LGBT History Month

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Dorries. An honour it is to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless). I am not sure that his constituency has a gay bar as such, as the city of Glasgow does, but it does have the fantastic Beltie Books bookshop in Wigtown, run by a fantastic gay couple, Andrew and Nick. On my first visit there, when they were not entirely sure if my partner and I were a couple, they told me that the place was very much for the “friends of Dorothy”. That was my first ever hearing of that phrase as a way to know that it was a welcoming place in that part of the world for folk like us.

It is slightly depressing to pick up on what my hon. Friend said about the low interest that there seems to be in this debate when we look around the Chamber right now. This is the last day of LGBT History Month 2017. There is a lot to consider and to reflect on, in terms of both the history and what we collectively, as a Parliament and as a country, wish to achieve, not just on these islands but around the world for which this Parliament bears some responsibility.

Before the debate began, I mentioned to the Minister that I had taken some time, if not a lot of time, to look through the Hansard for the 1966 debate on the Sexual Offences Bill. If you have a spare 20 or 30 minutes, Ms Dorries, and you fancy a laugh at the past, go through that Hansard. It will make you laugh, but it will also make you slightly depressed. I would not wish to quote all of the comments that caused me to wince, but I will pick up one or two particular howlers.

Mr Humphrey Berkeley, at the time the Member for Lancaster, said that it was

“clear that homosexuals have a choice.”—[Official Report, 11 February 1966; Vol. 724, c. 785.]

Sir Cyril Black made, from what I read, some of the most astonishing contributions. He said:

“We also, if we pass the Bill, give a new view of this form of sin”—

that being homosexuality—

“to the great mass of the nation. This fine argument of the difference between sin and crime is not an argument that is understood by the great mass of the people.”—[Official Report, 11 February 1966; Vol. 724, c. 800.]

Mr William Shepherd, the Member for Cheadle at the time, is one of the few Members who made any reference to the “L” in LGBT. He said that lesbians were different, because they

“do no physical damage by their acts. They are not proselytisers as homosexuals are and, on the whole, they find it agreeable and acceptable”.—[Official Report, 11 February 1966; Vol. 724, c. 816.]

[Peter Kyle]

The hon. Gentleman refers to 1966, but many of us can remember similar comments made very recently. In all of the debates in this place about legalisation on the age of consent, gays being able to serve in the military and the abolition of section 28, similar and worse comments have been made. Rather than dismiss them as part of a bygone era, it is important that we recognise that they are still representative of people’s views in wider society. That is why events such as today, marking LGBT History Month, and challenging and engaging with such views in order to shape them is incredibly important, as well as reflecting on the historical aspect.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We can laugh at some of this stuff, but in reality I did not have to go back to 1966 to find such views—we could probably take a walk around some of our constituencies and find some of these views.

[Peter Kyle]

Not in Hove.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Perhaps not in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency—I accept that! Let us not pretend that the progress that we celebrate is universally celebrated across the country.

I will perhaps touch on that later on, but I want to reflect on some of the history and the landmarks that have gone by. There is a lot more to it than what was achieved in this or that year. Last week, I took part in Queer Question Time in the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, which is I think the oldest gay bar anywhere in Britain. I was on a panel with two guys in their seventies and two others. The two guys in their seventies had helped set up the Gay Liberation Front. One is now chair of the Sexual Avengers; the other is involved in the International Radical Pink Fairies. They had done loads so that I could campaign as an openly gay man in my election campaign, and I have never felt so unqualified to talk about gay history in my entire life as I felt on that night. [Interruption.] I hear my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Stuart Blair Donaldson) saying from a sedentary position that I am not!

I want to mention a few of the key elements in UK history. In the 1950s, the Wolfenden committee was formed after a succession of well-known men were convicted of indecency, which called into question the legitimacy of the law. Its report recommended that homosexual behaviour be legalised, which was rejected at the time by the Government.

