Merchant Shipping (Homosexual Conduct) Bill

Alan Mak Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate, and also to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). I very much enjoyed his extensive and detailed speech. It was good to hear about his personal and family connection with the merchant navy, and I know that that connection is shared by our hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker), who made a very good speech. It is also a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart)—he is no longer in the Chamber, but he made a moving, personal and powerful speech in support of the Bill—for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones). I hope to build on their important contributions. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on his contribution and support for the Bill.

Of course I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) on introducing this important Bill. He had the good fortune of securing a place on a Friday in the private Member’s Bill ballot. I congratulate him on his hard work to bring the Bill before the House, as well as on his campaign on this important issue of updating the law relating to our merchant navy.

My hon. Friend is a strong champion of equality and diversity in this House and his constituency. He has been a strong advocate of equal rights in this House and outside it. I particularly enjoyed his “PoliticsHome” article this morning in which he set out some of the background to the Bill and his reasons for bringing it to the attention of the House. Although the Bill comprises only one substantive clause, it corrects an important legal anomaly. Such action is long overdue and greatly to be welcomed.

The Bill sends a strong message from the House that equality is a key aspect of Britain’s modern society and our industrial practice. It repeals erroneous provisions in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. It will avoid confusion to anyone investigating the law by looking through Hansard or the statute book. It will mean that no one will be able to interpret previous provisions as in any way representative of the modern, diverse society that Britain is today, or the modern, diverse profession that is now the merchant navy. I congratulate all my hon. Friends on their detailed, informative speeches and on bringing this topic to the attention of the House.

I want take the House back to Christmas eve 2013—just over three years ago—when Alan Turning, the wartime codebreaker, was granted a posthumous pardon by Her Majesty the Queen for his criminal conviction for homosexuality. Dr Turing was the man who helped Britain to win world war two, but he killed himself after receiving that conviction in 1952. He was a scientist, an innovator and a mathematician. He is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence, both of which are foundations of the fourth industrial revolution, which is a topic that hon. Members know that I have been keen to bring to the attention of the House and the country as a whole.

Today, Dr Turing is widely recognised across Britain in public life, not just in this House. The computer room at King’s College, Cambridge, Turing’s alma mater, is called the Turing room, and the Alan Turing Institute, which is headquartered at the British Library, is our national institute for data science. Five founding universities—Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford, University College London and Warwick—and the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council created the institute in 2015 to answer the national need for investment in data science and research. The centre’s mission is to make great leaps in order to change the world for the better, and the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury does a similar thing by making sure that people in our modern merchant navy receive the equality and respect they deserve for their hard work.

Turing’s conviction is one of the greatest travesties of modern justice. Today, such an appalling and blatantly wrong decision would be unthinkable, and rightly so. Only since 2000 have gay and lesbian people been allowed to serve openly in Her Majesty’s armed forces, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is now rightly forbidden. In fact, the military actively recruits gay men and women. Hon. Members who, like me, hold jobs and apprenticeships fairs will know of that from the recruitment officers who proudly come to our events to talk about the great work that our armed forces do to protect us night and day, both at home and abroad. I know from first-hand experience at such fairs that the Royal Navy actively recruits through gay magazines and allows gay sailors to hold civil partnership ceremonies on board ships. Since 2006, the Navy has allowed sailors to march in full naval uniform at gay pride parades.

I have seen that spirit of equality myself over the past 18 months because I have had the pleasure and honour of participating in the armed forces parliamentary scheme, which gives Members from both sides of both Houses the opportunity to do a little bit of light work experience with the Royal Navy and the other armed forces. Although he is not here, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) on his hard work in co-ordinating the programme and on bringing parliamentarians from both sides of the House into closer contact with members of not only the armed forces—the Royal Navy in my case—but the merchant navy and the wider armed forces military and civilian family. From the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom in Wiltshire—the county of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury—to the deck of HMS Duncan, where I had the opportunity to spend time with the crew on a passage from Cardiff to Plymouth, and also to the freezing shores of the Norwegian Arctic, where my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) and I trained with Royal Marines, I have seen the spirit of equality that pervades our armed forces today, which we hope will continue at all ranks of the merchant navy.

The Bill has great relevance to my Havant constituency, the wider Solent region and the south coast of England. Havant and the south coast have a proud seafaring tradition. Many generations of constituents have joined the Royal Navy and the merchant navy. Generations of seafarers have been part of Britain’s maritime past and will form part of our maritime future. Members of the merchant navy have sailed proudly under the red ensign and helped to further the UK’s commercial and maritime interests.

