered domestic violence use the current provision in the Equality Act to provide exclusive services for those whose sex at birth was female.

Decisions about who can compete in sports can be made by sporting bodies as appropriate for the sport, and I do not understand why so many Members do not seem to have understood that. Obviously, rugby is totally different from chess. Those decisions are made by the appropriate bodies.

The Gender Recognition Act 2004, in combination with the Equality Act, currently defines someone’s legal sex as either the sex they were assigned at birth or the sex they have acquired through having a gender recognition certificate under the GRA. As I have illustrated, the Equality Act allows for different treatment of people whose legal sex has been acquired through a gender recognition certificate and people whose sex is assigned at birth, as long as the action is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

If there is a change, as has been suggested, from the current definition in the 2010 Act to a definition based on biological sex, that would create a blanket ban on trans people from services that they had previously enjoyed without concern or complaint, even when it cannot be said to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. The change would remove the current protection from discrimination for people in possession of a gender recognition certificate and undermine the Gender Recognition Act, leading to people being treated as if they had not changed their sex.

Unfortunately, this debate has often been portrayed as a matter of whether trans women should be allowed to use women’s toilets. First, we have had the GRA since 2004, and trans women have been using women’s toilets without complaint. Most of us have probably never even noticed. As we know, we have individual cubicles, so everyone has their privacy.

Even more unfortunately, there has been a conflation, even by Members in this debate, of a trans woman and somebody who is a criminal. We know perfectly well that there are police who are criminals and carry out heinous acts, but that does not mean that all police officers are criminals. It is exactly the same. Someone could impersonate a meter reader or a council worker, say, and go to a house to try to gain entry by false means. Why the idea that someone can dress up as a woman and therefore carry out whatever criminal act they intend to should determine how we decide to treat trans women is absolutely indecipherable to me.

To those people who genuinely feel that they do not want to discriminate against trans people, I want to make it clear just how hurtful that suggestion is to many trans people. They feel that they will be completely obliterated—that they will no longer exist, that they will no longer have the right to recognition. They have so many challenges in life—challenges with their family, challenges at work, challenges with their social life—

[Hannah Bardell]

I commend the hon. Lady for making a passionate and common-sense contribution to the debate. I am sure she agrees that some of what we have heard today is just feeding into the moral panic; some of the arguments are just cut and pasted from what gay and lesbian people faced decades ago. Does she agree, as a lesbian, that trans people do not threaten us? In fact, they enhance our existence.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

Absolutely. As a fellow lesbian, I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady; they are absolutely not a threat. More importantly than that, they need our support now more than ever.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) on her balanced approach at the start and on listening to all sides of the debate.

I start by making it very clear that no one here is looking for some sort of culture war, despite what some may think. No one here is trying to pit different people against each other; in fact, I firmly believe that both women and the trans community have the right to be protected. They are already well protected under many existing laws, including the Equality Act, the Gender Recognition Act and the Human Rights Act. There are plenty of laws in place. If we are being asked to clarify the law—not change, but clarify it—this Parliament has the right to do so as long as the majority vote for that.

I speak passionately about this issue. I have someone in my life—a woman—who fled domestic violence and found a refuge with her young daughter. She would have been terrified to have been near anyone, whether male or a trans woman, in that system, because of the abuse, rape and torture that they had both suffered. This is about them having the safety of a women’s refuge, to be around other female survivors. I regularly commend the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for being such a passionate champion of the cause.

Having lived with the woman I have described and heard about all the tragedy that she has had to go through, I understand why it is so important that women should have the protection of single-sex spaces and why it is wholly appropriate that we should clarify that law if we need to—to say that sex is defined by biology. Someone is not assigned their gender at birth; they are born male or female. A man is an adult human male and a woman is an adult human female. We should not be disputing those facts in the 21st century—these are the basics of biology that we talk about in our classrooms. I used to be a teacher. As head of year, I had responsibility for the safeguarding and welfare of children; I taught in an only-girls school as well as mixed-sex schools. I understand the challenges that come with some households and young individuals.

The issue is about making sure that women and girls feel protected and that the trans community have their rights and protections as well. It is befuddling to people in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke that this debate should even have to happen—to them it is obvious that in the Equality Act “sex” was talking about the biological definitions of men and women. Of course, they also accept that if there needs to be clarity, we should get on with giving it.