In 1967, the Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised sex between two men over 21 and in private, but that did not extend to the merchant navy, the armed forces, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. It has to be said that Scotland was, to an extent, dragged kicking and screaming to catch up with our counterparts south of the border in this regard. It was in 1980 that sex between two men over the age of 21 and in private was decriminalised in Scotland.

In 1992, the World Health Organisation declassified same-sex attraction as a mental illness. In 1999, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously found that the investigation into and subsequent discharge of two personnel from the Royal Navy on the basis of their sexual orientation was a breach of their right to a private life under article 8 of the European convention on human rights. That historic ruling is what causes so many LGBT people across this country great concern about the Government’s plans on European human rights as we move forward next year—there is a lot floating around about how the Prime Minister wishes to see that legislation go. It would be most welcome if the Minister could shed some light on that.

In 2000, the ban on lesbians, gay men and bisexual people serving in the armed forces was lifted, under a Labour Government—that was a great achievement of the Labour Government. I do not want to be partisan, but let us not forget that they went to court to try to prevent that from happening.

In 2003, section 28 was repealed in England. We had a brutal and horrifying debate on that issue up in Scotland. One of my earliest memories is going to school and seeing the big “Keep the clause” posters and the campaign trucks that were being driven around towns and cities across Scotland. From 2004 onwards, we started to move into an era when civil partnerships became legalised. We now have full equality of marriage under the law in Scotland, England and Wales. Northern Ireland always feels a wee bit left out. It is the last place on these islands that still does not have same-sex marriage. It falls on all of us who believe in progress to stand in solidarity with those in Northern Ireland campaigning for reform and to offer practical support so that they can have equal marriage. I am proud to say—I am not sure whether this is still the case—that when the Scottish Parliament passed the same-sex marriage legislation in 2014 it did so with the largest majority of any legislature in the world.

There are a couple of things that we need to consider as we move forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway rightly mentioned the recent case of the Afghan asylum seeker, but there is a wider issue about how LGBT people’s asylum claims are handled. I shall be interested to know what reforms the Minister intends to put forward to improve the way we handle the cases of people who identify as LGBT and could be sent back to countries where that is a crime.

My hon. Friend also rightly mentioned transgender rights, which, as I said last week at the panel event I mentioned earlier, are hugely important. Too often, gay and bisexual men seem to think that the fight is done. When we talk about transgender rights, people say, “Yeah, yeah, of course I am in favour of that,” but they will not be caught on a march or joining a campaign to lobby Parliament. We gay men can be a bit self-centred at times, so we need to get out of that box and join with transgender people in campaigning for the changes they wish to see.

My hon. Friend rightly mentioned education, which is a devolved matter. England is the largest constituent nation on these islands, and I want us all to marry up our education systems so that, when someone goes to school and receives personal and sexual education, it reflects the person they are. The only thing I can remember from the sexual education I got at school is that it is not sex unless you are lying down. In many ways, it has not moved on. How on earth is a young transgender, bisexual, lesbian or gay person sitting in school listening to that kind of stuff supposed to learn anything about what a healthy sexual relationship looks like, about issues of consent, and about how to build emotional relationships with other people?

An issue I am campaigning on along with the excellent organisation Freedom To Donate and the all-party parliamentary group on blood donation is that of gay men giving blood. At the moment, I do not believe that our policy reflects modern science. I welcome the Government review that is taking place at the moment, and I hope that the report that we aim to produce by the middle of this year goes some way to informing its conclusions. I would like to see a system in which we say to people, “If you can safely give blood”—there are millions of men who have had sex with men across this country who can—“you should be able to do so.” That is something I would like to see progress on.

The final thing I want to mention—to my shame, I had no idea that this was the case until I met my two friends from the International Radical Pink Fairies and the Sexual Avengers last week—is that there is no AIDS memorial anywhere in the UK. I was in Berlin at new year, and it has one. There are AIDS memorials in Washington DC, New York, San Francisco—all over north America and in different parts of Europe.

