Transgender Conversion Therapy

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Layla Moran

Monday 13th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse]

I totally agree. What is damaging about all these practices is that they have an outcome before they even start. That is why they are so damaging.

[Layla Moran]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that if we end up not banning all forms of conversion therapy, all it will do is encourage families to go further underground to seek practices, particularly through their churches? I know of a family whose church reached out to them. They were then referred to a quack in America who performed abhorrent practices on a young teenager who immediately said to their parents, “This is making me feel like who I am is less than I am.” Is my hon. Friend concerned that if the Government do not act, parents will not know where to turn?

[Wera Hobhouse]

I totally agree. We have to say this again and again: this is not about professional medical treatment and therapy. The conversion therapies that need to be banned are pseudoscientific practices, often conducted in private settings and, most crucially, they do not have an open outcome, but are aimed at changing what a person is.

Legal advice recently published by the Good Law Project makes it clear that the Government risk getting embroiled in legal challenges by breaching article 14 of the European convention on human rights. The advice states that

“the difference in treatment between sexual orientation and gender identity would need to be justified and proportionate.”

So far, the only justification that the Government have provided is to say that the issue is complex.

Why are we even having this debate? Opposition to a trans-inclusive ban is entirely built on stoking fear and division, based on deliberate misinformation. By the Government’s own admission, NHS gender identity services will not stop people having exploratory conversations with their doctors. Legal services will not be affected by a ban. There is no evidence of any negative impact in the countries that have already introduced a ban. Let us be clear: we are talking about preventing the abuse of LGBT+ and gender non-conforming people—our fellow human beings. We need to prevent abuse.

Furthermore, neither would religious freedom be affected by a change in the law. Religious freedom is the freedom to worship without discrimination. As a Christian, I have the right to practise my religion without discrimination. I do not have the right to cause harm. The Church of England has acknowledged that, stating that conversion practices have

“no place in the modern world”.

Nearly all countries that have banned gay conversion therapy have also banned gender conversion therapy. Canada, France and New Zealand, to name a few, have yet to encounter problems with freedom of speech or religious belief. It is baffling—I disagree that it is about getting votes—that the Conservative Government are not committed to banning trans-inclusive conversion therapy, even though their own voters are largely in favour of such a ban. Northern Ireland has moved a motion to ban conversion therapy in all forms. Scotland hopes to ban it by the end of 2023. The Government must follow suit.

The Equalities Minister called this country a global leader on LGBT rights, but it seems the Government have forgotten what the letter T stands for. How can we possibly call ourselves global leaders if we knowingly and purposefully fail to protect trans people from abhorrent practices? I plead with the Government to listen to what is overwhelmingly a consensus in this room—and outside—and make sure we ban conversion therapy in all its forms.

Department for Education

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Layla Moran

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I would like to put on the record my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who leads the Public Accounts Committee so well, and the National Audit Office. It is fair to say that I rely heavily on the reports the NAO produces and I think it does a wonderful job. I would also like to give a shout out to Botley Primary School—I am a governor—because it got the call from Ofsted yesterday and is in the thick of it. Given that the first thing I am going to talk about is Ofsted, it would be fair to wish the school good luck today. I know they will do us all very proud.

As governors, we focus heavily on school funding. In my local area, a school recently wrote to parents to ask for pencils and pens because it cannot afford them. Another school—I will not mention which one—is consulting, quietly and behind the scenes, on going down to a four-day week, because it cannot afford to keep its teachers at full-time level; if it did, it would have to start going into severe deficits. In the context of the estimates, what we want to know is this: if there are funding pressures, are they affecting outcomes? In the end, that is what it is about. Are they affecting outcomes? Are they driving value for money or not? What are the outcomes of the policy decisions themselves? Today is about not party political speeches, but looking at the evidence in front of us.

