LGBT History Month

Debate between Olivia Blake and Elliot Colburn

Thursday 7th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered LGBT History Month.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. LGBT History Month was in February, and as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on global LGBT+ rights, which I am delighted to co-chair with the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for us to discuss the topic. It has become something of an annual debate, so I do not want to repeat too much of what we have said before. However, having looked through Hansard at some of our previous debates on the topic, it is a shame that we have to repeat a lot of what has been said on what we need to do in the UK and around the world to further advance the rights of LGBT+ people.

I want to stress a point that we as colleagues in this place have made on a number of occasions. LGBT+ people have always existed; we did not just pop out of the ground in the 1960s and 1970s and start marching through the streets of London and other cities. I worry about that idea sometimes, particularly with the rhetoric around trans people that has developed over the last few years. During the debate on the Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill last Friday, one colleague justified not supporting taking that Bill to Committee by saying, “Well, you know, we just never saw anything about trans people when we were younger.” Of course not—they were not allowed to be public. As LGBT+ people, we were legislated to stay in the closet. The law did not allow us to be open and free, so of course we did not have the ability to be open and free as we are today. That is a bit of a ridiculous argument.

I will begin by talking about some of the positive steps that have been taken around the world since we last held the debate. The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association maintains a database of laws around the world, which includes dashboards showing which countries criminalise same-sex acts, and a chart showing decriminalisation year by year. When we were here last year, we celebrated the fact that Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and Saint Kitts and Nevis decriminalised same-sex acts. I am delighted to report that in 2023 the Cook Islands, Mauritius and Singapore joined their ranks.

Same-sex marriage was legalised in the last 12 months in Andorra, Slovenia and Estonia. Same-sex civil unions have been proposed or passed in Latvia, Poland, Czechia, Hong Kong and parts of Japan. Conversion therapy bans have been proposed or passed in Portugal, Norway, Tasmania in Australia, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Other laws to improve the lives of LGBT+ people, such as adoption rights, anti-discrimination laws, advances in the rights of trans people to gender recognition and others, have been passed in places such as New Zealand, Colombia, Australia, Mexico, Cuba, Taiwan, Paraguay, Thailand, Iceland, Georgia, Italy, Cyprus, Germany, South Korea, Pakistan and more.

There is much to be positive about and we welcome that progress around that world. However, a point that has been made by colleagues in other debates is worth repeating: we cannot take progress for granted. We cannot assume that the hard-fought rights and freedoms that we have managed to achieve, in not only the countries I mentioned but the UK, are set in stone and that there is no chance of them ever being reversed. In this House we have spoken about some of the disgraceful measures taken around the world to row back on the rights of LGBT+ people, such as Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, with other African nations such as Ghana looking worryingly close to doing the same.

In fact, anti-LGBT+ laws have been passed or proposed in countries such as Bulgaria, Bahrain, Russia, Belarus, Niger, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Kenya, Hungary, Iraq, Lebanon, Malaysia, Oman, Jordan and Burkina Faso. There have also been worrying developments in countries where we would assume that things were only heading forward, particularly in Italy and Spain, and a huge swathe of state-level anti-LGBT laws in the USA.

LGBT+ rights have become increasingly politicised, and we can see that happening in the UK as well. Of course, we have made incredible progress and I always want to champion that. In the last decade alone, we can talk about the successes of same-sex marriage, becoming a leading country in eradicating new HIV transmissions, LGBT content in relationships, sex and health education, and more. There is still a lot to do, however, and I am afraid my right hon. Friend the Minister will not be surprised to hear me speak mainly about the need to make progress with banning conversion therapy.

I was incredibly disappointed that last week we did not manage to persuade the Government or the House to allow a very compromised Bill—so well compromised, in fact, that it was not necessarily universally welcomed by the LGBT+ community. Yet the fact that it was not even allowed to go to Committee stage so we could thrash out some of the challenges and finally make progress towards banning such abhorrent practices was disappointing indeed.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that it is disappointing that the UK did not feature on any of the lists he mentioned, apart from the last one, obviously? Would it not be good, since we have a whole history month, for the Government to come back to the table quickly with a conversion therapy Bill?

[Elliot Colburn]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. The Bill we were debating last week was the product of extensive hard work and compromise, including meeting people who were both sceptical and incredibly pro banning the practices. The Bill attracted criticism from those in favour of a ban because, unlike in other countries such as Norway, it does not carry a jail sentence. None the less, it was an attempt to try and bring everyone together, take the heat out of the debate and allow us to finally make some progress. That did not happen; the Government were not keen to support it and it was talked out.

Transgender Conversion Therapy

Debate between Olivia Blake and Elliot Colburn

Monday 13th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention. Indeed there is a consent clause in the Bill. That is an entirely separate debate. I know that many colleagues on both sides of the House do not agree with that—I am one of them.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I think we are missing the point. Actually, the therapy in itself is the issue. It is likened to torture by many leading organisations. On the issue of sexual violence and LGBT survivors, 24% of the people that Galop spoke to had experienced sexual violence, but that figure leapt to 32% for the non-binary and to 35% for trans men. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that we should not be creating spaces that are safe for people to perpetrate sexual violence against individuals?

[Elliot Colburn]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention and I absolutely agree with her. Again, it comes back to the general theme of the debate—for me, at least—which is that this is about harmful practices and whether we think anyone, regardless of who they are, should undergo harmful practices. My answer is no.