[Peter Kyle]

rose—

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) is now going to tell me that there is one in Brighton.

[Peter Kyle]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; it is very generous of him. I invite him to come and visit Brighton, where in New Steine there is a very beautiful memorial designed by an architect called Romany Bruce. It is one of the most beautiful testimonies to love and to the legacy caused by the AIDS/HIV epidemic. We meet at it regularly to hold vigils and to celebrate the life of the gay community in Brighton and Hove. I invite the hon. Gentleman to come down at his earliest opportunity to see it for himself.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman has bagged himself a Scotsman for the weekend. I cannot wait to come and see it. Having spent some time in his constituency two years ago—I hate to say that it was washed out by rain the entire time in the middle of August—I know it is indeed an excellent place for LGBT people.

We need a national memorial. The London Assembly has recently had a debate on that issue and has agreed to establish one, and I hope that Sadiq Khan will take that forward. Not to be political, I have a different view of what the nation is, so I would like to see one in Scotland, and I do not see why there cannot be memorials in Cardiff and Belfast, too. It strikes me as slightly odd that none of our major cities have one. I do not want to cause any offence—I have perhaps just lost my invitation to the constituency of the hon. Member for Hove. It is bizarre that in London, Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff there is no acknowledgment of the AIDS crisis and what it means to the LGBT community. Although it does not affect only our community, it is undeniable that it had a massive impact.

LGBT History Month is hugely important, but we have to reflect on how we move forward. I have covered a lot of issues, but there are a lot that I have not covered, including the need to seek decriminalisation in other parts of the world, where we have enforced the laws that people now have to live under. I would be interested to hear anything on that issue from the Minister. Let us ensure that, when we come back here to debate LGBT History Month in 2018, I can tick something off my list of what I would like to see achieved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship as ever, Ms Dorries, and I know that this is an area about which you, too, care. I thank the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) for securing such an important debate. Like him, I am disappointed that more people are not present, because so much more needs to be done.

LGBT History Month gives us the opportunity to reflect on key achievements in the long and ongoing struggle for LGBT rights and equality. It offers us a chance to celebrate those individuals, collectives and movements who fought so hard for so long to win recognition and rights, and to realise and respect the debt that we owe them. It gives us the impetus to share their incredible stories of struggle and progress, which enrich young people’s awareness and understanding of LGBT people and issues. In particular, I thank the hon. Members for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) and for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) for talking about just how far we have to go still, while at the same time respecting and honouring the struggles that we have overcome to get to this point. I will focus on some of the issues they raised.

Despite having much to celebrate in the UK and indeed worldwide, we still have a long way to go before we truly achieve LGBT equality. In this country, the experience of young LGBT people is often marred by terrible bullying and isolation, and LGBT people at work suffer discrimination and harassment. Around the world, LGBT people are still the subject of state-sponsored hate, and in 10 countries homosexuality is punishable by death. I will speak to each of those points.

Young LGBT people still suffer bullying and discrimination simply because of their sexuality or gender identity. Stonewall’s “The School Report” found that more than half of lesbian, gay and bisexual pupils in Britain have experienced direct bullying in school. Almost all gay young people hear such phrases as, “That’s so gay”, or “You’re so gay”, used in a derogatory way in school. METRO’s “Youth Chances” survey of almost 1,000 trans young people found that 83% of them had experienced verbal abuse and 28% physical abuse in school.

The consequences of that are severe: two in five gay, lesbian or bisexual young people have attempted or thought about taking their own life because of bullying, although by comparison the Samaritans says that only 7% of young people in general attempt to take their own life; and 59% of trans youth said they had deliberately hurt themselves, compared with 8.9% of all 16 to 24-year-olds. Yet the interventions that we could be making to ensure that LGBT young people receive the support and advice they need to thrive are simply not in place.