The Public Accounts Committee has been looking at a whole host of issues, including school accountability and governance. When, with the Department for Education, governors and parents, we have explored where the buck stops on school accountability, the picture is, unfortunately, quite muddled. No one can tell us empirically where the buck is meant to stop. The Department for Education says that it is up to the multi-academy trusts or local authorities, who say that it is down to the governors, who rely very heavily on Ofsted to be able to say whether or not these funding pressures are leading to lower or higher outcomes. In fact, I think Amanda Spielman slightly overstepped her initial remit—but quite rightly—in saying that there are definitely outcome failures in the FE sector as a result of the financial pressures that many Members have mentioned today. She said that we do not empirically know whether that is happening in schools or not, but our argument is that if we had the proper data, we could probably get a better idea of what is going on.

This is at a time when Ofsted’s own budget is under pressure. Its remit has expanded significantly since 2000, with successive Governments of all colours having asked it to do more and more. As well as schools, its remit now covers other sectors including children’s social care, early years and childcare, further education and skills providers. Meanwhile, its budget has had a decrease—a cut—of 40%. I will go on to talk about more things that I wish Ofsted would do, but the better question may be: what is our mechanism for school improvement and accountability? Is Ofsted the right provider to be able to do this? I know that the Department is consulting on the new Ofsted inspection framework, which we absolutely welcome, but as part of that, we need to carefully consider whether introducing even more into Ofsted’s budget is the right thing to do or whether it is time to have another body altogether.

Passing the buck is more than just a financial matter and more than just about data and numbers; it is also a matter for the community and its parents. One of the more striking sessions in the Public Accounts Committee was when we had campaigners from Whitehaven Academy, whose community shouted from the rooftops about the financial mismanagement and irregularities that were happening in that school. One of the questions that we asked was, “What does it take to get these things looked at?” It took two MPs of different parties, one of whom was forcibly removed from the premises when they visited the school. There was a “Panorama” investigation and we still do not fully know the outcome of what has happened in Whitehaven. This continues to drag on and my Twitter feed is full of parents who are shouting yet again from the rooftops, “Where does the buck stop?”

Meanwhile, we have the Durand Academy, whose school was transferred to the Dunraven Educational Trust. The first canaries in this case were back in 2014. The Public Accounts Committee had a hearing on this issue in January 2015 and in it identified a

“lack of clarity about who ultimately owned assets”,

governance arrangements that were “overly complex and opaque”, a

“lack of effective timely intervention by the”

Department for Education and the FSA, and that the

“lack of an appropriate fit and proper persons test”,

had allowed directors to run the trust who developed “inappropriate business interests”. How on earth did it take until August 2018 for the funding to finally be cut? It is extraordinary.

Our argument is that this is partly because we now have a muddled twin-track system of schooling, where there are local authority-maintained schools of the older style with this new academies system. It has really been only this year—the first time was last year, and now this year—that we have seen the accounts, so that we can properly assess how this system is working alongside the other. We know, for example, that it takes a certain amount of money to convert schools into academies. In fact, in 2017-18 the Department for Education spent £59 million on conversion and re-brokering, but what about the extra costs to local authorities in doing that? What about the hollowing out of local authorities’ ability to support maintained schools? That was an area that the Public Accounts Committee was concerned about. It is an example of cost-shunting by removing an aspect of the system in one part of schools. As far as kids are concerned, they do not care whether they are in academies, free schools or maintained schools.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

In my constituency, schools are now almost completely responsible for funding support services. Currently, local schools are covering a shortfall of £2.3 million for higher needs schools. Does my hon. Friend agree that this represents a total failure of the Government to invest in the future of our children?

[Layla Moran]

Indeed, we have heard about the higher needs block; that is yet another area where there is cost-shunting.

On the twin-track system, what we need to do is look beyond: is one system better than the other? Actually, we have a lot to learn from the sorts of innovations that we are seeing in schools, but I am not convinced from the evidence we have seen in the Public Accounts Committee that we have a handle on the data. In our recommendations to the Department we have asked it to look at, for example, different types of multi-academy trusts—is there a difference between those that are locally based and those that are spread out or between the rural and the urban? Is there a north-south divide when it comes to academy trusts? What can we learn from the data? At the moment, when the accounts are produced, we do not have that data.

