House of Commons

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

Friday 21 October 2016

The House met at half-past Nine o’clock

Prayers

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

The Chairman of Ways and Means took the Chair as Deputy Speaker (Standing Order No. 3).

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Before we begin today’s proceedings, may I place on the record that a few minutes ago, at 9.15 am, we observed one minute’s silence in remembrance of those who lost their lives in the Aberfan disaster 50 years ago?

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163), and negatived.

Sexual Offences (Pardons Etc) Bill

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

Second Reading

09:35

[John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is a great pleasure to welcome so many Members of the House to their places. When I was born in the 1960s—[Hon. Members: “No!”] It is hard to believe, I know. Members will notice that I did not say at which end of the 1960s I was born. At that time, two men who were in love could be sent to prison for what they chose to do in the privacy of their own homes. It is hard to fathom the mindset of those who defended such gross intrusion into the lives and rights of others. When we read the speeches made in this place at the time of the decriminalisation Act, the Sexual Offences Act 1967, we see that many Members presumed to tell their fellow citizens who they could and could not love, often couching their speeches in the most prurient and lascivious terms.

So it went on. Even after decriminalisation, numerous homophobic laws remained on the statute book—laws that existed only to enshrine inequality, ensuring that gay men could never enjoy the full fruits of equal citizenship. When I was a student at Glasgow University, the student union banned the university gay society from holding meetings and dances on its premises. The gay students could do absolutely nothing about that, because there was no equality protection under the law.

When I left university and applied for a job in the civil service and the diplomatic service, I was told that I had to sign an affidavit confirming that I was not gay. I would not do that, and therefore I could not qualify for the post. In the 1980s, the tabloids screamed abuse about gay men and AIDS, and it was routine to conflate homosexuality with paedophilia.

Small wonder that it was hard to come out as gay. I confess that I found it tough. I came from a modest Presbyterian background, I went to church every Sunday, I went to Sunday school and I went to the crusaders. I prayed not to be gay. At school, gay was the worst taunt possible. There were, hon. Members may remember, gay and straight ways of throwing a ball, and it was important to be very sure which was which. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) laughs in clear recognition.

We had few, if any, role models. The TV stars Larry Grayson and John Inman were staples of Saturday night television who fitted the gay stereotype: comic characters who were single and, as we know from their biographies, in denial about who they were. The future as a young gay boy did not look promising. Who would want to be gay in a country where gay people had to hide who they were, lie if they wanted certain jobs and even lie if they wanted to keep their jobs? It was, after all, legal for an employer to sack someone simply because they had discovered that that person was gay. Anyone could refuse to rent a house to a gay person. A gay couple could be arrested if they shared a hotel room, because the law did not recognise hotel rooms as private spaces. Perhaps most horrifyingly of all—here we come to the crux of today’s debate—a 21-year-old man who slept with his 20-year-old boyfriend could be arrested and tried, convicted and sentenced for under-age sex.

As a young journalist I made a film about how the law discriminated against gay men; in fact, I confess that it was I who took Edwina Currie to Amsterdam, at a time when she was not especially interested in this subject, as I wanted to confront her with the full horrors of gay law reform and equality. She came back a changed character—perhaps it was a couple of the clubs I took her to—determined to reform the law, because she had seen the way that gay law reform could work in practice.

In that film, I interviewed military personnel with exemplary records who had been followed home by the military police as they were determined to investigate a tip off that the soldier, Air Force man or naval officer concerned was living privately with a same-sex partner. When interviewed those personnel could be disciplined if they lied, but of course they could be and were sacked if they told the truth—damned whatever choice they made.

It was not until the 1990s that the European Court—yes, the great Satan itself—overturned the services ban in the teeth of military opposition. Military men hit the airwaves to predict the collapse of the British Navy, where such behaviour had previously never been known; Nelson, it seems, had never been kissed. Across the pond, Colin Powell was shamefully arguing the same tosh, in his case claiming that straight soldiers would never share a shower with gay soldiers if they knew their true nature. Much better to hide and share the shower, if we follow Mr Powell’s logic; I do not.

In my documentary I interviewed gay men who had been entrapped by so-called pretty policemen. I also interviewed Chief Constable Anderton of Greater Manchester, beloved of the tabloids as “God’s copper”, with a bushy black beard of biblical proportions. He sat at his desk and defended the practice of sending out attractive young male police officers who would give gay men the eye; if the gay man responded, he would be arrested and his life would be ruined. Since announcing the Bill, I have had letters from people who have told me of their exact experience of being entrapped by police officers and how it ruined their life. This entrapment was a police priority in one of the country’s biggest cities in the 1990s. It is hard to fathom, because it was a disgrace. Gay men were not free at home or at work. They were not protected by law. They were under sustained attack by the law.

I felt myself lucky. I had supportive friends, a loving family and a good job. I came out, and have never regretted doing so for a moment. And goodness knows, I am now a member of the gayest party in this place. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Just look at them.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

It’s not unanimous! [Laughter.]

[John Nicolson]

I think a heterosexual has just come out of the closet.

Our very gayness has made Westminster the gayest Parliament in the world. [Interruption.] I am just looking at the gentleman in the wig and wondering how he is reacting. [Interruption.] He’s left, in fact.

I will never forget the men in the documentary I presented for the BBC, and their ruined lives—lives scarred by a bitter sense of injustice. When I came top of the ballot, I saw a golden opportunity. Society has moved on. We are now horrified by the inequalities of the past. We cringe when we read the homophobic rantings of some of our predecessors in this place. We believe that gay service personnel should serve, that being gay should be no bar to a career in the diplomatic service or any other service, that gay couples should be able to share a bed in a hotel, that gay kids should not be harassed and bullied at school, that chief constables should not send out officers to flirt with and entrap citizens, and that the age of consent should be equal. Looking across the House, I know that there is consensus about that in this place just as there is in society.

We do not want any of these prejudices for our future. But what about those living with unfair convictions from our past—how do we address their grievances and the injustices that they suffered? I detailed some of the cases that I covered for my documentary, and I am sure that all of us, as diligent MPs, have had mail from people who have found themselves in these circumstances. What about the men of 21 who had a boyfriend of 20 and as a result found themselves arrested, tried and convicted for under-age sex—just think about what it means to have that on your record—with a man who was perhaps only a few months younger than they were? These are people who were in a consensual relationship with a contemporary. That contemporary was old enough to serve in the military, drive a car and have a child of four legally, but was regarded by the homophobic laws of the time as a 20-year-old child unable to give consent. Those 21-year-olds have then had to endure, perhaps for decades, an unfair criminal conviction for under-age sex that may have blighted their lives.

Stonewall, the extraordinary gay rights organisation that has led the national debate on gay law reform, had a solution: the Turing Bill, named after the wartime code-breaking hero Alan Turing. Mr Turing may have been hailed by Churchill, but that did not prevent him from being charged as a homosexual and being chemically castrated. He committed suicide as a result. In his honour, Stonewall wants all gay men living with convictions for crimes that are no longer on the statute book to be pardoned. I could not think of a more noble Bill to pilot through Parliament. With old friends from all parts of the House, I felt that the Bill would attract all-party support, which indeed it has; I thank those who have supported it.

When I was approached by the Tory Whips and asked whether I would take on the Bill I was delighted to do so. The Conservative Whips asked me for a meeting and promised that if I took up the Turing Bill there would be—and I quote them exactly—

“no tricks and no games from our side.”

I felt as if I was in an episode of “House of Cards”. The right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), a principled long-term campaigner for law reform, was the Justice Secretary at the time. He promised me the full support of the Justice Department.

I have worked closely with Stonewall on the Bill. Let me tell the House what the Bill does and does not do. It provides a blanket pardon for any gay man convicted of a crime that is no longer a crime. The meaning of that is patently obvious. If the crime for which someone was convicted is still a crime, by definition they are not pardoned. Let no one be confused about that.

The aim of this simple measure is, I hope, obvious. The pardon confers no immediate advantage except this: it will, I hope, bring closure to those men who have had to thole monstrous, unfair criminal convictions for decades. They may have had to hide their conviction from family or friends; it may have prevented them from applying for a job. With my Turing Bill they get a pardon and so belated justice and the knowledge that society has acknowledged that a great wrong was committed against them.

I believe that the vast majority of gay men with convictions will be satisfied with this anonymous, private triumph, but there may be some who want something more—who feel that they should not be offered a pardon for something that was never wrong in the first place. For those men I offer an additional option, should they choose it: they will be able to have their name expunged from the records. However—and this is important, as many Members have raised the point with me—the records are often imprecise. Often there were “catch-all” arrests where the police did not specify the detail. So where the records are imprecise and where it is unclear whether the under-age party was 20, 19, 18, 17, 16—or, crucially 15 or younger—the onus will be on the applicant to prove the age of his partner at the time of the arrest.

As a result, some men might not be able to have their records expunged because they are unable to provide the necessary proof, even though their then partner was over today’s age of consent—and I recognise that that will be deeply frustrating for them. However, this provision absolutely satisfies the concerns raised that we must be rigorous in ensuring that only those who have convictions for crimes not now on the statute book benefit from these measures. All the legal advice I have taken leaves me satisfied that this Bill absolutely addresses that concern and is as watertight as it is possible to be under the circumstances.

Stonewall believes that only small numbers of men will avail themselves of this provision—the second provision of my Bill. Many of the men affected are old, and these matters are far in their past and perhaps a secret. The requirements I am imposing would be time-consuming and perhaps distressing for them to satisfy. I believe and Stonewall believes that they will be satisfied with my automatic pardon. They will not seek to have the details expunged manually from their record.

If you will forgive me, Mr Speaker, I want to come back to the

“no tricks and no games”

promise. SNP Members may not be planning to stay in this House for very long, but other Members are passionate about Westminster and want Westminster to succeed, so surely nothing we do procedurally should bring this House into disrepute, when we know that certain words such as “filibuster” shock and horrify ordinary members of the public who think such things are appalling.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

rose—

[John Nicolson]

I was hoping for an intervention, and at last one has come.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene so early in the debate, and I congratulate him on all he is doing to raise in public the profile of this very important issue. The real question that we need to answer today is how we can deliver justice in the quickest, fairest way to those who have suffered the humiliation of conviction under archaic laws. Yesterday, the Government announced that we would answer this question with a legislative vehicle that will provide a pardon for those people within a few months. This delivers on a manifesto commitment, but it also has cross-party support. The amendment will be brought forward by a Liberal Democrat peer, and the Labour leader, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), yesterday called the move “a great victory” for all who have campaigned to right this wrong.

As well as honouring the dead, this would—[Interruption.] I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman heard me out. As well as honouring the dead, the hon. Gentleman seeks a pardon for the living. We have developed a way to do that without giving any perception that the pardon covers perpetrators of sex with a minor or non-consensual sex.

What I would like to do today is to make a full and open offer to the hon. Gentleman to work with officials in the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office and with Stonewall to give real effect to this pardon for the dead and the living as fairly and quickly as possible. I therefore ask him to withdraw the Bill and support the amendment that has cross-party support in this House and in the other place to resolve an injustice that has been left unchallenged for too long.

[John Nicolson]

I thank the Minister for that, and I accepted the Government’s offer back in June. We have had plenty of time to chat about it. I have to say that standing up to propose an offer of co-operation on the very morning of my debate might be regarded as leaving it somewhat late for a further private chat. The Minister shakes his head to say that that was not his offer and that he did not know anything about it, but I can assure him that I have been talking to members of the Government on and off since June.

Yesterday, the Government—the Minister has just said it—accepted an amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill in the House of Lords and claimed that it was the Turing Bill. It is not, even though some rather obliging news outlets have trumpeted their claim after reading the press releases. I will leave it to Members to decide whether it is fair to attempt to hijack my Bill some 36 hours before its Second Reading in this place.

The private Member’s Bill process is, after all, intended to allow those of us not in government to seek to leave a legacy of legislation that we believe is good, kind and worth while. I believe that this Bill is kind. The amendment accepted by the Government would, if I understand it correctly, grant an automatic pardon to the deceased, yet the Minister says he is very concerned that the Bill’s provisions would be misused because some people who have behaved improperly would get under the radar and get pardons that they were not entitled to. If he thinks it is hard to enforce that for the living, imagine how much harder it is, by his own logic, to enforce it for the dead. There is an intellectual incoherence here. The Minister can shake his head, but there is an intellectual incoherence at the heart of what the Government are proposing, and I fear that they have not really thought it through.

I know that because I have been told in the course of introducing the Bill that I would get Government support; then that I would not get it; then that I would get Government support again; and then that I might get it. I am afraid that the Conservative Government have been all over the place on this. I was very keen to avoid this becoming a party political issue. At no point have I gone to the press or given interviews in which I have referred to the Bill as an SNP measure. In fact, as the Minister knows, it is an English measure. For those who criticise the SNP and say that we are overly concerned with the constitution and Scottish issues, here is something that tackles an English injustice.

[Mr Gyimah]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Nicolson]

No, I will not.

I was keen to promote this Bill on a cross-party basis, and the large number of signatories from both the Conservative party and the Labour party who wanted to support my Bill rather proves the point.

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for the tone he is adopting today, but he said “English only”. Speaking as a Welsh MP, I point out that it is England and Wales. I would like to remind him of that country—tagged on, in his opinion, to England—and tease out from him what the situation is in Scotland with the Scottish Government.

[John Nicolson]

My humble apologies for saying “England only”. No one finds that more annoying than the Scots, so I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon for that. He will know, of course, that the Scottish Government have been a long-term champion of gay rights. The country has become famous for the progress it has made on this issue. I remember a time when we were told by opponents of devolution that we should not have a Scottish Parliament because we relied on Westminster to keep us liberal. That was an old argument that I remember from the 1970s: we needed English and Welsh MPs to keep us on the right side of liberal law reform, otherwise we would be a religious puppet state —a sort of Presbyterian Iran. I like to think that the progress we have made since Holyrood came into being has rather shown that we have a good record on this issue.

To address the hon. Gentleman’s point, I have had discussions with Scottish Ministers. There is, of course, widespread welcome in Scotland for this legislation, and it is my belief that Holyrood would enact something very similar in due course.

[Mr Gyimah]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Nicolson]

No, I will not.

Let us focus exactly on what it is that the amendment that the Minister mentioned does. The amendment accepted by the Government would grant an automatic pardon to the deceased. Of course that is great, and my Bill makes the same provision, but I have to ask the House: should we not prioritise the living over the dead?

I wonder whether Members spotted an elderly gentleman who toured the TV and radio studios yesterday. He is a 93-year-old who feels immensely strongly—[Interruption.] No, no one on the Labour Benches. This was somebody different who toured the TV studios talking about the injustice that he feels about his criminal convictions. He hash-tagged himself “the oldest gay in the village” on Twitter. He is 93, and he says that he is determined to live to 100 to see justice served, because he has lived with a sense of injustice for all these years.

[Mr Gyimah]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Nicolson]

I am going to make progress.

How odd would it look for the elderly to be told that they must wait until they die for the automatic pardon that the Government now seem to be proposing? Let us finish the law reform that we have started by recognising that the victims of society’s prejudices are still hurting, and are still alive. They deserve the peace that the Bill would bring. [Applause]

10:00

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Our history is littered with minority groups who have been caught up in illegal acts in the past, under laws that we consider today to be quite unbelievable, and also discriminatory. We cannot imagine such laws now, because morality and ethics have changed beyond all recognition since those bygone eras. There is a string of moral and ethical subjects that we cannot imagine criminalising, although in some parts of the United Kingdom they are still criminal offences.

As recently as April this year, a young woman in Northern Ireland could not afford the fare to England for an abortion and, in desperation, took abortion pills which she had bought online and performed a self-abortion. Under Northern Irish law, she was arrested, charged, sentenced to three months in jail suspended for two years, and finally criminalised. She was convicted in Belfast High Court under ancient laws that had come into force under Queen Victoria, but still sit on the statute book of Northern Ireland.

Prostitution is another moral subject in respect of which, historically and today, a great deal of ambiguity surrounds what is and is not illegal. Having moved away from one stereotype—that of the disreputable woman as a seller of sexual services—we now view the prostitute as a vulnerable, exploited victim. The laws relating to prostitution in England and Wales are far from straightforward. The act of prostitution is not in itself illegal, but a string of laws criminalises activities connected with it. It is an offence, for example, to cause or incite prostitution, or control it for personal gain. The Sexual Offences Act 1956 bans the running of a brothel. If more than one person—the law is gender-neutral—is available on premises for paid sex, those premises are a brothel.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

May I correct the hon. Gentleman slightly? There is no definition of a brothel in law. Common law allows the courts to determine that a brothel is a place frequented by men to perform lewd homosexual practices including dancing, and the term has often been used in that sense. There is still plenty on the statute book that needs to be reformed.

[Craig Whittaker]

The hon. Gentleman makes my point eloquently. The law relating to prostitution is so ambiguous that it is easy to see how people can be charged with offences that we consider ridiculous nowadays.

Whether or not one is morally opposed to some of these acts is not the issue. A progressive Government, in a modern-day democracy, will continue to consider all the issues and debate them openly. As a Conservative, I am proud that some progressive laws have been introduced under successive Conservative Governments. The decriminalisation of homosexuality is one example: it was Churchill’s Government who commissioned the Wolfenden report in the late l950s. That was by no means a turning point in history, but it was the start of a lengthy process to put right a great wrong.

It would be easy to argue—as I am sure many of my colleagues will—that a crime is a crime, and that that was the law of the land at the time. So why are we considering pardons for laws that our forefathers thought were apt for the time? Why should we feel guilty on behalf of past law-makers who, like us, made laws and passed legislation that fitted the mood and the times of that particular day? Why should there be a pardon for gay and bisexual men when there are so many other historical moral issues that could easily be subjected to the same argument?

For me, the answer has to be the police. We all know that, historically, we have seen our police forces operate in a way that has sometimes not been totally honest, open or above board. We need only recall what happened at Hillsborough, not to mention the cases of abuse that have been swept under the carpet. Even today, many Members still come across cases in respect of which we cannot help questioning the ethos of our local police forces, knowing full well what has gone on historically. When it comes to criminal convictions for homosexuality, it does not take too long to trawl the internet and see what was common practice on the part of local police forces in years gone by.

In 1958, a public lavatory used for cottaging in Bolton—not a million miles from my constituency—was well known to police and magistrates, but there had not been a conviction for 30 years. However, there would be intermittent trawls through the address books of suspected homosexuals, with the result that up to 20 men at a time would appear in the dock, accused of being a “homosexual ring”, although many of them might never have met each other before. In one case, there had been no public sex, no under-age sex and no multiple sex, yet the men were all dragged to court, and a 21-year-old who was considered to be the ringleader was sentenced to 21 months in jail. Interestingly, an issue of the Bolton News contained five letters in support of the convicted men and none against them. The deputy editor was visited by the local police, who wanted to know whether he really believed that this was what the people of Bolton thought about the enforcement of the law.

In the mid-1950s, there was the atmosphere of a witch-hunt—probably not unrelated to what was happening in America with McCarthy—and there were consequent opportunities for blackmail. A chap called Leo Abse, who eventually piloted the Sexual Offences Act 1967 through this very Parliament, recalled that, when he was a lawyer in Cardiff, all his fees from criminals suddenly started coming from the account of one man. He investigated, and found that the man was “a poor vicar”. The criminals were bleeding him dry through blackmail.

Members of Parliament on both sides of the House began to demand action, and one or two newspapers ran leaders. Then there was another high-profile case, in which the police were called to deal with one matter and ended up prosecuting for another. Edward Montagu, later Lord Beaulieu, contacted the police over a stolen camera, and ended up in prison for a year for gross indecency. Two of his friends, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood, got 18 months. Their trial in 1954 probably influenced the decision of the then Home Secretary, David Maxwell-Fyfe, to establish the Wolfenden committee to consider whether a change in the law was necessary.

Should men like those be pardoned? Of course they should. The police and magistrates clearly abused their powers to instil fear and practise entrapment. The question for us today, however, is whether we should support the Bill or wait for the Government amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill. This Bill proposes a blanket pardon for the living without the need to go through what is known as the disregard process. The Government amendment is exactly the same, but would mean that the living would have to go through the disregard process.

[Mr Gyimah]

We already prioritise the living, notwithstanding what was said by the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson). They can go through the disregard process and be given a statutory pardon at the end of it. What is important is the safeguard that prevents someone who has had sex with a minor from receiving a blanket pardon and then, for example, going to work in a school.

[Craig Whittaker]

I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification. He has taken two paragraphs out of my speech. One reason why I cannot support this private Member’s Bill is that, despite what the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) claims, I do not believe that it is watertight. People could claim to have been cleared of certain offences when in fact those offences are still crimes. Such offences include having sex with a minor and non-consensual sexual activity.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman prepared for the debate today by reading the Bill. He will be aware that clause 1, which sets out the effect of the legislation, states:

“Nothing in this Act is to be interpreted as pardoning, disregarding or in any other way affecting cautions, convictions, sentences or any other consequences of convictions or cautions for conduct or behaviour that is unlawful on the date that the Act comes into force.”

What is unclear about that?

[Craig Whittaker]

I hear clearly what the hon. and learned Lady says, but my big concern is: how do we physically put that through a due diligence process? The disregard process will do just that. I have already said there are a lot of men who clearly should be pardoned, and that there should be a process for doing that, but how do we physically check the process? The disregard process is there for that exact purpose.

[Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

Did the hon. Gentleman not listen to my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) explaining this? Anyone wanting to go through this process will have to prove the age of the other party involved in the incident that led to the conviction. My hon. Friend conceded that that could be very difficult in some cases, and many people will find it impossible, given the state of the records. However, it is a safeguard against the very issue that the hon. Gentleman is talking about.

[Craig Whittaker]

I do not agree that it is a safeguard. If we give a blanket pardon, where are the safeguards in that process? We already have a disregard process in the system, and it is important that we should have these safeguards in place. It is still an offence in this country to have underage sex, and given the issues around safeguarding children in our schools, it is vital that we have those safeguards in place. I have every sympathy with the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire’s Bill, but I will not be supporting it. I will, however, support the Government’s amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill, because it is incredibly important that we have safeguards in any process that we put in place. I believe that disregarding the disregard process would be the wrong thing to do.

10:09

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I warmly congratulate the whole Scottish National party on turning up today to support the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), who has put forward his argument extremely well. It is strange, living in this world today and looking around this country, to see how much has changed so very rapidly. Young people at school today are not ashamed of owning up to being gay, lesbian, bisexual or whatever. Every one of us who goes into a secondary school today will probably see kids who are happy to do that. When most of us went to school, there was probably nobody in that category at all.

Civil partnerships and same-sex marriage have made an enormous difference to the way in which the whole of society looks at homosexuality. Many children in primary school will know other kids who have gay parents. Either because they have been adopted or surrogated or in some other set of circumstances, they will have ended up having two dads or two mums. That is not an uncommon experience for many youngsters growing up today, and I hope that the future will be even warmer than that.

I do not think that any employer in Britain today would think it right to sack somebody just because of their sexuality. As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire said, it is a delight that that now applies to our armed forces and to the police. I remember that Ministers were making complicated decisions only a short time ago about whether to allow members of the armed forces to march in gay pride marches in uniform. That debate seems bizarrely outdated nowadays. There is a phenomenal sense that we have made enormous achievements and great strides in this country.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that much of the progress in the change in attitudes towards gay and lesbian people in society has come from the media and how gay and lesbian people are portrayed in soap operas? I understand that the House is about to be joined by a former actress from “Coronation Street”, and I offer the gay vicar character from that soap opera as an example. This has all helped to change the way in which gay and lesbian people are portrayed.

[Chris Bryant]

I think that media portrayals have been a double-edged sword, to be honest. I am slightly sick of the fact that quite often the gay character in a crime drama will be the murderer, for example. Larry Grayson and John Inman have already been mentioned. John Inman always maintained that his character in “Are You Being Served?” was not gay, and it is true that the campest people I know are all heterosexual men. But, yes, it did matter when Michael Cashman’s character kissed another man in “EastEnders”. That was a change-making moment, and I think that British society might have moved on faster because of our broadcasters, partly through Mrs Thatcher’s creation of Channel 4, which was given the role of being edgy and different. Those factors made it possible for us to make great strides very fast. It does not always work like that, however. I am still mystified why Australia, which seems to be the campest nation on Earth—it is obsessed with Abba—still does not have any form of legalised gay relationships. I very much hope that that is going to change soon, and I shall say more about that in a moment.

I remember the rows, during my time as an MP, when the House of Lords refused to vote for an equal age of consent or to get rid of section 28. We had to use the Parliament Acts to push that measure through. More recently, however, more Conservative Members of the House of Lords voted for same-sex marriage than did Conservative Members of this House. There has been a phenomenal change, and I delight in that fact.

I remember a row in this House about whether we should ban discrimination against gay couples in the provision of goods and services, including adoption services. I was struck by the Catholic Church’s argument at the time that it was fine for an individual gay person to adopt a child but not for a gay couple to do so. In the Church’s mind, a settled relationship was a more dangerous place for a child than being with a single gay person. I just did not understand that logic. The truth of the matter is that many of the most difficult-to-place kids are placed with gay and lesbian couples. I am glad that, in the end, this House and House of Lords wholeheartedly endorsed the idea that there should be no discrimination in the provision of goods and services.

Not everything is perfect, however. Bullying in many different forms is still a fundamental problem in schools, for example, and it is very difficult to eradicate. As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire said, one aspect of that bullying is related to sexuality. The word “gay” is all too often used pejoratively, and schools sometimes have difficulty in dealing with these issues. My husband Jared is a trustee of a charity called Diversity Role Models, which goes into schools to help them to talk through these issues. It is a phenomenal shame that we still do not have proper sex and relationship education in every school in this land without any school being able to opt out. Such education can result in most kids delaying their first sexual experience, which helps to cut the level of teenage pregnancy. It is better for everyone all round when there is proper sex and relationship education.

I cannot remember whether I am slightly older or slightly younger than the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire—

[John Nicolson]

Older.

[Chris Bryant]

I see that the hon. Gentleman is in his usual magnanimous mood. Being slightly older, then, I have even more experience and wisdom to impart to him.

I remember that one of my first experiences on coming to London was meeting a couple called Christopher and Illtyd, who had lived together in a one-bedroom flat since the 1950s. Just after I first met them, one of them was attacked on the way home, sustaining many injuries, some of which they worried would be permanent. The guy had insisted on coming into the house and had burgled them at knifepoint. What was striking about their story was that they could go neither to the hospital nor to the police because they were two men living in a one-bedroom flat and that was a criminal offence under the law of the land. They knew that they would not get justice despite what had happened to them. There are countless thousands of others to whom that situation applied.

I remember a case involving two of my friends at university. I was sort of straight at the time—[Interruption.] I am a practising homosexual now, and one day I will be quite good at it. Incidentally, I was also a sort of Conservative at the time, but we will not go into all that—many, many sins. My friends—two 19-year-old men—got into trouble with the university police because they had had sex and that was a criminal offence at the time because they were under 21. A college room was not a private place under the law and the two were sent down, receiving a criminal conviction and never finishing their degrees.

Until the Sexual Offences Act 2003, importuning was illegal in this country. Importuning is a strange word. It was used by the police for many convictions right up until 2003. If a man met somebody in a bar whom they did not know before and went home with them, that was importuning and he could be sent down for it. If the police could not secure a conviction for something else, they often relied on importuning to bring a charge.

Many people hid their sexuality for the simple reason that they were terrified of being sacked or not being promoted. I pay tribute to John Major, who I think was the first Foreign Secretary to say that people would not be sacked just for being gay in the Foreign Office. A number of people were subject to blackmail even in very ordinary jobs and in their local communities. They did not have to know state secrets; they just had to be frightened of being exposed as being a criminal and potentially sent to prison. The number of suicides has remained stubbornly high, and I will refer to one later on.

Historically, the UK since its foundation in 1801, Great Britain since 1707 and England before that have had the toughest laws in the world on homosexuality—much tougher than in France under the Napoleonic code, which made no reference to any of this. Some of our former colonies still have some of the worst laws, with capital punishment surviving in places.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

We have made great strides towards equality, but we still live with the legacy of antiquated legislation. We need only to look at certain Commonwealth countries for examples. In some cases, the anti-gay laws are mirror copies of those that existed here. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we are to start making reparations for this wrongdoing in addition to pardoning those who were convicted, we must seek to influence other members of the Commonwealth where gay men and women do not enjoy the freedom to be who they are?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. Indeed, when I was a Foreign Office Minister for about two and a half seconds—

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Too long!

[Chris Bryant]

Far too long. I tried to push forward some of these issues. The Foreign Office can play an important role around the world in tackling abuse in countries as diverse as Iran and Russia. I say to my Australian colleagues, “For heaven’s sake, just get your act together.” They should join the company of nations that have changed. If Argentina can have gay marriage, if Spain—so dominated, historically, by Catholicism—can have gay marriage, why on earth cannot Australia, the country of “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”?

We are debating today one of the worst periods in our history. In the 1870s and 1880s a series of scurrilous and horrible newspapers whipped up deliberate hysteria around homosexuality. It led to the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, a serious piece of legislation that tried to tackle the problem of under-age women being abused in the prostitution trade. Henry Labouchere introduced a clause that I want to read out so that people realise how pernicious the legislation was. It stated:

“Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures, or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with an other male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof, shall be liable at the discretion of the Court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour.”

It could not have been made more wide reaching:

“in public or private commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures, or attempts to procure”.

Any court would be able to interpret the legislation as it felt fit. The final line about “hard labour” is, famously, partly what ended up killing Oscar Wilde. The legislation led to thousands of people being sent to prison and doing hard labour.

There was a campaign in the 1920s to try to rid the country of this “scourge”. A young lad from the Rhondda, a railway porter called Thomas, was caught by the police outside the Tivoli theatre, and they tried to do him for gross indecency. He was sent to prison for three months and did hard labour. The only evidence that they had to advance was that he had his mother’s powderpuff in his pocket, but he was sent to prison for three months. I am so proud that the MP for Rhondda West at the time, a miner called William John, gave evidence on behalf of the young man, but the court did not listen.

We find the same things all over again in the 1950s. David Maxwell Fyfe, the then Home Secretary, was wonderful as one of the inquisitors at Nuremberg and in helping to draft the European convention on human rights, but he was shockingly homophobic and forced the Home Office and the police to run a campaign to rid this country of the “scourge”, as he put it, of homosexuality. One of the terrible ironies for him was that two of the first people trapped were Conservative Members of Parliament.

I listened to what the Minister said, but there is a real problem about trying to force people to go through another process. For someone now in their 70s or 80s, the conviction might have been like a brand on them for their entire life. It might have caused terrible problems in their family life. It might have meant that they were never able to do the job that they wanted to do, such as a teacher not being able to go back to teaching. Friends and relatives might have shunned them. It might have made them feel terribly ashamed. Why on earth would they want to write to the Home Secretary, asking, “Please may I be pardoned?” Why on earth would they want to go through that process all over again? Why on earth would they want someone to analyse whether they were guilty of something way back when?

The Minister made a good argument about our working together, but the way to work together is to agree to the Bill. We can then go into Committee and if things need to be put right, let us put them right. The hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) said that this Bill is not watertight. I say to him: let us make it watertight. The place to do that is in Committee, rather than by turning our back today.

Several hon. Members referred to the fact this might be called the Turing Bill, but I do not want to call it that; I want to call it the Cartland, Macnamara, Muirhead, Bernays, Cazalet Bill. At the start of the 1930s, many MPs and politicians in this country, most of them Conservative—there were not many Labour MPs in the early 1930s—were convinced that Germany was a good country, because it had very liberal attitudes towards homosexuality. Berlin in the early 1930s was one of the best places for a gay man to live—we can think of Christopher Isherwood, “Cabaret” and all the rest of it. One of those MPs was Jack Macnamara, who was elected for Chelmsford in 1935; another was Robert Bernays, a Liberal who had been elected in 1931; and a third was Ronald Cartland, who was elected for Birmingham King’s Norton. They changed their minds when they saw what was happening to homosexuals in 1930s Germany. Originally, they had thought that the Versailles treaty was unfair to Germany and it should be overturned, and that Germany should be able to remilitarise the Rhineland and to change its future. In 1936 Jack Macnamara visited the Rhineland, expressly to support its remilitarisation. When he was there he “accidentally”—that was his word—visited a concentration camp: Dachau, which was the only one that existed at the time. The people who were in Dachau were the politically unwanted—a lot of Jews and some homosexuals. He saw the violence that was being perpetrated against them, and when he came back to this country he and others became the most vociferous campaigners against appeasement in this House.

Robert Bernays, Jack Macnamara, Anthony Muirhead, a junior Minister, Victor Cazalet, Philip Sassoon, Harold Nicolson and Ronald Tree were gay or bisexual, and they campaigned vociferously in this Chamber and around. They campaigned against Jew-baiting. Jack Macnamara made a speech in here about Jew-baiting and was spat at that evening when he went to the Carlton club—he never went back. Ronald Cartland, the younger brother of Barbara Cartland, was probably the most courageous in the Munich debates, saying that it was terrible that we should capitulate and appease Hitler.

What did the then Government do? What did Neville Chamberlain’s cronies do? They called these men the “glamour boys”. They got newspapers to ring them up and ask why they were still not married and why they were bachelors. They had these men’s telephones tapped and had them followed, and when these MPs made speeches, they threatened them with deselection—and yet they persisted. It is my very strong belief that had it not been for those gay and bisexual men, we would never have faced down Hitler and we would not enjoy today the freedoms that we do.

I mention some of those names because of their shields up here in the Chamber. Jack Macnamara desperately wanted to fight in the second world war, because he said, “I’ve argued for this war, I should fight.” Although Macnamara he had been in the Army before he came into the House, Churchill wanted him to serve in some capacity on the home front, and not overseas. Jack Macnamara got his mother to write to Churchill, month after month after month, until eventually he was given a posting in the Adriatic and he saw service. He was killed when the Germans bombarded him and his troops in Italy.

Ronald Cartland was disabled and failed his first medical test, but he managed to persuade somebody to perform another one and he was drafted. He was sent to France in early 1940. He and his troops were holding the fort at Cassel, in the triangle between Calais and Dunkirk, and he was one of the last people out of the fort. They kept on for four more days than they should have done for their own protection, so that thousands more British troops could escape from Dunkirk and Calais. As they left Cassel, it was one of the very few times when the commanding officer in the British armed forces actually said, “Every man for himself.” He was killed on the route back to Dunkirk.

Anthony Muirhead, whose shield is just above us, committed suicide just after the war had started. It is often said that he did so because he was not able to fight, but I suspect it was actually because the newspapers were pursing him about his private life.

Robert Bernays, the Liberal MP for Bristol North, was killed in a plane crash over the Adriatic, again in military service.

Victor Cazalet, the MP for Chippenham, died in an air crash. He had become a close friend of the free Poles and died in the air crash along with General Sikorski.

We, as a country, owe not only those people, but so many other men, since the Labouchere amendment, something that feels like an apology—something that really says, “I am sorry we got this wrong. You were brave, courageous men. We got it wrong. You were right. We owe you a debt of gratitude.” [Applause.]

10:35

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It is of course a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). As a former sort of straight Conservative, we at least appear to have been on half a journey together. No one can doubt the wider case he made for the Bill. On the narrow point he made about the Bill, I entirely agree with him and want to come back to it in the course of my remarks. The emotion with which he presented his case was also more than exemplified by the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), whose speech was characteristic of his usual brilliant self, as one would expect of a world debating champion; I first came across him when I was president of the Durham union society, a horribly long time ago, and his words were both powerful and emotional. He, like the hon. Member for Rhondda, introduced the wider case and the wider background to the Bill, and why this issue matters so much, particularly to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Let me turn to the narrow issue of the Bill, as I wish to confine my remarks to that. The royal pardon given to Dr Alan Turing in December 2013 was widely welcomed as helping to put right the injustice he suffered by being convicted of “gross indecency” in 1952 and the subsequent physical and emotional damage he endured through chemical castration, which led to his suicide. It is true that that posthumous pardon changed the precedent for the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy. As the Government of the day stated:

“A pardon is only normally granted when the person is innocent of the offence and where a request has been made by someone with a vested interest such as a family member. Uniquely on this occasion a pardon has been issued without either requirement being met, reflecting the exceptional nature of Alan Turing’s achievements”.

Towering though Alan Turing’s achievements were—and we should all continue to pay tribute to them—the wrongs done to thousands of gay men, which we recognise today as human rights abuses, are no less in need of being corrected. The hurt, pain and injustice is no different for all these people. The exceptionality of Alan Turing’s pardon cannot hold. Indeed, as a Justice Minister, holding the same responsibilities five years ago as this Minister does today, I held the Government line against granting a pardon to Alan Turing in a Westminster Hall debate, and I made the wider point. Of course, by that time the Government believed they had dealt with the practical issues through the disregard provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. On the pardon point, I said:

“To grant him a pardon under the royal prerogative would change the basis on which such pardons are normally given.

If Alan Turing were pardoned, there would be tens of thousands of other people in respect of whom demands for like treatment could be made. Those persons could include about 16,000 living individuals with convictions for homosexuality, and many times that number of deceased victims.”—[Official Report, 27 June 2012; Vol. 547, c. 127WH.]

This Bill would simply fulfil the logic of the arguments I presented in 2012, and, in doing so, make the same gesture on the part of today’s society through an Act of Parliament to the thousands of men deserving of it.

Yesterday, the Government announced that they would support Lord Sharkey’s amendment to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 through an amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill. This would extend the pardon

“for the living in cases where offences have been successfully deleted through the disregard process.”

Although a welcome step, that approach ties the pardon to the process of disregarding convictions from criminal records that already exists and would be extended by clause 3. There need not be such a link. The Government can be more generous. They can make a distinction between the powerful symbolic effect of the general pardon to men—some alive, many dead—and the mechanism by which individuals can benefit from the practical effects of a pardon through the disregard process. This, therefore, ensures that criminal offences that remain criminal offences today are not included in any practical consequences of the pardon. I know that the Minister will present a marginally different view and different concerns, but that discussion should be had at the Committee stage of this Bill. If the Government are not satisfied with the discussion in Committee then this Bill will not make progress towards becoming an Act.