LGBT young people are more isolated than their peers and less able to meet other young people with similar experiences, a situation only made worse by the near abolition of youth services across the country as a result of Government cuts. According to a report released last year by Unison, 93% of youth service employees said that their local authority had cut youth services, creating particular problems for LGBT young people. Does the Minister agree with me that youth services are vital in offering young people trusted support and advice away from the school and home environments? If so, will she tell us what communication the Government have had with local authorities about the provision of youth services, in particular LGBT specialist services?

Of further significant concern is the impact that poor quality and patchy personal, social and health education and sex and relationships education has on young people. Research by the Terrence Higgins Trust on young people aged between 16 and 24 found that 95% of respondents had not learned about LGBT sex and relationships, and 97% had not learned about issues relating to gender identity. Failure to provide such LGBT-inclusive PSHE and sex and relationships education can have serious impacts on the health and wellbeing of LGBT young people. By not embedding LGBT issues within the curriculum, negative perceptions of and myths about LGBT people may persist and become reinforced, fuelling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. It also leaves young people vulnerable by causing them to turn to the internet and myriad unreliable sources, and may unintentionally leave them to fall victim to grooming or exploitation.

The Government, including the Minister before us, have made commitments on numerous occasions to bring forward changes relating to statutory sex and relationships education. Can the Minister tell us when the Government intend to table amendments to the Children and Social Work Bill to see those changes come into law? Can the Minister tell us which stakeholder groups the Government are consulting on this issue, and whether they include LGBT specialist organisations?

LGBT young people make up 24% of the youth homeless population, often as a direct result of parental rejection and abuse within the family. Will the Minister tell us what the Government have done to understand the prevalence of LGBT youth homelessness? Can she say where it is most prevalent, or which local authorities require the most support?

According to the Albert Kennedy Trust’s research, conducted in 2014, only 13% of housing providers recognised the unique needs of LGBT youth, and only 3.9% of those providers had implemented initiatives to address those needs. What are the Government doing to help local authorities and housing providers understand the unique experiences and needs of LGBT young people?

Many LGBT people experience terrible workplace bullying and harassment. According to Stonewall, almost a third of LGBT people who have experienced bullying have been bullied by their manager; more than half by people in their team; and a quarter by people junior to them. Nearly half of trans people who are not living permanently in their preferred gender role state they are prevented from doing so because they fear it will threaten their employment status. Yet the Government are shutting down the routes to challenging discrimination at work. The introduction of employment tribunal fees has hindered access for many people, especially those from diverse communities, and flies in the face of our core principles of fair access to justice. Worse still, the Government know that.

In January this year, the Government snuck out their review of employment tribunal fees, admitting that the fall in claims has been significantly greater than was estimated when the fees were introduced. They are consulting retrospectively on proposals for an adjustment to the “help with fees” scheme to extend the scope of support available to people on low incomes. Does the Minister really believe that reviewing fees for the lowest paid is good enough, or does she accept that the Government have priced people out of enforcing their rights?

I want to turn to the international context, where huge progress has been made in the struggle for LGBT equality. Nineteen countries now recognise marriage as a legal right, but there are many countries where homosexuality is punishable by death and many more where homophobic and transphobic hatred and violence are commonplace. Just as we ask no one to be a bystander to LGBT hate crime here in the UK, the Government cannot be a bystander to the regressive and backward policies of nation states around the world. We look to this Government to take a zero-tolerance approach to violence and discrimination against LGBT people in all its forms. Can the Minister tell us what work is being undertaken by the Government to promote LGBT rights abroad, both through the UN and in regular interactions with individual nation states?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Lady will recall that our parties’ manifestos at the general election laid out plans for an envoy who would report directly to the Prime Minister on LGBT progress. I think her party’s candidate was Lord Cashman, whom we would have been delighted to support. Does she agree that that should still be under active consideration by the Government? It would be relatively simple and straightforward and could deliver enormous benefits.

