LGBT+ History Month
Uma Kumaran Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), who gave an incredibly powerful speech. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) for her incredibly powerful opening remarks and for securing this debate. She is a proud, queer British south Asian who is a role model to so many, and that representation really does matter. I also want to say how proud I am that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (Olivia Bailey) is at the Dispatch Box. We were friends long before we were elected to this place, and to see her here, responding to the debate, is quite a moment.
Happy LGBT+ History Month, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am here as a proud friend and ally. Stratford and Bow has a very proud history of queer resistance. It was home to the Tower Hamlets Lesbian and Gay Campaign Group when Thatcher’s Government introduced section 28. When they tried to silence and erase an entire community, the campaign group fought back with defiance, holding meetings at Bromley public hall to spread awareness and solidarity. While libraries across the country stopped stocking queer literature, Tower Hamlets defied this ban, even producing a gay and lesbian book list for their libraries. The campaign group also published Out East community magazine, spreading word far and wide. In Stratford, East London Gay Community was a thriving social group. It operated a telephone hotline every Tuesday night, taking up to 15,000 calls a year at its peak, offering help and support for gay people in east London and beyond for decades. Instead of shame, it offered solidarity, acceptance and care.
These stories are not just history; they are a legacy that has profoundly shaped our communities in east London and throughout London. We are still home to queer celebration and resistance, whether it is being the home of UK Black Pride at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park; Forest Gayte Pride, who defied hatred when people defaced our local flags; Out To Swim, who meet at the aquatics centre to support local LGBT+ people participating in sports; or amazing initiatives like Positive East and Newham LGBT Seniors, who meet at Stratford library. Everyone is welcome in Stratford and Bow, and we celebrate our history and heritage.
But as we celebrate LGBT+ History Month and look back on how far we have come, we cannot risk forgetting the lessons of that history. Those lessons are rarely convenient, and the risks of backsliding are ever present, as we have heard today. As I mentioned briefly, we have had our own issues in Forest Gate. We sadly saw hatred come to our community when our rainbow crossing—our Pride flag—was shamefully defaced multiple times. It reminded us that we cannot assume or take for granted the progress that we have made. This awful act was a hate crime and an attack on our local queer community, and it was not just the LGBT+ community in Forest Gate but everyone—all our neighbours—who were affronted that it had happened. We now have rainbow wraps adorning our street lamps. When we unveiled them, the community stood together to share a defiant message: hate will not win here. LGBT identities will never be erased, and certainly not on my watch as their MP.
As I said, we cannot risk complacency. Progress is hard fought and hard won. In the months since the Supreme Court ruling on the Equality Act, hundreds of my constituents have written to me to share their experiences, their fears and the deep impact that the interim guidance issued by the EHRC is having on their daily lives. The lack of clarity also has an impact on organisations across the country and on trans people, who increasingly find themselves excluded from this discussion. Just as we demand that women’s voices are heard and respected, so too must we listen to trans women’s voices, who find themselves subject to mockery and abuse as those on the far right stoke culture wars. These are real people and real lives.
Last year I wrote to the Minister for Women and Equalities to make the views of my constituents clear: we must ensure that the Supreme Court ruling does not leave anyone facing yet more barriers to living a full, happy and dignified life, free of discrimination and harassment. I shared stories from my constituents. One, who transitioned over 25 years ago, told me that the place where they have worked for 13 years now has segregated toilets. They are terrified that they will now have to disclose their trans identity to their colleagues, infringing their right to privacy and risking their safety and inclusion at work.
This is not an abstract discussion; it is about the real lives of real people living in every one of our communities. They deserve dignity and freedom to live as they have been living, in many cases for decades, without issue. That is why we must see the new EHRC guidance come forward as soon as possible. We cannot risk backsliding by allowing this judgment to license discrimination or undermine the norms of trans inclusion. It cannot signal a move away from LGBT liberation after decades of progress. We often hear that Pride is a protest, but Pride is also a movement rooted in resistance, in defying silence and in refusing shame. We have come so far, but it bears repeating that the lessons of history are clear: progress was hard won and it must be defended.