I assume that the sponsors of the Bill are pleased that the Government have at least moved some of the way in their proposal. Even if they were not to move further I would argue that this Bill is a better vehicle for the Sharkey amendment than a rather anonymous amendment within the latest Policing and Crime Bill, which roll off the statute book year after year and would not have the symbolic effects that this Act of Parliament would have. Of course that is the point. This Bill and our debate is at least as much about symbolic restitution and a righting of historic wrongs as of process. The measures adopted, whether the narrower version currently favoured by the Government or the broader approach in this Bill as it is today, would stand much better as a symbol in a stand-alone Act. I hope that a way can be found to use the Bill of the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire as the vehicle by which we can make this clear statement of today’s values of today’s Parliament.

10:42

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

It is always a pleasure to star in another episode of “Carry on up the Commons”, which is what it has been like in here this morning.

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson). I do not call him my honourable friend just to obey the conventions of the House. I say it because he is both honourable and a true friend. What a piece of legislation he has brought to the House. It is the first ever SNP private Member’s Bill—an historic moment no less—although he does not wish to present it as such, and I agree with that.

In his remarks, my hon. Friend referred to his time with Edwina Currie in Amsterdam. I urge all Members when they get the chance—perhaps outside the Chamber—to ask him about the stilettos disappearing up the stairs. I seem to remember him saying “from a room with very few lights.” I will leave it to him to develop that further.

When my hon. Friend was called to introduce a Bill, he was top of the ballot. I confess to feeling just a tiny bit of seething jealousy on that morning as I opened my Twitter account on my iPad to see him No. 1 on the ballot. Had it been me, this is exactly the Bill that I would have wished to introduce. We had several conversations about different ideas that he had, and this was the one that he chose to bring to the House, and he is to be enormously congratulated on that.

What a forensic speech from the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). It was an historical speech, and referred to the shields of previous hon. Members in this House, and he is to be thanked because we are better informed as a result of his remarks.

I want to share one or two stories from constituents of mine, whom I shall not name. One of them is quite well known in left-wing circles in Scottish politics. This took place at a time when there were no LGBT centres, no gay bars, and no places where the gay community could go to socialise. It often meant that they had to socialise at home—having parties in friends’ houses and such. He told me about one particular party in Rutherglen. It was held in a flat that had become the place to which they would go. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) claims from a sedentary position, that she was not there. This was in the 1960s. The neighbours at the time had cottoned on to the fact that there were these devious homosexual men and women having a party—I should break it to some people that when we homosexuals have a party, it is just like any other party only much more fun. At the party, there would have been music, laughter, gossip, dancing, singing and perhaps even a wee drink or two. When the neighbours cottoned on to the fact that the flat was full of homosexuals, they would call the police. The police would then visit the flat—no crime having been committed and no antisocial behaviour having taken place—and take the names and addresses of every person there, asking why they were there and intimidating them.

When my constituent saw the police coming up the stairs, he decided that he was not going to stay in the room. As he could not exactly leave by the front door, he decided to hang out of the window—from the second storey of a Glasgow tenement—putting himself in clear danger of not just injuring himself, but perhaps even losing his life. When his arms could take it no further, he crawled in through the window, and had to give a statement to the police.

Such is the ingenuity of good Glaswegians, they thought to themselves, “Should this ever happen again, we need to have a plan.” They decided to borrow—not to steal—the choir books from the Rutherglen parish church, so that if the police were to come back, the music could be switched off, the drinks could be put away and all they would be confronted with is the Rutherglen parish church choir singing “Kumbayah”.

[John Nicolson]

You haven’t been to church recently, have you?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I should say that God is always surprised to see me when I attend prayers in this House.

Although we laugh, that is what people were going through, and much, much worse has been adumbrated to the House by other Members. Things have moved on remarkably, but even through the 1980s, friends of mine talk about going to pride parades in London where the streets would be lined with police looking as though they were expecting some kind of violent protest. In a magnificent act of defiance, a friend of mine tied a pink balloon to the strap of his bag, so that it would bounce off the noses of the police officers as he marched down the street.

Look at us now—out and proud. There is not a Member here—certainly not on the SNP Benches—who is not desperate to be associated with the progress in gay rights. It is now very popular to be in favour of equality, but it did not used to be. What this Bill seeks to do is right the wrong. I should just say that the Government and the House are not doing us a favour by doing this: equal marriage was not a favour and equality of adoption rights was not a favour. It is about correcting our mistakes of the past.

Imagine you are a young person thinking of coming out, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is 6 o’clock and you turn on your computer or iPad and across your Twitter timeline comes the story of how today’s vote goes. Imagine if the House declined the opportunity to pass this Bill; how would that make you feel? What kind of signal does it send to young people across this country and around the world if we decline to pass this Bill today?

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Certainly; one young man to another.

[Alan Brown]

A gay man to a straight man. Does my hon. Friend agree that the message coming from some in other parties is that living homosexuals could still be at risk of being classified as a paedophile? That is the message if we reject this Bill.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I should also clarify that I am the gay man here; I would never have that clash of a yellow lanyard with a purple tie—and I have seen him in worse as well.

The 16,000 people the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) mentioned, and many others, are the giants on whose shoulders we stand. Today we have an opportunity to do the right thing. Symbolism is important in this; rather than have some anonymous technical amendment in that place along the corridor—which is even more camp than this place—a Bill is important. Where there are concerns, genuine or otherwise, the Committee is the place to strengthen the Bill, otherwise what is this place for—a question I find myself asking quite a lot, actually?

What I think we all want today is for young people to read about and watch this debate, and see this Bill pass. That would send a strong and positive message that it is indeed okay to be gay.

10:52

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I understand that an urgent question has been tabled for 11 o’clock so I will endeavour to be brief so my remarks do not become truncated.

First, I want to congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) on introducing this measure and on his excellent speech in support of his Bill. I welcome what he has sought to do.

There is general agreement in this House that great injustice was done to gay men in the past by laws that have since been repealed. There is a great deal of regret for that injustice and a recognition that there are people who are still alive who have suffered as a consequence of it. Further to that, there is broad, although perhaps not unanimous, agreement that it is right that not only should that legislation have been repealed, in many cases some time ago, but that this House and the Government should go further and extend a pardon to those convicted of offences we now believe should not have been criminal offences, because of the enormous injustice done to them. It seems to me that there is no disagreement between the Government and Members on the Opposition and Government Benches who believe it is right in principle for such a pardon to be extended.

I recall being a Minister in the Ministry of Justice along with my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) at the time when we were discussing the initial proposal that a specific pardon should be granted to Alan Turing. We had those discussions with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who was then the Justice Secretary. One can hardly imagine a more humane or liberal Member of Parliament than my right hon. and learned Friend, but he had concerns about the possible implications of the further application of the principle we were embarking on. I think those were legitimate concerns, and I think there is a legitimate debate to be had about the extent to which it is possible to embark on a process of revisionism such that we find ourselves extending a general apology or pardon for all sorts of crimes that may have been committed a while ago and for legislation that was enacted before our time.

Members on both sides of the House have spoken with passion about why we should offer a signal or expression of regret. It is clearly important for the living that the state recognises the injustice that was done, but it is also important to a broader community. The hon. Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) spoke powerfully about that. That is important because, in spite of the near completion of the legislative agenda, in this country at least, to ensure full equality for gay people, there is still discrimination in our society, and particularly in our schools, where there are young people who face prejudice and are worried that they may not be accepted in our society. Therefore, the signals this House and the Government send are immensely important.

There is also the question of the signal we send more widely to the rest of the world. I am honoured to be the elected chairman of the all-party group on global lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, and the hon. Member for Glasgow South is also an officer of that group. We focus on the appalling breaches of human rights increasingly being perpetrated in other countries around the world where human rights are going backwards, not forwards; gay people are living and working in fear in, for instance, countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in Russia and other countries in eastern Europe. In those countries, progress needs to be made to secure equality and a respect for human rights. We are often told—as are those who are victimised in those countries—that their laws historically owe their origin to this place, to laws fashioned and promoted by this Parliament as part of our Empire.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

Is that not why it is so utterly important that this Bill goes through in its own right to send out that message, rather than have just a few lines of an amendment?

[Nick Herbert]

The hon. Lady anticipates what I am about to say. I was explaining that I believe it is important that this House sends the right signal with a general pardon because of the effect on the living, because of those to whom an injustice has been done, because of the way in which young people in particular may anticipate how they will be treated, and because of the signal we might therefore send globally about the importance of standing up for human rights.

[Mr Gyimah]

The amendment that will be tabled by Lord Sharkey is not just a few lines in a Bill. Lord Sharkey is one of the most prominent campaigners on this issue: he has been campaigning for a long time, and yesterday’s announcement has already garnered global headlines and will continue to do so when the amendment is passed.

[Nick Herbert]

I had said I hoped to complete my remarks by 11 o’clock, but I can now see that that is not going to be possible, because what I want to say about the position of the Government and my hon. Friend the Minister is important, and it is important that we get a resolution to this matter. Whatever the history of the last few days, it seems to me—this was the point I was trying to make at the beginning of my speech—that there is broad agreement on the necessity of this measure, the value of it and the importance of proceeding. Indeed, there is a Conservative manifesto commitment to do so. After I resume my speech—as I hope I will be able to, Mr Deputy Speaker—I would like to explain why I therefore believe the Bill should be allowed a Second Reading.

Proceedings interrupted (Standing Order No. 11(4)).

Child Refugees: Age Checks

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

11:02

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister for Immigration if he will make a statement on what age checks are being carried out on child refugees to ensure they are children.

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

I thank my hon. Friend for tabling this urgent question, which enables us to put the Government’s position on the record.

I can reassure my hon. Friend that we work closely with the French authorities to ensure that the cases applying to come to the UK qualify under Dublin, including in terms of conducting an age assessment where necessary. All individuals are referred to the UK authorities by France terre d’asile—the FTDA, which is a non-governmental organisation—and are then interviewed by French and UK officials. Where credible and clear documentary evidence of age is not available—the pace at which these children have fled situations of war and persecution means that many do not have any definitive documentary evidence—then we will use criteria, including physical appearance and demeanour, to assess age as part of the interview process.

My officials are working in difficult circumstances in Calais to ensure that vulnerable children are safeguarded. There has been significant media coverage over the last week questioning the appearance of those admitted to the UK. I think we would all agree that teenagers’ appearances vary widely, and my officials and all the agencies working in these difficult circumstances have the safety and welfare of the young people in mind.

This week has also reopened the old debate about the value of dental X-rays and medical tests to determine an individual’s age. A significant number of experts have spoken out against such checks. The British Dental Association has described them as “inaccurate, inappropriate and unethical”. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has said that the margin of error can sometimes be as much as five years either side with medical tests and Doctors of the World UK has called the idea “unethical and unnecessary”. That is why the Home Office does not use dental X-rays to confirm the ages of those seeking asylum in the UK. The House should also note that, legally, we cannot force anyone to undergo such a check. That is why officials are trained to assess age. I want to be clear that where we believe someone is clearly over 18, they will be refused. Indeed, the information I have today suggests that around 10% of cases referred to us on this basis are being refused in France.

We have made significant progress to bring to the UK those children with family members. We are absolutely determined to get those children here, but I would call on all Members of the House, the media and the public to respect the privacy of these vulnerable young people.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to the Minister, for whom I have a great deal of respect and admiration, for that statement.

Surely it cannot be necessary to explain why it is important that child refugees are actually children. We agreed to take in child refugees, so surely it is not too much to ask that the Government ensure that they are children. But clearly this is not the case: people only have to see the pictures of the so-called child refugees to see that many of them are not children. The Home Office has admitted that two thirds of people claiming to be child refugees are shown to be not children. Even the charities have had to accept this, trying to explain that people who are clearly older were translators, only to be told that they were not translators at all, but were claiming to be child refugees. A large number of my constituents have contacted me to say how angry they are that we are being taken for fools and taken for a ride, and that our generosity is being abused. Does the Minister not understand that unless a grip is taken on this, it will do irreparable damage to public confidence in the asylum system?

The Minister has said that carrying out dental checks would be not only unethical but unreliable. However, the Government’s own website, in the UK Visas and Immigration section on “Assessing age”, under “Dental age assessments or x-ray reports”, says:

“In some instances, applicants will submit reports from dental consultants based on a detailed assessment of dental development. The margin of error in determining age through this process is approximately plus or minus 2 years”,

and prays in aid the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. It continues:

“This means there will be cases where such reports should be given considerable weight—for example because the applicant’s claimed age is within the possible range.”

The Home Office is already saying on its website that dental checks should be given considerable weight. How on earth can they be unreliable and unethical in this case, when they are being touted on the Government’s website as sensible? What checks are being made by the Government?

Finally, if somebody claims to be 14, do we just accept it and send them to a local school, with all the obvious safeguarding issues that would be involved if they were adults? The Government owe the British public and genuine child refugees a promise to get a grip on this situation.

[Mr Goodwill]

My hon. Friend needs to be aware that both the Dublin regulation and section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016—the so-called Dubs amendment—define children as those under the age of 18. Indeed, a large number of those in the camps are both male and 16 or 17-year-olds, and we have never tried to mislead anyone about that particular fact.

The criterion being used at this stage for the Dublin children is family connections in the UK. Those children are our priority and they are the ones we have seen being brought across this week. Further children will be brought across, and some of that initial assessment will enable further work to be done, including fingerprinting. If there are cases where, for example, the person concerned has been brought to the attention of a European immigration authority or has applied for a visa somewhere in the world to come to the UK, we will be able to have further information, so that work is being done.

The age issue can arise because of Home Office concerns about the claimed age or because the individual does not accept the initial assessment process. Where there is doubt, the individual will be referred to a local authority children’s services department for a careful, case-law compliant age assessment and will be treated as a child while the outcome is awaited. Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure that they safeguard and promote the welfare of children under section 11 of the Children Act 2004, regardless of their immigration status or nationality. This safeguards the individual who is required to undergo an age assessment and safeguards children already in the care population from the presence of an adult being placed in the same living accommodation.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I want to start by welcoming all refugees who have entered Britain in the last few days to their new home. I hope that our country will provide them with a safe space that enables them to put behind them the traumas and difficulties they have faced. Welcome to Britain.

The Government committed to taking unaccompanied child refugees in May. The Home Office have therefore had five months to assess the age of the young people—five months in which refugees have had to live their lives in limbo and in conditions that none of us would like to live in, and certainly not to have our children live in. I am sure the Minister can assure the House that this delay is a result of the Home Office carefully assessing the age of the young people we are granting sanctuary to.

Europol has warned that at least 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees have gone missing since entering Europe after fleeing the most terrible political situation in Syria and elsewhere in north Africa and the middle east. Citizens UK thinks there are at least 54 unaccompanied girls, mainly Eritreans, in the Calais camp, and they are eligible to enter under the Dubs amendment. These are children who have had their homes, their parents and their entire lives taken away from them and they are in real danger. Does the Minister agree that our resolve to give sanctuary and protection to unaccompanied child refugees must remain undiminished? We cannot succumb to compassion fatigue.

I know that some Conservative Members have called for dental checks to determine the age of children coming over, but the Journal of Forensic Sciences found that when it comes to determining if someone is aged between 17 and 19 years old, dental checks are wrong up to 50% of the time. The British Dental Association, whose members would presumably have to carry out the mooted checks, has said that they would be “inappropriate and unethical”. Does the Minister agree that calling for dental checks is an unworkable red herring?

I am pleased that the Government are committed to helping unaccompanied child refugees, and 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020. However, given the scale of the refugee crisis, we can and should do more. There will be challenges along the way and things will not go perfectly, but helping people in dire need—and they are—is the right thing to do. When we meet bumps in the road people in this place, and in other positions of power, we should keep a calm head and continue to offer a welcoming embrace to those who are fleeing the most desperate circumstances.

[Mr Goodwill]

The points made by the hon. Lady encapsulate the vast majority of the United Kingdom’s view of the compassion that we should show and our legal responsibility to step up to the mark to ensure that vulnerable children in those camps are looked after as well as possible. It is in the joint interests of both the United Kingdom and the French Republic that the camp is removed, and, more importantly, that is in the interests of the people in that camp. I must make it clear that nobody needs to be in that camp. The French have facilities for people who ask to leave the camp and large numbers have already left it.

I have already covered the point on dental checks. One additional point, which I think some of the media have failed to grasp, is that there are two distinct categories of children. First, there are the Dublin III children, who qualify because they have family here in the United Kingdom, and those are the children whom we prioritise to move before the camps are cleared. Secondly, there are the children who qualify under the Dubs amendment. The criterion in that case is where their needs will best be served. I can assure the House that we will prioritise the most vulnerable in that group—the under-13s and those who are vulnerable for other reasons—to ensure that that can happen. They cannot be processed as quickly. We need to remove them to a place of safety as the clearance starts and then ensure that we can fully live up to the commitments that this Government made when they accepted the Dubs amendment.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

My constituents are very worried about migrant children. Can my hon. Friend confirm that the Home Office is working closely with NGOs and the local authorities in France to identify and resettle children who are in Calais?

[Mr Goodwill]

The role of NGOs is vital because many of those in the camps may not view people in uniform or in authority in the same way as we do. Charities such as the British Red Cross, which has been helping to bring children across, and Barnardo’s, which is stepping up to the mark by providing some short-term accommodation before the children are moved on, are playing a vital role. We appreciate the efforts that NGOs are making, working in conjunction with the UK and French authorities to ensure that we discharge our obligations.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The Home Office is to be commended for finally moving to process children from the Calais camps covered by our legal obligations under both the Dublin convention and the Dubs amendment, which the Minister has mentioned. I am very grateful to the Home Secretary for giving me a full update on what is happening earlier this week, and I am very proud that many of the children coming from Calais will be welcomed in Scotland. I can assure the House that they will be most welcome there.

An update in due course on the numbers being processed would be appreciated. Can the Minister confirm that that will be made available? I have been to the camps at Calais and I have witnessed how vulnerable children are living in inhumane conditions. To impose invasive treatment now, when we are finally helping them, would be a dereliction of the UK Government’s moral duty towards them. I am happy to hear from the Minister that the Government are listening to the expert advice and not giving in to the sort of unpleasant pressure that he is receiving from some on his Back Benches.

The children at Calais have come from some of the most difficult and unsafe parts of the world. In some respects the instability from which they have fled has been caused by failed British foreign policy. Some of them have indeed grown older in the camp while waiting to be processed, and that should not be held against them. As the Minister said, the definition of a child is “a person under the age of 18”, and anyone who is familiar with children will know that a young man in his teens under the age of 18 separated from his parents is a vulnerable person.

I very much regret that this question, some of the stuff that we have seen in the tabloids and some of the behaviour of some members of the audience on “Question Time” last night are symptomatic of the xenophobia that has arisen in this country since the referendum. Today we are all united in our condemnation of homophobia. What are the Government doing to quell the rising tide of xenophobia in this country? What will the Minister do to challenge false information in the press and to calm any doubts about how the children will be treated when they arrive here?

[Mr Goodwill]

As I said, we would expect the age profile of children arriving in the UK under Dublin III —those with family in the UK—to reflect the overall age profile in the camp, which is mainly older children. Under Dubs, we are encouraging the most vulnerable to come forward, and those will be the younger children.

Let me provide an update on the progress that we have made under the Dublin regulation. Since the beginning of the year, over 140 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have come from Europe and have been accepted for transfer to the UK under the family reunion provisions, of whom 80 are from France. That compares with 20 in the whole of last year.

I join the hon. and learned Lady in condemning any xenophobia. That is not in the English or the Scottish psyche or that of any other part of this country. The small minority who may hold such attitudes and whose attitudes are sometimes translated into actions are to be condemned right across the House.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

What specific actions are being taken by the UK and French security forces to stop criminal gangs from exploiting vulnerable people, particularly children, in Calais?

[Mr Goodwill]

It is a matter of great concern that criminal gangs, particularly people traffickers, are in the camps. The best way to curtail the actions of those criminal gangs is to dismantle the camp and disperse the people around the country, where they are less able to be targeted. I am pleased that the Home Office, working with our French counterparts, has succeeded in making a number of arrests where people trafficking is going on, and we will continue to keep up the pressure.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

My constituent, Norman Vetter, sent me an extract this morning from the British Medical Journal, which states:

“Medical estimation of age is still inaccurate and the results are unreliable.”

It goes on to say:

“Age estimations have standard deviations of more than 12 months and are limited by intraindividual discrepancies, racial differences, and poor inter-rater reliability”,

and concludes:

“Ethically, it is hard to justify treating someone as an adult based on such unreliable data.”

Does the Minister agree?

[Mr Goodwill]

The hon. Gentleman is right. All the august medical and dental bodies that I quoted made it clear that medical or dental evidence cannot be used as a way of determining age. My own wisdom teeth did not come down until quite late in life. In many cases, those young people have not enjoyed the same nutrition as we have, so their stage of growth may vary. I underline the fact that all the evidence indicates that we cannot use medical or dental data. If the determination of age is necessary, there is the Merton process, which requires referral by two social workers and takes about 28 days. That method is used by social services throughout the country where an accurate determination of age is needed. That could not be done within the available time, even if we could do it on French territory.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s comments so far. What will be in the public’s mind, though, is what they are seeing in the media, as opposed to what we are hearing today. What work will the Home Office do to reassure the public about those whom we are helping?

[Mr Goodwill]

We have all seen the pictures from the camps and the terrible conditions that both young people and adults have to endure there. I know that the wish of the vast majority of the British people is to ensure that, if we have a legal responsibility under either the Dublin III regulation or the Dubs amendment, we should step up to the mark and ensure that those children are brought to a place of safety here in the UK. Working with our French colleagues, that is what we intend to do.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

I, too, welcome the Minister’s comments in response to a question that shows not only a lack of compassion, but a fundamental lack of understanding of the fact that these young people have had to grow up beyond their years because they are children who have been robbed of their childhood and have to fend for themselves. Does the Minister agree, and will he do everything possible with his Department to ensure that these children and young people do not grow old waiting to be processed?

[Mr Goodwill]

Previously, the Dublin process did take some weeks, but given the timescale of the projected clearance, it is important that we have accelerated that process to make sure that those children can be processed. I am pleased that we are doing that. I pay tribute to our Home Office staff, who have been over there in difficult conditions to deliver on that promise.

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

Will the Minister please explain the process through which the Government work with the Italian, French and Greek Governments, as well as with non-governmental organisations, to identify child refugees and speed up the process of bringing in child refugees when that is in their best interests?

[Mr Goodwill]

The Dublin process is relatively simple: it requires the child concerned to apply for asylum in the country they are in and then to apply for transfer under the Dublin process. These are not just children with families in the UK; it applies to all European Union countries and a number of transfers have taken place.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

The media circus over the past few days has been not only distasteful, but downright dangerous. The media exposure will serve to fan further the flames of intolerance, which is massively irresponsible at a time of rising hate crime in England. What exactly is the Home Office doing to protect the identities of vulnerable refugees—in particular, child refugees?

[Mr Goodwill]

There were certainly some pictures in the press of children with blankets over their heads, and that was specifically to protect their identities; as children, their identities need to be protected. I have confidence in the compassion of the British people and their wish to support us in what we are doing. A small minority in the media, or noises off, should not be listened to.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, his Department and all the work he is doing to help these most vulnerable children. Will he update the House on what assistance the Government have offered the French Government to clear the camp at Calais?

[Mr Goodwill]

We are working very closely with the French Government, and where resources are needed we are ensuring that we can help wherever we can. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has met her opposite number on a number of occasions. We are working very closely with the French. It is in our common interests to ensure that the camp is cleared—not just because of the people there, but because of the pull factor that it has for people who may be thinking about making the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

I welcome the measured approach that the Minister has taken in his response and seriously question the integrity of the hon. Member on the Back Benches who had the audacity to question the statistically—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Lady should not question the hon. Gentleman’s integrity. We all have integrity in this House, and we are not going to change that. Minister, do you want to pick something out of that?

[Mr Goodwill]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

If not, we will move on.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the information he has given the House this morning. When the child refugees are being admitted because they have family ties in the UK, are checks made with their families here if there are any doubts about their ages? Are the Government keeping a record of the ages of all the children being admitted, and will that be published?

[Mr Goodwill]

We are certainly keeping records of the children. After the children arrive at Lunar House in Croydon for initial processing—“processing” is a terrible word, but the House knows what I mean: the initial welcome they get there—they will then be moved on to temporary holding facilities around the country before they are reunited with their families. All the necessary social services checks will be carried out on those families to ensure the safety of the children.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

Can the Minister provide a bit more detail on exactly what the Government are doing to help protect vulnerable people and migrant children across Europe and the Balkans?

[Mr Goodwill]

As the previous Prime Minister announced at this Dispatch Box, it is important that we should not be distracted by the events in Calais and elsewhere around Europe from the real need, which is in the refugee camps in the war zones and the countries around them. I am pleased that we are the second biggest donor, and we are working closely to ensure that people there get help. There is also, of course, the programme for bringing 20,000 people across from those areas. They are the most vulnerable. Those who can make the journey right across Europe are not necessarily the most vulnerable, and I believe that ours is the right policy.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend reassure the House that safeguarding checks are fully in place for the vulnerable children who arrive on our shores and that they will be protected and kept safe?

[Mr Goodwill]

Absolutely. Home Office officials, working with local government social services officials, will be making sure that we discharge all our responsibilities to protect the children.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Many constituents in the Calder Valley have contacted me wanting to know why, given that we have said that we are going to take children from the jungle in Calais, we are actually taking young men and not young girls. Can the Minister confirm that the only unaccompanied children—that is, those under 18—in the Calais jungle are in fact young men?

[Mr Goodwill]

Some 90% of those in the camps who are children are young men. It is important that, as we move to the next phase, we target the most vulnerable—the younger children and those at most risk.

Sexual Offences (Pardons Etc) Bill

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

Proceedings resumed.

11:25

[Nick Herbert]

As I was saying, it seems to me that there is no difference between the Government and the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire with respect to the intention of the Bill: those who are living to whom an injustice has been done should be pardoned, but the intention is not to pardon those who committed offences that would still be criminal offences today. The only disagreement is about the actual effect of the Bill.

The hon. Gentleman has suggested a specific mechanism for ensuring that people do not make improper use of a pardon: the onus of proof would be on them to show that they had not committed what would now still be an offence. In those circumstances, it seems entirely right and proper, especially given that the Government encouraged the hon. Gentleman in the first place to introduce his Bill after his success in the private Members’ Bill ballot, that the Bill is given a Second Reading today and proceeds to Committee, where these differences in legal effect could be properly ironed out.

I accept that, in bringing forward their proposals a very short time ago, the Government intend to do broadly the same thing in fulfilment of their manifesto commitment as the Bill seeks to do. However, I also understand why the hon. Gentleman feels that his Bill should receive a Second Reading and that there should be further discussion about the effects that his Bill proposes.

The Government originally encouraged the Bill but a couple of days before its debate on Second Reading have introduced their own alternative measures: I do not think that is generally a good way to proceed. If there has been some misunderstanding or breakdown in communication, I urge both sides to restore communication. The best and most proper thing would be for the discussions to take place in Committee, so that legitimate debate about the arcane provisions can be had.

[John Nicolson]

I confirm that if the Government honour their original promise to me and support my Bill, I will be very happy to engage with any concerns they have in Committee.

[Nick Herbert]

I am sure that the Government will have heard that.

It would be a pity if hon. Members who do not share the majority view here today—that the Bill’s general provisions should proceed and that in general it is right that people should be pardoned—and who do not accept the Conservative party’s manifesto commitment to that effect were given an excuse to attempt not to allow the Bill to proceed, because of the disagreement over the Bill’s legal effect. There is, I repeat, no disagreement about the intention of the hon. Gentleman’s Bill; it is the same as the Government’s intention. There is, therefore, broad agreement that this is the right thing to do.

People will be listening to this debate. The signal that the House of Commons sends on these matters is immensely important. As I said before the urgent question, it is important in terms of the justice that should be done to those who are still living, when a great injustice was done before. It is important to many young people who are struggling and coming to terms with their sexuality and who want to ensure acceptance today. It is important that the message this country sends out to the rest of the world is that the legislation we passed and promoted in an age gone by was not only wrong then but is still capable of doing great injustice today. We should atone for that in a very clear manner, and we should not allow the message that we wish to send to all those groups of people to be distorted. The House of Commons should stand for justice and equality, and we should stand for the principle that, where an injustice was done in the past, we should recognise that clearly and unequivocally. That is why this Bill should be given a Second Reading.

11:30

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) on bringing this important and essential Bill to Parliament. There has been huge progress in allowing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex equality in recent years, with significant changes in laws and attitudes that have seen Scotland become the best country in Europe for LGBTI legal rights, with the rest of the UK close behind.

Despite those welcome steps forward, we must never forget the appalling way LGBTI people have been treated in the UK throughout history. The criminalisation of thousands of gay and bisexual men, who were cautioned, convicted, imprisoned and even castrated under homophobic laws that banned sex between consenting adult men is a complete wrong in our history. We must now take ownership and apologise for that.

The namesake of this Bill, Alan Turing, was a mathematician, code breaker and computing pioneer, whose work cracking the Enigma code is said to have shortened world war two by two to four years. He lost his job with the secret service after being convicted of gross indecency, and he was chemically castrated by means of a series of injections of female hormones. As a result, he took his own life just two years later, in 1954.

In 2013, Alan Turing was granted a posthumous royal pardon—61 years after he had been charged at a Manchester police station. Now, that is all good, but it is perverse and illogical that Turing is the only person so far to have been pardoned. I am sure no one in the House doubts that there needs to be wider action. The Government have a duty to pardon everybody who was convicted under the gross indecency law in these historical homophobic rulings.

It is thought that at least 49,000 other gay and bisexual men were convicted under similar outdated laws, until homosexuality was deemed not to be illegal in 1967. Each was just as unfairly persecuted, and many suffered similarly awful fates to Alan Turing. It is estimated that 16,000 of these men are still alive today. Many find themselves outed, interrogated and ostracised from society over their sexuality, and they have suffered long-lasting psychological damage.

From what I understand, there is currently a disregard process. Men can apply through the Home Office to have their record cleared, which removes any mention of an offence from criminal record checks. That is simply not good enough. Although those men would still have to apply to have their record expunged, the Bill would give a blanket pardon to all men who have lived their life with an unfair, unjust criminal conviction.

Stonewall, the leading LGBTI charity, has given its full support to the measures laid out in the Bill, on the basis that it makes a stronger statement on the seriousness of the Government’s commitment in this area of social life. If we are to take action, and to provide leadership, it is best that we do that wholeheartedly, with the full backing of the law. I would go further and call on the Prime Minister to make a full public apology to LGBTI individuals in the United Kingdom for the injustice they have suffered.

Nothing we do now can fully make amends for the cruel discrimination these men have suffered. However, I hope this Bill goes some way towards giving a sense of closure to these men and their families.

11:34

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law). I hope you will not mind, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I mark the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster in a couple of sentences and pay tribute to those residents in Torquay— particularly in Chelston, in my constituency—who offered their homes up in hospitality, to give people not only somewhere to go but respite away from the scene where so many people had lost the lives. A plaque commemorates that to this day at Torre abbey.

I congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) on bringing the Bill to the House. Whatever the outcome of today’s debate, we saw the major change announced by the Government yesterday, which will finally see people viewed as innocent, and show that they were not committing a criminal offence as we would know it today.

In his introduction, the hon. Gentleman talked about how, when he was born, these things were a criminal offence. However, even when I was born, it was still a criminal offence in Scotland and Northern Ireland to be who you are. It took until 1982, quite shamefully— 15 years after decriminalisation in England—for similar provisions finally to come into effect in Northern Ireland. Some territories that fly our flag—maybe not the SNP’s flag—still had laws of this nature as recently as the 1990s. It almost beggars belief that people still thought these things.

We could look back through history at a whole range of offences that, nowadays, we would say are not offences. For example, we do not believe that there is anyone in our constituencies today who is practising as a witch and trying to make someone ill. [Interruption.] Well, perhaps we might be getting a few spells cast here today. Let us be clear: such convictions were patent nonsense—people were sent to the gallows for something that was absolute nonsense and that was based on fear and hysteria. The difference with these offences is that people are gay or lesbian—that is who they are—but, in the past, that would have been a criminal offence. The laws we are referring to, under which people were still being convicted not that long ago—some of those people are still alive—were passed only 20 or so years after the death penalty had been removed in this country. That is why, for me, having such a pardon makes eminent sense.

I have felt a bit in today’s debate that we are dancing on the head of a pin, to be blunt. We have the argument that a pardon should be given, but that it will be replicated only on criminal records checks, which are the key part of this, on application, versus the argument that a pardon should be granted after removal from criminal record checks. I think we would all agree that criminal record checks have to be absolutely accurate—I say that having listened to the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire. I have therefore found some of the argument on both sides rather interesting in terms of the actual nub of this issue.

Likewise, having heard both arguments, and having got a copy of the Bill, I think there is no suggestion from anyone that what is still a criminal offence today should not remain on someone’s record; the debate is how we get where we want. I very much welcome the fact that the Government’s amendment to the Bill that is already in the Lords and that is due to come back here in the not-too-distant future will probably be the quickest way of getting there.

We need to be clear that nobody is suggesting that someone should be able to go around claiming that they would have been innocent of an offence that would still be an offence to this day. That is particularly the case where we have more modern legislation in relation to those in positions of authority over those aged 16 or 17. Quite bizarrely, given all the hysteria around the impact on younger boys, there was not actually any legislation back in the 1950s that made it an offence for a teacher to be a predator towards a 16 or 17-year-old student of the opposite sex. To be fair to the then Labour Government, it made eminent sense that, when changing the age of consent, that anomaly was righted. It was equally as bad for a 30 or 40-year-old teacher to prey on a member of the opposite sex as on someone of their own sex. The issue was their using their position to abuse someone, not the type of relationship involved. It is also about looking back into the past. Some people would ask, “Why apply it to offences beyond 1967?”, but we all realise that there were offences before 1967.

My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker), who sadly is not in his place, talked about the police’s reactions and behaviour. Peter Tatchell’s book, interestingly, says that in some cases there were more prosecutions after 1967 than there had been before, because some forces recognised that the pre-1967 legislation was from another era, and the enforcement of it was mixed and variable. In the mid-1940s, during world war two, there was almost a policy of discreetly ignoring things on the basis that it was seen as helpful, most famously in the case of Alan Turing, to use people’s skills in the fight for freedom. Then in the 1950s, there were moves to take that freedom away by prosecuting them for historical offences. It makes sense to look not just at those who were convicted on the law pre-1967 but those who were convicted up until very recently on the basis of different laws. It should also be remembered that there is still on the statute book a bar on gay men serving in the merchant navy. I believe there is a private Member’s Bill that we will discuss on a future Friday to remove that, but it is sad to note that there are still parts of our legislation that contain these types of historical provisions.

Where we have got to today reflects the changing attitudes of society. I openly admit that I had a major change of attitude when I went to university. At secondary school, like a lot of people, I fell for some of the prejudiced arguments and it was all about what the group thought. When I got to university, for the first time I was with people who were out, saying who they were and being proud of it. The president of Warwick University’s Pride society had a chat with me at the time when the debate was going on about section 28. He said, “I should be a Conservative.” I said, “Really?” He said, “Yeah, I believe in freedom of choice. You believe in freedom of choice, Kevin. Your party does, up until when I make the choice about who I want to love, and you argue against. I can choose whether I want a pension, I can choose what house I buy, what kind of life I have, and whether I have children, yet I can’t choose who I love.” That, for me, was quite a transformative moment. It was such a logical argument—I had that choice, so why should they not have it? Some people know that my partner is a little older than I am. I have the right to choose that—there has never been an offence in law against it—so why should it be an offence for anyone else to choose whom they love, provided that they are both of the age where they can make an informed and mutual choice and give consent?

Sometimes we hear the religious argument—I am a practising Christian; I sometimes help to administer the elements at my church—that was regularly used to justify the laws of the past. Yet there is a law in the ten commandments about adultery, which is described as a sin, but has never been a criminal offence.

[John Nicolson]

There is also in Deuteronomy a ruling against mixed fabrics, but to the best of my knowledge we do not publicly stone people for mixing rayon and wool.

[Kevin Foster]

There is another part about the appropriate price for slaves that is found in another part of it. The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of the homophobes and prejudiced individuals in some parts of the United States who commonly like to have tattooed on their bodies a particular part of Leviticus about how certain things are an abomination, forgetting the bit in Leviticus that describes tattooing the skin as a sin. It is a delicious irony that they are so blinded by their prejudice that they have not even bothered to read the rest of that book of the Bible. They do not know the sheer irony of what they are doing and how they are showing their total and utter ignorance when they have a tattoo like that on their body. It has been hundreds of years since we had the idea that religious belief should be enforced by political power. Therefore the argument used in the past seems completely incoherent.

The Wolfenden committee concluded that offences in relation to homosexuality were victimless crimes. No one had complained, both sides were happy to take part, and nobody’s rights had been infringed—it was just that other people were so prejudiced about someone making that choice that they thought it should be a criminal offence, with truly ridiculous penalties given that nobody had gone to the police to say, “I’ve been harmed.” All too often, this became a way of blackmailing people—of threatening to go and dob someone in. Shamefully, even until the 1990s the military police were still dealing in that sort of behaviour. I remember when I was growing up, as a teenager, there was an episode of “A Touch of Frost” based on the idea that someone could be blackmailed for their whole career on the basis of whether they are gay. That was absolutely shameful. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire rightly mentioned what was said at that time, including by some members of my party who were in government. John Major did the right thing in terms of the foreign service, but we did the wrong thing in not admitting people to the armed forces. The arguments that were advanced were patently stuff and nonsense. It is pleasing that in the United States President Obama is finally abandoning “Don’t ask, don’t tell”, because it was a load of nonsense—the idea that people sharing a shower is fine as long as they do not tell anyone. That was a symbolic change and a move forward.

I am in a slight quandary. It is welcome that we have a Government who are prepared to move on this, but I understand the hon. Gentleman’s arguments. I certainly will not oppose the Bill because that would be ridiculous. The Bill and the Government’s amendment both deal with the practical effects, which is the key concern. That said, amendment is almost certainly the quickest way to get this on to the statute book and finally give people a chance to—I will not say to clear their name, because they are not criminals; they are innocent. All they have done is to be who they are. I find the idea of clearing their name quite strange.