[Sarah Champion]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. It would be a simple thing to put in place. We have a Victims’ Commissioner, for example. It would not be an expensive intervention, but it would both send out messages and provide helpful scrutiny of the issue for the Government. I suggest the Minister looks into that.

Reflecting on the year just gone, it is important to reiterate that when it comes to the rights of LGBT people here and around the world, the status quo is never enough. If LGBT equality does not progress, we are not simply at a standstill, but going backwards. That is why LGBT History Month is so important. It shows us how far we have come as a society, but it also highlights how far we have to go.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The Minister mentions health barriers. I am keen to hear what her thinking is about provision of pre-exposure prophylaxis, which I am sure she is aware of. It strikes me and many in the LGBT community that if it were a drug for heterosexual people—of course it is also for heterosexual people; but if the issue of HIV were as big an issue in the heterosexual community as it is in the gay community—we would not even be having the debate and PrEP would be available already. Can she update us on the Government’s exact position? I think there is a pilot, and it would be helpful if she could update us.

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that important issue. PrEP is potentially a life-saving development. We are aware that it could make a difference to the health outcomes of people living with HIV and AIDS. The Court of Appeal recently ruled that NHS England has the legal power to commission PrEP. That means that it has to consider providing it on the NHS. It has committed to consulting on enabling it to be assessed as part of the annual prioritisation round for specialised commissioning. That consultation is expected to start shortly.

I have outlined how we want to focus on issues such as health, safety and education for LGTB people, but other hon. Members have also spoken about the importance of showcasing our work internationally, to ensure that we bring other countries with us in our efforts for equality. We are a founder member of the Equal Rights Coalition, which has an important role.

A couple of Members mentioned the disturbing reports about an Afghan asylum seeker. We remain committed to improving the asylum process for those claiming asylum on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Decision makers and caseworkers are provided with dedicated guidance and training on the management of such claims, but they consider every case individually. The asylum claims made in the UK, including those made on the ground of sexuality, are carefully considered in accordance with our international obligations under the 1951 refugee convention and the European convention on human rights. However, no one who is found to be at risk of persecution or serious harm in their country of origin, because of their sexuality or gender identity, will be returned.

We recognise that our progress in achieving acceptance and recognition of trans people has not kept pace with that in respect of the LGB population, and that transgender people, as many hon. Members have mentioned, continue to suffer from high levels of inequality. We want Britain to be a place that works for transgender citizens. We recognise that there is a long way to go on trans equality. Last week I met with trans ambassadors from the youth charity Fixers to hear what they think can be done in healthcare and education to improve services that they receive. I was very touched when the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway said that no one would choose to be trans. It is not a fashion statement. It takes enormous strength of character and awe-inspiring courage to make that change in one’s life. In some cases it is a very long and particularly tricky journey. A young trans person in England today is nearly twice as likely to have attempted suicide, and nearly three times as likely to have self-harmed, as their non-trans peers. Moreover, the number of police-recorded transgender hate crimes in England and Wales rose by more than 41% in the past two years. Those are unacceptable figures.

From mental health to hate crime, and from bullying in schools to discrimination in the workplace, there is more to do. That is why, in 2015, the Government published guidance for employers and service providers that gave a clear explanation of the Equality Act 2010 and how it should be interpreted when supporting and recruiting transgender people. We have also increased sentences for transgender hate crimes, bringing them into line with those for other hate crimes. In addition, we recently issued instructions to offender management services to improve the treatment and management of transgender offenders. The new guidelines state that all transgender prisoners must be allowed to express the gender with which they identify.

Last year, we received the thoughtful, thorough and wide-ranging report on trans equality from the Select Committee on Women and Equalities. We are taking a number of the recommendations forward. We have committed to a range of actions, including reviewing the Gender Recognition Act 2004 with a view to demedicalising and streamlining the process of changing legal gender. As the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East pointed out, that Act was ahead of its time, but the world has moved on quickly and we need to review it. We have committed to conducting a review to find ways to reduce unnecessary demands for gender markers in official documents. We are writing to all relevant heads of public sector bodies and professions to highlight the need for introducing and monitoring the effectiveness of training on transgender issues. We are also committed to improving training for NHS staff, as well as the service specification for gender identity and children and young people’s services.