This LGBT+ History Month is not just about struggle; it is about joy and the celebration of queer identity, and I am here as a proud ally to celebrate this. It is what the Tower Hamlets Gay and Lesbian Campaign Group and the East London Gay Collective stood for, and it is a legacy that we must all carry forward—in particular at this moment for our trans friends and neighbours. As we celebrate LGBT+ History Month and look back on how far we have come, let us remember that progress is never inevitable. It demands resolve and allyship, including from each and every one of us in this place.
Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life
Uma Kumaran Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Dr Gardner
My hon. Friend is right that we hunt as a pack: when the three Stokie MPs get together with our Staffordshire colleagues, we make a formidable bunch, and I am very proud to be part of the team.
I am incredibly proud to work for a Labour Government who are breaking down the barriers to opportunity, tackling child poverty and improving early years development through our plan for change. This is certainly a nationwide issue, but I wish to stress the critical importance of this mission in Stoke-on-Trent South and Stoke-on-Trent more widely. Our children were neglected time and again by the previous Government, and we now have some of the worst outcomes for childhood development, health and wellbeing in the country. Before I list the statistics, I want to point out that Stoke-on-Trent is also the best place in the country to live and that the people are fantastic. We have been let down and that is by no means the fault of the wonderful people of Stoke-on-Trent.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an important point. My constituency of Stratford and Bow, in east London, was recently scored second best in the country on the Sutton Trust opportunity index, for opportunities for children to advance in life, and the neighbouring constituency, East Ham, scored top. London has severe inequalities in giving children the best start in life, but we also have opportunities. It is important that kids in Staffordshire get the same opportunities. That is why this Government are working to spread that opportunity far and wide, so that they all have the best possible start in life.
Dr Gardner
I commend my hon. Friend and her neighbour for those wonderful outcomes, although I am sure she still has issues in her constituency that we need to battle against.
As I have said in the Chamber before, child poverty in some parts of my constituency is as high as 76%. In 2022-23, 13 children in every classroom of 30 were living in poverty in Stoke. Stoke-on-Trent has the highest rate of infant mortality in the country, and between 2019 and 2021, babies born in Stoke were nearly twice as likely to die before their first birthday than the national average.
In addition, Stoke-on-Trent has the highest number of children in care per head of population in England, and our children face successive delays in early years development. In 2023, Stoke-on-Trent was in the bottom 10 of all English local authorities for the number of children with the “expected” level of literacy, communication and language, and numeracy skills by early years foundation stage. I know that these figures will shock many, but Stoke-on-Trent must be a priority region for tackling child poverty and our related missions. There are children in my constituency who start school unable to speak, use the toilet or brush their teeth, and there are children in our high schools who are still learning phonics, which should have been taught in primary school, as they are struggling with such severe delays in their development.
Infant mortality, a topic that is very close to my heart, is explicitly linked to socioeconomic inequalities and persistent inequalities in health. As has been mentioned, the first thousand days of a child’s life are the most important. What happens during those days can, in many cases, predict a child’s entire life course. It is devastating that for so many children in our city their first few years are marked by deprivation, poor quality housing and incredibly low living standards.
Labour Stoke-on-Trent city council is doing excellent work to support our children. It has made major improvements to children’s social care services, focusing on early help and new front-door arrangements, and the family matters programme is a multi-agency programme delivering prevention and support services to give our children the very best start in life. Local organisations, like Thrive at Five and Stoke Speaks Out, have also run incredible programmes to facilitate a thriving early years network in Stoke-on-Trent to improve children’s early development.
However, our city council and our local services have had to work incredibly hard against a backdrop of successive cuts over the past 14 to 15 years that have decimated so many services and forced many to close altogether. Many of our holistic early intervention programmes, where families could get advice, health visitors supported families from pregnancy onwards, and staff could identify families in need and offer early support, have now closed their doors.