[Chris Bryant]

I broadly sympathise with the direction in which the hon. Gentleman is going, but I draw his attention to the fact that the Government’s measure does not do the same thing. The only way to achieve the same thing is to send the Bill into Committee.

[Kevin Foster]

Ultimately, though, we are debating the criminal records. The Bill refers to a blanket pardon, but it only takes effect in terms of someone getting their name off the criminal records, via an application, and the Government’s idea is that their name is got off the criminal records and then they get a formal pardon. That is the fundamental difference. I accept that this could be addressed in Committee. However, after a couple of hours’ debate we all agree with the sentiment and the principle; we are dancing around on a pin.

[Mr Gyimah]

The key difference is that the Government want some safeguards around the pardon for the living. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) spoke about some people with great moral fibre, but the Government want to protect against the situation where, if there is a blanket pardon, someone who had not been pardoned could go around saying that they had. What does one say to the victims of that person if it was non-consensual sex in that case?

[Kevin Foster]

With respect to the Minister, anyone could go around making a claim that they had been pardoned for an offence; it is the position in the criminal records that makes the key difference.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Kevin Foster]

I will take one more intervention but I am very conscious of time.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I have 12 more speakers and the Front Benchers to get in as well.

[Lyn Brown]

This is a seminal debate. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in urging the Minister to think again? Let us get the Bill to Committee, sort out the problems that the Minister thinks he has and get it on the statute book.

[Kevin Foster]

I hear what the shadow Minister is saying. To be fair to the Minister, he has gone further than anyone has in the last 50 years towards pardoning people, so I am loth to criticise him. As I have said, I will not oppose the Bill, because that would be the wrong step. I will, however, probably find myself abstaining, because I think that the Government are offering something that will make a difference. I say to the Minister that anyone can claim to have been pardoned, but the criminal record checks are the final determinant. I do not think that anyone on either side of the argument is contending that those decisions should be changed unless someone proves that they did not commit a criminal offence.

Ultimately, we are talking about people who never committed an offence; all that they did was to be who they were. It is unfortunate that we have ended up arguing so strongly over minor points.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I just say that we are in danger of talking the Bill out? I want to hear everybody, and Members are still waiting to speak. Can we try to help each other? With 12 speakers, if we try to keep it short, we can get there.

11:50

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)]

I would like to pay my respects to the people of Aberfan. We will not forget you.

I thank the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) for introducing the Bill, and I thank the many Members, across parties, who support it. We have heard fantastic speeches today, especially from my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is very honourable.

The Government’s announcement that they intend to amend the Policing and Crime Bill is, of course, welcome but it does not go far enough. The Bill we are debating concerns posthumous pardons and pardons for men who are still alive. It would pardon anyone who had been convicted of, or cautioned for, a specified offence and who had died before the legislation came into force, provided that the following two conditions are met: that the other person involved in the conduct constituting the offence consented to it and was aged 16 or over; and that such conduct would not be an offence under section 71 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which concerns sexual activity in a public lavatory.

The Bill also relates to pardons for men who are still living. It would pardon anyone who had been convicted of, or cautioned for, an offence listed in section 92(1) of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 and who was living at the time the clause came into force. Pardons for living men would not be automatic but would be tied to the disregard process set out in the 2012 Act. Anyone whose conviction or caution had already become disregarded under the 2012 Act at the time the clause came into force would be pardoned for that offence. Anyone whose conviction or caution becomes disregarded under the 2012 Act after the clause came into force would be pardoned for that offence at the time the disregard took effect. Living men would not receive a pardon unless they had also successfully applied to have their conviction or caution disregarded under the 2012 Act.

The press has been quick to term the proposal “Turing’s law”. For Alan Turing, a war hero without whom we might not have cracked the Enigma code and defeated fascism, his pardon came posthumously and too late. Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown rightly issued an official apology in 2009 after a public petition. In issuing the apology, Gordon Brown said of Mr Turing:

“In 1952, he was convicted of gross indecency—in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence—and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison—was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I am and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and so many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly. Over the years, millions more lived in fear of conviction. I am proud that those days are gone and that in the past 12 years this Government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality, and long overdue.”

Opposition Members, and Labour supporters the length and breadth of the UK, are proud that it was a Labour Government and a Labour Prime Minister that started the process that has led us to this debate. The coalition Government initially refused to exercise a pardon in 2012, and it was right that, under the weight of public opinion, they changed their mind in 2013, so that the Queen could grant a pardon in 2014. As many have said today, there are so many more men who have not received a pardon, and they should receive one. It is right that we recognise the need to extend the pardon afforded to Alan Turing to others who were convicted of what was, much to history’s shame, a criminal offence, although most people today quite rightly find that hard to believe.

That is why Labour committed to Turing’s law in the 2015 general election. The law as it stands does not go far enough, as Rachel Barnes, a great niece of Alan Turing, recognised in 2015 when she handed in a petition to Downing Street. She said:

“I consider it to be fair and just that everybody who was convicted under the Gross Indecency Law is given a pardon. It is illogical that my great uncle has been the only one to be pardoned when so many were convicted of the same crime. I feel sure that Alan Turing would have also wanted justice for everybody.”

It is right that the Government have listened to those who have campaigned on the issue for many years. The private Member’s Bill before the House today would, of course, go further. Pardons would be given to all convicted of specified offences, save for those convicted of behaviour that would still amount to an offence today. It is difficult to see the Government’s objection to that in principle. The problems of perception that the Minister highlights could easily be avoided through appropriate publicity. It is often suggested that the disregard scheme should have more promotion. The Government should give serious thought to that, whatever the outcome of proceedings in the House today.

The proposed amendment to section 92 of the 2012 Act also looks like a logical progression. Section 32 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956—soliciting by men for immoral purposes—was not included in the list of convictions that should be disregarded in the 2012 Act. There are many examples that show that the offence in section 32 was used as recently as the 1990s to arrest and prosecute gay and bisexual men for suggesting sex between what they understood to be consenting adults, often in incidents involving plain-clothes police officers. At present men convicted under section 32 cannot have their conviction disregarded, even though it was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The Bill will add those convictions to the list of those that can be disregarded, closing that loophole.

Labour recognises that the conviction and persecution of more than 50,000 men affected by these vicious and discriminatory laws has left a legacy of pain and hurt, not just to the men themselves but to their families and friends. This Bill is about our country sending those men a clear and unequivocal message that they did nothing wrong, and they should not have been criminalised. It is time to right a grievous historical wrong. That is why I and Labour Members will support the Bill. We encourage all other hon. Members to do the same.

11:59

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this important debate. I begin by adding my congratulations to the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), first on securing the top spot in the private Members’ Bill ballot and then on deciding to use it to introduce this important Bill. I was pleased and honoured to be asked to be a sponsor of the Bill. My support for it remains undiluted, and, should we divide on it, I will be supporting the hon. Gentleman in the Lobby.

I identified with much of what the hon. Gentleman said in his opening speech about the experience of growing up as a closeted gay man in the west of Scotland. I went through a similar experience and upbringing, and it was not easy. It took me a long time to come to terms with who I was. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman and I went to the same school, although—and it might be ungallant of me to say this—not at the same time; I followed a few years later, but I can very much identify with his experiences. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) says from a sedentary position that he is proud to have that school in his constituency, and a very fine school it is. But it was not easy growing up in that atmosphere being gay, and having to hide that out of a sense of shame. I will come back to that point in a little while.

My other reason for being very passionate about this measure is a constituency one. I am very proud that in my constituency of Milton Keynes South is Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing did much of his celebrated work during the second world war; as many Members have mentioned, he did much to shorten that conflict and save thousands, if not millions, of lives. I am very proud that we got to the point where he was granted a pardon during the last Parliament. That was the culmination of a long campaign over many years by many people inside and outside the House.

I remember that during the debate about whether Alan Turing should be granted a pardon as opposed to an apology a number of objections were raised. On the one and only time I have been grilled on “Newsnight” by Jeremy Paxman, two particular arguments were made. The first was that it was wrong retrospectively to pardon for something that was a crime at the time but now, in more enlightened times, is thankfully no longer so, because if we were to start pardoning for that offence, where would we stop? What about witchcraft—would we grant a pardon and apology for that? Well, if people want to bring forward a Bill to pardon people for witchcraft, bring it forward. But this particular issue really matters to lots of people. It is a sign of a civilised society that we can collectively pardon. There is a precedent in the blanket pardon issued to soldiers executed in world war one for so-called cowardice. I was very happy at the time to support the pardon for Alan Turing on the basis that we can retrospectively pardon.

The second argument was, why just Alan Turing? Yes, he is a famous and celebrated person to whom we owe an enormous debt of gratitude, but, many Members have alluded to the fact that he was just one individual out of thousands who were caught under the same legislation. It was more difficult to argue against that. I was happy to champion a pardon for Alan Turing because as a country we owe him a huge debt of gratitude. The pardon was right for that reason. It was also right as a symbol of the fact that the country had moved on; by pardoning him, we were sending a very clear message that such so-called crimes were no longer a stain on our collective conscience.

It troubled me, however, that the pardon was just for that one person. As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire and others have powerfully argued, this matter affected many thousands of other men. That is why I am very pleased that the Bill has been introduced. To be fair to the Government, they have made progress on this through the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in the last Parliament. They have also indicated their support for Lord Sharkey’s amendment in the other place. That is very welcome progress and I will wholeheartedly support that if it is the vehicle through which change happens. But I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman and the many others from both sides of the House who have said that we can do better. We can move forward in a much more symbolic way that will make a real difference to many people in this country.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

That is an important point of symbolism, which is at the heart of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I would dearly have loved to speak in today’s debate, but my voice is failing me due to a cold. I did not come out to my family until just after I was elected. It was with the support of my SNP colleagues, my family and friends that I made a public statement earlier this year. I hope the next generation of young people and politicians will not have to make public statements and will not have to say that they are gay—because it will not matter: our colour, our race, our sexual identity will not make a difference; all will be equal. That is why it is so important to give this Bill its Second Reading so that it can go forward into Committee. We will have better scrutiny of this Bill in Committee than we will of an amendment as an afterthought to a Bill that is already going through Parliament.

[Iain Stewart]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady, and I congratulate her on finding her moment to make that announcement. I agree that it should not have to be made. All of us who are gay have a different journey, and we come to terms with it in different ways at different times—privately with our families and friends, and then publicly.

That brings me on neatly to my next point. Although we live in enlightened times in which we have passed the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013; section 28—or section 2A as it was in Scotland—has been consigned to the dustbin, and adoption and military procedures have changed, some people ask why we need a Bill such as this. They say, “Haven’t you already got all you’ve been asking for?”. However, it is important to note that even people such as me, who were born after homosexuality was decriminalised, can still sometimes carry with us perhaps a sense of shame or perhaps a sense that we are not entirely comfortable in our own skins.

That is a legacy of growing up in an age when there was prejudice. Different people coped with it in different ways. I struggled with it at times. I read a very good book, and I encourage other Members to read it, called “The Velvet Rage” by Dr Alan Downs. He gets to the heart of why some gay men, even in enlightened times and in countries where the law is as liberal as it could be, still feel that rage and shame. Addressing that problem does matter.

The Bill will not in itself clear all the hang-ups or depression or other feelings that people have, but it will be an important next step—in the same way as same sex marriage was and all the other changes we have made in recent years. I urge the Government to think seriously about supporting this Bill. They should at least grant it a Second Reading.

If I remember correctly from when I was studying politics at university, the point of a Second Reading is to provide a debate on the principle of the Bill in question. No one here today has expressed an objection to the principle of this Bill. There may be questions about the detail, the process, the capacity of the Ministry of Justice—these are perfectly valid concerns to raise. We are a Parliament; that is what we do. We look at the detail, tease out issues and look for unintended consequences and so forth. That can surely be done in Committee.

I think that if we approve the Bill today, it would send out a powerful and important message to the country, to the thousands of men who still struggle with what happened in the past and to those growing up today who remain uncertain about whether and how they should come out. Please let us approve this today. Let us take it to Committee and tease out the issues there. That is the appropriate procedure for this Bill. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire once again on introducing the Bill. I will be proud to support him later in the Lobby if it comes to that.

12:10

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a genuine pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), who delivered a powerful speech in favour of the Bill. I also want to thank particularly, in the warmest terms, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) for introducing it. Unlike him, I was not born in the 1960s, although my parents were, and I reflect on how much our society has changed during their lifetimes and mine. In particular, I reflect on how much the law of the land has changed just in my own lifetime, and on the record of successive Governments. We have seen the abolition of section 28 in England and Wales and section 2A in Scotland, the legalisation of equal marriage, the introduction of protection in respect of goods and services, and the ability of LGBT people to serve in the armed forces. So many changes in the law of the land brought about by this place have led to a change in our country, and our country is a better place for it, which is why I strongly support the Bill.

I welcome the fact that we are having a debate with a Conservative Government about how we should make this change in the law, rather than whether we should make it. I shall return to that point later in my short speech, but I am pleased that the Government have already taken some steps in the House of Lords. I urge them to go further this afternoon, through the Bill and through proper scrutiny in the House of Commons.

Alan Turing has an important part to play in our country’s history, but he also has an important part to play in our country’s future. Through great initiatives like LGBT history month, and through the work of science and history teachers in schools up and down the country, young people growing up in Britain today learn of the extraordinary acts of bravery and intelligence that took place at Bletchley Park, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South. It is very likely that, had it not been for Alan Turing, we would not have succeeded in turning back the tide of Nazism as it swept across Europe. We would not have been successful in defeating the Nazis in the sea and in the air. It was because of the Enigma code-breaking work that took place at Bletchley Park that the allies were able to secure such a powerful advantage over the Nazis when all seemed lost on the continent of Europe.

That story is powerful not just because of the extraordinary role that Alan Turing played in a decisive moment in British history, but because, only a few years later, this hero of our country was tried before our courts, was chemically castrated, and was forced to take his own life. Young people growing up in schools today do not only learn about the enormous heroism of Alan Turing; they also learn about the extraordinary treachery of the Government of the day and the courts that allowed it to happen. That lesson and that experience cause them to reflect on what it means to be a decent human being, to reflect with horror on Britain’s past, and to aspire to a better future. As a former head of education at Stonewall, I know how powerful the work of teachers and schools is, not just in enabling young people to learn about changes in the law, but in bringing about changes in hearts and minds.

LGBT young people growing up in Britain today face a very different pressure from the pressure faced by Alan Turing and his generation. Unlike Alan Turing’s generation, they are not threatened by the letter of the law. None the less, just like Alan Turing’s generation, they feel threatened by bigotry in the streets, in the workplace, in the classroom and in the home. That is why we need to think very carefully about the message that we will send through the law today.

The pressure that LGBT people continue to face to remain in the closet because of fear of discrimination or violence in this country today has led to an appalling situation. More than one in five gay men currently experience moderate to severe anxiety or depression, and a third of lesbian and bisexual women have thought of taking their own lives. Shockingly, according to research by Stonewall, more than 50% of LGBT young people in our schools have self-harmed, and about one in four have attempted suicide. Those are young people growing up in our country today. In any other context—in the context of the general population, for example—there would be outrage in the House and throughout the country over such figures relating to suicide and self-harm, yet these are real statistics affecting young people in our country today. They have reached epidemic proportions, and this is a national crisis. The Government need to look carefully at what they can do to tackle the mental health crisis that still affects LGBT people in Britain today.

The hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) spoke powerfully about symbols, and about the power of the Bill to be an important symbol for the kind of country we want to be. I urge the Minister to think carefully about the kind of symbol that the House would be presenting today if the Bill, with all the welcome publicity it has generated, were either talked out or defeated. It would send a message that there are still people in this House and across the country who are not content to see equality for LGBT people and who look back on the progress made by this Parliament not with pride and optimism for the future but with regret and pessimism about their ability to defeat what Martin Luther King called the arc of social progress that “bends towards justice”. The Minister clearly has some technical problems with the Bill as it has been presented, but that is exactly why he should urge his colleagues to vote in favour of its Second Reading, so that those issues can be ironed out in Committee. If the Bill is defeated today, people across the country will not hear the news that the Minister had some technical concerns with it; they will see the news that the Conservative Government conspired to defeat this important measure.

[Mr Gyimah]

It is important to make it absolutely clear that the Government are not dragging their heels and are not hesitant on this important issue. We want to right this historic wrong as fairly and quickly as possible. That is why we have tabled an amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill.

[Wes Streeting]

I am absolutely delighted to hear that, and I will be happy to talk further with the Minister about how we can iron out the problems in the Bill as we march into the Aye Lobby together this afternoon.

We can look back with enormous pride at what has been achieved, but we must not assume that the progress we have made cannot be undone. I am sure that I am not the only person in the House this afternoon who is deeply concerned that in recent weeks and months we have seen a huge rise in hate crime across the United Kingdom, including homophobic hate crime. We are seeing the rise of far-right extremism across Europe, and the US presidential election has shown that being absolutely fine with sexual harassment is no bar to holding the highest office. People who strongly support liberal democracy have become complacent about defending it and ensuring its ongoing success. The Bill represents an important moment in that context, and it should be supported.

I want to end by quoting the words of Roger Lockyer, who is 88 years old and one of the men who had to endure a lifetime of experiences that someone of my age has thankfully not had to experience. Speaking about the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire’s Bill and about those members of his generation who were convicted, he said:

“They may have been legally convicted, but they were unjustly convicted.”

This pardon is not about forgiveness for something that people did wrong. It will send a powerful message that they should never have been convicted in the first place, that those laws should never have existed and that those people should never have been prosecuted when they had done absolutely nothing wrong. The Bill is about confronting our country’s past and facing the future with confidence. That is why I will be voting for it this afternoon.

12:18

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). I lived in Ilford as a young man, until I was drummed out of town when the locals discovered that I was a closet Tory. It is a great pleasure follow him and to have this opportunity to speak in the debate on this Bill, which is not only of great importance for justice in this country but of great emotional importance to my constituents and others who are either gay themselves or who have friends, family and colleagues who are gay and feel that they have been judged by a different standard over the years.

The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) is my colleague on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and I am incredibly grateful to him for using his coveted allocation of time to bring forward these proposals in a private Member’s Bill and for sharing his ideas with me over several bottles of rosé a few weeks ago. He has done valuable work to make this a truly cross-party initiative. I thank him for including me in this and I am proud to be on my feet today in support of what he wants to achieve through the Bill. We have heard some impressive contributions, and I particularly want to mention my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), and the hon. Members for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who made a moving speech.

Equality before the law must be not only our fundamental principle, but our fundamental practice. That means that not only must justice be done, but justice must be seen to be done. The Government’s previous disregard scheme was a step in the right direction towards justice in that it helped to ameliorate the repercussions of a criminal record for those convicted under what we now rightly consider outdated, unfair, discriminatory laws that treated sex between men differently. To truly rectify the injustice we must go further and, as the Bill proposes, grant pardons and admit that the convictions were immoral, which does not really happen under a disregard scheme. Justice will then be seen to be done and, importantly, the wrongfully criminalised and their families will feel that it has been done.

The Government’s official apology for the shameful treatment of Alan Turing was an important moment. I am pleased that the deep gratitude we now correctly feel toward Turing’s crucial contributions to Britain’s defence provided enough of a focal point that his famous cause could trigger that apology. No matter how famous or anonymous, however, no one citizen has a greater value nor a greater right to justice. That pardon was just for Alan Turing, but there is no tenable case for every other individual affected not having the same right. Like Turing, each individual is someone’s family, someone’s friend, and they deserve acknowledgement of their fundamental equality before the law.

I welcomed the comments of the Minister when he said yesterday that the Government will adopt some of the proposals in this Bill and use the Policing and Crime Bill to put right some of the injustices. However, I found the Government’s last-minute scrambling or dancing around handbags—not something I have done myself—a little slippery and disrespectful to the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire and his Bill, but I look forward to the Minister’s further remarks.

Other colleagues and the Bill’s promoter have made eloquent moral and legal cases, so I will conclude my contribution on the subject there, but I want to finish by taking the opportunity to issue a mea culpa. During my first term in office, I voted against marriage equality for a whole host of reasons. I thought at the time that what I was doing was right, but having reflected and having seen how the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 has made such a positive difference for thousands of couples around the country, I deeply regret that decision—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]—and many in this House will know how difficult it is for a Yorkshireman to admit that he got something wrong. If I had the opportunity again, I would vote differently and I want to apologise. I apologise to friends, family members and constituents who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual. I want them to know that I believe in their full equality. I am unable to change that previous vote, but I am pleased to have the chance today to stand in support of equality before the law, and I am more than happy to support my friend’s Bill.

12:24

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

We heard some fashion advice earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), and, without realising it, I, too, am wearing a purple tie and a yellow lanyard. Today is the day when, after years of soul searching, I have to come out as being straight—I should point out that my wife, who has been good enough to put up with me for the past 32 years, has had her suspicions. But there is a serious point here, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell): I have never had to come out as being straight, so why should anyone have to come out as being gay, lesbian or anything else? I have never had to justify to anybody the codes of behaviour that guide me in my private life, partly through the faith I believe in and partly just because I am who I am. Why should somebody who follows a different path in life have to justify their right to do so? What gives me or anyone else the right to criminalise somebody simply because they are a wee bit different from how I am?

My first reason for supporting the Bill is therefore not because the various pieces of legislation that outlawed homosexual acts were wrong or mistaken, or because they have passed their sell-by date and it is time to catch up with changes in social values and so on, but because they were laws that no Parliament on earth has ever had any right to pass in the first place. Our predecessors stepped well beyond any legitimate authority they had when passing that legislation. I do not judge them, and I do not judge the police and courts that then had to enforce the legislation, but it is entirely proper that, as the successors of those who passed legislation that they had no right to pass, we should take full responsibility for doing what we can to put it right. That is also why this deserves a full Act of Parliament in its own right, as the injustice is great enough. It is appropriate that that Act should be born in the part of Parliament that is elected by the people and speaks for the people, rather than in a part that is appointed by and for the great and the good.

I was going to speak about the damage that has been done to so many lives, but I shall consider the interests of brevity, as the worst possible result we could have today would be for the Bill to be talked out. I cannot imagine anything worse than for this Parliament to send out a message that says that, almost 50 years after we decriminalised homosexual acts, we did not have time to decide whether finally to pardon and apologise to all those who were affected.

I can appreciate the concerns about creating a precedent. Apart from the example referred to earlier about young men who were executed for cowardice because they had a nervous or mental breakdown in the trenches, I am not aware of any other instance in our recent history when so many people have been subjected to such awful persecution as a result of an unjust Act of Parliament. If anyone can give me such an example and wants to introduce retrospective pardons for those affected by that legislation, I will support it, as I hope everyone else will.

My judgment on when Parliament should criminalise an act will never be based on whether it complies with the personal conduct that I impose on myself as a matter of my religious faith; it will always be based on whether that act is harmful to others. Robert Burns once said, in my favourite quote of his, even though it is not a piece of poetry, that “whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, this is my measure of iniquity.”

That should be our measure of any proposed criminal legislation. If something does not hurt anybody else, it is nothing to do with the law of the land. Despite having had a number of sometimes difficult conversations with close friends and family at the times of the debates on section 28, gay marriage, gay adoption and many other things, I have never heard anyone present me with a single piece of evidence to suggest that two men having sex are any more of a danger to society or any less a member of it than a man and a woman having sex or two women having sex. Let us remember that it has never been a criminal offence for two women to have sex, so why on earth did anyone think that it was a good idea to criminalise it for men?

A further huge damage that has been done to our society as a result of this legislation, as we see in the good example here of my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), who confessed that he had actually wanted to join the Government service but decided not to because he would not have been allowed to without telling lies. How many of our finest diplomats never joined the diplomatic service? How many of our best teachers never taught in front of a class of young people? How many of our best politicians never stood for any public office, not because they were not good enough, but because they were scared to do so as a result of the terror of what might then come out about their private lives?

This legislation had an appalling effect on the lives of many thousands of our fellow citizens. It has caused untold damage to the wellbeing of our whole society. As other Members have said, it was a gift to our friends in the KGB, because it is very difficult to blackmail somebody over their guilty secrets after we have said, “Your guilty secret isn’t guilty anymore and you don’t have to keep it secret anymore.” It was a blackmailer’s charter. We will never know how much damage was done in that regard. We do not know how many lives were blighted—I am talking about the lives of the boys and men who managed not to be convicted. We know how many men were convicted, but we will never know how many lived their entire lives under the sheer terror of being discovered. We know that a significant number of men took their own lives, because they simply could not reconcile the conflict between knowing who they were and being told every day of their lives that they were not allowed to live as the person that they believed themselves to be.

I can understand it if there are some concerns about the content of the Bill, although I have to say that it seems as though the Minister has changed his grounds for concern since the debate started. Earlier on, there was a claim that the Bill would grant a pardon to people who did not deserve to be pardoned. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) read out a provision in the Bill that makes it clear that that cannot happen. If somebody wants to read out a provision that allows that to happen, I would like to hear it. Once that argument was debunked, it was argued that the law would not actually allow just anybody to be pardoned, but that it might give someone the opportunity to pretend that they had been pardoned. That is not the kind of argument that we expect from a Minister of the Crown in speaking about any proposed legislation. It gives me an uncomfortable feeling that the Government’s concerns are not with the fine detail of the Bill or with its principles. Clearly, there is no objection to the principle of the Bill. I am left wondering whether the problem is to do with the identity of the person who has brought in the Bill. I hope for goodness’ sake that that is not an issue.

What does it do for the reputation of this place as a democratic legislature if this Government—not this individual Minister—who have encouraged my hon. Friend and others to put a huge amount of work and effort into proposing legislation that they said that they wanted, say at the very last minute, “Actually, you can take your hard-earned Bill, tear it up and throw it in the fire, because we have decided that we know a better way to do it.” If that were to happen today, the number of people on these islands who seriously doubt whether this place is fit as a legislature will grow. If the Bill falls for lack of time because somebody thought that it was clever to show how long they could talk for, knowing that the clear majority will of this House is for this Bill to go ahead, what should be one of the brightest days in the history of this place would soon become one of the darkest.

I appeal to Members to allow the Bill to pass, so that the thousands of men who continue to live with shame and guilt for something that they should never have felt ashamed or guilty of can live out their last days on earth knowing that they have been declared innocent of any wrongdoing and so that those for whom this decision has come too late will finally be allowed to rest eternally in peace.

12:33

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant). May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) on his earlier comments, which I think the whole House found extremely touching and very sincere. I also congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) on his success in the private Members’ Bill ballot and on introducing the Bill.

It would appear that we are tantalisingly close to getting a cross-party agreement that achieves the intent of so many stakeholders in this debate. I was honoured to be asked to support the Bill by the hon. Gentleman because it is entirely consistent not only with my values of a fair and tolerant Britain, but with a Conservative party manifesto commitment, in which we pledged to build on the posthumous pardon of Alan Turing with a broader measure to lift the blight of outdated convictions for homosexual acts and to introduce a new law that will pardon those—both alive and dead—who have suffered these wrongs. I note a “new law” and “pardon” in that phraseology, which is in the manifesto commitment on which I and others stood. Supporting the Bill was therefore not a difficult decision for me, because it is entirely consistent with the manifesto, yet we are now faced with not one but two Bills that aim to achieve that goal.

I was encouraged by the Government’s announcement yesterday that Lord Sharkey’s amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill will be adopted. This was no doubt spurred on by the hon. Gentleman’s Bill. Whichever of the Bills makes it on to the statute book, it will be an important and long-overdue step. It is extraordinary that there are men still alive today who live with the stigma of a criminal record for homosexual acts that are no longer illegal and in many cases have not been illegal since before I was born. It is 49 years since homosexuality was decriminalised in England, 36 years since it was decriminalised in Scotland, and 34 since it was decriminalised in Northern Ireland. We often pride ourselves in this place on leading public opinion, but in this matter we are woefully behind.

There are people who still find the idea of homosexuality uncomfortable, but I am sure that the vast majority of those who hold that view would still accept that there is a world of difference between being uncomfortable with the acts of others and believing such acts should be illegal. Personally, I do not believe that there is only so much love in the world that the Government need to step in and ration it, and dictate to consenting adults where it can and cannot occur.

Although homosexual acts are no longer illegal, the fact that the taint of criminal records for homosexuality still exists is completely out of kilter with modern, progressive and compassionate British society, and it is absolutely right that we take action to correct this.

Some people have expressed concern that such a Bill would lead to the pardoning of rapists and child molesters. That is obviously not the intent of anyone, and there are specific lines in the Bill stating that the pardoning must relate to consensual sex with over-16s only, and I assume that the Government’s Bill gives similar assurances.

I understand that there are also some concerns about the process of pardoning and whether a disregard process should be followed. I am confident that we can come to a reasonable consensus on all these points, and it seems that the only remaining issue is the process by which we avoid unintentionally pardoning those who should not be pardoned.

We have a golden opportunity for a cross-party Bill of huge actual and symbolic significance. I respectfully suggest therefore that Ministers and the hon. Gentleman work together on the details and final wording, so that we can pass a Bill that Members of both Houses and all parties can agree on, and do so as soon as possible.

I have the pleasure of serving alongside the hon. Gentleman on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. He has been in this House for only 18 months —just as long as I have—yet in this short time he has already made a great impact, and if he and the Government can come to an agreement to make the Bill work, he will have played a key role in securing a great legacy both for himself and for all of us currently serving in this place. I support both Bills, as many in this House do. I do not know which vehicle is the best one to get what we want, but I just wish we can get to a resolution very soon.

12:38

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

It is a genuine privilege to take part in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) on taking this subject forward as the topic for his Bill and making a powerful opening speech.

Many Members have spoken eloquently and persuasively about pardons and apologies, making the case for why we should pass the Bill today, and I do not intend to reiterate them. I want to focus on the important amendments to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 that are in clause 3, and to do so with reference to a constituent of mine who does want me to name him because, despite the anguish and pain that he has suffered over the years, he knows that he should not be ashamed for what he was cautioned for. His name is Timothy Churchill-Coleman.

In July 1995, Mr Churchill-Coleman was arrested on exiting a bar in Soho by several plainclothes policemen and was accused of soliciting and importuning under section 32 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. He denied the accusation and was taken to a police cell and pressured to sign a caution. Leaving aside the fact that he did not understand what he was being asked to sign, he remains adamant, and he is right, that he did nothing wrong.

Mr Churchill-Coleman has tried every measure imaginable to try to clear his name, both in personal representations to several police forces and through my offices. He was quite staggered to find out only last year that the offence for which he was cautioned remains an offence. Adding that offence to the disregard provisions of the 2012 Act is a necessary and urgent step that the Government must take and it is not contained in the Sharkey amendment. Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), have said that we are dancing on the head of a pin when it comes to the process. There are important measures in today’s Bill which, as I understand it, the Sharkey amendment does not even mention and they need to be legislated for.

Let us consider what the legislative intent of leaving in soliciting and importuning under section 32 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 means. I wrote to Home Office Ministers just several months, and the reply I received was that it remains a criminal offence and that the Government have no intention of amending the scope of the legislation. Soliciting and importuning—which judges have interpreted as any form of communication, ranging from verbal propositions to merely smiling and winking at a person of the same sex—will remain a criminal offence. That is incoherent and iniquitous and it must be changed as a matter of urgency. Logically, it means that gay bars, contact ads, dating agencies, phone lines and night clubs are all illegal and liable to be shut down, should the police interpret the law in the strict manner in which it is set down. In a country where homosexuality has been decriminalised and civil partnership is now legal, for the act of attempting to communicate with someone of the same sex for the purpose of homosexual relations to remain an offence is absurd.

That is why we have to pass this Bill, notwithstanding the very good arguments about the need to offer an apology and a pardon, not least to give constituents such as mine some redress. This stain on his record has been a blight on his life. It has made it extremely difficult for him to apply for jobs. He is a very qualified and talented special educational needs teacher and, in job interview after job interview, has had to suffer the indignity of having to mention this caution and try to explain it away. It is for people like him, as well as Alan Turing and all those who deserve a pardon and an apology, that the Minister should think again.

The hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) was right that the Minister has come forward with a somewhat slippery argument. I do not think it holds up. We can deal with many of the safeguarding concerns in Committee. I would urge Conservative Members who intend to abstain or vote against the Bill to think again and join us in the Lobby. Let us make an important symbolic statement and improve the lives of people such as my constituent.

12:43

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to speak in this debate. May I pay tribute to the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) for his choice of Bill and the way he has led this debate? I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) for his tone and his contribution. I know he is a man of absolute integrity and his words today really touched me.

It was also a privilege to witness my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), a true Yorkshireman, apologise to this Chamber. As a Welshman, I know how difficult that can be at times, but his words brought out the best of this House.

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), whose constituency is just up the road from mine, brought the debate home to us in this House by mentioning the shields in the Chamber of Members of the Commons that we look at every day when we debate.

Let me say to the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) that it is a great tribute to our country and society that, for those of our generation, if he does not mind my saying so—we have had many jokes about age today, but I think I am okay in saying that—many of the things we are talking about are alien concepts. For those of our generation, it is absolutely abhorrent to think that we did this as a society and as a Parliament, so it is a privilege to be a Member of Parliament at this time and to be righting these alien concepts. I think of my children, who are aged four and younger. As they grow up they will not have to tackle any of those alien concepts and they will not come out as gay or straight. They will simply go to school as human beings and members of our society.

Although I teasingly pointed out that this is not an English Bill but an English and Welsh Bill, I welcome the words of the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire about the Scottish Government acting at pace. Would it be wrong of me to wish that he were a Member of the Scottish Government and brought the same vigour to the issue in Scotland as he has done here?

We have been talking about the matter for a while but with much agreement. There is a hint of sadness that we are almost there—we are at the final hurdle—and I wish we could come together and agree the remaining elements. I stood on the Conservative party manifesto, which was clear on the issue, and I want the changes introduced as quickly as possible. That is why I welcomed the moves yesterday. I am glad heads were nodded to the amendment in the Policing and Crime Bill that will deliver that at pace and more quickly than a private Member’s Bill would. That is at the heart of the debate.

I want to dwell for a moment on the disregard process. I hope that in his contribution the Minister will refer to public awareness of what is on offer. There is a good argument for making people aware that they can apply for the disregard.

[John Nicolson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support, but he must realise that the age demographic of the men concerned is such that they will not apply for that. They will not open themselves up to the shame and humiliation of applying. The disregard is cloud cuckoo land: there has to be a blanket pardon for them to get comfort.

[Craig Williams]

That is the nub of the debate. We have to think of a way round because the Home Office has rejected several applications for the disregard process where the activity was non-consensual and others where the other party was under 16 at the time. The disregard process has offered a level of safety, but I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. I ask the Minister to address directly how we reach the demographic that we are talking about and how we ensure that they rightfully get the pardon and, beyond that, the disregard process, which clearly and irrevocably wipes away—

[Matthew Pennycook]

I have just named an offence—soliciting and importuning—which is not covered by the disregard process. I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that making that a criminal offence is now considered unjust by the House and by society. However, it is not covered by the scope of that process. Does he accept, therefore, that the disregard process has limitations that are addressed in this Bill?

[Craig Williams]

I listened closely to the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I hope the Minister, too, was listening.

[Mr Gyimah]

rose—

[Craig Williams]

I see my hon. Friend is about to prove that he was indeed listening.

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) made a passionate speech. On a point of clarification, section 32 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, to which he referred and which made soliciting and importuning a crime, was repealed in 2004. However, soliciting still remains a crime.

[Craig Williams]

I will leave that there.

The Liberal Democrat amendment that the Government accepted yesterday brings justice to the issue at pace, with checks and balances.

[Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

As Members we must recognise the importance of language. A Policing and Crime Bill is utterly inadequate for dealing with the issue. The language is fundamentally important. On the issue of the living as opposed to the dead, the Government’s position is intellectually and morally bankrupt.

[Craig Williams]

I have been paying tribute to the tone of the debate, although things seem to be going downhill. What my constituents want is justice and real action, not just words. We can debate rhetoric and words all we want, but my constituents put me here to get justice, and quickly—and yesterday’s agreement to the amendment is the quickest way to achieve that.

I have quietly trod around the issue of this being an England and Wales Bill and my wanting to see the same justice in Scotland. It is okay for SNP Members to question us on rhetoric and action, even though we agree with most of what is being proposed—we are actually changing something—but the Scottish Government need to go at pace as well. I am not going to sit here and take a lot of abuse on this issue when we are debating real action and the Scottish Government, I am afraid, are being quite slow.

[Joanna Cherry]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that last year the ILGA—the international lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex association, an international human rights organisation—named Scotland as the best country in Europe in which to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender? Will he take from that an assurance that the Scottish Government have these matters very much at the forefront of their mind?

[Craig Williams]

Of course I welcome that, and I hope that the United Kingdom as well as Scotland is seen in that vein around the world, and in respect of every community. I have pleasure in acknowledging Scotland’s achievement, but when you have been in government a while, as the SNP have in Scotland, you have to prove things with actions as well as words. You cannot just look to awards that you have been presented; you will be judged according to the legislation you put through and what has happened. [Interruption.] The fact that hon. Members are quoting political slogans—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. While the debate had a nicer tone, I allowed the “yous” to go unchecked. Will the hon. Gentleman remember that when he says “you”, he is referring to the Chair?

[Craig Williams]

I apologise unreservedly, Madam Deputy Speaker; I am being stoked by my SNP colleagues while trying to agree with them on a lot of things.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is worth putting on the record that we are having this debate as a result of a raffle, basically—the name of my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) was drawn out of a hat. If a Member of the Scottish Parliament wants to take forward a private Bill, they do it by building consensus, having an open consultation and showing consensus at every stage in the process. That contrast is particularly worth noting in the context of how this debate came about today.

[Craig Williams]

The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me. You have been in government; you did not need a raffle in Scotland—[Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, you really have me on the ropes now with this “you”. I will get to my point: the hon. Gentleman has made my point for me. In Scotland, there was no need for a raffle, so you could have done it.