I want my daughter to grow up looking to heroines such as the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and J. K. Rowling, who have been brave and bold enough to stand up for what they believe is important. Their rights should not be eroded because of an extremist minority shouting very loudly on social media and pursuing a very hard-line agenda that is not in keeping with the majority opinion, as we have seen during the national debate.

Sadly, women are being persecuted and facing abuse simply for speaking out, just as much as those in the trans community. The people who made money off J.K. Rowling’s hard work refused to stand beside her—they sit there in their multi-million-pound mansions, taking their private flights and trading on their position as actors and actresses because of her work. They had the gall to cancel her from being present at the show about the books that she herself wrote. It is extraordinary that we live in such times and that those individuals can be so cold and callous. That is why it is so important that we have this debate, which is about making sure that women feel and are safe and have their protections.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

Would the hon. Member like to clarify his understanding of the definition in the Equality Act? As I understand it, the Equality Act defines someone’s legal sex as being either the sex they were assigned at birth or the sex that they have acquired through having a gender recognition certificate. I do not think that that is what he has said in his speech.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I want to make it perfectly clear: sex is not assigned at birth. You are born a man or you are born a woman. Those are indisputable facts. You have XY chromosomes or XX chromosomes. Again, that is not up for debate or discussion. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) talked about XXY chromosomes, but as the NHS website points out, Klinefelter syndrome is caused by an abnormal amount of chromosomes. It does not relate to the separate debate about self-identification. Those two things are separate.

To finish, it is biologically clear that a male has XY chromosomes and a female has XX chromosomes. This is a scientific truth that should not be conflated with any constructed truth. William of Occam had it right that the simplistic approach is the best. Let us keep the Equality Act simple in order to protect the rights of everyone in a civil society. The problem with the debate we are having is that it is set in the context of a postmodern society that thinks that it can get away with dictating to those with universal convictions of truth that they must abandon them in favour of the nonsensical versions of their truth. Although the Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida once pointed out that society is in a state of flux, he did not say that science is in a state of flux.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 18th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on his work on this report, which includes calling out the energy charter treaty used by fossil fuel companies to sue Governments for introducing climate policies. It is now nearly a year since the Minister’s colleague, the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), said:

“The UK cannot support an outdated treaty which holds back investment in clean energy and puts British taxpayers at increased risk from costly legal challenges”.

Can the Minister tell us when the Government will follow the example of other major European countries and commit to withdrawing from the energy charter treaty?

[Ms Ghani]

The energy charter treaty, which is under review, falls under the responsibilities of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which has been formed from half of my previous Department. In their negotiations to modernise the ECT, the former Departments for International Trade and for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy worked in close collaboration and DIT led on the investment provisions, so there is no doubt that the hon. Lady’s question would be better focused at the other Department.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I also took part in a very sobering visit to Ukraine last month and saw for myself the utter devastation of homes, businesses and infrastructure, with World Bank estimates of reconstruction costs now at some $630 billion. In spite of warm words, we still have no clear plan from the Government for the seizure of Russian state assets that could be used for the recovery of Ukrainian businesses and the reconstruction of Ukraine. Now that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin, and with the United States, the European Union and Canada already looking to seize assets, can the Secretary of State tell us when the Government will set out how they will seize frozen Russian state assets?

Oral Answers to Questions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call shadow Minister Dame Nia Griffith.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

It is over a year since the announcement of eight additional agrifood and drink attachés. Given that there was yet another gloomy report from the British Chambers of Commerce last month, which said that three quarters of SMEs anticipated zero or negative export growth this year, help is certainly needed. Will the Minister tell us what specialist training the attachés have completed on food and drink regulation in the relevant countries? How many UK SMEs have they helped to find new markets, and what is the value of any new exports that they have secured?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am very happy to engage with the hon. Lady on that question, which had a number of other questions within it. As she knows, we have staff in more than 100 markets, and are building our existing attaché roles in China, Japan and the Gulf region. The Government are placing eight new dedicated UK agriculture, food and drink attachés in growth markets such as the US, Canada, Africa, India, South America, Brazil and Mexico.