From an old heritage to the age of ultra-modern cargo and container ships, today’s commercial shipping fleets, which form part of Britain’s maritime capability, span the globe, using the latest technology to help to transport more than 90% of the world’s trade. Specially designed vessels support the oil and gas industries, and the colossal bulk carriers made for iron ore, grain, coal and other commodities are proud symbols of Britain’s maritime strength.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South said, in the age of Brexit, we must be an outward-looking, global trading nation and strengthen our connections with the world. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North is right that we must ensure that the merchant navy is accessible to people of all backgrounds and sexualities. That is why the Bill is so important. We have to send out the right message and ensure that our merchant shipping capability is open to people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, races and sexualities.

The work of my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South on international trade is important. He mentioned free trade agreements, and we know that we can trade in the modern world only if our merchant shipping fleet is fit for purpose. We can make legal agreements with our friends and partners in Europe, Asia, north America, Africa, Latin America and other parts of the world, but we have to turn those paper commitments into practical reality, and this country’s merchant shipping capability plays a key role in that.

The merchant navy has evolved over many centuries. It has changed as industry and society have changed. I draw the House’s attention to the merchant navy’s code of conduct and the position of LGBT sailors in the merchant navy, which has improved markedly over the past 20 years. The code of conduct has traditionally been the basis of disciplinary and grievance processes. There are also now clear guidelines on preventing bullying and harassment, which were adopted by the merchant navy and then our European partners, and subsequently internationally at the UK’s instigation. The UK’s international role in trying to change views on homosexual conduct is important and I will return to that later in my speech.

The national maritime occupational health and safety committee has published guidance for shipping companies on HIV and AIDS, which includes advice on prevention and policies for employing those living with HIV. It is important that we ensure not only that the merchant shipping industry is open, but that those who employ our merchant sailors are mindful of the specific challenges that people may face, such as medical issues.

How is it that, in 2017, a provision remains on the statute book to provide that a homosexual act on a registered merchant navy vessel may constitute grounds for discharging a member of the merchant navy? This makes no sense at all. Although, as a number of hon. Members have mentioned, the provision could never be applied, thanks to the Equality Act 2010, it sends completely the wrong signals and is open to mis- interpretation. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury mentioned that in his opening remarks. It would not be right if anyone investigating the statute book to understand the UK’s legal framework for merchant shipping in the context of trade and investment in the age of Brexit found provisions that seem to purport to allow people to be dismissed from the merchant navy as a result of their sexuality.

We are talking about only two sections here, but we need to change them completely to make sure that the principles embedded in our modern armed services, which I mentioned earlier, are reflected in our merchant shipping fleet and the legislative framework around it. The whole of our society is based on those principles, and everyone in this House can say with pride that the UK now has the highest number of openly LGBT parliamentarians in the world. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South rightly made a point of that in his personal and powerful speech when he talked about how he is a living example of somebody who has not allowed prejudice about sexuality to stop him building a successful career here in Parliament and elsewhere. We should try to repeat that model for our merchant navy fleet.

I am proud that this Government introduced the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which legalised marriage for same-sex couples in England and Wales, and that we are keen to continue tackling homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, particularly in terms of bullying. This Bill is very much in that vein. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury mentioned the three-year Government programme—it runs from September 2016 to March 2019—that aims to prevent and respond to bullying in primary and secondary schools in England in a sustained and meaningful way. As a former school governor, I welcome the emphasis on not just our merchant seamen and employers, but on educating our children and young people about the need to make sure that homophobia, transphobia, biphobia and other types of discrimination are not part of British society, and about the fact that when they enter the workplace, be it in the merchant shipping fleet or any other sector, that sort of behaviour will not be tolerated. As we help my hon. Friend to get his Bill to its next stage, we send a strong message from this House that we will not tolerate such behaviour any more at any level, irrespective of whether someone is young or old. The Government’s programme builds on a £2 million grant announced by the previous Government in October 2014 that was also aimed at preventing homophobic and other discrimination-based bullying in schools. I very much welcome the funding for such work.

It is also important to note that the previous coalition Government issued the world’s first LGBT action plan in 2011, further sustaining the Government’s commitment to equality, which I hope will be spread to the merchant navy through the Bill. The then Government showed further leadership in December 2011 when they published the world’s first transgender equality action plan, which set out actions to address the specific challenges that trans people face in their daily lives. That followed the largest ever survey of trans people in Britain. I therefore wish to use this opportunity to talk about not only homophobic bullying, which has been a challenge for some years and is well known, but bullying of the bi and trans community. I hope that the Bill will play a key role in highlighting those important issues, too. I also want to draw the House’s attention to the fact that the Government published guidance for employers and service providers in November 2015 on how to deal sensitively with transgender and homophobic issues, further outlining their commitment to defending the rights of the LGBT community.