I will now sit down after going back to where I started. I pay absolute tribute to the vast majority of the Bill and to the Government for conceding the amendment yesterday and wanting to see justice. I say again that I am so delighted to be a Member of a Parliament in which we discuss these concepts as alien and seek justice as a result.

12:53

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

Before I start, I want to get the sartorial bit of the debate out of the way as quickly as possible. I am not wearing pink because we are discussing gay men’s relationships: today is “wear it pink” day for breast cancer. I would have liked to see hon. Members all in pink. I ask those who came to the event that I hosted—I noted the queue; over 200 MPs came, dressed somewhat flamboyantly in their “wear it pink” photographs—to remember to tweet their photos later.

There has been a lot of humour today, but the issue is serious. Alan Turing was probably the individual who made the single biggest difference to the second world war. It has been estimated that he shortened the war by two years and saved 14 million lives. There were many heroes who suffered, and many heroes who lost their lives, but there is no other person we can identify like that. Unfortunately for him, of course, what he did at Bletchley Park was secret: he was not a hero, and he was not welcomed with tickertape, given a medal or anything else.

Alan Turing was not charged for having sex with someone under age, having sex in public or behaving in a lewd way. Having been burgled, and having had to call on the public service of the police—when it, of course, became obvious that he lived with his partner—he and his partner were charged with gross indecency. His partner was let off, but Alan Turing ended up pleading guilty under legal advice. He was given the brutal choice of going to prison or facing medical castration. He was injected for a year with diethylstilbestrol, which causes the growth of breast tissue, impotence and depression. It is no little wonder that he took his life with cyanide two years later.

On top of that, one of the things that was probably very important to Alan Turing was that he lost his security clearance. He was allowed, technically, to stay in his job and to write academic papers, but as a cryptographer—as one of the leaders in developing computer technology—what he did was so much part of him that it was also his identity. Therefore, his identity at work and his identity in his person were removed.

The idea of sexual orientation change efforts has, sadly, not disappeared, and is still practised in many parts of the world. It is still advertised in America, and there are still people in this country—people with healthcare connections—who believe that homosexuality can be cured. Therefore, the idea that we are talking about a parallel to witchcraft from medieval times, and that the issue we are discussing is just technical, is not true. Many people were tortured. Aversion therapy included giving people nausea-inducing drugs while showing them pictures of male homosexual sex. Some people were electrocuted, some were burned and some had all sorts of horrible things done to them. We need to realise that these people were systematically tortured by the state and by health services. That was not that long ago. I was alive when the law changed—a few of us here were. This is not about medieval times. As Stonewall showed in its survey last year, there are still people associated with healthcare practice—perhaps on the edges—who believe these things. We need to be very clear about that.

We have seen the whole approach change. The hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) was so honest and so moving in talking about how he had changed. That is what we have seen. It is not just a matter of social change; what we do in this place drives social change. Equal marriage has helped to change society. However, the anomaly we are talking about is still here, and a small amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill will simply not do what this Bill does. I am not talking about process; process can be sorted in whatever way necessary in Committee. We should not be arguing on the head of a pin.

Voting this Bill through sends a message. As the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) said, it is not the case, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said earlier, that being gay is not an issue in schools. Actually, it still is. There are lots of young people hiding it, struggling with it and in pain with it. If we vote against the Bill today, or if we talk it out because of some piece of trickery, the message we send out will be appalling.

We also need to take on our responsibility—I do not talk about this much—for the Commonwealth. We hosted the Commonwealth Games two years ago in Glasgow. In the run-up to them, we had all the discussion about the countries where people are persecuted and imprisoned that are part of the United Kingdom Commonwealth. For the mother of Parliaments, which is heard all across those countries, to talk this Bill out, or to vote it down, sends an appalling message. We have seen how a vote to leave the European Union has empowered people who are in a tiny minority to feel somehow enabled to take actions of race hate or, indeed, homophobia. Our saying, “We don’t think we should do this”, would give exactly the same feeling of empowerment across the country.

I am sorry, but the two things are not equivalent. It is not just a matter of speed—of taking a few months. These men have waited five decades. We should do them the honour of trying to get it right and get the biggest impact. People have campaigned, and not just for Alan Turing. We have pardoned him, but it is our job to make sure that all the other silent heroes who have suffered in the past are pardoned as well. I call on Conservative Members not to use some technical thing to oppose this or feel uncomfortable about supporting it. Abstaining will not do it; voting against it will not do it. We as a House need to send this through with a massive majority so that our voice cannot be ignored in any part of the world.

13:00

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the powerful speech by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) and the speech by the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook). I spoke after the latter when we both made our maiden speeches. He made a thoughtful speech then and has done so today. Above all, I compliment the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) on his excellent speech. He brought personal experience, passion and even humour to a very serious subject. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) said, he may go down in history in association with this Bill. In any event, he has gone down in the annals of this place as the person who transformed Edwina Currie—no mean feat.

Like the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire, I too was born in the ’60s, although clearly I am less well preserved. In preparing for this debate, I looked for the first time at the Wolfenden report, which was published some 11 years before I was born. The circumstances it describes makes it sound like a report produced in a previous century, as do the elaborate preparations necessitated by the laws of the time to allow gay men, in secret, using pseudonyms such as “Mr White” or “The Doctor”, to present evidence. The report is damning, but also so humane that it is a wonder that it took a further 10 years for English law to be amended in 1967. I find it incredible that it was not until 1980 that the law changed in Scotland, and still later in Northern Ireland.

[Joanna Cherry]

It is a matter of regret that the law did not change in Scotland until 1981, but the hon. Gentleman will be aware that for many years prior to that the Crown Office had a policy of not prosecuting these offences.

[Jeremy Quin]

I was not aware, and I am grateful to be informed. It did seem extraordinary, and am pleased to hear that that was the case, although I know that the hon. and learned Lady will think that symbolism is also very important.

That it took so long is an indictment in itself, but the laws passed in here in ’67 started a long process that continued in 2015 with the Government’s welcome removal, in the Armed Forces Act 2016, of homosexuality as a ground for discharging a member of the armed forces. Changes in legislation, I hope and believe, have not only reflected a changing mood in the British people but, as the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire said, helped to reinforce and lead a change in mood—a profound change for the better.

By background, I am a historian, if a much less professional one than some of those who grace the Benches on both sides of this House. I would like to say that studying British history produces nothing other than a cosy Whiggite reassurance of the inevitable progress of a great nation, with improvements in economic, social and welfare provisions, a shift in sensibility, a growing liberal acceptance of our differences, and the humane adaption of the law—well, up to a point. However, no one can read social history and not be appalled by the attitudes of our forebears so often entrenched in laws passed by this House. Nowhere is historic injustice more apparent than in the attitude that in every aspect of life, the state had a role, and indeed an obligation, to legislate for personal morality—an attitude that Wolfenden had to fight to change. That had direct inhumane consequences, such as the offences under discussion this morning, as well as indirect victims, perhaps most poignantly those affected by the bastardy laws.

I was shocked by the speech of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I was shocked not only by the fact that he was once a Conservative—that was a welcome revelation—but by what he said about Neville Chamberlain, whom I had always rather admired. Neville Chamberlain was the person who came to this House in 1920 with legislation, which was challenging at the time, to reform the Bastardy Acts. The fact that he took the inhumane step of attacking his own Back Benchers for being homosexual shocks me, and it was a case of double standards.

We can wonder what our predecessors were thinking, but it is perhaps more sobering to consider what our successors might think of us. The historical events that we are discussing lead to a genuine and difficult dilemma. It is the role of this House to overturn injustice, to condemn bad laws and to lead the way against prejudice, but my fear in the past has been that to attempt to address all the wrongs would be an all-encompassing and overwhelming burden for the House. Focusing too much on redressing the problems of the old might prevent us from being a forward-looking Chamber doing what is needful to build a modern country. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Hon. Members may be disappointed by what I say next. I had hoped that for those convicted of an historical offence, although it would not heal the pain of conviction or have a practical impact on the experience of having a criminal record, the knowledge that Parliament had abolished the offences would provide some succour. Two things have persuaded me that that is insufficient, however.

The first thing that has persuaded me is the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. I recognise fully that no matter how antediluvian the legislation under which an individual was convicted, a proper process is required through which the historical record should be amended. The second thing is the royal pardon granted to Alan Turing in 2013 by Her Majesty the Queen. That royal pardon was said at the time to be an exceptional case for a truly exceptional man, and no one could disagree. Here was a man who could lay claim to being one of the founders of the modern technical age, and whose actions may well have shortened the war by two years, saving many lives—I had written tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of lives, but the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire has raised the stakes considerably and I have no reason to challenge the millions to which she referred. And yet the state that Mr Turing served so well confronted him with the choice of jail or chemical castration—a choice that, as the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) pointed out, may well have led to his tragic early death.

The royal pardon—a pardon I fully endorse—gives rise to an obvious dilemma. Many hundreds of exceptional men were convicted of similar offences, as were more men who were not exceptional; they were normal, average people going about their lives. How can one be pardoned and not the rest? It is one thing to say to anyone convicted of an offence that they have been subject to grievous historical injustice but they are not alone, for they are in honoured company, but as soon as we start removing the honoured company because they are somehow special, the argument falls. It was right and proper to recognise the injustice done to Alan Turing, so it must be right and proper to recognise the injustice done to others.

I was, therefore, pleased that the manifesto on which I stood—I was going to quote it, but my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire has already done so—made it clear that the Conservative party stood full square behind the principle of seeking reform in this area. I welcome the fact that that commitment is being made real in the other place with amendments tabled in Committee to the Policing and Crime Bill by the noble Lord Sharkey. The Government support those amendments, which substantially reproduce clauses 3(2)(c) and 3(3) of the Bill we are debating by amending the 2012 Act.

I am delighted that whether or not this Bill makes it on to the statute book, we will have the benefit of belt and braces. Some good will come of this debate. I again congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire on introducing the Bill. It is generous of him to use his slot to introduce legislation that would have an impact only on England and Wales, and which would therefore be less likely to have an impact on his constituents. That speaks volumes about his commitment to and passion for the subject.

I understand that, however well-intentioned the Bill, the Government believe it suffers from technical flaws and that in particular it may lead to pardons automatically being granted to individuals who committed acts that remain illegal. I appreciate that Bill’s proposer has attempted to address those concerns in clause 1 and clause 2(4)(c), which specifically state that offences will be excluded from the provisions of the Bill in the event that they remain an offence on the date that it becomes law. The Bill also makes clear the requirement for consent.

My understanding is that the Government’s concern that offences that would automatically be pardoned under the Bill may not have passed the tests required under the 2012 disregard provisions. I appreciate that the Government have a difficult path to walk and would not wish to send the wrong message from this place; I am sure that they would not wish to impugn those seeking a pardon because of some isolated cases. I appreciate that the Sharkey amendment, which itself could be amended in this place, may be a less symbolic or glamourous way of securing the changes that I believe nearly all of us want to see, but it may be the most effective. Having said that, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire produced a possible route for addressing the Government’s concerns in Committee. I look forward to the Minister’s winding up speech.

13:10

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) on bringing forward this Bill. May I give particular praise to a number of speeches we have heard in the Chamber today? It is unfair to single people out, but I am going to, because I think there have been some brilliant speeches. I will highlight four: those of the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire himself, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and my hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams). They all made fantastic contributions to the debate in their own different ways.

I will say at the start that, despite what I would say is my rather unfair reputation, I have no intention of taking the clock down to 2.30 pm today. I am as keen to hear from the Minister as everyone else. But it is important that those of us who do not particularly support the Bill have an opportunity to express why. We have heard today that everyone agrees and shares the same sentiment—I will make this clear right from the word go—of the principles involved here as far as I see them; if we are asking whether the fact that someone is gay should ever have been a crime in any shape or form, the answer is quite clearly no, of course not. Should we think any less of anyone who was ever convicted of any of these crimes? No, of course we should not. I hope and believe that everyone in this House can take that as read.

The issue is whether we get involved in having a widespread and blanket pardon for these particular offences. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) said of the approach taken by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), this is not quite as easy as it looks.

The hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) has unfortunately just left the Chamber, but I want to put on the record my praise for her intervention. I thought in that brief intervention she made one of the most powerful contributions in this debate. She made two very good points that should weigh heavily on the House. Her first powerful point was about whether a gay person should ever have to come out. Of course they should not. People’s sexual orientation is absolutely irrelevant. The moment when this country gets to the stage when sexual orientation is an irrelevance cannot come soon enough in my opinion. Like the hon. Lady, I look forward to the day when no one ever has to come out as gay.

The hon. Lady’s second point, specifically in relation to the Bill, was very powerful and is something that the Government might wish to consider; I would not say that it has changed my mind about the Bill, but it has certainly weighed heavily with me. As she said, this Bill having its Second Reading, going into Committee, then coming back for Report and Third Reading would inevitably mean that these issues gain more scrutiny in the House than if an amendment were simply accepted in the House of Lords and came back to the Commons for a debate of an hour or two, maximum—perhaps not even that—and was in effect nodded through without any further scrutiny. There is some merit in that point. The Government might want to consider it. I had not given it much thought before, but I thought she made that point very well.

I must say that when I first heard about this Bill, my initial reaction was to think that it sounded as if it should be titled, “The Re-writing of History Bill”—a concept with which I am not generally comfortable. Plenty of ugly, evil and wrong things have happened in the past, but they are what they are. It is very easy for us in the House today to criticise people who were here in the past—I did it at the start of my speech when I said that these things should never have been a crime—but there will be things that we pass in this House with the best of intentions about which MPs will doubtless come along in 100 years’ time and say, “It is absolutely disgusting that they passed those laws and offences at that time, and they should have been ashamed of themselves for doing it”.

We should always be slightly wary of imposing our modern-day judgments on the past—it is easy to do, but not always fair to the people who made decisions on the basis of what they thought were in the best interests of the country at the time. We obviously think they were wrong, but they thought they were doing what was right at the time.

[Dr Philippa Whitford]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think that we should be a bit more concerned with people who are still alive and suffering, rather than our own vainglory in the future when we are dead?

[Philip Davies]

I was coming on to that point. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire made a fair point in that respect, but if the hon. Lady will forgive me, I shall come on to deal with her point in a few moments.

I was saying that we should be wary of getting into the habit—it seems that we are already in it—of always being anxious to apologise for things that other people have done in the past. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty, who is clearly a notable exception, we rarely apologise for the things that we have done. I suspect that the public are usually keener for us to apologise for the mistakes that we have made rather than taking the easy option of apologising for the mistakes that we think people made hundreds of years ago. Tony Blair is a prime example. He was very keen to apologise for slavery that somebody else had done hundreds of years previously, but he would not apologise for the mess he left in Iraq following the Iraq war. I suspect that most people would regard it as more worth while for him to apologise for the decisions that he took, rather than for the decisions that others took many years previously. I do not generally like that particular approach to politics, but I leave it there.

Although my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Craig Williams) was slightly chastised for it, I think he was absolutely right to pull up our friends from the Scottish National party for coming here and chastising the Minister for introducing something late in the day, going very slowly and all the rest of it. The Bill applies only to England and Wales, and the Minister is going virtually all the way that the SNP would like him to go—not fully, I appreciate, but he is going an awful long way to meet their requests. It is slightly churlish of SNP Members not to have given the Minister more credit for that.

Moreover, the Scottish Administration have not introduced this law, even though they have had plenty of opportunity to do so. It would be interesting to carry out a freedom of information request to see how many letters the Scottish Government have received from SNP MPs about introducing this particular law in the Scottish Parliament. SNP Members should be wary of criticising this Government, who have clearly gone a lot further than the SNP Administration have in Scotland. A bit of humility on that particular point would not have gone amiss.

On the substance, I said that the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire made a good point—it was a rhetorical flourish, but still a good point—when he said that we should be more concerned about the living than the dead. There is something in that. The problem is that once we start going down this route, it becomes difficult to stop the juggernaut in its process. It can become difficult if people try to draw distinctions. For example, once we have pardoned Dr Alan Turing—I have not heard anyone say that that should not have happened—it becomes an intellectual nonsense to deprive other people of the same pardon who were convicted of exactly the same offences but did not have such an exciting life and achieve as much in their jobs as he did. Dr Alan Turing’s sexuality is irrelevant to his achievements. It should not have been because of his achievements that he was pardoned; he was pardoned for something which, as far as I can see, was irrelevant to them, and if he is pardoned for that, it becomes very difficult not to pardon other people.

I think the point that the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire was rightly making is that once the Government have accepted that people who are deceased should be pardoned, it then becomes very difficult intellectually to ask why the same should not apply to people who are still alive. That is a fair point, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to it.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about the juggernaut and the various stages that might ensue. However, as my hon. Friend made clear in his speech, this is essentially a victimless crime. What possible harm can it do—rather than good, of course—to pardon people who, in essence, committed no crime at all?

[Philip Davies]

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s sentiment, and I made that clear at the outset. My point is that the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire has selected a certain group of offences. My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) made a very fair point, which people ought to consider. In the past, many other offences have been committed which I would term victimless crimes.

[Stewart Hosie]

Such as?

[Philip Davies]

The metric martyrs are a prime example. Steve Thoburn sadly died with a criminal conviction for selling produce in imperial measures. That, I would argue, was a victimless crime. The customers were perfectly happy to buy the produce and Steve Thoburn was happy to sell it. There was no victim, but he died with a criminal conviction. He still has a criminal conviction. He has not been posthumously pardoned.

[John Nicolson]

I am sorry, but I am struggling to make the connection with the metric martyrs, whom I do not recall being chemically castrated, arrested or tortured. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will remind me of that detail, which I have forgotten.

[Philip Davies]

I was not aware that the hon. Gentleman’s Bill applied only to people who had been chemically castrated and tortured. Is he now saying that that is the case? The point that he is making is a complete nonsense, and he must know that. I was responding to an intervention from the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), who asked whether there were any examples of victimless crimes committed by people who had a criminal record and had not been pardoned, and I gave him a perfectly good example. Moreover, he was nodding in agreement when I gave him that example. [Interruption.] The Scottish National party has become so dominant in Scotland that SNP Members are not used to hearing alternative opinions. I am sorry that they are so intolerant of anyone who holds a different opinion from theirs. It does not reflect well on them.

My point is this. I think that the Bill would have been easier to justify if it had included all past offences and all past convictions for crimes which are no longer crimes, and which were victimless. That would have been a perfectly logical thing to do. I think it is very difficult to pick out only certain crimes to justify the Bill, rather than including all convictions for offences of that kind.

[Lyn Brown]

I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. At the beginning of his speech, he informed us that we might not be listening to one of his lengthy contributions, and said that he would sit down shortly in order to enable the Front Benchers to present their arguments. May I ask how long he thinks he might be? I ask simply because I want to put on record, very forcefully, the support of the Opposition Front Bench for the Bill, and I am worried that I shall not be able to get to my feet in order to do so.

[Philip Davies]

We have an hour and five minutes left. About three hours have been taken up by people speaking in favour of the Bill. I have fielded four or five interventions during my brief comments so far. If people do not intervene on my speech, I will be able to get through it a bit quicker. It would be a sad state of affairs and a sad day for our democracy if the only speeches that were allowed to be heard in a debate were those in favour of the Bill. I am not sure if that is what the hon. Lady is arguing for. She has put on record her support for the Bill, and if she wants to say any more, she is very welcome to do so.

I am going to conclude my remarks, but it is important that the concerns that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe had while in government, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs described earlier, should be given a hearing. Legislation of this kind, and even the measure that the Government have agreed to in the Lords, will open up the probability of, and certainly the justification for, pardoning people who have been convicted of other crimes that are no longer criminal offences, and which we do not believe should be criminal offences, particularly those that were victimless crimes.

I hope that the Minister will address this point and tell us whether the Government intend to go further down this route, or whether they intend to finish here with these particular offences, in which case I would like to hear the logic behind that. For example, there are people who were found guilty of attempting to commit suicide when it was a criminal offence to do so. Are they not worthy of a pardon? I do not see why we should cherry-pick certain offences when there is a whole range of others that could be added to the list. People should be able to express these views.

I shall conclude my remarks, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I did promise you and the House that I would not speak for a great length of time. I think we all agree with the sentiment behind the Bill. Should these offences ever have been crimes? Obviously not. Should we think any less of the people who were convicted of them? No, we should not. But we cannot pass laws in this House that are simply based on worthy sentiment. Nor can we pass laws simply to send out a signal or some kind of message, despite the fact that we have heard this intention expressed in almost every speech so far today. If we want to send a message or a signal, that should be done by making a speech. Passing legislation is a very different thing.

The question should be whether this is the right kind of legislation. Should we go over these cases again? Will the Minister tell us how easy it will be to go through every single case in order to ascertain whether the activity that took place at the time still constitutes an offence today? For example, certain activities carried out in public still constitute an offence today. How will we know, when we look back over the records, whether a particular offence took place in public and would therefore still constitute an offence today? If that detail was not relevant to the prosecution at the time, it might never have been logged.

We should not underestimate the practical difficulties that will be involved, and I hope that the Minister will be able to explain how they will be dealt with. When we pass legislation, it should involve practical things that have to happen rather than worthy sentiments, and I hope that he will reflect on the detail involved. If the Bill goes into Committee and comes back here on Report, I hope that the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire will engage genuinely with the people who agree with his sentiments but have issues about the practical application of the legislation. I can see from the detail of his Bill that he has tried to address some of these points. I acknowledge that he has done that, and I hope that he—unlike some of those who have been making sedentary commentaries about my speech—will accept that while we genuinely appreciate the sentiment behind his Bill, we feel that it is important to get the detail right. I hope he accepts that we want to do this for the right reason, and not just to send a message or as a form of gesture politics that will make us all look good and feel good about ourselves. That is not the purpose of legislation in this House. We all share the same sentiment, but I hope he will engage constructively with people who hold a different opinion.

The hon. Member for Livingston is back in her place, so I want to tell her that her earlier intervention was fantastic and that I hope the Minister will address her point. Instead of just accepting a Lords amendment that will receive virtually no scrutiny in this House, we can perhaps consider the Bill in more detail if it goes through to Committee.

13:30

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It is fair to say that we have had an extensive debate with many excellent speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) picked out four of them and I agree with all those choices. I particularly enjoyed the entertaining, moving and informative speech of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I am sure the whole House enjoyed it, too.

I genuinely congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) on winning the private Members’ Bill ballot. Some Members who have been in the House for many more years than he has have entered many times without enjoying the same success. Without wanting to sour that genuine note of congratulation, it was noted that the Bill was published very late in the day.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way so early in his speech. A number of questions have been asked about a blanket pardon for the living, including, “Why don’t the Government just go ahead and do it?” I understand that there might be a closure motion, so I want to put it on the record that the crime was gross indecency and that many other crimes were prosecuted at a much higher level. Therefore, we could be granting a pardon to people who are ostensibly guilty of gross indecency, but some elements of that are still crimes today and go far beyond the scope of the Bill. That is why the Government propose a disregard process for the living followed by a statutory pardon.

[Mr Nuttall]

I do not think that intervention calls for a response from me. The Minister wanted to place that comment on the record and has done so.

To finish the remark I was making, I hope that, when the time comes, the House accepts, as the Government have, the Procedure Committee’s recommendation that

“the deadline for printing a Bill… be brought forward to the Wednesday of the week prior to the day of the second reading.”

The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) reminded us of the irony that the first ever private Member’s Bill brought by a member of the Scottish National party extends only to England and Wales. That will not be lost on anyone. It is a smart move by the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire because it sends a signal—the Bill is all about sending signals—that everything in his constituency is fantastic. There must be no problems in East Dunbartonshire that require a legislative solution. Thousands of people will be rushing to live there.

It is worth considering that the situation in Scotland is different from that in England and Wales. As we know, criminal law operates on a different basis there. Dr Jeffrey Meek, a lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow, published an article on 23 February last year on the “Queer Scotland” website, which specialises in articles on the history and culture of the lesbian and gay community in Scotland. The article was entitled “The 49,000: ‘Pardons & Homosexual Offences’, a Scottish Perspective”. The 49,000 figure is an estimate of the number of men prosecuted for gross indecency and other historical crimes. Dr Meek wrote:

“Unlike what occurred in England there were relatively few successful prosecutions for private consensual sex between adult males north of the border during the 20th century; indeed it was a policy of successive Lords Advocate in Scotland not to prosecute private, consensual sex between men.”

Does that mean that no men were prosecuted on account of their being gay? As Dr Meek pointed out in his article:

“The main focus of the law was upon men who engaged in sex in public spaces: in ‘cottages’, tenement closes, parks; and men who sold sex on the streets of Scotland’s urban centres. This was not the result of ‘liberal thinking’ but was chiefly the result of evidential requirements under Scots Law.”

[Mike Weir]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

13:37

Division 71

Ayes: 57

---

Scottish National Party: 31
Labour: 18
Conservative: 7
Independent: 1

Noes: 0

---

Debated resumed.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful that the House decided it wishes to hear some more from me this morning, but I will try to keep my remarks short nevertheless. I cannot understand why the House would want to end my speech.

I have one or two specific things to say about the Bill before we hear from the Minister, as I am sure the whole House wishes to do before very long. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, my primary concern about the Bill is that it attempts to rewrite history. As we have heard a number of Members say, many things have happened in our history that we all wish had not happened, but we have to take history as we find it; we have to accept that the past was as it was and not how we perhaps would have it if we could rewrite that history today.

The Bill is unnecessary in many regards. We should not assume everybody who is gay thinks that it is a good idea. Mention was made earlier—by the Bill’s promoter, I think—of George Montague, the gay rights campaigner and author of the book “The Oldest Gay in the Village”. He has said:

“I will not accept a pardon. To accept a pardon means you accept that you were guilty. I was not guilty of anything. I was only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. My name was on the ‘queer list’, which the police had in those days, and I will not accept a pardon. I think it was wrong to give Alan Turing, one of my heroes of my life…a pardon. What was he guilty of? He was guilty of the same as what they call me guilty of: being born only able to fall in love with another man.”

I am sure Mr Montague cannot be the only gay man who takes that view. There must be others. Are we going to force a pardon on someone who does not want to be pardoned?

There is also the crucial difference between a disregard and a pardon. The aim of a disregard is to treat the individual concerned, for all purposes in law, as if he had not committed the offence or been convicted of it. The latest information, as revealed in response to a parliamentary question, is that a total of 242 individuals made disregard applications in respect of some 317 cases —some applied in respect of more than one case— between October 2012 and April 2016. Of those 317 cases, 83 were accepted for a disregard, 233 were rejected and one was still pending resolution when the Government responded. In view of the definition of what happens when someone successfully applies for a disregard, that raises the question whether, if the Bill becomes law, the automatic pardon would apply to them. I am not being difficult or awkward—this is a genuine point—but those who support the Bill may wish to consider whether it is worth clarifying in the Bill whether the pardon would apply to those who had already been accepted for a statutory disregard.

The same point applies to the proposal that the Minister wants to be introduced in the other place. It was not clear when I read the press release whether those who apply for a disregard will be granted an automatic pardon or whether they will be given the option of ticking a box on the application form to say, “Yes, I also want a pardon.” There may be others like Mr Montague who say, “I want the disregard, but I don’t want the pardon because I don’t accept that I did anything wrong.”

Many more things could be said about the Bill, but I said that I would allow time to hear from the Front Benchers and I intend to do that. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

13:54

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I had written a much longer and obviously well-crafted speech, full of pearls of wisdom and eloquence, but as I want to give the Minister an opportunity not only to be heard but, I hope, even at this late stage to accept this Bill or at the very least indicate that he will go from this House today and engage in genuine discussions about amendments to the Bill that will make it acceptable to the Government, I shall not speak for as long as I had intended. I and so many more people in the House and elsewhere will be disappointed if the Government do not show themselves to understand what is being spoken about today and make a genuine effort to meet those concerns.

Roughly 75,000 men were prosecuted for gross indecency between 1885 and the partial legalisation of homosexuality in 1967. Thousands more had to live their lives in secrecy and fear, and to hide who they were, for risk of prosecution. It was inhumane and unjust. The pain caused by these indecency laws can never be undone, and the relationships and lives that were lost can never be recovered, but this Bill does what we can do, which is to partly correct a grave injustice. The Bill grants a pardon to those convicted of sexual offences for acts that are no longer criminalised. It is our way of recognising that we made a mistake, that we caused trauma among innocents, and that we ruined lives. Inadequate though it may be, it is our only way of saying sorry.

We have heard many moving tributes today to Alan Turing and others whom the laws drove to their death, and it is rightly a source of national shame, but Alan Turing was just one wronged gay man among thousands. The British state owes an apology and a pardon to the ordinary men who were criminalised for being who they were, just as much as it owed an apology to Alan Turing. After all, we apologised to Turing not only because he is a national hero, though he clearly is, but because he patently did nothing wrong.

To be fair to the Government, in the past they have recognised that these convictions were wrong. They not only granted the pardon to Turing, but in 2012 they passed the Protection of Freedoms Act. That Act allowed those with convictions under these indecency laws to apply for their conviction to be disregarded and effectively expunged from the record, so long as their application is approved by the Secretary of State. The disregard scheme was a welcome development, particularly as it allowed those prosecuted under these uncivilised laws to apply for work without the blight of a criminal record, but it does not go far enough.

The disregard scheme relies upon the victims of injustice making an application themselves. Relatives of the deceased cannot make applications on behalf of their family member, nor, obviously, can the deceased apply for a disregard themselves. It is therefore of no use to the families of the approximately 50,000 men who were prosecuted for gross indecency and who are now deceased. The Minister must know of the pain that exists in families long after the event, and that families sometimes need the closure that this Bill would allow.

The disregard scheme puts the onus on those who are living to go out and apply for their conviction to be disregarded. I want to stress that, for many, going through the disregard process opens up so many old wounds, and reminds them of a time in their life that they may well wish to put behind them. I imagine that at this point in their life they do not wish to rake up all that old hurt, pain, humiliation and fear. It must be enormously stressful. The onus should be on the legislators to take action, because it is the law that was wrong.

The Bill before us deals with these problems. Clause 2 automatically grants a pardon to all those convicted of a list of sexual offences that have since been repealed. It is really important that the Minister grasps that point. Clause 3 will allow family members of the deceased to apply for a disregard. If the Bill is enacted, all those convicted under those laws would be pardoned whether they were living or deceased and all could go through the disregard process if a family member wished to pursue that.

On Wednesday, the Government signed an amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill in the Lords that would achieve most, but not all, those things. Lord Sharkey’s amendment would grant a pardon to all the deceased who had been charged under the relevant offences, but not—and this is crucial—to the living. The living would have to apply for a disregard and only then would they be granted a pardon. The onus would be placed right back on the victims of injustice, which, I worry, rather reduces the quality of the apology being offered.

The Minister explained the Government’s approach to the press. He said:

“A blanket pardon, without the detailed investigations carried out by the Home Office under the disregard process, could see people guilty of an offence which is still a crime today claiming to be pardoned. This would cause an extraordinary and unnecessary amount of distress to victims”.

None in this House would want there to be a pardon for anyone guilty of serious sexual offences, but I am a little confused by the Government’s reasoning. The private Member’s Bill, as drafted, relies on a list of sexual offences for which someone is granted a pardon, none of which is a crime any longer. It also contains a separate clause that clearly states:

“Nothing in this Act is to be interpreted as pardoning, disregarding or in any other way affecting cautions, convictions, sentences or any other consequences of convictions or cautions for conduct or behaviour that is unlawful on the date that the Act comes into force.”

Given those safeguards, it is not clear to me how the Bill would lead to pardons for those guilty of an offence that is still a crime today—unless the Minister merely means that people will be able falsely and deceptively to claim to have been pardoned when they have not been.

[Craig Whittaker]

Something is not clear to me. If someone has previously been committed of having under-age sex, for example, how can we today determine whether such a previous conviction is still a crime? Anyone having sex with a minor today is committing a crime. However, that would not be clear from past criminal activity.

[Lyn Brown]

The Bill is really clear: if a past offence is an offence today, there will be no pardon. Having sex with somebody under-age is still an offence. Anybody who committed an offence that is still an offence today would clearly not be pardoned.

[Craig Whittaker]

rose—

[Lyn Brown]

I will not give way again; I am coming to a conclusion and I genuinely think we should hear from the Minister. However, I say to the hon. Gentleman that the issue is not sufficient to warrant rejection of the Bill. We should be taking the Bill through Committee. If there are genuine problems of wording, it can be amended. If what the hon. Gentleman raises remains an issue, the Bill can be amended. That is what the Committee and Report stages are for—it is what we do here all the time.

If the Bill is imperfect, let us perfect it in Committee. That is where we do things such as this. Why is this Bill any different? None of us disagrees with the principles behind the Bill. The Minister is worried about unintended consequences. That can be dealt with. Let us take the Bill to Committee, change it and make it fit for purpose. I urge the Minister, even at this very last moment, to allow the Bill into Committee, where we can change it if necessary and bring it back for this House to pass.

14:04

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I thank the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) for bringing this important issue to the House. I also thank Stonewall and other groups that have campaigned vigorously on LGBT issues over the years, and to which we owe a lot of credit for the progress that has been made.

There have been some fantastic speeches today. I will not go through all of them, but I would like to single out the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams). As he said, it is not usual for Yorkshiremen to admit they have made mistakes, but it is even less usual for politicians to admit that. He very graciously came out of the closet in favour of same-sex marriage in his speech.

[Hannah Bardell]

In saying those words, does the Minister not recognise that, in years to come, he may well reflect on the words he is about to say and that he is perhaps about to get it wrong?

[Mr Gyimah]

I have done a number of these private Members’ Bills on Fridays, and it is very unusual to be doing one where the choice before the House is not the private Member’s Bill or no Bill at all, but the private Member’s Bill or a legislative vehicle—the Police and Crime Bill—that will help us achieve our aims much faster so that we can deliver justice. However, there is also an important point. It is not for nothing that they say, “You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.” Intentions are not good enough when it comes to making law; we have to think through the unintended consequences of law, and that is what the Government’s approach tries to do.

[Philip Davies]

Perhaps the Minister would also like to make the point that if 100 MPs out of 650 had turned up to support the Bill, it would have got its Second Reading without any trouble at all. The problem is that it does not have the support of 100 MPs.

[Mr Gyimah]

We did not have 100 MPs go through the Division Lobby earlier. We have also had a substantial debate in which people in favour of the private Member’s Bill have spoken for well over three hours.

[Wes Streeting]

Because we have had so many contributions, time is short. The last time I was here for a private Member’s Bill with the Minister, he—entirely inadvertently, I am sure—talked it out. He still has over 20 minutes to address the issues. Can he commit to concluding his remarks so that we can have a vote on the Second Reading? Otherwise, it will not be his friends who are blamed for talking the Bill out. His words will ring hollow if he is the one who talks it out.

[Mr Gyimah]

I can commit to setting out the Government’s case clearly and comprehensively. As I said, the choice before us is not this Bill or no action at all.

I was proud to announce yesterday the introduction of legislation posthumously to pardon thousands of gay and bisexual men convicted of now-abolished sexual offences. Not enough has been said of what was a big and momentous step by the Government yesterday. Many contributions today have glossed over that fact and tried to present the issue as one on which the Government have taken no action at all. This issue has been a big challenge for 50 years. Homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967. Yesterday’s announcement was one of the biggest steps that has been taken since then, and it has been taken by this Government.

The issue was brought home to me when my office received a phone call from a lady whose stepbrother was convicted under these archaic anti-gay laws. She was so delighted that their shared mother, who was close to 100, has lived to see her stepbrother pardoned. That is a momentous step. To those who are making out—they are tweeting at the moment—that, somehow, the Government are not being progressive in this area, I say that the truth is that the Government are not dragging their feet or being hesitant in taking action. The Government’s legislative vehicle will deliver what we all want, which is to right this historic wrong quicker than any other method. By using a Government vehicle, we protect these measures from filibustering and from the vagaries of parliamentary time, and ensure that they get on to the statute book.

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gyimah]

If you want me to finish, you might as well allow me to get through my speech.

In 2012, we introduced changes to the law to clear anyone still living and previously convicted of these now-abolished offences under the Home Office disregard process. Disregarding is a powerful tool in changing lives, as it removes any mention of a criminal offence. However, our announcement means that we will go one step further and introduce a new statutory pardon for those who have successfully had offences deleted through the disregard process.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

The number of convictions compared with the number of people who have taken up the offer of disregards is very low. Do the Government have any plans to publicise the disregard programme so that more people could take up that option?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point.

In the Government’s scheme, the living do not get a blanket pardon but apply for a disregard process. At the start of this debate, I offered to work with the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire, MOJ officials and the Home Office to make sure that the disregard process is as effective as it can be. In addressing this, we need to think not only about those who were unjustly convicted of a crime but potential victims. Not having a disregard process and offering a blanket pardon means that we do not take into account the needs of potential victims.

[Mike Weir]

I do not quite understand the Minister’s point. It is possible that someone who is now deceased and gets an automatic pardon is in exactly the same position as someone who is still alive, and there could be a potential victim there, so why is he making this strange distinction between the two?

[Mr Gyimah]

It is a very important point, and the answer is very simple. Someone who is living who received the blanket pardon could volunteer in a school where they committed something that is still an offence—for example, sex with a minor—so there is a bigger onus on us to get this right.

[Mike Weir]

rose—

[Joanna Cherry]

rose—

[Mr Gyimah]

I will take your interventions in a moment, but may I first develop my argument?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. I remind the Minister that when he says “you”, he is referring to the Chair. In these sorts of heated debates, things can get quite direct. It is important to remember that rule, especially when it gets a bit heated.

[Mr Gyimah]

That is very good advice, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would not want to drag you into this debate.

The Government will pardon those who tragically died before they ever saw this injustice tackled. In response to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who made a very passionate speech, it is a matter of deep regret that so many men went to their graves without the pardon they so rightly deserved. That is why we are so determined as a Government to deliver justice, as I have said, by the most swift and fair means possible. The Government will support Lord Sharkey’s amendment to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 through the Policing and Crime Bill. Lord Sharkey is a Liberal Democrat peer. He is no stooge of the Government—the days of coalition are long over—and, like many Members here, including the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire, he has been campaigning for this measure for a very long time. I am pleased that he will be taking forward the Government’s measures on this.