I very much echo what the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) was saying earlier. I firmly believe that this is not just a question of more money for schools. More money is welcome to get them working as they hope to now, but the issue is also about driving efficiency and spreading best practice. Without the data, how will we know what is working best?

Vagrancy Act

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Layla Moran

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran]

I could not agree more with every word the hon. Lady said. Indeed, if we want an example of how badly the Vagrancy Act can be used, last year Windsor Council suggested, just before the royal wedding, that local police use the Act to “clean up the streets”. That was a disgraceful display, but, unfortunately, it is not uncommon. The Act is a common tool that is available to the police across the country.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this very pressing issue to the House. Does she not agree that it is particularly cruel, given that a lot of homeless people are actually ex-military men who have devoted their lives and given their commitment to this country? They are on the streets for various reasons, but we should treat them in a very different way, rather than punishing them when they were originally prepared to give their lives for this country.

[Layla Moran]

In fact, this comes back to why the Act was controversial 200 years ago, let alone now. The use of the Act is damaging and counterproductive in tackling rough sleeping. Rather than addressing the root causes of homelessness, which we all know are incredibly complex, the Act simply displaces people from one area to another, which is particularly problematic given that the funding of support is still to an extent based on local connection.

National Funding Formula: Social Mobility

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Layla Moran

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point, but if he will allow me, I will point out how things look for my local authority of Bath and North East Somerset, where school funding per pupil is falling in 58 schools and increasing in only 17. I would like to see local authorities where that balance is different.

In my local authority, three out of four schools are losing funding. For example, under the new funding system, one school in my constituency—Twerton Infant School and Nursery—will see a 0.5% increase next year. However, in September, it will be paying its teachers 2% more. It will also be paying its support staff between 2% and 5% more. If we add inflation on top—it is currently 2.5%—the financial outlook starts to look incredibly bleak. The school is facing a funding black hole of at least £50,000.

During Education questions last week, I asked the Minister whether school funding was rising in line with inflation. He dodged the question and suggested that the Government were helping schools by giving them advice for managing their energy bills. That very same day, the headteacher at Twerton Infants, George Samios, had been sitting with his business manager trying to find £50,000 in savings. Needless to say, £50,000 is significantly more than the school’s energy bill.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that, while raising teachers’ pay on the main scale is very welcome, it is pointless if it is not new money coming to schools? Otherwise, that money is being taken away from the frontline—the children.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. My school is facing a funding black hole of £50,000. I assume that the situation in her schools will be exactly the same.

Responses like that of the Minister show how far detached the Government are from schools and teachers in Bath and across the country, as well as from the impact of their decisions on our young people. Twerton Infants has already had to cut the one-to-one support it used to have for children who had experienced early adversity and trauma.

That situation is not unique to Twerton. Headteachers from schools across Bath tell me regularly about the difficult decisions they are having to make. Parents will come to the school and ask, “Where is the extra support for my child with special educational needs?” The school will answer, “We are sorry, we do not have the funds to provide that anymore.” If a school wants to put on extra support for a child with autism, that is not going to happen. If a school wants an extra member of staff to look after classes at lunchtime or to help children who are finding it difficult to transition, that is not going to happen. As one Bath headteacher put it:

“By starving our schools of funding, we are accepting that our children can get by on a cut-price education. Morally, let alone economically, this is indefensible.”

Where is the understanding from Government of how our young people learn and progress? Where is the commitment to our children’s futures? The Government say there is more money in the system than ever before, but there are more pupils in the system. The Government hide behind deliberately complex figures and funding streams and obfuscate the real picture.

I have recently become a trustee of a multi-academy trust in Bath. The trust’s main concern is that it no longer has the funds to employ support staff, because its budgets are becoming tighter every year and it has no more reserves. The local authority in Bath, which used to support schools, is making staff redundant, especially those in welfare roles. The Government expect trusts to take over those functions, but the trusts do not have the money to do so.