The Government have taken steps in every area of public life—from the workplace to schools, as I mentioned, and in our immigration policy. They have taken steps to stop the deportation of asylum seekers who have had to leave a country because their gender identification puts them at risk of imprisonment, torture or execution. As mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon, who is no longer in his place, it is still illegal in many countries to be homosexual and in some countries it is punished by the death penalty. By taking my hon. Friend’s Bill to the next stage, we will send a strong message that Britain is a global leader in the fight for human rights and gender and sexuality equality. That is why it is essential that we continue to show global leadership on this matter and lead the way in defending the rights of the LGBT community, whether on merchant shipping vessels, in the workplace on land, in our armed forces, in our schools or in other areas of our civic, public and commercial life.

British values such as tolerance, respect, democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law are the values that bind us together as a nation. That is why we are promoting British values and strengthening the institutions that uphold them in the work that we do in this House and through the Bill today. I am pleased that over the years the rights that the LGBT community enjoys have gone from strength to strength, and that public support for those rights has gone from strength to strength too, as the work that we have done in this House by passing legislation similar to that proposed by my hon. Friend has raised the level of knowledge and education outside the House.

For example, in 2004, a poll by Gallup reported that 52% of the public agreed that marriages between homosexuals should be recognised, but 45% said that they should not. We have come a long way since then. In 2009, for example, a poll by Populus reported that 61% of the public agreed with the statement that gay couples should have an equal right to get married, not just to have a civil partnership, and only 33% disagreed, so things are moving in the right direction.

Support for gay marriage has traditionally been highest among those aged 25 to 34—78% agreed and 19% disagreed—and it was lowest among those aged over 65, so we still have some work to do to make sure that any legislation we pass in the House is understood and felt and promulgated by all sections of society, regardless of age, background or geographic loyalties. Equality must be for everyone, not just people of a certain age group or from a certain geographic location or a certain industry. As other hon. Members have said, the armed forces have been leaders in this.

The House has a strong track record in this regard. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon referred to some important statistics, and other hon. Members have spoken about the work that has happened in various industries. Today’s Bill will make sure that the merchant navy is seen in the same light. It has been working hard for many years, but owing to the anomalous provisions in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, someone investigating the statute book may well be confused. It is therefore right that today’s legislation goes forward, and I will certainly be supporting it later today.

The statistics that I mentioned show that in recent years public opinion on LGBT rights has been changing fast, and it will continue to do so. The provisions in this Bill will be in the same vein and will push that work forward.

I want to draw the attention of the House to the positive reception that the equal marriage legislation has had, regardless of people’s previous views on it or how they voted—it was introduced before my time in the House. There has been a change of opinion and the provisions of the legislation have been taken up. There were 1,409 same- sex marriages between 29 March and 30 June 2014—56% between female couples and 44% between male couples. There has been high take-up. There was a sea change in people’s behaviour and the way in which the LGBT community was viewed after new legislation came to the House and was debated and eventually passed. I hope that that optimistic, positive outcome will be repeated if and when my hon. Friend’s Bill receives Royal Assent and reaches the statute book, which I hope it will.

In the UK it has simply become the norm for people to accept same-sex marriages and diversity in the workplace, whether that is in the armed forces, on board ship, on land, on bases or in any other sector. Unfortunately, that has not always been the case. At the end of 1954, for example, in England and Wales there were a staggering 1,069 gay men in prison for committing homosexual acts.

In an attempt to curb those figures, Labour MP Leo Abse, to whom I think my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley referred, and Conservative peer Lord Arran proposed to change the way that the UK law treated gay men in the Sexual Offences Bill. Thankfully, that was passed, but it was not until 1967 that the then Labour Government finally showed support for Lord Arran’s proposals and the Bill received Royal Assent on 27 July 1967, after what I understand was an incredibly intense late-night debate on the Floor of the House. The Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury will not, I hope, be in any way as contentious and will command the support of this House and the other place. The hon. Member for Cambridge has indicated that that will be so, which is a very welcome step.

If any Scottish National party Member were present on the Opposition Benches, they would be surprised to learn that the 1967 Act did not extend to Scotland at the time. All male homosexual behaviour remained illegal there for another 13 years after the law was changed here in England and Wales. It is a very positive step that they are equally committed to equality in Scotland. The lesson to learn is that the updating of our laws and the improvement of rights for the LGBT community has not always progressed at the same pace in all the nations of the United Kingdom. That is a signal to us all that we need to make sure that, in the work of this House, we are leading, and that when it comes to making United Kingdom law, we are very much at the forefront of legislative developments across the nations and regions of the United Kingdom.