I am also pleased that the measures have been widely welcomed. Nick Duffy, the editor of “PinkNews”, said:

“There is a whole discussion around semantics but the bigger issue, I think, is that men who are alive today now have the option to finally have it, on paper, that they didn’t do anything wrong, that these laws were a mistake and never should have been. It sends a message within our country that these laws were totally wrong, that we regret them, and that they should never have been on the books”.

David Isaac, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has said of the Government’s approach:

“This is an important day for all those that have had criminal convictions through old unjust laws. Many people have campaigned for gay men to be pardoned after being prosecuted for being who they are and I applaud the government for fulfilling their commitment.”

Those are quotes from independent people who have been campaigning for these measures for a long time, and they recognise that the steps the Government are taking will deliver justice in a fast and fair way.

[Joanna Cherry]

The Minister said earlier that his objection to the Bill was that it gave out a blanket pardon that might cover unlawful conduct. May I give him comfort by telling him that that is not the case? Clause 1 states:

“Nothing in this Act is to be interpreted as pardoning, disregarding or in any other way affecting cautions, convictions, sentences or any other consequences of convictions or cautions for conduct or behaviour that is unlawful on the date that the Act comes into force.”

How could it be clearer? In addition, clause 2(4) states that the conditions for a pardon are that the other person must have consented and that they must not have been under the age of 16. Those provisions answer the Minister’s concerns. Will he have the decency to admit that the Government are wrong about this, and that the Bill tackles the issues that he is raising?

[Mr Gyimah]

The truth is that the offence of which these men were convicted was gross indecency, which covered a whole range of criminal offences. The blanket pardon will cover everyone who was convicted of gross indecency.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gyimah]

Let me develop my argument. How do we differentiate between those whom the Bill covers and those who fall outside its scope?

I want to pick up a point made by the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who said that he was delighted to be debating with a Conservative Government the “how” and not the “what” of this issue. The Conservative party has a proud record of trying to redress the inequality that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people face. A Conservative Justice Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), paved the way with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, and a Conservative-led Government delivered the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which enabled couples to marry regardless of sex and gender. I voted for same-sex marriage. Around the time of the debate on that Bill, people wrote to me to say, “These couples are the same, but let us treat them differently when it comes to marriage,” but as someone from an ethnic minority, I knew that we could not say that people were equal but treat them differently. That is why I was delighted to vote for that piece of legislation.

The Conservative party has a proud record of more out MPs than all other parties put together. We know that there is more to do, and I reject the implication that by supporting Lord Sharkey’s amendment, we are somehow shirking the huge amount that there is to do. We are delivering on our manifesto commitment by backing that prominent amendment, which will right this historic injustice against gay and bisexual men. Many people have said in the debate that we need to send out a signal. When I looked at the newspapers and the other news yesterday, it was clear that the signal was sent by the Government’s support for the amendment. I am sure that the reverberations will continue for months to come, because the Government will not only have delivered on their commitment but gone as far as possible to right this historic injustice. I was delighted when the Leader of the Opposition described this as a great victory for all who have campaigned to right this wrong.

I know that for the SNP, answering the clarion call of “better together” is not something that comes naturally, but I hope that they will withdraw the Bill and support our amendment. We all want the same thing—to resolve an injustice that for too long has been left unchallenged. When the Lords amendment comes to this House the SNP will be able to contribute to the debate on it.

We are all here in part because of the world-famous story of the war-time hero and Enigma code breaker Alan Turing, which resulted in the Conservative manifesto pledge to introduce legislation to right these historical wrongs. Turing, who committed suicide following his conviction for gross indecency, was posthumously pardoned by Her Majesty the Queen in 2013.

The posthumous pardon of Alan Turing addresses his 1952 conviction for gross indecency, which resulted in him being chemically castrated. Turing was arrested following an affair with a 19-year-old from Manchester. His conviction, a sad indictment of the attitudes prevailing at the time, resulted in his losing his security clearance. As a result he was no longer able to continue the valuable code-breaking work that had he had begun at Bletchley Park during world war two and that had been vital to the allies. His pardon was granted under the royal prerogative of mercy after a request by my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell, who was then Justice Secretary, following a high-profile campaign supported by more than 37,000 people, including Stephen Hawking.

As has been said, we know that Alan Turing is just one of the estimated 49,000 people who were unjustly convicted under those laws. Those unjust convictions are a matter of the deepest regret. They were for criminal offences as the law stood at the time. I am delighted that we will be delivering on our manifesto commitment to pardon those men and right those wrongs. The legislation the Government have announced will do two things to address the historical injustices faced by gay and bisexual men. In the case of deceased persons, it will provide for a blanket posthumous pardon to be given to those individuals who were convicted of consensual gay sexual offences that would not be offences today; those are primarily offences under the Sexual Offences Act 1956. As Lord Sharkey has said,

“a pardon is probably the best way of acknowledging the real harm done by the unjust and cruel homophobic laws, which thankfully we’ve now repealed.”

In the case of those individuals who are still living, it will provide that all who are successful in obtaining a disregard—I will explain the disregard process in a little more detail in a moment—will be granted a pardon, so that they get both a disregard, to expunge their record, and a pardon. That will apply to previous and future disregards.

Under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, individuals can apply to the Home Secretary to have their historical convictions for gay sex offences—primarily those under sections 12 and 13 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956—deleted. Officials check police national computer records and then local police and court records, to ascertain whether the offences were consensual, were with a person aged 16 or over and did not involve activity that is currently an offence. A successful applicant will be treated in all circumstances as though the offence had never occurred and need not disclose it for any purpose. Official records relating to the conviction that are held by prescribed organisations will be deleted or, where appropriate, annotated to that effect. The existence of those convictions or cautions may have prevented individuals from taking up certain opportunities in their lives or made them uneasy about going into certain professions or volunteering, because the information would have been revealed in a criminal records check.

[Mike Weir]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gyimah]

I need to press on.

Although it is right that the state enables the vulnerable to be protected from those who pose a risk, it is not right that someone remains affected by a conviction for something that is no longer illegal. The process for the disregard, which has not been discussed in enough detail in this debate, is simple and not bureaucratic. Applicants complete a two-page form giving basic information such as their name and address and the details of the offence to be disregarded. The applicant also supplies photocopies of proof of address and identity. These can be sent by post or email.

Nothing else is required and the process is free of charge. The outcome of a disregard is a significant step for the individual, who may have had to live with that offence on their record for years.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gyimah]

I want to press on.

When a person is successful in obtaining a disregard for a conviction or a caution, that offence is to be treated for all purposes in law as if the person has not committed the offence, been convicted or sentenced or even cautioned. Perhaps this will be of most use to individuals when applying for work or when volunteering for roles that require a criminal records check from the Disclosure and Barring Service. This is incredibly important, because under the disregard process, the offences will quite simply no longer appear on the disclosure, and can have no effect on the person’s chances of obtaining work or the opportunity to volunteer. Any previous barriers will have been removed and the person is no longer affected by the disclosure.

[Craig Whittaker]

To clarify a point, when the age of consent was much higher than today, as it was in 1967, how does the Minister envisage putting checks and balances in place on a blanket pardon where under-age sex has taken place under the age of 16, which is illegal today but is the same charge as when the age of consent was 21?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend continues to make a very persuasive case. Yes, we all want a pardon; yes, we all want to right the wrongs of the past, but we cannot do that without the safeguards being inappropriate in cases where people are still living and there are consequences today. To do that would, I believe, be irresponsible on the part of the Government.

[Mike Weir]

In my earlier intervention, the Minister said that his concern was that someone getting a blanket pardon who was still alive could then get a job as a volunteer with children. However, the Bill specifically says that anyone who is still alive and wants the offence expunged from the record has to go through a second procedure. Surely anyone applying for such a job would have go through a criminal records check, which would show up what was still on the record. I do not see where the difference lies.

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman makes my point about why a disregard step is essential in this process—[Interruption.] May I respond to the hon. Gentleman’s point? The disregard process means that there will not be a situation where someone has been ostensibly pardoned but the criminal record has not been expunged. The disregard process ensures that the criminal record is expunged and the person gets a statutory pardon. I am sure that Members will agree that such a process provides a meaningful avenue for individuals convicted or cautioned for sexual activity that is no longer regarded as an offence.

[Lyn Brown]

rose—

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady has had her time. The process allows people to move on with their lives in a meaningful way.

A disregard is a much more powerful and useful remedy for someone living than just a pardon. We recognise the force of the symbol of being pardoned, which is why we propose to pardon all of those who are living and were convicted of relevant offences once they have received a disregard. I would urge any individuals who believe that they are eligible for the disregard process to apply through the Home Office to have their records properly assessed. I hope that today’s debate has helped to raise the profile of this process so that those who are not aware can take steps to secure the justice that they deserve.

Of course, I support the intentions behind the Bill; the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire and I share the same objectives. The proposed blanket pardon would not provide for robust checks to ensure that only those who clearly meet the criteria can claim to be pardoned. It could lead in some cases to people claiming to be cleared of offences that are still crimes—including sex with a minor and non-consensual sexual activity. Under the disregard process, for example, the Home Office has rejected several applications where the activity was non-consensual and others where the other party was under 16 years old. Those offences were captured under offences such as “gross indecency” at the time, but are still crimes today. It is important that a pardon for the living takes place only after due process to verify—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. Enough. Let the Minister finish his speech.

[Mr Gyimah]

rose—

14:30

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Debate to be resumed what day?

[John Nicolson]

I suspect that there is little point, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I have been told to continue this farce. What I am meant to say is 16 December.

The debate stood adjourned (Standing Order No. 11(2)).

Ordered, That the debate be resumed on Friday 16 December.

Registration of Marriage Bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

[Hon. Members]

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 18 November.

Kettering General Hospital

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Guy Opperman.)

14:30

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I wish to draw the Minister’s attention, on behalf of my constituents, to the good work that Kettering general hospital does for the local community, and to the challenges that will confront it in the years ahead. I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting me permission to open the debate, and I am pleased to see the Minister in his place.

It is a huge privilege for me to be the Member of Parliament for Kettering. I regard Kettering general hospital as one of the pre-eminent issues for all local residents of the town, and I do not hesitate to use every possible parliamentary opportunity to draw the challenges that it faces of the attention of Her Majesty’s Government.

I want to address five main themes: the huge demographic challenge faced by Kettering and its hospital, the challenge posed by ambitious plans for an urgent care hub, which require Government support, the challenge of funding estate development on the hospital site, the problems caused by national IT roll-outs, and the workforce challenges.

People in Kettering are very proud of our local hospital, which has been on its present site for 119 years. Local people have been born there, have been repaired there, and have died there. Everyone is hugely proud of the doctors, nurses and ancillary staff, who do a fantastic job around the clock, day in day out, week in week out, to provide increasingly first-class healthcare for our local community. However, the size of the local community is growing at an unprecedented rate. Over the last census period, Kettering was sixth out of 348 local districts for household growth, and 31st for population growth. The local population is growing at a rate of about 1% a year, but within that, the number of elderly people is growing even faster. Thank goodness we are all living longer, but the number of people aged over 75 in the county of Northamptonshire is likely to rise from just short of 54,000 in 2017 to just short of 72,000 in 2023—and it is members of that cohort who require the most treatment at the hospital and present the biggest challenge.

The good news is that the hospital is raising its game, and is responding. The number of beds was 518 in 2010; it is now 561, having increased by 8%, and is set to increase further to 600 over the next year or so. However, the number of treatments being provided is increasing all the time. In 2004-05, there were 71,300 admitted-patient consultant episodes at the hospital; that rose to just under 91,000 in 2014-15, an increase of 27%. The number of out-patient attendances rose from 168,412 in 2004-05 to 274,614 in 2014-15, an increase of 63%. The accident and emergency figures show a 23% increase from 67,500 in 2010-11 to 83,000 now, in an A&E department that was built 20 years ago and designed to treat just 40,000 people. The pressures on the hospital are unprecedented. The funding provided by Her Majesty’s Government to the local clinical commissioning groups through NHS England is going up, but the Government have admitted that it is still short of the target amount.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that one of the frustrations for the people of north Northamptonshire is that the Government have a formula for how much money we should get but they do not give us that amount because they overfund elsewhere? That frustration is felt across the whole of north Northamptonshire.

[Mr Hollobone]

You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that my hon. Friend has a great way of simplifying complex issues to make them readily understandable. His intervention is just another example of that.

NHS England has told Her Majesty’s Government that it is targeting the clinical commissioning groups that are more than 5% above or below the target funding, that both Nene and Corby CCGs are underfunded, and that the cash increase of 5.2% for Nene and 9.4% for Corby in 2016-17 will bring us within that 5% zone. This suggests that we are outside it at the moment. The fact that we are more than 5% away from the target funding and that we have one of the most rapidly increasing populations in the country illustrates the stiff challenge that Kettering general hospital faces.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

Residents in Corby and elsewhere in east Northamptonshire are proud of their hospital, as are my hon. Friend’s constituents in Kettering. One of the challenges that goes with a growth agenda is the need for new infrastructure to support new homes. Does he agree that the new urgent care hub in north Northamptonshire, which we are all campaigning for, will be crucial not only for securing health services in our area, taking the pressure off A&E and meeting the growing needs of new residents moving into our area, but for meeting the Government’s agenda on the better integration of health services?

[Mr Hollobone]

One of the advantages of working closely with my fellow Members of Parliament is that we begin to read each other’s minds. My hon. Friend’s observation leads me seamlessly on to section 2 of my speech, which is entitled “Urgent care hub”.

In many ways, this is the most exciting challenge that the hospital faces. The idea of an urgent care hub is to have on one site, at Kettering general hospital, a one-stop shop for GP services and out-of-hours care, an on-site pharmacy, a minor injuries unit, facilities for social services and mental health care, access to community care services for the frail elderly and a replacement for the hospital’s A&E department, which, as I have said, is more than 20 years old.

The three local MPs are working hard on this issue but, frankly, we need more support from the Minister. The hospital has drawn up ambitious proposals to develop the urgent care hub, which could cost between £20 million and £30 million. It is exactly the sort of thing that NHS England has highlighted in its “Five Year Forward View” as the way forward, and it enjoyed the support of the previous Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). In a debate in Westminster Hall on 24 March 2015, he said:

“The principle of the hub is absolutely the right way forward for the local NHS. It is the type of integrated care model that we need elsewhere in the country, particularly where the NHS is servicing a broad population. In this case, it is servicing not just Kettering, but a partially rural county and rural area. This is a model that I am sure hon. Members will continue to support and that I will continue to have a keen interest in supporting. I hope the plans will be successful at making the improvements that patients in my hon. Friend’s constituency and the area surrounding Kettering want. There are encouraging signs. The improvements envisaged are significant and would ensure that the local area had a resilient and high-quality health care system to deliver the highest-quality patient care.”—[Official Report, 24 March 2015; Vol. 594, c. 440WH.]

Would the Minister be kind enough to visit Kettering general hospital to look at the proposals for an urgent care hub? I am going to be pestering him at every Health questions this Parliament, and it would greatly assist the quality of his answers if he is able to visit the hospital and then speak from a position of knowledge. Kettering general hospital could lead a pioneering development for our country’s NHS.

That brings me to the wider issue of funding for the estate at Kettering general hospital. A small or medium district general hospital such as Kettering, which is on an ageing town-centre site, will inevitably have a great backlog of maintenance and equipment that needs to be replaced every year. The hospital spends something like £10 million to £15 million of capital each year through loans, unhelpfully swelling the balance sheet. The financial pressure on the hospital is clearly huge. The capital programme for next year is largely made up of three items: £5 million on a maintenance backlog; just over £1 million on IT infrastructure; and almost £1.5 million on medical equipment. The Minister needs to make the point to the Chancellor that there is currently no capital support for the strategic transformation plans.

Transforming district general hospitals up and down the country will be difficult. Nevertheless, Kettering general hospital is innovating. It has installed a new modular unit to try to upgrade the A&E, with 13 major bays for complex medical and surgical needs. I remind the Minister that Kettering’s A&E now treats 83,000 patients. It was designed to treat 40,000 and was built 20 years ago. Some £5 million has been spent on a new maternity unit, bringing state-of-the-art maternity services to the hospital, where 3,800 babies are delivered and 2,000 gynaecological and obstetric theatre procedures are carried out every year. Those developments are fantastic, but they are expensive and difficult for the Kettering General Hospital NHS Trust to afford.

My fourth point of five is about the national IT roll-out. Hospitals experience difficulties in complying with necessary advances in linking their IT systems to regional and national services. One example is the problem that local patients have experienced in getting their X-ray results. There is meant to be an integrated east midlands system for X-rays, but Kettering has experienced difficulties, and some delays in getting X-rays to patients have lasted three or four months, which the hospital admits is unacceptable. The Minister needs to be made aware of the IT challenge faced by district general hospitals.

On the workforce, Kettering is succeeding in recruiting staff, which is good news, but there are still vacancies. Of 1,200 nursing posts, 80 remain vacant as of today. Many of the nurses come from Europe and elsewhere. The hospital has recruited 72 European nurses and the good news is that 95% of them have stayed with the trust—the national average retention rate is 28%. On the Minister’s visit to the hospital, he will be able to learn from a good example of how to retain hard-working staff, and he may be able to apply that elsewhere. In Kettering, 61% of people voted to leave the European Union, a fact of which I am hugely proud, but when we negotiate our Brexit terms and conditions, we must make provision to retain key personnel from the EU who bring to our country the skills we need and are unable to find among our own people.

Kettering general is a very good hospital, but it is under a huge amount of pressure. There are things that the Government can do to make it succeed. Along with my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Corby (Tom Pursglove), I will be on the Minister’s case for the rest of this Parliament to make sure that our hospital works properly and successfully, delivering the local patient care that people need and deserve.

14:45

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing such an important debate and on the fact that he has consistently been a champion for Kettering’s hospital. I am grateful to the Minister for making the effort to come here today to listen to this debate. Perhaps if he is able to visit Kettering general hospital, he will stop on the way to see the Isebrook hospital at Wellingborough, which is what I briefly wish to talk about.

The Isebrook hospital is what we might call a community hospital. At the moment, it is undergoing a refurbishment to provide new X-ray equipment. Our issue is that we should have a minor accident and emergency unit there. It is part of the overall hub plan, but because that plan has got bogged down in red tape and administration, the Isebrook expansion has not taken place. That is a mistake, because if we had such a unit at the Isebrook, 40% of the people who now go to Kettering’s A&E would not need to go there, which would save an immense amount of money. By spending a little money now, we could save a lot of money, as well as make things much better for my constituents.

[Tom Pursglove]

We know that that is categorically the case, because Corby has the hugely popular and successful Corby urgent care centre, which was delivered under a Conservative Government and works incredibly well. Local people go there, rather than to Kettering general hospital. The hub-and-spoke approach is exactly the way forward, and my hon. Friend’s constituency would benefit from it in the same way as Corby has.

[Mr Bone]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is so active in Corby that it is no wonder that he has got his minor accident and emergency centre ahead of me, but we cannot have a hub-and-spoke system if one of the spokes is not there. It would not be a bad idea for the Minister to come and see physically why this unit is such a good idea.

14:47

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Philip Dunne)]

What a pleasure it is to join you this afternoon to participate in this debate on Kettering hospital, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), not just on securing this debate, but on his persistence in keeping Kettering hospital at the forefront of the national debate on what is happening to our health service. He has taken an assiduous interest in promoting it at almost every opportunity, as he suggested today. Indeed, he raised the matter at my first Health questions earlier this month and was on his feet raising it again with the Prime Minister the following day. He is a worthy champion of the cause, and I am therefore fully aware of his interest in local health matters affecting his constituents.

I wish to join my hon. Friend in recognising at the outset the great work done by all our staff in the NHS right across the country, but particularly the staff who work in and around Kettering and the other hospitals we have heard of today from my hon. Friends the Members for Corby (Tom Pursglove) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). I was invited by two of the three Members who have spoken to attend their local hospitals—

[Tom Pursglove]

You are very welcome to Corby, too.

[Mr Dunne]

My hon. Friend, from a sedentary position, extends an invitation, too. I am grateful to all three hon. Friends. I am relatively newly in post, and the demands at present are to visit hospitals that are in greater difficulty than any of these cases, but I will endeavour to see what I can do during next year possibly to visit Kettering.

[Mr Hollobone]

One visit to all three of us would kill three birds with one stone.

[Mr Dunne]

I have responsibility for the acute sector, not the community sector, so initially my visit would be focused on Kettering hospital. I will certainly do what I can, but I think that it will have to be some time next year. My hon. Friend has previously met my predecessors to discuss health services in his constituency. He has raised a number of issues today, and I will attempt to address most, if not all, of them in the time that I have.

I wish to start with my hon. Friend’s concerns about the underfunding of his local clinical commissioning groups. That was a point also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough. NHS England is working to move CCGs towards their target fair share of funding, but this has to take place at a pace that maintains stability in the system across the country at a time of significant financial challenge. I feel that quite acutely as a local Member of Parliament representing a rural constituency that has been consistently underfunded. We are taking steps, as I mentioned to the House in a debate earlier this week, to look at introducing a fairer share of funding for rural areas and addressing other issues such as social deprivation. A consequence of that has been to try to bring those CCG areas that are recognised to be underfunded closer to the target.

The point was made that Nene and Corby CCGs have been beyond 5% of the target. I am pleased to confirm the figures that were mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering: Nene and Corby CCGs received cash increases of 5.2% and 9.4% respectively in the current year. Those increases are significantly above the average for English CCGs and bring them both within 5% of their target allocation in this year. I think that 9.4% is one of the highest increases in allocation that we have seen this year across the country, so I hope that he recognises that we are moving to right that historic challenge. This year, more than £757 million will go into my hon. Friend’s local area, and allocations over the next few years should bring both Nene and Corby CCGs even closer to their funding target.

I will take a moment to touch on the national pressures that are affecting the NHS. The NHS is very busy, but hospitals are generally performing well. The latest figures for August 2016 show that more than nine out of 10 people were seen in A&E within four hours. During 2015-16, nearly 2,500 more people were seen in A&E each day within four hours compared with 2009-10.

Paramedics respond to the majority of life-threatening cases in under eight minutes. More than 567,000 emergency calls received a face-to-face response from the ambulance services across England in August 2016 alone—an average of 18,300 a day. Ambulance services are busy, which is why we are increasing paramedic training places by more than 60% in this year alone, on top of the 2,300 extra paramedics who have joined the NHS since 2010. That allows more than 200 additional ambulances to be deployed by the NHS compared with 2010.

[Mr Bone]

The Minister is making a very good point. Does he not accept that if an ambulance were to take a patient to the Isebrook hospital, it is 10 minutes’ transport, but if it has to go to Kettering, it is 45 minutes’ transport? Is that not the sort of thing that we should look at as an efficiency saving, which is worth the investment in Isebrook?

[Mr Dunne]

I would agree with my hon. Friend in the event that the hospital in Wellingborough were able to cope with the condition, but many of the most serious conditions need to go to the best place to deliver the service, even if it takes a bit longer to get there. The quality of treatment in our ambulances now, with the skills of the paramedics who are on board in almost all cases, is such that very few people die while in transit. They are kept stable, and they need to go to the best place for treatment.

Going back to the national picture, the NHS last year treated, on average, 21,000 more outpatients a day and performed more than 4,400 operations a day compared with 2010. There is substantially more activity across the NHS, which is one reason why we have recruited so many more clinicians to help cope with this activity. We now have over 8,500 more doctors and over 2,700 more nurses, paid for in part by having nearly 7,000 fewer managers. Ultimately, we want to reduce pressure on services by reforming the urgent care system and caring for people better in the community, and that is where I think some of the things being done and being planned for the Kettering area are so interesting. It is clear that the NHS in the constituency understands the scale of the challenge and is taking action to address it.

[Mr Hollobone]

We understand the scale of the challenge. The problem is that the urgent care hub proposals, which are really exciting and could be rolled out across the country, are now with NHS Improvement, and its say-so is required to go to the consultancy phase.

[Mr Dunne]

Indeed, and our plans for improvement and integration among collaborative NHS areas across the country, including the Kettering area, through the sustainability and transformation plans are being delivered for each area today. NHS England will review those plans and decide to prioritise those that meet the national objectives and are best thought out.

In the past three years, including the current year, the Department has provided just over £37 million of interim revenue support and over £15 million of emergency capital to the trust. Since May 2010, capital expenditure on the hospital has amounted to £68.7 million, so it is receiving quite substantial support from the Department. The intention of the transformation work is to move to a position where the ability to cope with the remaining additional pressures on A&E and across the patient flow in the hospital is built in.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering said that the trust’s emergency department was too small and too limited in scope, and he touched on the new construction completed this year to extend the scope of the A&E department. It was originally built 20 years ago for 40,000 attendances a year, but is now dealing with more than 82,000. But the trust has had some success in reducing A&E attendances; there are more than 3,000 fewer than six years ago. The measures to integrate with the surrounding area are therefore having an effect on reducing attendances, despite the growing demand overall.

The trust has recruited and trained additional medical staff. Since 2010, the trust has increased its doctors by 77, or 24%, to 394. That is one of the most significant increases I have seen thus far. Some of this has come from the recruitment of staff through the certificate of eligibility for specialist registration scheme, involving doctors who have, for example, completed their specialist training overseas and chosen to practice in this country.

My hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Corby referred to proposals to develop the urgent care hub at the hospital. The aim is to develop a one-stop shop, which will enable patients to use primary care facilities, rather than A&E, by having these services co-located on the Kettering general hospital site. These services would enable rapid assessment, diagnosis and treatment by appropriate health and social care professionals. Patients would be streamed into appropriate treatment areas to minimise delays and reduce the need for admissions. This is an example of best practice across the NHS; it is what we are trying to introduce to relieve pressure on clinicians in the A&E department.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering raised the possibility of capital investment to develop this hub. The Department’s position has not changed. We are looking to the trust to take responsibility for developing and taking forward its own capital investment proposals. Foundation trusts, such as Kettering, can apply to the Department’s independent trust financing facility for a capital investment loan. They need to work closely with local planning authorities to ensure that developer infrastructure contributions can be taken into account as a source of funding.

I hope that these plans will be successful as they emerge through the STP, and as I have said, I hope that I will find an opportunity to visit Kettering on one of my visits north if I am allowed to do so on a suitable day when not required here in the Chamber.

Question put and agreed to.

15:00

House adjourned.

Written Statements

Friday 21st October 2016 Written Statements

Friday 21 October 2016

Successor Submarines

Friday 21st October 2016 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Sir Michael Fallon)]

I am pleased to announce that the next generation of nuclear-armed submarines will be known as the Dreadnought class, and that the first is to be named HMS Dreadnought. Construction of the first submarine formally began on 5 October 2016.

Dreadnought is a name with an excellent historical pedigree, traditionally used for powerful and innovative ships and submarines at the leading edge of technology and is a fitting name both for the class and the first submarine of that class. There have been nine Royal Navy vessels of the name, the most recent being Britain’s first nuclear-powered submarine, launched on this day, Trafalgar Day, in 1960 following her build at Barrow. The new Dreadnought submarines continue Barrow’s long association with submarine construction.

These submarines, the first of which we expect to enter service in the early 2030s, will replace the current Vanguard class submarines as the ultimate guarantee of our nation’s safety.

[HCWS206]

Health Informal Council

Friday 21st October 2016 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)]

My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) has made the following written statement:

An Informal Health Council meeting was held in Bratislava on 3-4 October 2016 as part of the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO) Council formation. Lord Prior, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, represented the UK.

Food reformulation

During a discussion about food reformulation, the UK updated Ministers on the introduction of a sugar levy on soft drinks and the importance of looking at how to best inform the population on links between sugar and obesity. The UK outlined key parts of the UK childhood obesity and talked about the importance of focusing on children, and influencing behaviour at an early age. The UK also stated commitment to working with others to tackle different issues whilst taking forward an exit from the EU.

Medicine Shortages

There was widespread agreement amongst Ministers on the importance of working together and sharing information to tackle medicine shortages. There was recognition that shortages occur for a wide variety of reasons and that there is no one solution. The UK explained that there was fragmentation within national systems and expressed caution on whether an EU wide solution to these problems was practically possible. The UK expressed recognition of member states’ concerns about pricing, but stressed the importance of a vibrant life-science sector. The UK also underlined anti-microbial resistance (AMR) as an area where action was needed to ensure the development of new drugs.

Tuberculosis

There was support from member states for an EU framework on tuberculosis (TB) which would also include hepatitis B and C and HIV given the significant overlap between the conditions. There was also agreement on the need to share information, to work with the eastern neighbourhood and support for a civil society forum. Current work was outlined, including the EU joint action on TB, the European Commission contribution to the Global Fund and the World Health Organisation (WHO) TB action plan. The UK updated the meeting on the new UK national strategy on TB, which takes a multi-sectoral approach and complements the WHO strategy. The UK also highlighted links with AMR.

Vaccination

During a discussion about how to increase vaccine uptake across the EU, the UK highlighted work undertaken to increase vaccine coverage in the UK — including through action on shortages, communication campaigns and through forecasting and planning. The UK supported further international work on the issue and, with other 4, agreed on the importance of sharing information. The UK also mentioned links between increased vaccine uptake and tackling AMR.

AOB

The Czech Republic invited Ministers to a joint ministerial meeting on health and the environment in Ostrava on 13-15 June 2017. There was also an item about European Commission work on patient safety.

[HCWS208]

Justice and Home Affairs Council

Friday 21st October 2016 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)]

The first formal Justice and Home Affairs Council of the Slovak presidency took place on 13 and 14 October in Luxembourg. The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), attended justice day and I attended interior day. My right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate, James Wolffe QC, also attended the Council.

Interior day (13 October) began with an update from the presidency on the implementation of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency regulation. The agency was launched on 6 October. The UK does not participate in this measure.

The Council then discussed IT measures related to border management. The presidency encouraged member states to stress to their MEPs the importance of agreeing the regulation on systematic border checks quickly due to the ongoing risk from foreign fighters. The presidency also highlighted the entry-exit system (EES) as an important security measure and announced that a proposal on the new EU travel information and authorisation system (ETIAS) would be published by the Commission in late October. The Commission noted that a proposal revising the second generation Schengen information system (SIS II) would be published before the end of this year. The UK will not participate in systematic checks, ETIAS or EES as they are Schengen- building measures. The UK participates in SIS II.

The Commission provided an update on the implementation of agreed migration measures, including hotspots, reception conditions, asylum processing and returns. I reiterated the UK’s commitment to supporting efforts to address the migration crisis and increase security across the EU, with a particular focus on upstream migration and the effectiveness of returns.

Over lunch, Ministers discussed developing partnership frameworks with third countries to manage migration to the EU, and issues relating to temporary internal Schengen borders.

The Council then turned to the reform of the common European asylum system (CEAS) and the resettlement framework. The presidency outlined its proposed approach, which would focus on the Eurodac and EU Asylum Agency (EUAA) proposals in particular. The Council agreed that the current Eurodac proposal should aim to simplify law enforcement access to Eurodac. The UK supports this approach.

Under any other business, there were updates on a Belgian project on returns (EURES CRIM), and from the presidency on the ministerial conference of the Prague process held on 19 and 20 September in Bratislava.

Justice day (14 October) started with a discussion on the protection of the Union’s financial interests directive (PIF), specifically the inclusion of VAT fraud in the directive. The presidency concluded that the majority of member states supported the inclusion of certain serious cross-border VAT fraud in the PIF directive. The UK does not participate in PIF.

The Commission presented a cost-benefit analysis of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), concluding that the benefits would significantly outweigh the costs. The presidency concluded that there was “broad conceptual support” for the four provisions under discussion: relationship with Eurojust; judicial review; relations with third countries; and relations with non-participating member states. The presidency aims to reach agreement on the Council position on EPPO at the December JHA Council. The UK will not participate in the EPPO.

At lunch, the presidency led a discussion on the role of Eurojust in combating terrorism, with a focus on data sharing.

Under any other business, the presidency updated Ministers on current legislative proposals and the Commission presented a note on hate crime in the EU. The Policing Minister supported the Commission’s message that hate crime has no place in our society and set out UK measures to combat hate crime.

[HCWS207]

House of Lords

Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

Friday 21 October 2016

10:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Birmingham.

House of Lords Bill [HL]

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

Second Reading

10:05

Moved by

[Lord Elton]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, I have brought this Bill before your Lordships because, although I have served in this House since 1973, I do not remember a time when Parliament has stood lower in public esteem than now. There is deep unease in this country with not just parliamentarians but Parliament itself. We need to be aware of what lies further down that road if we do nothing: a growing disillusion with not just us—we are expendable—or with the Westminster model, which is amendable, but with parliamentary democracy itself as the safest and surest way for a free people to manage their affairs under the law.

An important function of this House is to give the public reason to be confident in our Parliament, and to do that we need to take action now before that troll begins to stir in its mountain. Noble Lords may think that I exaggerate the danger but I assure them that it is there. It is frequently cloaked by the smoke drifting across the field from the artillery engaged in Brexit, Boundary Commissions, Calais, Syria and so on, but it is there and it constantly emerges, and every time it is stronger. If only we could give eye-catching, attention-getting proof that Parliament knows that it needs mending and is prepared to do the job itself. The attempt in 1999 to carry out wholesale reform of this House proved that every aspect of that reform was highly controversial. Controversy in Parliament takes time—legislative time—which we do not have.

On only one issue that has not already been dealt with in isolation has controversy subsided and consensus begun to emerge in the media, among the public and even in Parliament. The irony of the present situation was highlighted by the debate in the Commons on Wednesday on a complex Motion which brought together the two issues of Lords reform and boundary changes—that is, one big House getting bigger and one smaller House getting smaller. That alone is enough to draw the attention of those who have not been paying attention to the embarrassing position—to say the least —in which we find ourselves today. If your Lordships care to read that colourful debate, which is not at all flattering to them, they may be wiser on this issue.

People agree that there are too many of us. However, that is not the only, or the most important, problem. The reservoir of expertise among rare attenders is a strength rather than a weakness. Against that we have the experience of debates with speaking time limits of a single minute for Back-Benchers and, indeed, for an Archbishop of Canterbury, of more than a few not being able to get a seat in the Chamber at all on an increasing number of occasions, even of a certain difficulty, which I hope does not yet extend to the Doorkeepers, although it well may, of remembering who everybody is and where they are coming from, in the current jargon.

There is internal unease and growing public resentment of the cost of our numbers at the present rate of attendance. Because of the absolute need for consensus, this Bill addresses only one issue—the number of Members of this House. The prime importance of consensus means that it has to leave intact the Prime Minister’s power to appoint new Peers, which is a position many of my noble friends and others would like to see diminished. However, that is not on the table at the moment. The Bill avoids all the other wasps’ nests stirred up by the great debates on reform in 1999, because every one of them would cause enough disagreement to kill the Bill. It does not affect existing party balances, does not propose an age limit or a limited tenure or any involvement of the parliamentary electorate and does not stake out a particular number of seats for Cross-Benchers or anybody else. It does not even touch the Bishops’ Benches, although we shall be very interested to hear the account of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham of his brethren’s intentions. The Bill addresses the single question of size and no other.

The Prime Minister’s power of appointment means that whatever limit is agreed will be exceeded as soon as he or she uses it and must be reimposed at the beginning of every Parliament. Therefore, the Bill focuses instead on the Writ of Summons which will entitle its recipient to sit only until the first Session of the Parliament after the one in which he or she was appointed. Membership beyond that point would be determined by elections within each affiliation group. The power to design those elections is delegated, within certain parameters, to the House of Lords and is to be implemented in the new Standing Order. This is, therefore, essentially an enabling Bill, but I anticipate that your Lordships will be more interested for the most part in what we do with the enablement than what is in the Bill itself, which is of course important. The Standing Orders in this House, however, are devised by the Procedure Committee and then put into place by a Motion of the whole House. The draft Standing Order I put into the Explanatory Notes to the Bill is just that—a draft. It is important that we discuss it—our discussion will be helpful to that committee in drawing up the final version—but we cannot amend it in any way at any stage of the Bill. That is for the committee, to which any representations must be made.

The draft is a modification of Standing Order No. 10 under which elections were successfully held to reduce the membership of this House by, I remind your Lordships, just over 50% in 1999: a far bigger task than we face today. Nevertheless, I understand that I stand in the position of a consultant anxiously telling a patient that some form of surgery is necessary. My task is to convince your Lordships that it is indeed necessary and that it need not be unduly painful, and in the end the patient’s life expectancy will be extended by it.

Under the proposal, each affiliation group will hold its election in secret. Each will be allocated the same proportion of the new, smaller total that it had of the total immediately before the election. In other words, every group will be reduced by the same percentage. In round figures, if 800 were to be reduced to 600, the new total would be 75% of the old, the House would therefore have lost 25% of its Members, and every constituent group would be reduced by 25%. The political balance in the House would remain unchanged; as I say, the Bill and the draft order do not seek to do anything except to address the size. There is great discontent about all sorts of other elements of our House, but this is all it touches.

The Explanatory Notes are pretty explicit, but I had better follow the convention and quickly tell your Lordships that Clause 1 limits the period during which the holders of peerages are automatically Members of the House. Their right to sit extends through the remainder of the Parliament in which they were appointed, and ends at the end of the first Session of the next Parliament. Clause 2 delegates to this House the power to grant exemption from this rule and sets the parameters within which it may do so. A lot of this draws on the 1999 Act. Clause 2(1) provides that the disapplication should be by means of a Standing Order; Clause 2(2) limits the exemptions to a specified number and their duration from the beginning of the first Session of one Parliament to the end of the first Session of the next. Clause 2(3) defines the specified number as the number of MPs and not as that number or less—that may have got obscured in my explanation earlier. Clause 2(4) says that the two ex officio hereditary Members are unaffected by the Bill. Clause 2(5)—this is the reassuring one—gives the Clerk of the Parliaments the power and duty to decide whether a person has been properly elected if that comes into question. Clause 3 is necessary to preserve the rights of non-parliamentary Peers to vote in parliamentary elections. Clause 4 is a consequential amendment of the 1999 Act.