We are already making progress in relation to that commitment. NHS England has committed an additional £2.2 million to young people’s gender identity services to respond to an increased demand. It is working closely with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, the only gender identity clinic specialising in young people, and with other organisations to develop a workforce and training plan for transgender identity services. The commitments given in our response to the Select Committee will mark a step forward in equality for trans people. We are committed to delivering positive change and will continue to work with transgender citizens to review and improve our policies as we move forward.

As other hon. Members have articulated, we are unfortunately all too aware that individuals perceived to be LGB or trans are disproportionately affected by bullying. In 2014, 86% of secondary school teachers and 45% of primary school teachers reported that pupils experienced homophobic bullying or name calling in their schools. That is totally unacceptable, which is why the Government have made £3 million available to tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools. We are funding six initiatives that have so far reached more than 1,200 primary and secondary schools in England, or will do in the next three years, building on the previous £2 million grant that the programme announced in October 2014.

The shadow Minister was right to point out that having the right sex and relationship education and PSHE is also really important to equipping young people with the tools they need to face the challenges of the modern world. As she knows, my colleague the Secretary of State for Education has committed to bringing forward her suggestions very shortly as part of the Children and Social Work Bill.

On youth services, improving mental health starts with ensuring that children and young people get the help and support that they need and deserve. That is why we are doing an enormous piece of work with the Department of Health to find suitable partners to deliver projects to extend training pilots for single points of contact in education and child and adolescent mental health services to up to 1,200 more schools and colleges. Through that work, we will also pilot a range of peer support programmes and approaches for schools, colleges, community groups and online, and launch a programme of randomised controlled trials of preventive programmes across three different approaches to mental health promotion and preservation.

In their 2015 manifestos, the Conservative and other parties committed to building on the posthumous pardon of the Enigma code breaker Alan Turing. I am delighted to say that only last month, we secured a tremendous achievement and another move forward for LGBT equality when our Policing and Crime Bill received Royal Assent. The so-called Turing’s law has become a reality. That allows posthumous pardons to be issued to people convicted of consensual same-sex activity and enables statutory pardons for the living. It is right that individuals should not have a criminal record because they had a sexual relationship with someone of the same sex.

The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) mentioned the fear that some people—particularly some members of the LGBT community—have about Brexit. In these uncertain times, it is really important to stress that the Government are firmly committed to maintaining protection of LGBT people during and after the process of leaving the European Union. The hard-earned progress that we have made in so many areas must not be eroded. We are proud that the UK has some of the strongest equality legislation in the world and want to continue to address discrimination in all its forms.

Relevant EU directives and European Court of Justice judgments have already been incorporated into domestic law through the Equality Act 2010. We have begun to provide a strong framework to ensure that the UK is well positioned to continue to drive forward LGBT equality post-Brexit. On legislative protection, we aim to maintain stability and continuity for the LGBT community. The Government have made a clear commitment that all protections in equality legislation will continue to apply once the UK has left the EU, and there will be no going back on that commitment.

The individuals and achievements we celebrate during LGBT History Month remind us that we have made real progress in advancing the rights of LGBT people, but we should be inspired to maintain the momentum of recent years to bring about positive change, which for many felt almost inconceivable just decades ago. We recognise the importance of these issues and will continue to explore effective means to improve the lives of LGBT people. The Government are acting in education, health, safety, the workplace and other areas to ensure that no one is left behind. The work is complex and it sometimes takes time to see the benefits, but we are committed to ensuring equality for all and eradicating discrimination in all its forms because that is simply the right thing to do.

May I once again congratulate the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway on securing the space to consider these issues? I thank all Members who have taken part in this historic and important debate.