As a footnote, I would add that it was only very recently that the people who were persecuted and prosecuted prior to 1967 received pardons for those convictions—it has taken around 30 years for that to happen. We cannot take for granted the freedoms and rights that the LGBT community rightly enjoys. We have to be vigilant, to make sure that we are always looking out for ways to improve those freedoms and to make sure that there is equality at every stage of the legislative process.

In support of the Bill, I contend that it fits neatly, in a political, legislative and conceptual perspective, with the UK’s rich and proud tapestry of human rights and progressive legislation. It very much builds on the social progress that we have seen in Britain as we have become a wealthier, more prosperous and more progressive nation. We begin, of course, in 1215, when Magna Carta was agreed, which protected the rights and liberties of citizens and began the tradition of due process. As hon. Members will know, that tradition travels through the Bill of Rights, which ensured, among other things, that there could be no suspension of laws without the agreement of Parliament, which was a very positive step. In the 19th century, the terrible conditions that children faced led to the Factory Acts. Then there was the Beveridge report of 1942, the signing of the universal declaration of human rights in 1948 and the Race Relations Act 1965—the first legislation in the UK to ban discrimination on the grounds of race. That was further complemented by the Equality Act 2010, which brought a whole range of anti-discrimination legislation under a single Act and added further protections.

My hon. Friend’s Bill sits very comfortably within that progressive, pro-rights tradition that stretches back all the way to 1215. In this new year, 2017, as we move from the second decade of the 21st century into a new, more progressive regime, the Bill sits very comfortably with all the successes that we have had in pioneering and securing liberty, equality and the acceptance of others, and in making sure that human rights are very much embedded alongside human responsibilities.

I am proud that our country has been not only strong here at home in passing legislation but a leader at the forefront of development on these matters abroad. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon rightly said, we can take a leadership role in the Commonwealth, where there is more to do, as well as in the UN and other international forums. We can make sure that the values that we strongly adhere to in this House and this country, which are being furthered today by the Bill, are reflected in the legislation, practices and culture of other countries, particularly in the Commonwealth. As we reach out to Commonwealth countries through international development aid, free trade agreements and other co-operation in international forums, we in the United Kingdom can play an important role in ensuring that we not only further our commercial and political interests, but try to change the cultures of countries that are part of the Commonwealth family of nations.

The UK has never been afraid to let other nations know that when injustices are committed, we will be a strong voice for equality—particularly on grounds of sexuality and race. While the UK continues to promote equality on the international stage in public forums, my hon. Friends at the Foreign Office, the Department for International Trade and other Departments nurture relationships across the globe and make sure that the same case is made in private conversations as well.

As a nation, we must continue to be the beacon of progress on LGBT matters, and the Bill is the next stage in all that hard work. Our approach appeals to other countries’ enlightened self-interest: it is sensitive to their culture and history, just as the Bill is sensitive to ours for the reasons that I have set out. We must make it clear that LGBT rights are a key part of building a level playing field and that our progress as a society and economy depends four square on making sure that everybody can play an important and equal role in our society, communities and economy, in the defence of our nation and in our mercantile interests through the merchant navy, regardless of gender, sexuality or any other characteristic. There must be a level playing field for all if we are to be a country that works for everyone.

As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, equality, freedom and non-discrimination must sit at the heart of the political agenda here in the United Kingdom. The Bill will help to stamp out any remaining instances of homophobia, biphobia or transphobia, and that is why I felt it was important to speak in this debate. The Bill has a strong resonance in my constituency, with its proud tradition of service in the Royal Navy and the merchant navy as a seafaring community on the south coast of England, and it has importance for our national debate as we recast our country in the light of the Brexit decision.

Let us not be bystanders. The Bill will continue the work that the House has done over many decades and centuries to make sure that Britain is a country of freedom and opportunity. We are an international beacon of equality for the LGBT community, who can and should be safe and valued whatever job they do, particularly in the merchant navy, and wherever they do it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North said, the Bill has no cost implications or visible unforeseen consequences. It is long overdue, very welcome and requires the removal of just a few phrases.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury on bringing this short but effective Bill to the Floor of the House. It will have my full support in any Division and during its remaining stages if it comes back to this House. As I said, this country has come a long way on equality and freedom, but there is more work to do. I stand four square behind that; as one who understands the racial issues that the country faces, I am mindful of some of the other challenges that we face as a nation—whether on gender equality, regional equality, income equality or any other type of equality, we must have equality of opportunity and non-discrimination at the heart of our political conduct and national discourse, whether in the workplace, the armed forces, the classroom or the House. I fully support the Bill. I hope that hon. Members across the House will join me in that, and I look forward to supporting it if it comes back to the House.