What further increases the pressure and creates a vicious cycle is that good and experienced teachers are leaving the profession in growing numbers. Teaching is already a difficult job, but it is becoming so hard that many teachers find it impossible to cope. My academy trust in Bath finds it increasingly difficult to recruit qualified teachers, and it is worried about the de-professionalisation of teachers. Trusts, although not my particular trust, are employing teachers without qualified teacher status. That cannot be right.

I know the teaching profession very well. I taught secondary school children modern languages. An already difficult job became even harder when the resources were not there and class sizes were heading towards 30. It is our young people who suffer. Good classroom practitioners know that during a lesson they cannot just engage with the five pupils at the front or the five at the back. With large class sizes, it is the 20 pupils in the middle who are the most difficult to reach. What happens if teachers do not reach those young people? Those young people lose out, and an awful lot of them are losing out. If children do not receive the right support, they do not reach their full potential.

Homelessness

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Layla Moran

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I completely agree that a compassionate approach is absolutely what is needed.

Following a campaign by Oxford University students, I was pleased to be able to introduce a private Member’s Bill earlier this month aimed at repealing the archaic Vagrancy Act 1824, a Dickensian law that is no longer fit for purpose.

Oxford is not alone in seeing an increase in the problem of homelessness. Anyone who has visited a town or city centre recently will know that rough sleeping is now at crisis levels. Indeed, the Public Accounts Committee concluded that homelessness is a national crisis, with the number of rough sleepers rising year on year since 2010, doubling to over 4,100 in 2016. Crisis estimates that the figure is now as high as 9,000, and possibly more. Last summer in England there were over 78,000 households in temporary accommodation—this is not just about rough sleeping—which is up by 65% since 2010. Then there are the hidden homeless: the sofa surfers or people staying temporarily with friends and family who escape national statistics on rough sleepers.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am that youth homelessness is one of the largest factors contributing to those figures, due to the benefit cut for 18 to 21-year-olds? Is it not time we reintroduced those benefits?

[Layla Moran]

Yes, I agree. In fact, joined-up thinking between Departments is a theme that I will return to later in my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

I do welcome it, although I worry. As the hon. Gentleman will know, given that his constituency is in Oxfordshire, even something “affordable” in Oxfordshire is not really that affordable when people want to buy. The prices are 80% of market value, but in a grossly inflated market. The key issue is that very little social rented accommodation is being built in our county and across the nation.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Layla Moran]

I have to make some progress. I am sorry, but I am mindful of what Madam Deputy Speaker said.

The estimates show a £259 million reduction in Homes and Communities Agency funding for starter homes and a £72 million reduction this year in affordable homes spending. This worries me. Meanwhile, the estimates show a significant increase in funding for Help to Buy. But those who are about to become homeless are very far from accessing Help to Buy: they have no spare cash, so how are they meant to raise the money for even a small deposit? The estimates also show that capital spend on other housing programmes will fall by £1.2 billion—a reduction of 40%—from £3 billion to £1.8 billion. Help to Buy is useful, but it is certainly not the fix-all solution. The Government have got the emphasis wrong.

Liberal Democrats would like to see a more ambitious programme of house building, but one that aims to be truly affordable—not 80% of market value—and that, critically, also includes rented housing. We have yet to hear from the Government how they are going to achieve that, in the latest Budget or elsewhere.

We also need to consider that people become homeless for a number of other reasons, the most common of which is the end of a private tenancy. Decreasing numbers of houses available for social rent means that local authorities are having to rely on private accommodation providers. This accommodation is often of a poor standard and does not offer value for money. There is a problem with landlords who do not want to accept people in receipt of housing allowance, and we suspect that universal credit will make this situation much worse.

Air Quality

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Layla Moran

Thursday 22nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

rose—

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

rose—