That is all I will say at this stage. However, I will revert to the question of the need for consensus. To give your Lordships a glimmer of hope as to the future of this measure I read from the words of Mr Ellis, the deputy leader of the House of Commons, who said:

“It is right that the House of Lords continues to look at how it can work more effectively. Where further possible steps can command consensus, Her Majesty’s Government would welcome working with peers to take reasonable measures forward in this Parliament. If that is possible in consensus with peers, we would welcome doing so”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/10/16; col. 888.]

Following the continuation of the brawl that constituted the debate—at least that is what it would look like from these Benches—we come to the wind up for the Government of the debate on a Scottish Nationalist Party Motion:

“The Government agree that the House of Lords is too large, but believe that it must be for the Lords themselves to lead the process”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/10/16; col. 915.]

I invite noble Lords to become the leaders of that process. I beg to move.

10:17

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend in this debate on the Second Reading of his Bill. As he has ably demonstrated this morning, he knows a great deal about the House of Lords; he has studied it for a long time and has come forward with a workable proposal. I also thank him because he consulted widely on the Bill, right across the House, amended it from his original draft and has now presented it to the House. As he explained, the aim is to reduce the total number of Members of this House. My noble friend produced but one reason for it: the way Parliament is regarded as a whole from outside, by the public. I am not entirely convinced that the Bill would necessarily solve that. The reasons why Parliament is not held as well as it once was are many and varied; we do not need to go into those today.

There are a number of ways to achieve what my noble friend wants. The simplest—the noble Lord, Lord Steel, talked about it—is an automatic age limit of 80, and there are powerful statistics to demonstrate that, in an ever-ageing House, that would be a good way to reduce the numbers. However, for obvious reasons, that is deeply unpopular in this House and, apart from anything else, I am not entirely convinced that it would be legal, given the various equalities Acts that exist.

More Peers could be encouraged to take voluntary retirement from the House, which was impossible until two or three years ago. You could take a leave of absence but you could not exclude yourself permanently. We now can, and there are various ideas about how that could be made more practical. My view is that, given that this House is due to be relocated in a few years and we are to be removed from this building, we may well find then that more Peers are prepared to take voluntary retirement than is the case today.

The system that my noble friend has alighted on is well precedented, and the last time it was used, it worked. However, I have to say to noble Lords from all parts of the House that it is not an easy or pleasant system to go through—in fact, it is deeply unpleasant, and my noble friend and I have both been through it. It is precedented by the late Lord Weatherill’s amendment to the 1999 Act, which generally speaking has been a success. I wonder whether, if we were to use this for the whole House, my noble friend has considered some de minimis provisions for very small parties. We have only one Member from the Green Party, and it would be difficult to reduce her by 25%. I am not sure whether UKIP is a full designation in this House, but it may well be under the terms of the Bill or if it becomes an Act.

My real purpose is to question the motivation, intention and necessity behind the proposal. I spent a bit of time reading some statistics from the very helpful people in the Library. Taking the basis of the Bill—that the House should not be bigger than 600—I decided to test how many people currently attend the House. We all know the overall figures: just over 800 Members are entitled to sit, and that is an increase since 1999-2000 of about 220. Since 2015-16, the figure has increased by about 100. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the daily attendance has increased by a similar number: currently, about 100 more Peers attend on a daily basis than did in 2009-10. What is interesting about these daily attendance figures—these are averages across the Session—is that none is anywhere near 600; in fact, none breaches 500. Therefore, they are well within the limit set by my noble friend. In the current year, the average daily attendance is 471 and in 2009-10 it was 388.

The next interesting statistics to look at are for Divisions over the past 10 years, which measure a good degree of participation in the House. In 2009-10, which was a short Session, the average number of Peers voting per Division was 206. The most recent figures available, for 2015-16, show that there were 114 Divisions with 362 Peers on average voting. It is interesting that, in the past 10 years, the highest average number of Members voting per Division was 394 in the 2013-14 Session. What I extrapolate from these figures is that the problem may not be quite as big as my noble friend thinks.

In discussing this with many Peers, I have realised that there seems to be more of a problem at Question Time, when the House is very full indeed. Again, there are many different reasons for that, and perhaps we should ask the Procedure Committee to consider moving Question Time to another time of the day to see whether that would lessen the problem. My question is: is the proposal necessary?

Comparing this House to the House of Commons is also not as helpful as one might initially suggest. We are a very different and varied House. We are not like Members of another place. We do not represent anybody and we do not have constituencies, but we are very regionally based. There are full-time Peers here, sitting on all the Front Benches, who devote their lives to this House. There are Peers who have retired from their formal employment who devote a great deal of time to this House, and there are those who are in part employment or full employment. In other words, people come when they can to try to play their part. I worry that the Bill would create the spectre of a full-time and, increasingly, fully paid House. My point for the Minister is to be very cautious in accepting this.

This will be an extremely useful and interesting debate.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Does my noble friend not conclude from the statistics that he has drawn to the attention of the House that the issue is the relationship between attendance and participation?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, no, I do not. I produced the average daily figures for attendance and for voting in Divisions. It is entirely fair that some Peers come here and do not necessarily vote. There may be many reasons for that, including for the Cross-Benchers, who often do not vote in Divisions for their own political reasons.

The point I was about to make, which my noble friend might enjoy, concerns whether the House of Commons would welcome the Bill. We know what the House of Commons thinks. Only a few short years ago, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, produced a Bill in the House of Commons to have a largely elected House of Lords, which was passed overwhelmingly. I wonder whether enough time has gone by to ask the House of Commons to consider again a reduction Bill rather than an elected Bill.

10:27

[Lord Goodlad (Con)]

My Lords, I join my noble friend Lord Strathclyde in warmly congratulating my noble friend Lord Elton on bringing this Bill before the House. I offer both him and the Bill my warm support. My noble friend mentioned the surgeon who told a bewildered patient that they needed some form of surgery. My late father was a doctor. He told me that when faced with a particularly bewildering diagnosis, he occasionally fell back on the formula, “Have you had this before?”, to which the patient would usually say, “Yes, something like it, a few years ago”. My father would then say, “Well, I think you’ve got it again”. We have been round something similar to this course before.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde referred to the unpleasantness of the elections that took place following the passage of the Weatherill amendment. Those of us who have even more experience of elections than my two noble friends would say that that would have to be a matter for the opinion of noble Lords, but elections, unpleasant as they may be, are tolerable and sometimes necessary.

The Bill encapsulates a growing consensus in the House—consensus rather than unanimity—about how best to limit our numbers. That consensus has a long pedigree, for which my noble friend Lord Jopling—who I am happy to see in his place but who I know cannot stay until the end of the debate because of a charitable obligation and therefore cannot contribute—deserves a large amount of credit. He has blazed the trail for this particular format.

The Bill, is wisely narrow in scope. Important matters such as the functions and powers of the House are wisely left for another day. That narrowness in scope none the less does not entirely avoid the necessity of considering contentious issues during its further stages, if such there be. Is it wise to leave the Prime Minister’s present powers untrammelled? We are in the present position because they are effectively quite untrammelled.

The Bill does not solve the problems raised by the current definition of recognised affiliation groups. The UK Independence Party’s 4 million votes at the last election are not reflected in its representation here. The position of the Liberal Democrats here is similarly anomalous. A combination of votes cast in favour of and seats won by existing and—who knows?—as yet unthought-of political groupings, could produce a formula for a better definition of recognised affiliation groups. My noble friend Lord Jopling has done much work on this. As to the timing of elections within affiliation groups, perhaps it would be better for them to take place immediately after general elections rather than immediately before, to give a more up-to-date reflection of popular opinion.

My noble friend’s Bill is wholly in tune with the will of the Government, as expressed by my noble friend Lady Chisholm of Owlpen in our debate on 16 September, to work with noble Lords to support incremental reform that commands consensus across the House. I hope the Government will give effect to that will by providing as much time as is necessary to consider the remaining stages of the Bill, so that consensus may emerge from its chrysalis with wings fully and gloriously emblazoned. I remind those who, perish the thought, might seek to inhibit the passage of the Bill of William Blake’s warning in Auguries of Innocence:

“Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly

For the Last Judgment draweth nigh”.

10:31

[The Lord Bishop of Birmingham]

My Lords, I am resisting the temptation to tear up my notes and respond to the noble Lord’s last quote. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for again bringing before us this important matter. It is widely agreed in many places that as we seek to be effective as a House, the size of the House is of great concern. Of course, as has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, recent changes have attempted to alleviate the size of the House—we have adopted retirement provisions—yet they have not been sufficient to alleviate the flow of new Members. The statistics have already been referred to.

From this Bench, the Lords spiritual have spoken consistently over the past few years in support of reform aimed at addressing the size of the House—and we do so again, keeping in mind the aim of the House to improve the core functions of our scrutiny of legislation and government proposals from the other House, and of offering expertise and independence, which have already been referred to. That the initiative for change, responding to a clear need with a focused and incremental approach, is once again being led by your Lordships’ House rather than imposed from outside is to be welcomed. But taking decisive responsibility for making delicate if radical constitutional improvements is something that we can do, keeping in mind our determination to better serve the country. I believe that it is a good way forward.

In detail, your Lordships’ House and this Parliament have already made a change to allow women to serve on this Bench in a small constitutional change. I will also refer to the debate this week in the other place that has already been mentioned. Noble Lords may also like to know that there are some such as myself on this Bench who were born and bred in Scotland and have strong roots in that part of Britain—but if that is too detailed a point to make, noble Lords may ignore it and I will continue.

This current Bill leads the Lords spiritual untouched at this stage and applies only to the Lords temporal. Noble Lords may think that that is appropriate, given the different circumstances that pertain as to how we on this Bench arrive and leave your Lordships’ House. Nonetheless, when it comes to the size of the House, including the most recent government Bill in 2011-12, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, we acknowledge that if the overall size of the House is to be reduced, of course the Lords spiritual must play their full part in that arrangement. That means that we would indeed continue to look constructively at a decrease in our own numbers in proportion with an overall decrease in the size of your Lordships’ House.

Noble Lords may know that at the moment, the number of Lords spiritual is fixed at 26, which has been the case for more than 150 years. I cannot compete with the detailed statistics provided by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, but the proportion of bishops in your Lordships’ House has risen and fallen over that long period over successive decades. It is currently running at about 3% of your Lordships’ House and has been in recent years.

[Lord Elton]

Will the right reverend Prelate forgive an academic interruption to point out that before the Reformation, this House consisted of more Lords spiritual than Lords temporal?

[The Lord Bishop of Birmingham]

I thank the noble Lord for his reminder of that. I did not want to give a history lesson today, but behind my remarks and the responsibility that we are taking for incremental change is the desire for stability and to give consistent service to the country at a time when there is widespread uncertainty in other areas.

Lords spiritual have some experience, therefore, under the present arrangements, of living within the constraints of an upper cap on numbers. We also have the experience of one of the alternatives to a cap on numbers—a compulsory retirement age. In your Lordships’ House, that is set at the ridiculously young age of 70—which is when a bishop has to leave their see and retire from stipendiary service. The 2011-12 Bill wisely left space for the Church to determine a mechanism for a smaller number of Lords spiritual to be selected to receive a Writ of Summons. As we go on in these debates, that is something that we might find useful in the process.

I will indulge in a pastoral note in passing. While we are having these discussions, we should not inadvertently regard newcomers to the House as an unwelcome nuisance, nor should we regard older Members —here I am not patronising the excellent initiative taken by the noble Lord, Lord Elton—as merely taking up space. There are many on all sides who will bring great value to this House during the years ahead.

There are many noble Lords here today who are better qualified to go into the detail of this Bill and suggest alternative schemes. In the proposals before the House today, there are, as has already been hinted, unresolved questions about patronage and the potential to add numbers during the period suggested, which might distort the process. I hope that the Bill proceeds from today so that we can have these and other matters discussed further for decisive action as well as careful consideration.

10:38

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Elton is absolutely right to say that there is concern about the size of the House. But my noble friend Lord Strathclyde is equally right to say that this is more a perception than reality. Of course, there was a perception pre-1999 that the House was too big, but the vast number of the hereditary Peers did not attend. The net result of the 1999 Act was that about 90 working hereditaries were removed from the House, as well as a lot of non-working hereditaries.

If we are concerned about the size of the House, the Bill before us does nothing to reassure me. To limit this House to the size of the House of Commons would positively encourage Prime Ministers to keep on appointing working Peers in order to build up their number to 600. I think that that would be to the great detriment of the House.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde was absolutely right to say that when we move out of here in a few years’ time, that will be the ideal point at which to start reducing numbers. Rather than follow the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Elton, I would rather go for a fixed number of Peers. I would go for 350, which is not that different from the current working House. To have a figure of 600 that would be variable over the course of a five-year Parliament would be a nonsense that would not help the situation.

If it comes to an election in order to achieve that, it will be nothing new in your Lordships’ House. For 273 out of the last 309 years, part of this House has been elected. I refer in particular to the Scottish representative Peers. Since 1707 until the Peerage Act 1963, there were 16 elected Scottish Peers—Peers of Scotland. After every general election they held an open election in Holyrood Palace, to which they were summoned, and they decided who the 16 would be. When that happened in 1707, it represented a reduction of 90% of Peers sitting in Parliament, because there had been 143 Scottish hereditary Peers sitting in the Scottish Parliament. So what my noble friend Lord Elton suggested, and indeed what the Lord Chancellor at the time, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, who I am pleased to see in his place, did in 1999 is minor in comparison with what the Scots suffered in 1707.

One of the problems that resulted from the reduction in 1707 applies to what my noble friend suggested. There was resentment in Scotland that they were not properly represented. As we move increasingly towards becoming a full-time working House, the remoter parts of the country are going to get cut off. I found this particularly when I was living in Caithness; it was one of my reasons for moving back to London. If one wanted to take part in business here on a Monday, the only way to guarantee that was to leave home on Sunday night. On a good day it was possible to make the journey in around five hours, but on a bad day it could take well over 16 hours. If the House of Lords is to become more political and professional, inevitably Peers in the outer reaches are going to be squeezed because they will not be able to participate.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

I support what the noble Earl said. Is he aware that almost 50% of the membership of this House is currently from London and the south-east of England?

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I am grateful to hear that from someone who lives comparatively close to an airport compared to where I used to live. I always welcome the noble Lord’s support—and indeed he makes a point for me. We are far too south-east orientated—M25-orientated—and if there is to be an election, it should be on a regional basis rather than on any other. We must make certain that we cover the geography of this country.

Also, the election should not be held on the proportion of Peers sitting at the moment but on the vote at the last general election. At the moment we have a disproportionate number of Liberal Peers, while the number of UKIP Peers in this House is insufficient to represent the electorate, and there are no Scottish Nationalist Peers. That might be their choice, but at least it should be built into our legislation that the parties that get a certain percentage of the vote at a general election should be allowed to be represented here. It should be up to them who they put up and in which region.

So I say to my noble friend that I would like more of what he is proposing in the Standing Orders to be on the face of the Bill—far too much is left to Standing Orders—and that the system that he is proposing is not one that will be workable or indeed popular throughout the country.

10:44

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Elton for the work that he has put into this Bill and I appreciate the wide consultation that he has undertaken. The Bill is to be welcomed because it is a constructive attempt to address the problem of the size of the House, which dominates our thinking at present. My noble friend has made the point that it is complementary to other related measures which may be on the table for consideration or debate at some point in the future, an example being that of possible legislation to abolish the by-election of hereditary Peers.

Several other schemes are being introduced to restrict the size of the House, many of which are based on the arithmetic of linking its composition either to votes cast, seats won, or a combination of both based on the results of the last general election. I think that the Bill in the name of my noble friend Lord Elton would fall into that category. All of them will involve a cull of Peers who are currently Members of your Lordships’ House. As my noble friend Lord Strathclyde and others have pointed out, there is only one example of this, which was the House of Lords Act 1999. There will be many Members of your Lordships’ House who will recall the sadness and bitterness that accompanied the process. Perhaps I may retrospectively pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Strathclyde for the sensitivity and skill with which he conducted that process.

Every cull will cause its personal problems, but my noble friend’s Bill has one positive feature. Unlike most of the arithmetical schemes which are based in some form on the results of the most recent general election, this Bill provides that the proportion of Peers surrendered by each category is the same. This is a very important point. We have had an example which according even to my limited arithmetic would mean around 800 Peers being reduced to 600. I suggest that this arrangement will be seen both inside and outside the House as more equitable than some of the other proposals where the proportion surrendered, geared to the results in the Commons, will vary widely between the categories. My noble friend Lord Caithness was slightly more specific about this point.

The process of reducing our numbers under this Bill will be relatively straightforward in the case of the three main political parties. For the Cross-Benchers it will be a challenge, but I suggest that the members of that group will be well able to achieve a mutually acceptable procedure. However, I have one problem about the proposed reduction. On the first time there is no problem but can my noble friend reassure me that, under paragraph 6 of the new Standing Order, in the case of a large number of Peers being appointed by the Prime Minister there is not a danger of the advantage to that party being carried through to subsequent Parliaments? I shall leave that with my noble friend, and in conclusion I congratulate him on the work he has put into this Bill.

10:47

[Lord Selsdon (Con)]

My Lords, I have been here for only 50 years or so. We have six Members who have been here for more than 50 years. It is a remarkable institution that I thoroughly enjoy. The question here is about age and length of service. I have details of every single Peer who has served in this House, and our weakness at the moment lies in the number of new entrants who are untrained and inexperienced. As I say, six of us have been here for more than 50 years, 23 for between 40 and 50 years and 30 for 40 to 45 years; those are long years of service and they mean that we have quite a remarkable knowledge base.

I am an elected hereditary Peer who was one of those who fought hard to be elected when my noble friend Lord Strathclyde was trying to do something else at that point. Since then we have found that the elected hereditary Peers have the highest level of attendance and the greatest amount of participation in the House. The problem above all others is that we do not know each other. I have before me details of the length of service and details of every Peer. For fun we had an exercise whereby it might be nice to reward people for their service by binding up copies of their speeches in red vellum as memorial gifts for their long service. My noble friend Lord Carrington is our longest-serving Member, followed by my noble friend Lord Denham, and this great expertise and knowledge, if we can call them that, need to be understood. However, we do not know who we are. It is extraordinarily difficult to put names to the faces one sees in the House. I was sitting quietly and looking to see who I knew as several Peers came through the door. I found that the only way to get to know anybody these days is to ask the doorkeepers. How they have that ability to remember everyone, I do not know.

The question, therefore, is: if we look at length of service, do we ask people to retire because of age, or do we ask that they should retire because they have not performed? Performance is probably one issue to look at. I have all the figures for those who have not attended at all and for those who have attended only once or twice. But whoever people are, and whether they attend or not, they cost money and organisation.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, I did not intend to intervene again in this debate if I could avoid it, but I would like my noble friend to tell us, rather than for me to hear afterwards, how much somebody who never attends costs the House.

[Lord Selsdon]

My Lords, I am afraid that is beyond my pay grade.

The facilities of the House are designed to accommodate a whole range of people. If one wants to see attendances, we have figures for them. It is not just attendance in the sense of walking in and out of the door and claiming one’s allowance that counts, it is people’s participation. There should perhaps be a requirement to invite people to participate. Having been in the research world for many years, I can say that I have learned more by being drip-fed in this place than in any other institution that I have come across. The difficulty I find is that I am not very good at putting names to faces. Therefore, when I look at someone, I am not sure who they are or what their background is. However, we now have quite a good internet facility for everybody and if anybody would like details or information, I would be happy to provide them. I have in my hand figures for the length of service of everybody. I have great respect for this and for the noble Lord, Lord Elton.

So my simple question is: what do we do next? I am not sure, but if your Lordships would like to share some of the data that I have, I would willingly pass them on. They are quite interesting and provide confirmation that we have probably the greatest institution in terms of concentration of knowledge and experience in the world.

10:52

[Lord Cullen of Whitekirk (CB)]

My Lords, the quality of the work of this House and its committees depends on the range and depth of the knowledge, experience and expertise possessed by its Members. It is surely essential that whatever is done to reduce the size of the House should not impair those resources.

The proposal in this Bill that for each successive Parliament there should be an election of a limited number of Peers presents a number of practical implications. Voting in an election would call for each Member of the House to make a personal choice. He or she could hardly be expected to gauge the overall effect of that choice on the availability, strength and balance of the resources to which I have referred. As regards candidates, some Peers may be less visible than others, preferring to concentrate on subjects on which they have some particular expertise. So there is a risk that the outcome of an election may be a loss of Members who are distinctly well qualified to assist the House and its committees.

If a Member of this House fails to secure election under the proposed system, it appears to mean his or her final exit from the House. I say final, since he or she will have ceased to be a Member of the House and so would not be eligible to stand as a candidate for the next Parliament after that. That is reasonably clear from the draft Standing Order attached to the Explanatory Notes for the Bill. On the face of it, there does not appear to be any way in which that Peer could stand as a candidate in the next Parliament, however desirable that might be.

New Peers, such as new Cross-Benchers, provide a particular case in point. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent those who have newly been made Peers becoming Members of the House during the life of a Parliament. However, their membership would indeed be short-lived if they did not secure election for the next Parliament. They may have been Members of the House for only one or two Sessions and thus would be at a disadvantage compared with seasoned Members of the House who were better known to the electorate. If they were not elected, it follows that they would not be able to stand as candidates for the next Parliament after that. That would be particularly unfortunate. The House surely benefits from the infusion of new Peers who can make valuable contributions, perhaps in fields not previously well represented in the House, if at all.

I have mentioned the Explanatory Notes, which brings me to say something about the content of the Bill. It is remarkable how brief are its provisions. One might expect the Bill to set out the substance of what was proposed, whereas notes would set out the explanation for the Bill, what the point of it was and how it fitted into the law. However, in this case, the Explanatory Notes seem to extend the content of the Bill in various ways that I need not go into. I wonder whether that is a usual or appropriate use of Explanatory Notes. At least some of their content should appear in the legislation. That is not an academic point, since the Bill seeks to restrict the entitlement of Peers to sit as Members of this House. For the purpose of discussion in this House or, for that matter, in the other place, the legislation should contain what is proposed and do so with clarity and certainty.

10:56

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with most of the wise words of the noble and learned Lord who has just spoken. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Elton on the way in which he has introduced the Bill; he is a great ornament to the House and his wisdom is respected by us all. However, I confess to a mild dulling of the senses when another Bill comes forward to reform your Lordships’ House: three Bills up and more than six months still to go in this Session—perhaps we are trying for the record in the number of discussions of ways to reform ourselves. I sometimes think that there are greater priorities to discuss.

Of the schemes advanced, that of my noble friend may in many ways be the least bad; indeed, if we are to accept the proposition, which I do not, that there should be a cull of the numbers in the House which did not pretend to be reform—and this is certainly not real reform—then a proposition that imitated for the life Peers what happened to the hereditary Peers in 1999 is clearly one logical way to proceed.

However, I am afraid that I share the view of those who have said that limiting the numbers in the House is not a tearing need. I do not often feel that I need sharp elbows here, nor do I think it a disaster if a great Chamber of a great Parliament is sometimes crowded on a great occasion. What is so wrong with that? Nobody outside here has ever tugged me angrily by the sleeve and said, “By God, we need to reduce the number of Lords by a hundred or two”.

The problem that some noble Lords do not wish to face is that if there are people out there who want real reform of the Lords, their beef is not that we have more than enough life Peers to ride into the Valley of Death at Balaclava but that we have any appointed Peers at all in the 21st century. I have never hidden the fact, uncongenial though I know it is to many of your Lordships, that I would have no objection to standing for election to the political Benches—after all, I face the electorate daily in my day job—but if we are to have election, the daringly modern part of me would rather that the electorate of the political Peers were the British people and not the Bishops’ Bar.

I do not follow my noble friend with this Bill, however well intentioned it is; but if we are to proceed, I agree with what has been said: that much of the material in the Standing Orders will have to be discussed in detail. Let me give just a couple of examples.

First, there is the problem of even a periodic limit on the size of the House, alluded to by my noble friend Lord Bridgeman. The five-year cull, as I understand it, would cut the size of the House to 600. Then—and I must make it clear that I make no objection to this, for with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act preventing Dissolution, a cap on the size of the House that does not allow a Government to swamp this House in the case of a constitutional crisis is unacceptable—my noble friend’s Bill rightly allows for creations after every cull. However, as my noble friend Lord Bridgeman said, the effect of that could be that a Prime Minister could pump the numbers back up from 600 to 800 and those new loyalist Peers would then weigh the percentage size of the various party colleges in the next Parliament. There could be a ratchet towards a party in office that did not show the restraint in creations that Prime Ministers should show. We all know that the real root of the matter is the rash of creations by Prime Ministers, excepting Gordon Brown and Ted Heath—there have been a few who have shown restraint. We should not appoint more Peers than, frankly and bluntly, die. So the ratchet would be a problem.

The second potential objection—which was alluded to by my noble friend Lord Caithness, although I fear I have to be a little blunter than he was—is why on earth should the proportion of Liberal Democrat Peers in this House be frozen by paragraph (6) of my noble friend’s draft Standing Order? The Lib Dems won 7.9% of the vote at the last election. They now have 13.2% of the whole House and 17.9% of the political House. Under that party’s policy, until the 2015 election made it rather inconvenient and awkward for them, the number of Lib Dem Peers reflecting the votes cast at the election would not be 104 but 62 on the eligible House basis and 46 on the narrower political base. I could not support any propositions, such as those of my noble friend, which entrenched such a gross over-representation in this House of a party represented by eight in the other place. I calculate that the effect of the Standing Order as drafted would be 79 Lib Dem Peers in a House of 600 if we used the 13.2% number or 107 in a political House-only calculation.

My third point, alluded to by the right reverend Prelate in some telling remarks, relates to the treatment of newer Peers. I have always found very distasteful the underlying messages of those who say that because there are too many of us, either at the long-serving end, “Bring in an age limit; you are 75 and past your sell-by date, you must go”; or, at the newer end, “There are too many like you coming in, not of the right calibre and we have to stop it”. I do not care for either of those messages, but I read in my noble friend’s draft Standing Order that anyone who has been appointed to the House after the first Session of the preceding Parliament—in other words, less than five years before each cull—would have no vote in the quinquennial balloon debate about who should be chucked out, in that they are not deemed to have served for a whole Parliament. I understand the idea, though I do not agree with it, that new bugs don’t know enough to be allowed a say, but surely by the time they have worked their way up to C or even B block they might actually have enough knowledge to cast a vote. I appreciate that my noble friend’s intention may be to deny a voice to nominations made after each cull, but we cannot presume that every new Peer is a party hack incompetent to judge fairly. As I read this provision, it is fairly demeaning and we will need to look at it as it goes forward.

As I have taken a little time, I shall stray no further into what I think is an absolute mare’s nest of probing amendments, bringing into the Bill some of the Standing Orders that we will have to have if the Bill goes forward. However, I will speak about the process involved, following on from the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cullen, but in a slightly different guise. People have said that the process of choice is difficult. Of course it is. I have been rejected at the ballot box and I have won at the ballot box, but the problem with this proposition as it is emerging is that in my judgment it risks empowering a club mentality. One can imagine the grey suits of the “Campaign for Effective Peers”, or whatever it is called, chewing over who might stay. The people who would stay might be the product of a consensus into which some are either not privileged to be invited or not inclined to join. Had I not known my noble friend Lord Goodlad better, I might have thought that the conclusion of his speech was a veiled threat to the inconvenient and those who do not fit the consensus, that if they do not pipe down they may not be chosen. I do not wish to go down that road; perhaps I misinterpreted my noble friend, but with his Whips’ Office experience, I doubt it.

I fear that it would be divisive, alter behaviour, have the perverse effect of raising attendance levels in every pre-election Session, as Peers try to catch the eyes of the selector or to join the consensus, and would inevitably prove hurtful to the losers, many of whom make a good, if occasional, contribution but might not make it, perhaps for lack of knowledge through the straitened gates of a cull. On balance, therefore, I would prefer it if my noble friend were to leave what is reasonably well alone.

11:06

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, I do not intend to detain your Lordships for more than a very few moments. During the course of the debate this morning I have learned a number of possible difficulties with the Bill proposed by my noble friend, which he will no doubt take into account. If the Bill is to proceed I suspect that it will need a fairly massive Committee stage. Whether that proves to be possible remains to be seen. I was particularly struck by the observations of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cullen, who felt that much that is in the Explanatory Notes ought to be put into the Bill. I rather agree with that. I also agree about some of the difficulties that have been described over Peers who have come to this House for a comparatively short period and then find themselves unelected.

The other point that occurs to me is that the Bill does cut across the famous undertaking given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, back in 1999, about the position of the hereditary Peers, who would remain here, topped up by by-elections as necessary, until House of Lords reform was complete. If my noble friend believes that his Bill is in that position he will, perhaps, tell us. I would not have said so and I remain of the view that the undertakings given in 1999 ought to be honoured. I hope that they will be and that the Bill will not cut across that.

11:07

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, on 7 September last year I asked from these Benches whether the then Leader of the House agreed that,

“there should be a moratorium on further appointments to this House until sensible measures are agreed to reduce its size and that seeking consensus through a constitutional convention, involving all parties, is the best way forward for reform of this House in the long run”.—[Official Report, 7/9/16; col. 1211.]

I made it clear that I wanted to see action to limit the size of the House, and many noble Lords have referred today to concerns about its size at present. Sadly, the Government accepted neither the principle of a moratorium on appointments, nor the kind of constitutional convention argued for then by my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed and others.

The reason that we now have a House of more than 800 Members is a simple one. The last Prime Minister and the present one have between them created 261 Peers over the last six years. That is a rate of 43 per year. Gordon Brown was relatively modest, only creating an average of 11 Peers per year, but his predecessor, Tony Blair, created them at a rate of 37 per year. So the current rate of creating Peers exceeds significantly the number of Members leaving the House for whatever reason. I do not want to dwell too much on actuarial calculations, nor on the fact that the average age of membership of your Lordships’ House is 69. Suffice it to say that what one might call the natural reduction in the size of the House is somewhat less than 20 per year. Some progress has been made on reducing the size of the House through various measures such as the House of Lords Reform Act introduced by my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood. Between them, these measures have allowed 61 Members to resign or retire in the past six years—an average of 10 per year. So the size of the House has increased by more than 100 since 2010, giving rise to present concerns.

I want to address particularly the issue of linking the size of this House to that of the House of Commons. I have said before that I agreed with the Lord Speaker when he said in an interview with The House magazine:

“I don’t think that we can justify a situation where you have over 800 peers at the same time as you’re bringing down the Commons to 600 MPs”.

But I also believe that we should re-examine the case for a reduction in the number of MPs. The passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill was a very difficult experience for me and for a number of other noble Lords present—I look particularly at the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. It was part of the coalition programme that I had to accept if I accepted the coalition. The constituency boundary review proposals were a major part of it, and I was really unhappy about them. This was partly because I did not see the case for reducing the size of the Commons from 650 to 600 without securing the progress that we needed on other related measures such as reducing the size of the ministerial payroll in order to prevent the Executive gaining greater leverage over the elected House, much greater devolution of power from Westminster, and establishing greater legitimacy for this House to hold government to account, which I believe could come only from electing at least some of its Members. In the absence of these things, the case for reducing the size of the House of Commons was, in my view, not made.

It was claimed that the size of the House of Commons had grown inexorably with previous Boundary Commission reviews. But the fact is that membership of the House of Commons grew only from 640 in 1945 to 650 in 2010, while in that 65-year period the electorate grew by more than 12 million voters. In 1945 each MP represented an average of 52,000 voters, while in 2010 each MP represented an average of just over 70,000 voters. The Boundary Commission proposals that have just been published show that in future MPs will be expected to represent an average of 75,000 voters; in other words, after the next general election, MPs will be expected to represent 44% more voters than their predecessors did in 1945, even though expectations of what they can do for individual constituents have risen inexorably. So when we compare the size of the Houses, parity is not such a bad principle, but we need to agree on the relevant size of each House. If we consider again the size of each House, we also have to consider the representation of the Lords Spiritual in this respect, which the Bill does not.

Of course, the fundamental question is: how might we reduce the size of this House? I believe that this Bill does not provide a good way of doing that. The noble Lord, Lord True, appeared to think that the simplest and best answer to the problem is to reduce the size of the representation on the Lib Dem Benches, based on our level of support at the last general election. I would be very happy if our representation was based on the latest election result: 30% in Witney yesterday. My more serious point is that if you do base representation on previous election results, you should not base it simply on the most recent election. In five of the last six general election results, the Liberal Democrat share of the vote was always 20 plus or minus three. So actually our representation of 105 out of more than 800 is less than proportionate if based on votes over the past 30 years. I rest my case.

Repeating the kind of process by which hereditary Peers voted to determine which of their number remained in the House would not be very seemly, as many noble Lords have said. It seems to me, working out the maths, that it would be possible for everyone who wanted to stay here to do so provided that they voted for themselves and found one Peer who wanted to vote for them also. Finding support from people who have been appointed to the House in various ways but do not wish to remain in the House would not, I think, be a great exercise in democracy.

However, we could take some practical and immediate steps to reduce the size of the House. First, we must end the farcical process of the by-elections to replace hereditary Peers. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has put forward a Bill to do exactly that and it should be properly considered without the threat of filibuster. I noted the suggestion that this Bill might require a rather long Committee stage. I believe that we should take these issues rather more seriously. Secondly, and most importantly, we have to curb the power of prime ministerial and party leader patronage. The original “Steel Bill” was drafted so as to put the independent Appointments Commission on a statutory footing. Pending the kind of real reform that my party supports, the Appointments Commission should be able to consider and approve party nominations subject to a strict cap on numbers aimed at bringing the size of both Houses into line over time.

In conclusion, we should be acting to reduce the size of the House, and in the absence of other constitutional reforms, the size of the House of Commons may be a good target to aim for over time. This Bill, while worth considering, does not provide the best answers to the problem, but curbing prime ministerial and party leader privilege to appoint Peers may be an important part of the solution.

11:16

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in bringing the Bill forward because it deals with a topical and, I think, urgent issue on which this House must take a lead. I am also delighted that the noble Baroness the Minister and I are able at last to reflect the women in the House. If we do come to any method for reducing the numbers here, a gender allocation will be high on our list of considerations. The noble Lord, Lord True, referred to selection being done in the Bishops’ Bar. To spare their blushes, we should make it clear that it is a coffee bar that I have never seen a bishop enter.

I rarely repeat anything the SNP says—but, as it has no representatives here, I will, for once, endorse its words in the other place this week when it expressed concern about the size of the House of Lords, which,

“with more than 800 members, is considerably larger than the elected House of Commons … there is no case … for the number … to exceed the number of members of the democratically elected House”.

The SNP said that it,

“cannot condone any Government action that may increase the number of unelected members while reducing the number of elected Members of Parliament”—

as has just been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. It called on the Government—splitting an infinitive—

“to significantly reduce the number of unelected Lords”,

and,

“to abandon any plans to reduce the number of Members of Parliament”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/10/16; col. 876.]

Two years ago, Labour Peers concluded that the House had to reduce its size—since when, of course, it has grown significantly. The fault, although he has not been named, lies, I am afraid, fairly and squarely with David Cameron, who, despite the 2015 manifesto promise to reduce the size of the Lords, handed out life peerages at a faster rate than any other Prime Minister since their introduction in 1958—some 260 since the 2010 election. At a cost of more than £100,000 each, that is some £30 million—and this despite his party’s repeated rhetoric that it wants to cut the cost of politics. Furthermore, as Professor Meg Russell has shown, he has appointed a greater proportion of government Peers, with fewer for the Cross Benches and the Opposition. It is time to take action.

We support the very modest Bill referred to by others, introduced by my noble friend Lord Grocott, to end hereditary by-elections. Surely it is right in itself, and a tiny step on size, but it is too modest to take us anywhere near the size of the Commons. So we need more—and parts of this Bill point the way. There must, however, be some serious debate about the actual size, the freedom of a Prime Minister to appoint at will, as has been mentioned, and the balance of composition. Freezing as of today will not attract consensus. Indeed, without clear agreement on an appropriate balance between the parties and the Cross Benches, it is unlikely that there will be consensus on a way forward.

This Government—the first Conservative one without an effective majority here—seem to dislike having their will challenged. But that is our role. Their action on numbers seeks to undermine a balanced House to which an Executive must listen. Indeed, the Conservatives became the largest party in the Lords after just three years of minority party government. Tony Blair, the Labour Prime Minister, has been referred to; it took him three successive general election victories—two of which, we must recall, were landslides with majorities of 174 and 167—before Labour became the largest party in the Lords in 2005. Yet only just over a year into the first majority Conservative Government, and with a majority of only 12 in the other place, the Tories are now 50 ahead of Labour. So how we move forward on size has to include consideration of the role of the House and whether it is right to engineer a government political majority.

The Liberal Democrats, as the noble Lord, Lord True, mentioned, are greatly overrepresented here compared with their eight Members in the Commons. It is hard to justify the continuation of this, as I fear the current Bill would allow. The issue is one of balance between the Government, the Opposition and the Cross Benches. As always, we welcome the very non-political spiritual Members. Cementing the currently engineered relative numbers between those groups might not attract the wide political support which we will need for any move forward. This will probably be the issue that most needs addressing before we look at how each political grouping should be reduced pro rata. Perhaps we might move to an all-female House and do it that way.

The hope today from this Bill is that the Government will see size as the “incremental” step referred to by the Minister on 9 September when she said that the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park,

“looks forward to working with Peers to support incremental reform”.—[Official Report, 9/9/16; col. 1251.]

I hope, too, that the Bill moved by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, will nudge the powers that be to ensure that, before we move out of this building, we, too, have our own restoration and renewal to make ourselves fit for purpose.

11:23

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, let me start by congratulating my noble friend Lord Elton on securing time for the consideration of this Bill. My noble friend’s proposals address a matter that continues to be of interest to us all. I thank him for his thoughtful contribution to this debate and all noble Lords who have taken part, with many excellent and amusing speeches. I am humbled to be answering this debate following speeches from many noble Lords who have been part of this House for far longer than me. I, too, am pleased that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, mentioned, two women are speaking from the Front Benches but I make no further comment on this.

This is a subject that we have debated many times before and will continue to debate in the future. It goes without saying that this House plays a vital role in the scrutiny of legislation and in holding the Government to account. It is crucial that it continues to undertake that role effectively. We therefore welcome this debate and the commitment of Peers from all sides of the House in contributing to it. We are aware that consensus is a crucial component of any proposals for reform, if they are to progress past the stage of debate. As many noble Lords will no doubt recall, in 2012 the House of Lords Reform Bill was withdrawn not for lack of commitment from the Government but because there was no overall agreement on what shape any reform should take.

We have many pressing constitutional reforms on which we should focus our attention in this Parliament—not least devolving more powers to Wales and delivering all that is necessary for the UK’s exit from the European Union. However, that does not mean that we should rule out further change. It seems logical that this House should continue, as it has for centuries, to question whether there are better ways to work and whether we can find ways of fulfilling our role more effectively. Where there are ideas for change and improvement that command consensus, we would welcome working with noble Lords to take them forward.

We know that change is possible. The Government supported the Bills introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. Those Bills enabled Peers to retire for the first time and provided a mechanism for the House to expel Members where their conduct fell below the standards that the public have a right to expect from those who make laws in this country. I am glad to say that we have not had to use the latter power. However, 52 Peers have taken the opportunity now open to them to permanently retire from this House, reflecting a real cultural change among our membership of which we can be proud.

Turning to the detail, my noble friend Lord Elton’s Bill would introduce elections every five years to elect Members of the House from among existing life and hereditary Peers who were Members of the House. Only those Peers who were already Members would be able to vote. The provision in Clause 2 would cap the number of Members elected to be Members of this House at the number of seats in the House of Commons. Currently that is of course 650, although under the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 it will reduce to 600. The Bill does not seek to amend the process for appointing life Peers or their right to membership of this House, although Clause 1 would prevent their remaining a Member after the first Session of the Parliament after they first receive a Writ of Summons. The effect of this would be that any new peerages conferred would take the overall membership above the 650 cap for the duration of that Parliament. It also means that some Members may serve as a Member of this House for only a very short period.

The Bill would also amend the House of Lords Act 1999 to ensure that the 90 hereditary Peers provided for by that Act to sit in this House becomes a maximum of 90 since, depending on the outcome of the elections, all 90 provided for in the 1999 Act may not be elected. The Bill would not otherwise amend that Act, so it would appear that the process by which a hereditary Peer is replaced through a by-election remains intact and that if a hereditary Peer died, they would be replaced by another hereditary Peer. As we heard in debate on the Private Member’s Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, a number of weeks ago—and during the debate today—this is an area where noble Lords have slightly differing views. The Bill also provides for Peers who are not Members of this House, in accordance with the provisions in Clause 1, to vote in elections to the House of Commons and to stand for election to that House. Currently, those Peers who are not Members by virtue of being excepted, expelled or resigned are able to vote. This provision would extend that to those Peers who are not Members by virtue of having not been elected under the Bill.

As a Government, we agree that the size of the House cannot grow indefinitely. However, the kind of fundamental change to our composition that the Bill outlines would represent comprehensive reform of this House and, as noble Lords will not be surprised to hear me say and as my noble friend Lord True said, at a time when there are many pressing challenges facing us as a country, not least in giving effect to our withdrawal from the European Union, we do not believe that now is the right time to embark on such reform. I must therefore express reservations about the Bill.

However, that does not mean that we should not continue to work to make sure that your Lordships’ House continues to work well. Indeed, it is vital that this House continues to work effectively in holding the Government to account and scrutinising legislation, given the challenges ahead of us, and as a House we should always consider whether there are ways for us to do our job more effectively. Where there are reforms which can command the consensus of the House and improve how we work, we would be interested to work with noble Lords in taking them forward.

So while I express reservations about the Bill before us today, I welcome again the spirit of the debate and the quality of the contributions we have heard. The best step forward from here would be to harness the enthusiasm around the Chamber to explore the options available. That is something I will absolutely take away to discuss with my Front-Bench colleagues, as we move forward, and I would also welcome further conversations with many of those involved today.

11:31

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, friendly, confusing or hostile. I am not quite sure where to classify the Minister’s remarks. They seemed to be about as bright a red light as you can get without actually feeling that you necessarily have to stop because of it. If I spend a moment in replying as best I can to the remarks noble Lords have made, it may not be time wasted in the future.

In response to the Minister, I shall anticipate what I was going to finish by saying. Consensus remains the jewel—the holy grail—that we should try to achieve, and we should not abandon the search at the first difficulty. Time is very much of the essence, and I therefore hope we shall be allowed a Committee. To make that not a complete waste of time, I hope noble Lords will accept my invitation to come to an informal discussion in which we can each bring improvements to the Bill—I have some myself—and perhaps as a result we can finish with something approaching consensus. Listening to my noble friends Lord Caithness and Lord True, and very carefully to my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, I realise that that may be a vain attempt, but it should be made.

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I am not sure noble Lords want a response now, before Committee, to the points they have made. I feel like the unfortunate English soldiers leaving the Battle of Hastings and pulling arrows out of their shields when they got home. I have so many of your Lordships’ arrows in my shield, I think I had better write as I will give much clearer, more concise answers than if I grope in my memory for the slightly unfocused recollections I have of the diamond-sharp ideas put forward.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill [HL]

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

Second Reading

11:34

Moved by

[Lord Shinkwin]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, as someone with a disability, it gives me immense pride to present to your Lordships’ House a Bill about disability rights and the fundamental principle of equality under the law. Noble Lords have treated me with nothing but respect as an equal since my introduction to your Lordships’ House just under a year ago. The reason for my Bill is that in respect to disability before birth the law does not recognise or accept that equality.

I wonder if I could extend an invitation to noble Lords to join me briefly on a journey, to put themselves in my place and to view the issues under discussion from a disabled person’s perspective. From this disabled person’s perspective, there is a stark anomaly, an inconsistency in the law, whereby discrimination on grounds of disability is both prohibited in law after birth yet, confusingly, actually enshrined in law at the very point at which the discrimination begins, at source, before birth. How do I know it is enshrined in law and that disability discrimination begins before birth? I know because the law says so. It is there in black and white in Section 1(1) of the Abortion Act 1967, which gives disability as one of the grounds for abortion:

“if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith ... that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped”.

So by rights I should not be here. I should be dead. Indeed, more than that, according to the eugenic screening programme of our Department of Health, I would be better off dead because of serious handicap, to use the outdated terminology of the Act. I regard my Private Member’s Bill as a modest, reasonable and logical correction of that anomaly in the law to bring it into line with the thrust and spirit of existing disability discrimination and equality legislation.

Before I go into the detail of why I regard my Bill as a modest, reasonable and logical correction of that anomaly, I would like to place my Bill in context. I do so in the context of gratitude to the various clinicians who have treated me over the years without any discrimination, especially Hanus Weisl, a wonderful Jewish orthopaedic surgeon who rebuilt his life after a narrow escape from Nazi-occupied Prague in 1939 and rebuilt me as a child with brittle bones more times than I care to remember—how I wish I could thank him today—to my family and friends for only ever supporting me and never discriminating against me; to our Holy Mother for her non-discriminatory, sustaining love; and to your Lordships’ House for its tireless work to advance disabled people’s rights, as demonstrated by the pivotal role it played in securing the Disability Discrimination Act 21 years ago and the Equality Act, and for the authoritative report of the Select Committee, The Equality Act 2010: The Impact on Disabled People. In fact, I hope the new Minister for Disabled People, Penny Mordaunt, will look at its pragmatic recommendations again.

The second context in which my Bill must be placed is historical. I cannot seriously believe that noble Lords could ever have intended any law to discriminate to the eugenic extent that Section 1(1)(d) of the Abortion Act 1967 permits and of which a particular regime of the 1930s and 1940s would heartily approve.

Moreover, I struggle to understand how such eugenics can somehow be in any way less abhorrent 80 years later, especially given the supposed societal and attitudinal changes that have transpired since and the marvellous medical advances that have been made in that time. I also cannot believe that noble Lords could have intended that laws governing or giving rise to disability discrimination should be moving, in their effects, in such conflicting and contradictory directions as equality law is on the one hand and abortion law is on the other.

The inconsistency would be farcical if its impact were not so tragic. This is perhaps highlighted by how ridiculous it is that I should be a Member of your Lordships’ House, for whom a Health Minister recently professed in an email to me, no doubt sincerely, to have the greatest respect, yet were a younger, unborn version of me to be detected in the womb today, Section 1(1)(d) of the Act and his department’s search-and-destroy approach to screening would make me a prime candidate for abortion. How is that consistent with respect or equality?

It is in the context of such contradiction that I regard my Bill as modest, reasonable and logical. The logic I have just explained. I believe it to be modest and reasonable because its scope is so limited. This is borne out by the legal advice I have received by Hugh Preston QC that the practical effect of my Bill would be that, where there is a substantial risk of serious handicap, the mother’s ability to abort would be governed by the same criteria that apply in the case of any other foetus. Where the foetal handicap is such as to present a risk to the mother’s life or a risk of serious permanent damage to her, the mother would still be allowed by law to abort right up to birth.

Moreover, where the risk of injury to the mother is not so grave as to meet these criteria, the question of abortion would be governed by Section (1)(1)(a) of the Abortion Act—that is, abortion is permitted subject to there being a risk to the physical or mental health of the mother or her existing children greater than the risk of continuing with the pregnancy. In practice, in circumstances where a mother has concluded that she does wish to have an abortion, having decided that she does not wish to have a seriously handicapped child—to use the outdated wording of the Act—the advice I have been given is that one anticipates that this relatively low threshold would not be difficult to overcome, as indeed is the case generally for foetuses presenting no risk of serious handicap.

It follows that the practical effect of abolishing Section 1(1)(d) of the Act, which is what my Bill would do, is that any abortions by reason of disability would need to be carried out within the first 24 weeks, subject to the other sections that I have already mentioned—for example, where there is a risk of serious permanent damage to the mother or her life is at risk, in which case they will remain legally permissible until birth.

What is the legal difference between my Bill and the status quo? The difference in practice is modest; the difference in principle is huge. If a woman chose indirectly to discriminate on grounds of disability, the law would allow her to do so up to 24 weeks, but the principle of disability discrimination itself would no longer be enshrined in law, as I understand it.

Each of us has made different personal journeys to our Lordships’ House, but I submit that each of us has made that same essential journey through life: adulthood, childhood, infancy and before that the state of being an unborn baby, safe and secure in our mother’s womb. Only that is precisely the point, because for unborn babies whose disability is detected, a mother’s womb has become an increasingly dangerous place. I will share a few statistics with noble Lords. There were 230 terminations after 24 weeks on grounds of disability in 2015, and a 56% increase in the number of terminations on grounds of disability after 24 weeks over the last five years, between 2010 and 2015. There has been a 271% increase in the number of terminations on grounds of disability after 24 weeks over the last 20 years, 1995 to 2015. There were 3,213 terminations on grounds of disability in 2015, and a 68% increase in the number of terminations on grounds of disability over the last 10 years, 2005 to 2015. There were 689 terminations for Down’s syndrome alone in 2015 and a 43% increase in the number of terminations for Down’s syndrome over the last five years, 2010 to 2015. There was a 143% increase in the number of terminations for Down’s syndrome over the last 20 years, 1995 to 2015. Perhaps almost as chilling, there were 11 terminations for cleft lip or palate in 2015—an easily surgically rectifiable condition. I find the contrast between the 0.3% decline over the last decade in the number of overall abortions and the rise in the number of abortions on unborn babies detected with a disability alarming and deeply offensive.

As a disabled person, I am a prime candidate for abortion on the grounds of disability. I admit that I would like to say to the eugenicists in the Department of Health and those who obviously fail to appreciate the enormity of what is being perpetrated in our name:

“How dare you? How dare you wipe us out as mere conditions?”,

as the journalist Janice Turner so poignantly, if sadly approvingly, put it in the Times recently. My message to Janice Turner and all those who share such views is this: I am your equal. I will not be defined by my disability. I will be defined by who I am and by my contribution to your Lordships’ House and public service.

In conclusion, I know why they dare. They dare because they can, because discrimination in the form of abortion on grounds of disability is both lethal and legal, enshrined in law by Parliament and by your Lordships’ House. They dare not only because Parliament has legalised disability discrimination before birth or even simply legitimised it. No, we have gone one better than that and have allowed it to be normalised. I suggest that, collectively, we are in denial about the consequences of the choices we have made. But to deny equality here is inconsistent, incompatible and irreconcilable with the wonderful work that your Lordships’ House has done over many years to advance disability rights and equality. It is within that noble tradition of equality legislation that my Bill sits, and that is why I hope noble Lords will agree that my modest, logical and reasonable Bill deserves support and, crucially, government time in order that this corrosive, unjust and deeply discriminatory anomaly in the law is corrected, and equality is upheld in a society that is truly for everyone. I beg to move.

11:52

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support the Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, and congratulate him on bringing this timely piece of legislation to your Lordships’ House and on the eloquent way in which he introduced it. It is hard to overstate my admiration for his courage, his compassion and his integrity.

I hope noble Lords will forgive me for saying so, but I cannot help thinking that if the noble Lord’s Bill had set out to facilitate the assisted suicide of disabled people, it would have been on every national news bulletin. But because it seeks to end the taking of the life of a viable disabled baby, it is being treated very differently. That unwillingness to treat ethical issues with equal respect and impartiality is a disturbing sign of the times—but not as disturbing as the issues of equality, discrimination and the very right to life itself raised by the noble Lord’s important Bill

As the noble Lord observed, our legislation currently affords unborn disabled babies significantly less protection than that which is afforded those who are able bodied. Paradoxically, we will campaign and raise our voices for wheelchair ramps to be placed on public buildings but fail to uphold the innate right to life itself of the disabled person who uses that wheelchair.

Although the able bodied may be aborted up to 24 weeks, those who are disabled may be aborted up to birth. This inevitably implies that these unborn disabled babies are, as the noble Lord said, significantly less valuable than those who are able bodied. What message does this convey about the human dignity and the value —or, rather, the lack of value—of disability in society generally? As the law stands, it is a legal arrangement that invites and encourages discrimination—which is why, in 1990, I spoke and voted against it in another place when this provision was made.

At the time, I was given significant support by a woman called Ellen Wilkie, who had Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In her short 31 years, Ellen gained an honours degree in classics from Bristol University and was a published poet, worker, author, actress, radio and television presenter, journalist and musician. Her parents had been encouraged to abort her but had refused. I particularly commend her autobiography, A Pocketful of Dynamite, to anyone who contests her assertion that, “No one can say what a disabled person will be capable of”.

The arguments that Ellen Wilkie put at that time were set aside by Members of another place, and that legislation was incorporated into statute. It has had a very negative effect on the attitudes that people have. It is a throwback to a time when society had remarkably different attitudes to the inclusion and contribution of people with disabilities. We have moved on as a society and it is time that the law moved on, too. The Disability Rights Commission—now the Equality and Human Rights Commission—has, rightly, argued that this provision,

“is offensive to many people; it reinforces negative stereotypes of disability and … is incompatible with valuing disability and non-disability equally”.

As the We’re All Equal campaign has pointed out, statute insists that we must not discriminate against people with disabilities, but the 1990 provision runs contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the law.

The net effect of the noble Lord’s Bill would be that the 24-week time limit would apply to all babies, regardless of disability—it has no effect on other grounds detailed in the 1967 Abortion Act. It is hardly a secret that I oppose not just the time limits in our current legislation but the provisions that have led to 8 million nascent lives being prematurely ended in the United Kingdom. But this Bill is not about that; it is solely about a eugenic law that flies in the face of our usual protestations and tips the balance in favour of equality and against discrimination.

That the noble Lord’s Bill is desperately needed may be graphically seen in the abortion statistics provided by the department, which the noble Lord referred to. He specifically referred to the situation of people with Down’s syndrome. We live in a country where around 90% of all Down’s syndrome babies are routinely aborted. I know that I am not alone in having been deeply affected by Sally Phillips’s recent documentary, “A World Without Downs Syndrome?”, and the subsequent debate which the programme inspired. Rosa Monckton, mother of Domenica, born with Down’s, remarked that,

“Sally is entirely right about the relentless pressure to persuade mothers to ‘give up and start again’. I hate to think of what our family would have missed if we had gone down that path”.

What does it say about us and our society when amniocentesis and other tests are used as part of search and destroy mission with barely a murmur of dissent? Sally Phillips brilliantly highlighted the appalling pressure put upon mothers who receive a pre-natal diagnosis to abort their babies, but it also revealed from her own experience that living with Down’s is not a death sentence or incompatible with life. Paradoxically, in seeking to eradicate these wonderful individuals from the human race, it suggests that it is we who have the problem, not them. What does it say to the survivors—those who have been inconsiderate enough to avoid the perfection test and have somehow managed to slip through the net?

The noble Lord’s Bill challenges these negative stereotypes, but it also challenges casual attitudes to the law and to the requirement to keep scrupulous records. In 2014, a Department of Health review found evidence that there is significant underreporting of the number of abortions for some foetal disabilities. I hope that when the noble Baroness comes to reply to the debate, she will say what is going to be done to rectify this. I also have another question, arising from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin. Although we were warned about it in the debates in 1990, not least by Professor John Finnis, who was rubbished at the time and accused of scaremongering, very few people realised that the provision would lead to abortion on babies with, as the noble Lord said, rectifiable disabilities such as cleft palate and hare-lip. What does the Minister have to say about that?

The shocking discrimination that we are witnessing through both what our law says and what it facilitates has devastating practical implications. I will conclude my remarks by returning to the pressures exerted on parents. The United Kingdom’s initial report on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities said:

“Concerns were expressed around the approach to abortion in the UK, where disabled people have suggested a bias towards termination of pregnancies if a child is likely to be disabled”.

This view was backed up by evidence submitted to the 2013 independent parliamentary inquiry, which heard from a number of parents who said that, when it became apparent that their baby was disabled, their doctors expected them to abort. Among a number of contributions that I read, one parent said that her doctor became,

“short-tempered and abrupt with me because he clearly didn’t agree with my decision”.

Another said she felt pressured into an abortion and reported that her doctor,

“threatened that all medical help would be denied”.

The inquiry also heard from parents with disabled children. A representative of the British Academy of Childhood Disability said:

“Parents I have spoken to have said that Doctors treating their children with Down’s Syndrome for example (for heart and other conditions post natal) criticised them for not having abortions, saying their children will not have a good life”.

A parent, meanwhile, said:

“Parents who learn of their baby’s disability after birth are sometimes told that it’s too bad they didn’t find out earlier so they could have ‘taken care of it’”.

Another parent said:

“I have heard views expressed that suggest my child is seen as a drain on resources. A common view is that it was not fair on my other child to bring a disabled child into the world”.

When she comes to reply, I hope that the Minister will reflect for a little while on the department’s attitude to some of the alternatives to this that are available. I have read about and seen some of the extraordinary in utero operations that can take place now on disabilities such as spina bifida, and I have also read the work of Professor KJS Anand, one of the world’s leading experts on foetal pain, whose says that,

“it seems prudent to avoid pain during gestation”,

because of the danger that the unborn child will experience pain. Noble Lords should recall that babies have been born and lived from 23 weeks’ gestation, and this provision permits the ending of a life right up to and even during birth. What pain must it experience in this life-ending procedure?

All of this is very sad, so I am extraordinarily grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, for bringing forward his important equalities Bill. It is specific in its intention and specifically targeted at the issue of discrimination and inequality. I urge your Lordships’ House to give it your support at Second Reading today.

12:03

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (Con)]

It is with the greatest possible pleasure that I rise to support the Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin. It is a significant step forward in logical thinking and in the investigation of what we as a society feel about handicap, about handicapped people, about life ownership and about who should make the judgment on whether a person should live or die. Considered internationally, it is a topic and issue on which there is the widest possible variation, as there is with capital punishment. Curiously, this is exactly what this is—a form of capital punishment. It is a form of disallowing by decree the life of someone who is not the person in question.

I am aware immediately that under United Kingdom law a foetus has no personality. This is not the same as in some of our EU member state partners. In Germany, for example, the foetus has a right to life as a personality from the moment of conception. Even in Germany, a would-be mother, a pregnant lady, can have an abortion at any time up to 12 weeks, with nothing except a consultation with a medical professional and three days’ waiting time—but after 12 weeks nothing is allowed, unless the health of the mother is severely compromised. If I recall correctly, considerably earlier legislation in the United Kingdom gave the health of the mother as the key to the question of whether there should be an abortion on any grounds at all. It seems that we switched considerably when it was deemed that external judgments, including that of the mother but mainly those of medical professionals, on the health of the foetus itself, became the judgmental point, rather than the health of the mother.

A major or minor handicap is a difficult issue to determine. But, as the noble Lords, Lord Shinkwin and Lord Alton, have already declared and pointed out, some of the handicaps that were once deemed major are not so today, because there have been medical advances. There are ways in which either they can be ameliorated or the person can be adequately supported. We can look some of the ways in which mental handicap has been supported, for example with special assistance in schools. One hundred years ago it might not have been possible for someone with a certain level of intelligence to be educated and have a fulfilling life. Now, with special teaching and assistance and the attitude of society towards children with a mental handicap, it is amazing how flourishing those children and adults can become.

I myself feel very powerfully that the focus on Down’s syndrome as an impossible handicap, and the idea that the person with the handicap should be discarded, are intolerable. On the other hand, I would have great difficulty in supporting the birth, if the condition was known, of a foetus with Tay-Sachs disease, when the pain, grief and suffering is eliminated after about two and a half years, but the time up to that is agonising for the baby—and, of course, very difficult for the parents.

One has to think about the major issue that we are looking at with this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, has based his argument on equality and equal opportunity. Everyone who is disabled is just as important and valuable as anyone else. I speak as someone who happens to be profoundly disabled from an in utero problem. I would very much have avoided being discarded before birth if I had had any opportunity to comment on it—but the problem that we are discussing involves making judgments on another potential human being who is not there to make the judgment themselves.

The attitude of society towards the mother is a critical issue. Perhaps we are guilty of hypocrisy here, because we claim that we have a wonderful attitude towards those who are disabled—that it is absolutely perfect. Did not we do the Paralympics? Were we not number one? Were we not special British people with a handicap—Paralympic brilliance? Yet here we are discussing the discarding almost at the moment of birth a potentially valuable human being who might go on to win a gold medal in the Paralympics. Is not there a hypocrisy here that needs significantly to be addressed and discussed? This is why I am such a keen supporter of the Bill, because the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, is tackling that very hypocrisy.

On the one hand, we are very proud of ourselves. Indeed, this House recently published a report on disability. I have to question whether it is fulfilling the goals and activities of that disability report, which was welcomed and lauded and supposed to be so wonderful. Are we doing it? I suggest that we not, in fact. It is time that we woke up to the fact that we are hypocrites on disability. This is a very clear example. I am referring not just to the House of Lords report, which I am criticising a little bit in terms of its implementation here, because it does not happen. The great hypocrisy is saying that we, the British, are special on handicap and are in advance of everybody else. Here we are with the Paralympics: those poor old Brazilians could not match us—not one tiny scrap, we think. Yet actually we are making sure that we have the fewest possible supposedly disabled citizens in our society.

Looking at some of the EU member states or across the globe, we find a vast disparity of views. I do not suggest that this is a topic that is very easy to discuss or one on which it is very easy to reach a solution, but I ask that we are honest with ourselves. While suggesting that we have the perfect Equality Act, that we are absolutely wonderful and that we are doing everything for the disabled, we are, on the other hand, allowing ourselves to discard all disabled people before they are actually born. We need to have a very careful look at the quality of life for those who are disabled and ask disabled people themselves why they find life so happy, exciting and worth having that they wish to still be here.

I was interested the other day to attend a round table with seven of the most important disabled societies in the UK. Disability and disabled people were being discussed and rather the same attitude prevailed. As I looked around the table, I could find only one person in that vast discussion who was actually disabled. I speak here as someone who, for a decade or so, chaired and ran ADAPT, promoting access for disabled people to arts premises and public libraries. We were the body responsible for adapting, to a certain extent, the House of Commons—and, sadly to a lesser extent, the House of Lords. Going around the UK and getting grade 1 and grade 2 listed buildings adapted was a tremendous experience and I was glad that we managed to do so much. However, it is interesting that, even today, the disabled are talked about but are not the ones who are giving the evidence.

It is with the greatest possible pleasure that I hope my few remarks will convince noble Lords that this Bill deserves not just full support but a wholehearted and wide societal discussion. This is our hypocrisy and it is something which noble Lords can very well address and resolve.

12:11

[The Lord Bishop of Bristol]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, for introducing this Bill. I understand that its focus is the principle of disability equality, not some underhand attempt to limit women’s access to abortion services. Noble Lords will, of course, have a variety of opinions on the ethics of abortion, but that is not, in principle, the focus of the Bill. It needs to be said that, in general, historically and indeed today, churches and other faith groups have always maintained a cautious approach to how the rights of women and the rights of the unborn child can somehow be maintained without, we hope, falling in to those who reside at the extremes of arguments around ethics on both sides of this debate.

Our debate today is effectively restricted to whether we ought to remove from the 1967 legislation one ground for permitting abortions to take place—specifically, that,

“there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped”.

Given the nature of the remaining grounds for abortion, it is unlikely—as the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, has implied—that if this Bill were to become law, the numbers of terminations of pregnancy would significantly decrease. The Department of Health, in its commentary on 2015 abortion statistics, implied that unquantified, but notable, numbers of abortions where foetal abnormalities were present were conducted on other grounds, most probably that of injury to the mental health of the pregnant woman. It is reasonable, therefore, to conjecture that if Section 1(1)(d) were to be removed from the Act, many such pregnancies could and would still be terminated under other existing provisions. That might be a matter for either reassurance or regret for noble Lords, but that particular discussion lies beyond our remit.

Why then do we seek to amend the Abortion Act? The answer is that the principle of disability equality is essential. It is essential for the welfare of individuals living with disability and it is equally essential for a society that wishes not only to protect but to celebrate the lives of those with disabilities. Many of us looked at our television screens just days ago and saw the joy of the crowd and of athletes, both able and disabled, in celebration of their achievements. There is something profoundly worrying in our current contradictory stance, which says that people living with disability are valued, respected and cherished, but that disability, in and of itself, represents a valid ground for abortion. In the end, there is a world of difference between an abortion taking place because a diagnosis of foetal disability adversely affects the mental health of a pregnant woman, and stating that foetal disability is, in and of itself, a ground for abortion.

As other noble Lords have mentioned, by way of example I should like to pursue one pertinent area further—that of the Down’s syndrome community. That there are challenges to be met in caring for a child with Down’s syndrome is undeniable. Without in any way seeking to minimise the impact of a diagnosis for Down’s syndrome on parents, my experience as a father of five is that there are challenges in caring for all children. However, neither would I want to minimise the joy that many parents receive from sharing their lives with Down’s syndrome children. The recent TV programme made by Sally Phillips made that point very clearly. For those noble Lords who are, like me, addicts of the TED talks, there is a very compelling talk on that website by a young disability rights campaigner, Karen Gaffney, who has Down’s syndrome. She is an Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer and has swum 16 times across San Francisco Bay—a feat which, I gather, none of the inhabitants of Alcatraz successfully managed.

Not only children but adolescents and adults with Down’s syndrome live valued and valuable lives, contributing greatly to the welfare of those around them. All of this is undermined by the continued existence on our statute book of a law that, in effect, states that Down’s syndrome is a ground for abortion. The current debate with regard to non-invasive prenatal testing, recently the subject of a consultation by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, brings a new urgency to this issue. NIPT screens for genetic conditions such as Down’s syndrome can now be carried out by means of a simple blood test from the 10th week of pregnancy. This procedure is more accurate than the previously available early screening tests and does not carry the risk of miscarriage because of its invasive nature. If, either through the NHS or commercial companies, it becomes routine for pregnant women to undergo this form of screening, it could have extreme consequences, not only for the numbers of Down’s syndrome children to be born but for society’s attitudes, not just to those who are born with Down’s syndrome but to disabled people in general.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, on bringing this issue to the attention of the House and I hope that, regardless of our no doubt diverse views on the ethics of abortion, we can unite to give the Bill a Second Reading in the interests of disability equality.

12:19

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support the Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill and I commend my noble friend Lord Shinkwin for bringing it forward. As a parent and a friend to mothers who have disabled children, I appreciate that this is a hugely difficult and sensitive subject, whichever way one approaches it. However, the arguments about the value, contribution and importance of people with disabilities are just too important for me to remain silent.

The Bill introduced by my noble friend Lord Shinkwin accomplishes two very important objectives. First, it restores equality to the face of our legislation, as set out in the Abortion Act 1967. The issue of Section 1(1)(d) being discriminatory was indeed raised, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, by the Disability Rights Commission soon after its creation in August 2001, when it stated that,

“it reinforces negative stereotypes of disability; and there is substantial support for the view that to permit terminations at any point during a pregnancy on the ground of risk of disability, while time limits apply to other grounds set out in the Abortion Act, is incompatible with valuing disability and non-disability equally ... In common with a wide range of disability and other organisations, the DRC believes the context in which parents choose whether to have a child should be one in which disability and non-disability are valued equally”.

When I first found that that clause existed in the Abortion Act, I was really surprised. I struggled to understand how a British society that seeks to value disabled people in every way and is a world leader on the issue of disability equality could behave so differently in its approach to a disabled baby in the womb, allowing abortion up to birth for disability. For every other situation, it is permitted only up to 24 weeks, unless the life of the mother is at risk.

In some ways even more troubling, however, is that disability, which is a protected characteristic in UK law, should be a basis for abortion at all. Lest anyone should be tempted to think that one can be discriminatory in a confined abortion context and not have it spill out into life beyond the womb, the evidence received by the Parliamentary Inquiry into Abortion on the Grounds of Disability in 2013 is less than reassuring. The representative of the British Academy of Childhood Disability stated:

“Parents I have spoken to have said that Doctors treating their children with Down’s Syndrome”,

as we have already heard,

“criticised them for not having abortions, saying their children will not have a good life”.

Another said:

“I have already come across people who view my choice to have my child as detrimental to the rest of society”.

That has certainly been my experience, as one of my friends went through this process. There are mutterings at the school gates, and people asking, “Why did they choose to have that baby?” gets into our attitude as a society. All those accounts are available in the inquiry’s report, which is in the House of Lords Library. I am afraid that this is an inevitable consequence of the law endorsing the idea that abortion on the grounds of disability is perfectly acceptable.

The second crucial objective that the Bill fulfils relates very specifically to the consulting room. One way in which the message of our current legislation is communicated is through those charged with responsibility for its implementation. If disability were not a ground for abortion, doctors would not mention it. However, the fact that it is means that doctors will, quite properly, inform a mother carrying a child with a disability that she should or could have an abortion. However, a significant number of parents say that that puts very real pressure on them to have an abortion. Again, the inquiry into abortion on the grounds of disability heard some very concerning evidence. One mother said that she felt she was treated differently because she was carrying a disabled baby. Another said that she experienced some disdain from medical professionals for deciding to keep her baby.

Indeed, you can see the effect of the law on decision-making and the approach to abortion by looking at the latest statistics. Between 2005 and 2015 the abortion rate in Great Britain, as we have heard, remained largely constant, decreasing very slightly by 0.3%, but between 2005 and 2015 the rate for abortion on grounds of disability up to birth rose by 68%. If this were any other group with any other protected characteristic, we would be seriously concerned.

The contrast between approaches to abortion of the able-bodied and abortion of the disabled is deeply concerning. It provides yet another reason why the Bill of my noble friend Lord Shinkwin should become law. Of course, the Bill will not mean that if a mother discovers at any point up to her last 21-week scan that her baby is disabled, the option of abortion will not still be open to her up to 24 weeks. It would obviously remain so.

As we have heard, that point was recently confirmed through a legal opinion issued by Hugh Preston QC on the Shinkwin Bill. It states that it is,

“succinct and limited in its scope. If enacted, it would remove s. 1(1)(d) of the Act completely. It follows that the practical effect of abolishing s. 1(1)(d) of the Act, is that any abortions by reason of disability will need to be carried out within the first 24 weeks subject to s. 1(1)(a) of the Act, unless there is a risk of serious permanent damage to the mother, in which case they will remain permissible until birth. Thus, abortions by reason of disability will remain permissible, but subject to the same safeguards as apply in any other case”.

Crucially, however, the provision of the Bill expressly removes discrimination from the face of our legislation.

Our abortion Act would send out the message that disabled lives are worthy of protection equal to that afforded to able-bodied lives. This legislation is overdue and I very much hope that the Government will take their equalities responsibilities in this matter seriously and support the Bill.

12:26

[Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)]

My Lords, debates about the availability of abortion are always harrowing, whatever side of the argument we take, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, on a brilliant and very moving speech. This debate is doubly difficult because I feel that I am under pressure to say what the noble Lord wants to hear. No one can deny the amazing contribution that disabled people make to our lives in this country, and the insight and experience that they bring to us, even here in the House of Lords. That contribution is enormous.

However, I must give the other point of view. I must speak from the experience I have had as a GP and family planning doctor working with mothers, babies and children for most of my professional life, having, over many years, to advise and counsel women who find themselves pregnant in circumstances in which they cannot contemplate having a child to rear. Their voice must be heard too and I beg noble Lords to listen.

It is difficult enough when a woman has to make a decision early on in pregnancy, not knowing the development—normal or otherwise—of her foetus. It is much more difficult when a woman is carrying a foetus that has been shown to have a severe disability. Through no fault of the mother, this is often not definitely diagnosed until the later stages of pregnancy—hence the exceptions made in existing legislation. That is currently the problem: often the diagnosis cannot be confirmed and the decision cannot be made before 24 weeks.

In my experience, it is untrue and cruel to suggest that women who, in the later stages of pregnancy, undergo abortion because of foetal abnormality are doing it simply because they want a “perfect baby” and that they want to discriminate against disabled people. They have to take into consideration the effect on themselves and their ability to cope, as well as the ability and tolerance of their partner and family to cope in the future. It has to be recognised that a severely disabled child can—although not always—have a huge impact on existing children in the family, however much support is or is not given by the NHS and social services, and we know that that support is often deficient. These women have to make the decision, which is theirs alone, and I say that they have the right to decide.

There is no contradiction in my mind in campaigning for the rights of disabled people alongside the right of a woman to choose what she does with her own body. We have to accept that. A pregnant woman should not be used as a campaign tool for the rights of disabled people. We must also acknowledge that any unborn child needs a willing mother to nurture it and, if that mother is unable or unwilling to do so, we must respect that choice. To impose a duty on a woman to bear a child whom she did not want and give birth to that child after many weeks knowing what the baby’s condition will be is cruel and heartless and should not be done. I beg noble Lords to support the right of a woman to choose in this situation. For the time being, the law should remain as it is.

12:30

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Shinkwin for bringing forward this Bill. It is a courageous move. On the face of it, it restricts the options available to a mother faced with the appalling dilemma of knowing that she is carrying a seriously disabled foetus, and of having the time available for making a decision on abortion reduced under these proposals from the whole period of pregnancy to the first 24 weeks. I am very well aware that I speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, who articulated this issue so eloquently.

However, my noble friend Lord Shinkwin has seen this problem in a different light—a vision shared by most of the speakers today, and reinforced by his own personal experience. He is supported by a huge body of outside evidence from the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Disability Rights Commission and the UK report on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Furthermore, the parliamentary inquiry into abortion for disability specifically recommended the repeal of Section 1(1)d of the 1967 Act. Finally, there is the legal opinion prepared by Hugh Preston QC, who agrees that the Bill—as others have said—is succinct and limited in its scope. I am grateful to my noble friend for reading extracts from this opinion, which is very realistic. Incidentally, the document reminds us that there is a relatively low threshold for aborting a disabled baby under Section 1(1)(a) .

My noble friend recalled the statistics that revealed the large number of abortions on the grounds of disability that had taken place over the past five and past 20 years respectively. He also mentioned that there has been only a tiny decrease in overall abortion numbers of 0.32% over the period 2005 to 2015. My noble friend has significantly described the law as it stands as “abortion by stealth”, and most certainly not what was intended by the Abortion Act 1967 or the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

In conclusion, I congratulate my noble friend on his meticulous research and the compelling case he makes, given his truly personal experience, for the removal of Section 1(1)(d) of the Abortion Act, which this Bill proposes. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

12:33

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, this is not a field in which I am expert but it is one on which one has to take a position. The noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, helpfully indicated the tensions involved in these cases. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Shinkwin on his logical and clear speech. He said that he believed the Bill was modest and reasonable. That is a perfect description of its progenitor—modest and reasonable. I congratulate him on the skill of his advocacy. I realise that other considerations are involved when it comes to the world in which the foetus will be born. Having listened to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, I believe that the Germans have the right approach in that they know that foetuses are people, whereas we treat them as if they are not. If you put that into the equation, the balance comes down on the side of my noble friend. That is all I am qualified to say.

12:35

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

First, I pay a heartfelt tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, for his living testimony that disability is as much in the mind as in the body. As others have said, as we have recently witnessed at the Paralympics, many of us so-called able-bodied are indeed rather weak imitations of those either born with, or who later acquire, a physical or mental disadvantage.

Despite the contribution that disabled people make to national life and their human right to equality of treatment, there are, sadly, still huge hurdles in the way of many of them being able to pursue a full, and indeed fulfilled, life. The House does not need me to enumerate the physical barriers, whether access to transport, buildings, facilities or the availability of aids or support required, or the social and psychological barriers—in the minds of others, of course—in terms of expectation or discrimination, to say nothing of the lack of adequate resources to meet their additional needs. Of course, all this is not helped by the Government’s welfare reforms, which I hope the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, continues to rail against within his own party. Indeed, just yesterday in the House the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said that,

“the Government have not removed the barriers between disabled people and jobs. There is a lack of transport and an unwelcoming workplace. What disabled people need—and I hope that this will be favourable to the Minister—is that all buses should be accessible with audiovisual information and all the taxi provisions of the Equality Act should be brought into force”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, noted:

“Up to 600 disabled people a week are losing their Motability cars because of the harsh PIP reassessment test”.—[Official Report, 20/10/16; cols. 2437-38.]

Therefore there remains much to do, in virtually every avenue of life, to improve the life chances and opportunities of disabled people so that they—and we—can benefit from them achieving their full potential.

However, I have to query whether a Bill, no matter how well intentioned, which could have the effect of forcing some 200 or 300 women a year to carry to full term a much-wanted and planned child, knowing it might not even see the light of day, or live just a few hours or days or face a life of pain and illness, is the best way of moving us further along the line of promoting equality and removing disability discrimination. The BMA, as well as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, and the British Maternal and Fetal Medicine Society all oppose the Bill, which they describe as neither “patient nor woman-centred” and which they think is about restricting abortion care, while the Genetic Alliance stresses that,

“abortion on grounds of foetal abnormality is an important component of the options available to a woman who discovers that she has a pregnancy affected by a serious genetic condition”.

As it says, genetic conditions can often come to a couple with no advance warning. Where it is due to an autosomal recessive condition, they are likely to have discovered the risk only during the pregnancy—a shocking, disappointing, often devastating discovery, and frequently of a condition serious enough to cause stillbirth or severe, eventually lethal, neonatal illness. These are voices we should heed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, said, as they come from people who, day by day, deal with the women and children who would be affected by the Bill. In addition, I am sure that they deal with situations which I am certain the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, never meant to cover but which would be caught by his Bill.

We welcome the attention the noble Lord draws through the Bill to the continuing discrimination disabled people face, but this is not the way to improve their lives.

12:40

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friend Lord Shinkwin on securing time for the consideration of this Bill. We have had a very interesting and thought-provoking debate on a subject that remains a sensitive area of public policy and on which we have heard a range of strongly held views.

I should start by setting out the current legal position regarding abortion for foetal abnormality and the possible introduction of non-invasive pre-natal testing—NIPT—for Down’s and other syndromes. Under the Abortion Act 1967, women have early access to safe, legal and regulated abortion services. In each case, there should be careful and sensitive inquiry as to the reasons for requesting an abortion. These reasons will be particularly complex in the case of abortions for foetal abnormality, where the pregnancy is far more likely to have been planned and where the woman and her family will need information on and time in which to reach a decision with her doctor and other health professionals.

It is a sad reality that not every pregnancy goes to plan, and foetal abnormalities of varying degree of severity occur. Abortion is currently available where two doctors agree that,

“there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities to be seriously handicapped”.

In 2015, 3,213 abortions were performed under those grounds on women resident in England and Wales. Some 230 of those were performed at gestations of 24 weeks and over.

Antenatal screening enables practitioners and maternity teams to monitor the development of the foetus throughout pregnancy, and as technology continues to progress, the ability to detect foetal abnormalities increases. Non-invasive prenatal testing, also known as cell-free DNA, is a relatively new test that can identify pregnant women who have a higher chance of having a baby with certain genetic and chromosomal conditions, such as Down’s, Patau’s and Edwards’ syndromes. So far, non-invasive prenatal testing has been used by the NHS in special circumstances; for example, to detect genetic changes leading to specific skeletal abnormalities and certain forms of cystic fibrosis. In addition, non-invasive prenatal testing for Down’s, Patau’s and Edwards’ syndromes is currently available privately.

On 15 January 2016, the UK National Screening Committee announced its recommendation that non-invasive prenatal testing should be introduced as an additional test into the NHS foetal anomaly screening programme in England as part of an evaluation. That is because the evidence suggests that non-invasive prenatal testing is much more accurate than the current testing used in screening and can substantially reduce the number of pregnant women needing an invasive test, which carries a high risk of miscarriage. The introduction of non-invasive prenatal testing would not alter fundamentally the choices currently available to pregnant women who opt to take up the offer of screening. We want women to make informed decisions and access safe and appropriate tests. We are considering the recommendation from the UK National Screening Committee carefully and will make an announcement in due course.

Appropriate information and support should be offered to all women undergoing antenatal screening. Regardless of how an abnormality is detected or suspected, a woman has to be given time to understand the nature and severity of the condition so that she is able to reach an informed decision about how to proceed and whether to continue with the pregnancy or seek a termination.

It is an understatement to say that the decision to end what is usually a wanted pregnancy is extremely difficult and painful for most parents. The severity of the prognosis has a major bearing on their decision-making. Once an abnormality has been confirmed, arrangements should be made for the woman to see an expert who has knowledge about the abnormality and the options available. All staff involved in the care of a woman or couple facing a possible termination of pregnancy must adopt a non-directive, non-judgmental and supportive approach.

In addition, Public Health England, which takes the lead on the NHS screening programmes, recently met stakeholders from the Down’s Syndrome Association to understand where further improvements can be made to ensure that prospective parents get the right information and support throughout the screening process when making these very difficult decisions.

Sometimes, the diagnosis or prognosis does not give the whole picture of each individual case. In 1990, when the grounds for abortion were amended, Parliament agreed that doctors were best placed to make these decisions with the woman and her family. In 2010, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists published updated guidance on the termination of pregnancy due to foetal abnormality. This guidance concluded that it would be,

“unrealistic to produce a definitive list of conditions”,

and that,

“the seriousness of a fetal abnormality should be considered on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all available clinical information”.

I must make it clear that as they are matters of conscience, the Government maintain a neutral stance on abortion issues. We have had a good debate, and I look forward to hearing what my noble friend Lord Shinkwin has to say in response to the points that have been raised.

12:47

[Lord Shinkwin]

My Lords, I thank all those who have most kindly contributed to this debate for their constructive comments. Mindful that time is pressing, I hope that noble Lords who have contributed will excuse me if I am brief in my closing remarks.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for drawing attention to the need for the media to pay more attention to ethical issues and treat them with a higher priority. I also agree that the legislation under discussion is a throwback to times that are, I am happy to say, long passed. We have moved on as a society and it is time that the law and Parliament catch up with that and challenge negative stereotypes.

I thank my noble friend Lady Nicholson for agreeing with me that the attitude of society has changed and that everyone is equal. I agree with her that it does seem rather jarring, if not hypocritical, to celebrate as a society the amazing achievements of our Paralympians and then, as I alluded to in my opening remarks, to tell them in effect that, by law, we would have killed you if we had had the chance and we believe that you would be better off dead. I am afraid that although none of us may articulate such thoughts, the subtext of the existing law signals exactly that message.

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his supportive remarks. I emphasise, with him, that this is not about the ethics of abortion. Indeed, it is perfectly true that it would be unlikely that the number of abortions would markedly decrease. But, as he rightly said, the principle of disability equality is essential if society wants to celebrate people with disabilities, as they did so recently in Trafalgar Square.

Moving quickly on to the remarks of my noble friend Lady Stroud, I think she made a very pertinent point when she said that most people—most Members of your Lordships’ House—are surprised to discover that not only is disability grounds for abortion, it is grounds for abortion up until birth. I hear the comments made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Tonge, but, with respect, I must say that it is important that we take on board the points made by my noble friend Lady Stroud about the pressure exerted on women by clinicians, nursing staff and legislation—by the societal norms constructed by the legislation passed by your Lordships’ House. It is the crucial importance of attitudes.

With regard to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, I would simply say that either we believe in equality or we do not. George Orwell helpfully pointed out that no one can be more equal than others. That is exactly the point about the need for consistency in equality. I simply thank the noble Baroness for the overpowering clarity of her views.

On the remarks of my noble friend Lord Bridgeman, I cannot help but agree with his appropriate description of how the interpretation of the law passed by your Lordships’ House has inadvertently resulted in abortion on grounds of disability by stealth, and that that was not what this House intended.

I thank my noble friend Lord Elton for his supportive remarks. I agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, when she opened her remarks by drawing attention to the contribution of disabled people. I would like to believe that I make a contribution to the business of your Lordships’ House; I certainly attempt to. But perhaps I could leave her with this point. If the law is not changed, how many Members of your Lordships’ House—perhaps this is even more pertinent in light of the debate that immediately preceded this one—do your Lordships think would be in this place in 40 years’ time if they had had an anomaly or disability detected before birth? I think we all know the answer to that question. The noble Baroness also mentioned the hurdles that disabled people face. I would simply say this to her: the biggest hurdle to society being truly for everyone is attitudes.

My noble friend the Minister restated the Government’s position, which I respectfully hope will change. I have to say that I am serving notice on Her Majesty’s Government that, should they proceed to introduce the new non-invasive prenatal test without the Health Secretary having met with me and with people with Down’s syndrome, their families and representatives to discuss their grave concerns—a meeting I requested as long ago as 8 March this year—I will be very seriously concerned. I urge my Government and my party not to disown their own Disability Discrimination Act and their commitment to ensuring that disabled people are heard on all the critical issues that affect them, which is consistent with the spirit of that Act.

I conclude by thanking all those who have contributed to this important debate and I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill [HL]

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

Second Reading

12:56

Moved by

[Baroness Tonge]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)]

My Lords, child marriage, which is marriage that takes place before one or both of the spouses has reached adulthood, is a global phenomenon although it is most prevalent in the developing world. However, there is evidence that it is still happening in the UK and in other developed countries. While boys can be married when they are children too, it is girls who are disproportionately affected by child marriage. I hope that noble Lords are aware that when really young children are married, the consequences for girls are enormous. They can suffer lifelong injuries following childbirth and, because they then have children to look after, they lose out on education and opportunity.

The all-party parliamentary group that I chair held hearings on child marriage in 2012. We took a great deal of evidence and heard many stories about horrendous child marriages and their consequences as well as taking testimonies from British women who had been married against their will between the ages of 16 and 18. We also learned during those hearings that young girls in the 16 to 18 age group are often badly treated and abused within their new families. The report is entitled A Childhood Lost and it is still available online and from my office. When older girls but still under the age of 18 marry, they also frequently lose out on educational opportunities. I can well remember years ago in one of my clinics giving advice to two sisters, both of whom were being taken out of school after sitting their GCSEs in which they had done very well. They were to be sent abroad to be married. Their parents wished this, and although the sisters desperately wanted to continue with their education and did not know their future partners, they were obedient and were going willingly to comply with their parents’ wishes.

At the moment we do not know exactly how many children under the age of 18 are being married, willingly or not, but we do know that in 2014 the United Kingdom Forced Marriage Unit gave advice about or provided support related to possible forced marriage in 1,267 cases. Of those, 11% involved children aged 16 and 17. Most child marriages are forced marriages, but not all forced marriages involve children—that is an important distinction.

The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 made forced marriage a criminal offence and strengthened provisions relating to the consent of children when involved in marriage between the ages of 16 and 18. Many such young marriages may not appear to be forced because of the compliance of the young person concerned with their parents.

I wish to concentrate on the 16 to 18 age group. The current minimum legal age to enter into marriage in England and Wales is 16 years, with parental consent required from 16 to 18. I want all young people in this country to fulfil their dreams for the future. Target 3 in goal 5 of the new sustainable development goals commits all UN member states to,

“eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation”,

by 2030. Numerous conventions exist and have been signed by the UK, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which specifies that “child” means every human being below the age of 18.

My Bill is to make illegal any marriage of a young person under the age of 18, straight or gay—and it applies to marriage and civil partnerships. I propose the measure for several reasons and have the support of several NGOs set up to demand change for young people caught by provision in the existing law.

First, as I have already pointed out, girls in particular lose out on educational opportunity, which can seldom be regained. Parental consent in a family where parents are strict and domineering could mean parental insistence and the young person being forced to go along with the decision. I am well aware of the sensitivities around not wanting to offend different cultural groups in this country, but the Bill will benefit their children’s future and that of children who are indigenous here.

Is it really wise in any case to be married at 16, with or without consent? At 16, I would have married Richard Burton given half the chance, but fortunately for me the offer never came. At 16, young people can be sexually active, but that no longer means that they must commit to the first person they have sex with. Marriage is a legally binding process and very expensive to reverse should the great love of youth be lost.

Some noble Lords may argue that if I support voting at 16, which I do, then I should support marriage at that same age, but voting for the wrong party can be corrected in a maximum of five years, but not so marriage —and referenda, it would appear. Yes, 16 year-olds can join the Army—this is another campaign I know about—but in the UK they can opt out of that commitment at any time after the first three weeks up to the age of 18. They cannot opt out of marriage.

It has been pointed out to me in recent days that a problem could arise with refugees and immigrants. It was suggested that I was trying to make immigration difficult for young people who had married as children, or prevent refugees coming here by erecting another barrier. Nothing could be further from the truth. I understand that, according to our present law, marriages are recognised if they took place legally under the laws of the country of origin. The issue clearly needs to be looked at in more detail, with amendments tabled as necessary in Committee. My Bill seeks to raise the minimum age of marriage or civil partnership and will amend Section 2 and omit Section 3 of the Marriage Act 1949 and amend Section 3(1)(c) and omit Section 4 of the Civil Partnership Act 2004. It will also amend those parts of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 which were about forced marriages: subsections (1)(a) and (b) of Section 121 and subsection (2). It will apply only to England and Wales.

Marriage is legally binding and irreversible without great difficulty. We should be protecting our children from this until they are 18 years old by passing this Bill to establish 18 as the minimum age of marriage, with no exceptions for customary law, parental consent or judicial consent. I beg to move.

13:06

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, each year, globally, 15 million girls are married under the age of 18. This all too frequently signals the end of their education, it risks early pregnancy and childbirth and it certainly seriously curtails their personal development and potential life chances. Child marriage looks the same no matter where in the world it happens and in the UK, like elsewhere, it perpetuates cycles of poverty, oppression and inequality. A change in the law would provide real protection for our children and empower them to make their own choices when they are physically and emotionally mature enough to do so, so I support my noble friend. I should also say that I am pleased to serve as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health.

It is time that we put our own house in order. We have been courageous in our international development ambitions and Britain often calls other countries to account for falling behind on theirs. I do not have the figures to hand, but many of our friends around the world are making efforts to ensure that the age of marriage is 18, although I acknowledge that in many ways this may only be emblematic. This was the very subject of a recent European Parliamentary Forum discussion to which Holly Lynch MP and I contributed. It seems that despite good laws being in place, in many countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East early marriages continue to blight women’s lives. We often speak of women’s education and participation in the labour force being a catalyst for gender advances; however it seems that despite women experiencing levels of equity at university level and participating in the labour force, there remain vast swathes of women who continue to suffer from early marriage.

Our banal imagination can run away with the picture of some remote villages in India, Africa, Bangladesh and Pakistan practising early marriage, but the truth is that we cannot leave room for complacency: we have early marriage written into our laws. While there may be many 16 and 17 year-olds here in the UK who feel they are ready and mature enough to enter into marriage, by our very own law these adolescents are still children until they reach the age of 18. The reality is that having a parental consent clause not only sanctions children to make lifelong, adult decisions while they are still children, it also, sadly, continues to aid practices such as forced marriage in many communities across the UK. While I note significant attitudinal changes in my own area of Tower Hamlets to forced marriage, as a chair of the 1998 task force on forced marriage I am not content with the numbers of reports still being dealt with. Some 40% of calls received by the helpline of the Government’s Forced Marriage Unit concerned minors and 15% concerned children under the age of 15. Our current law on marriage is putting children at risk of being married too early. This is not a risk the Government should be willing to take.

Noble Lords who are wavering in support of the Bill should take a moment to reflect on why it is important to have laws that set a minimum age of marriage. We know that all Governments responsible for the well-being and safeguarding of children have clear and consistent legislation that establishes 18 as the minimum age of marriage, with no exception for parental or judicial consent. Setting the minimum age of marriage at 18 provides an objective rather than a subjective standard of maturity, which protects a child from being married when they are not physically, mentally or emotionally ready. It is also an important step towards ensuring that all individuals have free and full consent about if, when and whom they marry.

More notably, our laws also set an example to the rest of the world. They show how serious we are about practising what we preach. In this case it could be a powerful message of solidarity to many Governments in the world who are also facing societal attitudes and barriers to ending child, early and forced marriage. We have a duty to abide by the human rights and development standards that we have signed up to and are keen to advocate across the developing world and emerging economies. The Department for International Development recently invested £36 million in a global programme to accelerate action to end child marriage in 12 countries around the world. Sadly, these countries include Bangladesh, which has the second-highest number of child brides in the world at just under 4 million. In 2014, the Bangladeshi Government drew a comparison with our minimum age of marriage legislation, using it as an example of why 16 is a favourable age and citing the difficulties that they were facing in enforcing Bangladesh’s legal age of marriage—currently 18, although there is pressure to lower it to 16. We can be a leader only if we lead without any burden of unattended baggage of our own.

I hope very much to see this Bill progress. This is a good opportunity to mention the immensely important campaign on the registration of marriage. If the Bill progresses, I hope that my noble friend and the Minister will consider an amendment to ensure the protection of thousands of women in the UK who are getting married in a religious ceremony and not registering their civil marriage, which leaves many young women unprotected and without recourse to law. The campaign is ably led by Aina Khan, to whom I pay tribute.

On a personal note, I got married at 16, following my mum, who also got married at 16. She fell in love with her husband and married in 1958, causing much contention in our family because her sister had got married well after her education and became the first woman principal in a women’s college. There was utter disgust in my family, but I followed suit in 1976. My mother got divorced but I am still married. Sadly, my daughter never listened to me and she married at what I consider the still immature age of 23. I am sure she will berate me for saying this. It is not necessarily a pattern but I often think about whether I felt I had permission because my mother had married at 16. I hope we do not send the message out that people should get married at 16. I am not a hypocrite. It comes from the experience of 40 years’ labouring at marriage to say that children should be given as much chance as possible to have a life before they marry. I disagree with my noble friend on one point: once you enter marriage, it should not be the be-all and end-all. Although there are emotional and family pressures when a marriage comes to an end, we should not indicate to women that they cannot get out of a bad marriage.

As a leading, progressive and a much-respected donor country in global development efforts, the UK is already at the forefront of setting the agenda for gender empowerment. Therefore, we must set an example to end early marriage worldwide and meet international human rights standards. Critically, this must begin at home in the UK.

13:14

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, on her work in chairing the APPG on Population, Development and Reproductive Health. On receiving her Bill, I took the opportunity to read the APPG’s report on child marriage published in November 2012, and in line with her request in the introduction I did not just read the summary: I read the whole report. The evidence in that report and the personal testimonies were truly horrific. I strongly recommend that all noble Lords read through it. We have of course seen the shocking exploitation of not only women but young girls—some as young as 10, 11 and 12—being forced into marriage. As the noble Baroness said, it is not only a shocking infringement of human rights and the rights of the child. It has significant health and well-being consequences, which can be lifelong. Those can scar people all their lives.

One issue for me with the Bill is that I acknowledge, as the report does, the significant lead of the United Kingdom in challenging these norms, particularly by challenging violence against women but, more importantly, in terms of how we change things. The most important thing that we can do is to encourage all kinds of activity which empowers women. It is not about limiting ourselves simply to trying to change laws. One thing that would slightly worry me is if the focus were simply on a law that said, “Marriage will be barred below 18”. That would ignore the potential that often, in countries we are dealing with, laws are ignored anyway and the real change comes from the empowerment of women. That means education and job and income opportunities. Significant change happens, including in Bangladesh, when women are properly empowered. That covers all our activities.

As the noble Baroness said, in this country we have had the success of the Forced Marriage Unit, which has worked incredibly well. We also had the passing of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which made it an offence for someone to force a person into marriage.

Reading through the APPG’s report, I was looking for a little more evidence to back up the case on linking to the UN convention and saying that the Government should take the lead by increasing the minimum age for marriage. I was prepared to hear and see that case but, fundamentally, it comes down to my noble friend Lady Uddin’s point: it is about how we take the lead and strengthen the position through our global advocacy on the protection of the child. That may be what we need to do—I am open to the arguments here—but this is a domestic Bill relating to domestic law. What would its impact be on people throughout the United Kingdom?

Addressing the issue in the past, the relevant Minister in the coalition Government, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said that that Government did not,

“consider that it is necessary to amend the age at which people can enter into marriage”,

and that the,

“existing provisions that require parental consent for people under the age of 18 to marry provide adequate protection ”.—[Official Report, 15/10/13; col. WA 74.]

Do the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, and the Minister think that case remains?

Fundamental issues were raised in the 1967 House of Commons report on the age of majority. There are debates about the age of majority and the age of consent. I think that getting married at 30 is a bit too young. It is something that you need to take time to consider as it is not something that you should undertake lightly, but then nor is having sex. I do not think that the noble Baroness is suggesting that we increase the age of consent. There is an issue about choice here. I strongly believe that we have to address teenage pregnancy through better education and support, the principles that were raised in the noble Baroness’s original APPG report. All these things need to be undertaken. We need to think extremely carefully about the idea that someone aged 17 who has a baby could be legally barred from marrying, entering into a partnership that has legal protection, in order to bring up a child if they so wish.

The ONC report referred to in the Library briefing states that there has been a substantial drop in the number of people getting married under the age of 20 in the past 10 years but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, said we do not have any clear statistics on marriages involving people aged between 16 and 18. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what problem this Bill seeks to address. What are the numbers? I hope that we will have an opportunity in Committee to go through some of these issues in more detail, but we need to think hard about making statutory changes without being clear about the evidence. I totally support the policy advocacy of the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, challenging cultural norms and empowering women. As she said, the exploitation of women does not start or stop at 18 or 16. In many countries, it is ongoing. It has taken this country a long time to address those issues, and we have still not reached the end of the road. I certainly welcome the promotion of the APPG’s report and that we are debating these issues, but I would like the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, to address the evidence and the conclusions we might reach from it.

13:24

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, for bringing this debate to the House today and acknowledge her work as chair, with Heather Wheeler, my honourable friend in another place, of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, a committee to which several of your Lordships bring their deep expertise and wide experience.

There can be no doubt that it is the gravest matter when someone is prevented from making a free and informed decision about their future and must suffer consequences that may be abusive, brutal and even fatal. The Government share the noble Baroness’s concerns about this and remain committed to their work in improving the life chances of women and girls around the world.

The UK is a world leader in tackling forced marriage. Internationally, we have demonstrated our leadership through co-hosting the first ever Girl Summit in 2014, which galvanised global action to end child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation. Following the Girl Summit, the UK has supported UN resolutions and advocated a separate target on ending child, early and forced marriage within the global goals.

Child marriage carries specific risks that have been a focus of our international development work overseas, but we know that forced marriage is no respecter of age or boundaries. That is why the previous Government introduced the offence of forced marriage in 2014 and criminalised breach of the existing Forced Marriage Protection Order. To date, over 1,000 orders have been made to protect victims and those at risk, so I suggest there is evidence of protection working.

Stopping forced marriage at home forms an integral part of our cross-government strategy on violence against women and girls, which sets out our ambition that by the end of this Parliament no victim of abuse is turned away from the support they need. Where cases involve a minor, either in the UK or overseas, the Forced Marriage Unit works with the relevant statutory agencies and consular officials to provide advice and expertise to make sure that appropriate safeguarding measures are taken. Last year, the Forced Marriage Unit handled cases relating to 67 countries to which a victim was at risk of being taken in connection with a forced marriage, or had already been taken. Of the 1,220 cases it handled in total, 175 were identified as relating to the United Kingdom.

The Government have committed £36 million towards ending child marriage around the world, including support for civil society organisations working to address a broader range of sexual and reproductive health and gender issues that are associated with child marriage. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for his sensitive and thoughtful contribution in relation to education and the empowerment of women which are absolutely vital, and his acknowledgement of the Government’s progress on forced marriage.

In the UK, we are fortunate that the conditions, customs and laws that give rise to the high prevalence of child marriage in some other countries bear little resemblance to our own experience. In England and Wales, the number of people marrying at 16 or 17 is small and continues to decrease without any legislative encouragement. In 2013, the latest year for which statistics are available, there were over 240,000 marriages in England and Wales, meaning over 480,000 people entered into marriage that year. Out of these 480,000 people, 210 were aged 16 or 17, of whom 33 were boys and 177 girls, amounting to less than 1/20th of 1% of the total.

The number of civil partnerships each year has been in sharp decline since the Government opened marriage to same-sex couples. In 2015, the number of civil partnerships almost halved, from 1,683 the previous year to 861. Last year, not a single 16 or 17 year-old formed a civil partnership. With this background and perspective in mind, I turn to the measures of the Bill.

The Bill proposes amending the Marriage Act 1949 and the Civil Partnership Act 2004 to raise to 18 the minimum age at which people may enter into marriage or form a civil partnership. Statute generally defines a child as being under 18, but it is sometimes necessary to make different provision for children at different ages. The minimum age for marriage, 16, has not changed since 1929, when the Age of Marriage Act raised it from the common-law ages of 12 for girls and 14 for boys. The freedom to marry in England and Wales at 16 has stood much longer. In recognition of the difference between marrying above and below the age of majority, there has also long been a provision requiring parental or other consent for those people who seek to marry before reaching the age at which they could marry as of right. In addition to that, there is a legal requirement to give public notice of the marriage.

The Government believe that the existing requirement of parental or judicial consent for those under 18 continues to provide adequate protection, and they have seen no evidence of any failing that requires raising the minimum age to 18 in England and Wales. To raise this age would introduce a disparity with the minimum ages in the other UK jurisdictions: provision in Northern Ireland runs on the same age lines as England and Wales, whereas in Scotland, people may marry at 16 without the requirement for parental consent. Raising the minimum age would also introduce a disparity with the age of sexual consent across the United Kingdom. The implications of both these disparities require very careful consideration.

Importantly, the position of England and Wales is not exceptional among more developed countries. Many Council of Europe member states allow marriage at 16 on condition of either parental consent, or judicial consent in certain circumstances. Where member states have raised the minimum age, expressly to prevent child marriage, Governments have not reached consensus about the appropriate age to achieve this. Sweden raised the minimum age to 18 in July 2014, removing capacity to marry at a younger age with consent. Spain, however, raised the minimum age to 16 in the following July but kept the requirement for consents for people under 18, in line with the existing law in England and Wales.

It is not clear that a minimum age of 18 would prevent abuse domestically, as it would have effect only on marriages conducted in England and Wales and in compliance with our marriage Acts. We should be mindful that, in many cases, parents will seek to circumvent the law by taking their children to marry abroad or by marrying them at home in an unregistered ceremony. These ceremonies cannot be scrutinised and, without the legal requirement to give public notice, they do not come to the attention of registration officers.

The third clause of the Bill seeks to include civil partnerships within the offence of forced marriage. This offence, which the previous Government introduced in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, was drafted to define marriage broadly, by including,

“any religious or civil ceremony of marriage (whether or not legally binding)”.

Government policy takes as its starting point the fact that there should be parity between the protections available in marriage and those in civil partnerships, where such provision is appropriate. The nature of the social and cultural pressures behind forced marriage, however, makes it unlikely that families and communities will force same-sex couples into civil partnerships, and there is currently little evidence of such abuse. With the declining numbers and the rising ages of people forming civil partnerships, the reach of the forced marriage offence is uncertain. However, I make it clear that we are not complacent. The Home Office is currently working with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to review implementation of the forced marriage offence more broadly to ensure that we do all we can to protect victims of this abhorrent crime.

I conclude by saying that there can be no doubt that the Government understand, share and take very seriously the noble Baroness’s concerns. No one should ever tolerate the abuse which she seeks to eradicate, and it is right that the UK Government should continue their work to bring this to an end, both here and around the world. However, the Government do not see sufficient evidence that the measures in the Bill would be effective in preventing abuse, bringing perpetrators to justice or offering additional protection. It would be disproportionate to prevent people exercising the freedom to marry or form civil partnerships in England and Wales at 16 or 17 with their full, free and informed consent. Their numbers, already small, continue to decline. People are now marrying much later, not because of the law but because of changes over the decades in society and in the educational, employment and economic opportunities open to them. The Bill would not reach those vulnerable people whom others have shielded from social change and who have been denied the opportunities that are rightly theirs, and it would not achieve a just, proportionate or effective means of enabling us to prevent or remedy the harmful impact on people’s lives that both the Government and your Lordships will not hesitate to condemn.

13:35

[Baroness Tonge]

My Lords, I thank the small number of people who contributed. It was scheduled at a very difficult time—I was told that it was the graveyard hour—and I had several apologies from noble Lords who would have spoken had it not been Friday afternoon. Nevertheless, it has been very interesting and has stimulated me to further thought.

The noble Baroness, Lady Uddin—perhaps I can call her my noble friend, because we are colleagues on our all-party group—made the important point that we are very good at telling other countries what to do, particularly in international development. We are always telling them how they can arrange their social affairs and look after their women and girls. While the accepted international definition of a child is up to the age of 18, we cannot then say that we will allow marriage at the age of 16 with parental consent. It is somehow a little bit hypocritical, because in the countries that we preach to—if I dare use the word “preach”—the distinction between a marriage with parental consent and a forced marriage is very shadowy indeed. We had lots of evidence in our committee, when we had those hearings, that that goes on in this country. People may say that they have parental consent but they have been forced into a particular liaison and told to say that they have parental consent. It is a very difficult issue, I agree, but we should stick to the principle that a child is a child until they are 18, and that they should not enter into these contracts, which are difficult to get out of, before the age of 18.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, made a very good point which I should have thought of: what do you do with a teenage girl who gets pregnant at 17 and wants to get married? Looking back on my medical, family and social experience, I would say, “Never mind, you’ve had a baby, there are loads and loads of single parents in this world today—you are one of them”. What is the old phrase about marrying in haste? I cannot remember it. But just to get married because you have a baby and you want to marry the father—

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

Repent at leisure.

[Baroness Tonge]

I thank the noble Lord. It is something that we should consider, but I do not think that simply having a baby at the age of 17 means that you have to get married. That is a very old-fashioned view and it should be discouraged until the parents know that they want to be with each other for a long time and did not just have an accidental event one night after clubbing.

The Minister gave us lots of very encouraging figures about the declining rates of young people being married. That is all very encouraging, but I emphasise that we know that coercion is still going on and that it is not called coercion but marriage with parental consent. We know that it is going on and we know that girls are taken abroad to be married. We know, as the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, pointed out, that there are ceremonies in this country that are unofficial but are binding to the couples concerned. That is why the Bill deserves a serious look in Committee —which I hope we shall have.

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions and ask for the Bill to be given a Second Reading.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Child Refugees: Age Checks

Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

Statement

13:40

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given to an Urgent Question in the other place by my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Immigration. The Statement is as follows:

“I can reassure the honourable Member for Shipley that we work closely with the French authorities to ensure that the cases applying to come to the UK qualify under Dublin, including in terms of conducting an age assessment where necessary. All individuals are referred to the UK authorities by the France Terre d’Asile, the FTDA, which is an NGO, and they are then interviewed by French and UK officials. Where credible and clear documentary evidence of age is not available—and the pace at which these children have fled situations of war and persecution means that many do not have any definitive documentary evidence—we will use criteria including physical appearance and demeanour to assess age as part of the interview process.

My officials are working in difficult circumstances in Calais to ensure vulnerable children are safeguarded. There has been significant media coverage over the last week questioning the appearance of those admitted to the UK. I think we would all agree that teenagers’ appearances vary widely and my officials, and all those agencies working in these difficult circumstances, have the safety and welfare of young people in mind.

This week has also reopened the old debate about the value of dental X-rays and medical tests to determine an individual’s age. A significant number of experts have spoken out against such checks. The British Dental Association has described them as inaccurate, inappropriate and unethical. The Royal College of Paediatricians said the margin of error can sometimes be as much as five years either side of medical tests. Doctors of the World UK has called the idea “unethical and unnecessary”. That is why the Home Office does not use dental X-rays to confirm the ages of those seeking asylum in the UK. The House should also note that, legally, we cannot force anyone to undergo such a check. That is why officials are trained to assess age, and—I want to be clear—where we believe someone is clearly over 18, they will be refused. Indeed, the information that I have today suggests that around 10% of cases referred to us on this basis are being refused in France.

We have made significant progress to bring to the UK those children with family members. We are absolutely determined to get those children here but I would call on all Members of the House, the media and the public to respect the privacy of these vulnerable young people”.

13:42

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer to the Urgent Question in the other place. We welcome the reference in the Answer to the statements made by the British Dental Association, the Royal College of Paediatricians and Doctors of the World UK in the light of the pressures from some political figures to use dental X-rays and medical tests as age checks, rather than to concentrate our energies on welcoming and supporting unaccompanied children coming to this country under the Dublin regulations and the Dubs amendment.

We also welcome that, after some months of little obvious action, there now appears to be much greater urgency on the part of the Government to physically move eligible unaccompanied children to this country. By when will all children eligible to come to this country under the Dublin regulations have arrived here, particularly in the light of the imminent demolition of the camp at Calais? How many such children have arrived so far, how many are still to come and what information is there on the breakdown of the originating countries from which they have come? Likewise, what are the latest comparable figures, and information on the breakdown of originating countries, for unaccompanied vulnerable children who have come here, and are still expected to come, under the Dubs amendment?

Finally, to get the figures in perspective, will the Government give their own estimate, and the estimate presumably given to them by the road haulage industry, of the number of those entering the country illegally each day—adults as well as children—across the English Channel in heavy goods vehicles?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support for our position on dental checks, and I agree with what he said about the importance of welcoming those who come to this country through very difficult circumstances.

So far this year 140 children have arrived under the Dublin convention, about 80 of whom have come from France. That is the figure up to 1 October, so it excludes those who have arrived this week, and it compares with a figure of about 20 last year.

So far as the number of children still to come is concerned, it is estimated that about 1,300 children are still in Calais, but of course not all those will qualify to come here under the Dublin convention. It is the Government’s intention that all those children who are entitled to come to this country under the convention should have been processed and have arrived here before the camp is removed by the French authorities. That intention was set out in a statement by the Home Secretary earlier this month. I do not have to hand the data that the noble Lord has asked for on the originating countries of those who have arrived under Dublin, or indeed under the Dubs amendment, but I will let him have them if they are available.

The noble Lord asked about those who have arrived illegally. On top of the 140 who arrived under the Dublin convention, up to June this year 3,472 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children arrived in this country, most of them via Calais—a figure that is up by about 54% compared with last year. Those are the ones who clearly arrived other than through the appropriate routes.

The noble Lord may have asked for other figures. If I have not given him the answer, I will do my utmost to secure them and will write to him.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the apparent ages of the first group of unaccompanied children brought from the Jungle camp in Calais are a cause for concern on these Benches too, not because they might be over 18 but because it appears that the Government may not be giving priority to the youngest and potentially most vulnerable children to be reunited with family members in the UK. Does the Minister agree that even older teenagers are likely to be vulnerable, particularly as many will have been through the trauma of having their homes bombed, followed by a treacherous sea journey? However, the political consequences of choosing, for the first group, children who could be mistaken for adults could and should have been foreseen. Were they?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The first point to make is that nobody in the camp in Calais needs to be there; they can all claim asylum in France. Indeed, so far this year about 5,000 of those who were in Calais have turned to the French authorities and have been taken to what I understand is a reflection centre, where many of them may then claim asylum. The same is true for unaccompanied children. The French regime for supporting unaccompanied children is broadly the same as the one here.

Our top priority is children with families in the UK who qualify under the Dublin convention. As I said in response to the noble Lord, it is our intention to process those of all ages before the camp is dismantled.

With regard to other children who do not qualify under Dublin but do qualify under the Dubs amendment, we have made it clear to the French authorities that, if and when the camp is dismantled, they should be taken to safe reception centres, where their claims should be processed, and whatever is in the best interests of the children should then take place. We have made it clear that we will help in that regard both with funds and by helping to process the children so that we can identify those who would be best placed in the UK.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, as one of the signatories to the Dubs amendment, I signed it because it captured the spirit of Sir Nicholas Winton who, through the kindertransport, rescued 669 children from the Nazis. He had to prioritise the most vulnerable and the Government, while ruling out what is unethical, are right to do so too. Beyond Dublin, will the Government—as the Minister was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick—specifically prioritise the youngest and, indeed, orphaned children such as the brother and sister whose case I highlighted in your Lordships’ House a few days ago, who were sleeping on the forecourt of a derelict petrol station? They are aged 13 and 12 and were orphaned in Aleppo.

Will the Minister also say what progress has been made on galvanising and co-ordinating the international community in assisting the 88,000 displaced young people now in Europe without parents and in establishing the fate of the 10,000 children who Europol has said have gone missing, and who must inevitably be at great risk of trafficking and exploitation?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As regards the first half of the noble Lord’s question, I can confirm that exactly those children who he has identified will be our priority when we move on to helping those who qualify to come here under the Dubs amendment. We want to help those in the greatest need so I can give him that assurance. As regards the broader issues, we are liaising with non-government organisations and the Greek and Italian authorities in order to identify those children in those countries who may qualify to come to the UK, so that we can play our full role in bringing support to people living in desperately difficult circumstances.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, having visited the camps, I am well aware of how chaotic the situation is and how difficult it is to manage. This morning I spoke to a friend who has been working in the camp. She was with a 14 year-old Syrian yesterday who arrived this week. He has a passport, so it is easy to verify his age. I reinforce the point that it is better to work through those who have documentation. However, he said that the majority of those on his bus were adults. In order for the British people to trust the system, I encourage my noble friend to make sure that the screening and registration are as robust as possible—I understand from my friend today that people being screened now are being given priority whereas those who were screened a month ago seem to be at the back of the queue—and to co-ordinate with the organisations on the ground such as Citizens UK which have been working in the camps for a long time and know exactly what is going on, and may know more than the French authorities do.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble friend. As I think I said in my Statement, it is up to the FTDA to refer eligible children to UK officials in Calais. Once that process has taken place, we are now dealing with those applications in a matter of days, whereas previously it was taking a matter of weeks, so we are dealing with this now with some urgency. I pay tribute to the NGOs working in Calais in very difficult circumstances.

As regards working out the age of an applicant, clearly one can work on that where there is documentary evidence, as in the case to which the noble Baroness referred. Where there is no documentary evidence, there is no single way of determining the age of an applicant. If the applicant is clearly beyond any doubt an adult and way over 18, they are turned down in Calais, and roughly 10% are refused. However, if they arrive in this country and there is still dispute about their age, they are then subjected to what is called the Merton process, whereby a local authority over a period of some 28 days assesses the age of the applicant through social workers, with interpreters if necessary, and an independent adult present if that is also necessary. If, at the end of that process, the applicant is determined to be an adult, they will no longer be treated as a child but will have to make their way through the system as an adult applicant for asylum.

House adjourned at 1.54 pm.