Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 1st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson). I share many of his sentiments. He spoke very powerfully, particularly about his assistant’s experience.

Conversion practices are abuse. There is no other word for them. They cause harm, and that harm can be lifelong. We must be clear that, in the 21st century, we do not accept LGBT people being subjected to these practices. Of course, the Government promised to outlaw this abuse almost six years ago, and they have failed to do so.

In the absence of Government action, it has been left to a Back Bencher, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), to develop his own legislative proposal for a ban. I commend him, as many have, for working assiduously with Members on both sides of the House to bring forward this Bill. He has set an example in seeking to build consensus on a sensitive and important issue, and I share his regret that, despite that joint working, there is still a lack of clarity on where the Government will land on this issue. I hope that, following those intensive and very positive discussions and interactions, we will see the Government support the Bill, which I believe is a genuine attempt to help them with their repeated promise to enact a ban on conversion practices.

Labour stood ready to work with Ministers when plans for a legislative ban were included in the Queen’s Speeches of 2021 and 2022, and we looked forward to the promised pre-legislative scrutiny of a draft Bill. Indeed, as recently as December, the Minister said that he remains committed to tackling conversion practices. We were promised further details of the Government’s plans in this space in the near future.

In fact, a ban on conversion practices has been announced, in some form or another, eight times by successive Conservative Governments since 2018, yet no ban has been forthcoming. This failure means that LGBT people are still at risk of this abuse.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about the need for clarity. She has now said the word “practices” five times, and she has said: “Conversion practices are abuse.” So that I can better follow her, will she describe the scale, scope and nature of the practices that she references?

[Anneliese Dodds]

We have already had a thorough discussion of that in this debate. All the examples are detailed in the Bill, which I hope the hon. Lady has read. Not only are there instances that some might claim are covered by other forms of legislation, but there are cases that are not covered. I have looked thoroughly at the Bill, as she would expect, and I have considered the claim that some of these practices might be covered by coercive control legislation and so forth, but that is not the case. We are talking about abusive practices, and we heard an example just a few moments ago. I thoroughly encourage her to read this Bill, wherein she will find what she seeks.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Some Members will know that I worked closely on the Equality Act 2010 as a Government Whip. We worked carefully and cautiously to pass that Act. We addressed genuine concerns from both sides of the House, and we built cross-party consensus and support. I believe that we could do the same with this Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Anneliese Dodds]

Yes, and that is why I believe the Bill should go to Committee.

Labour has been consistently clear on the subject of scope and definitions. We believe that there needs to be a ban on abusive practices, but we also believe that there needs to be clarity that any ban will also protect, for example, explorative talking therapies and counselling, the expression of religious belief, discussion within families and so on—I have repeatedly spoken about this on the record in different debates in the House—and those exclusions are replicated in the Bill, as those who have read it and studied it will be well aware. Again, I encourage Members to read and study the Bill.

We believe that a ban on these practices must be carefully, tightly and clearly worded and appropriately implemented and assessed, which should be par for the course for any legislation and must apply to a ban on conversion practices, too. I am confident that if this Bill is allowed to go on to Committee it will also be such, and my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown has made a noble attempt to bring those on the Government Benches with him in the journey towards a well drafted ban on conversion practices. To get there, his Bill should progress to its next stages so that it can be properly scrutinised by the House of Commons in Committee. In the absence of any draft legislation being laid by the Government, this private Member’s Bill represents an opportunity to protect LGBT people from harmful practices and to ensure that critical issues around scope can be thoroughly debated and resolved in Committee.

If those on the Government Benches are truly serious, as many have said they are, about fulfilling their repeated promises to enact a ban on conversion practices, they should support the Bill as a means of enabling that very progress. We on the Labour Front Bench support the Bill in that spirit.

International Women’s Day: Language in Politics

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I commend the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) for securing this important debate. I thank everyone who has participated in it. The issue of language in politics is vital in relation to International Women’s Day. It is possible to celebrate this important occasion, as we rightly do every year, while acknowledging the wider issues for women in politics and in society.

Many Members have already reflected on the frankly caustic nature of political campaigning. As the shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, I too have sadly become accustomed to what I can only describe as an often toxic discourse, including on equalities issues. Complex and sensitive matters get boiled down to simplistic, overly oppositional narratives, such that substance is overshadowed or even completely disregarded. Well, I want that to change. I want the issues that we debate in this House always to be centred on the facts of the matter and the merits of policy. The debate is important because the language that parliamentarians use has an impact on the world outside this place. We Members all have a responsibility to use respectful language while we debate. Members are of course rightly passionate about issues, but passion cannot justify intemperance of the nature that we have seen too often lately. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) was right to refer to the words of the late Jo Cox, who so powerfully reminded us all of what we have in common, despite any points of division. As the representatives of our constituents, we need to take responsibility for the words we use.

[Dame Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Will she join me in regretting ever hearing a Member of this House refer to their opponent as “scum”?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I think it absolutely right, when any Member makes a mistake, as was the case in that instance, that they apologise. That was unacceptable, and it is right that the Member concerned apologised. I would like all Members to apologise when they use divisive language, whether it is of the type that the right hon. Lady just described, or racist or sexist language of all types. It does us no favours when the House tries to tiptoe around these matters, as we have seen over recent days and previously. We need to face up to them, because language matters, words matter, and the language and words used by Members matter, so I appeal to all sides of the House to ensure that the language that we use is respectful. We are not at war with each other, and the language we use should reflect politics as a battle of ideas, not insults.

[Dawn Butler]

Is my hon. Friend as disappointed as I am about the failure of some Members of Parliament to call out Islamophobia?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I have been very disappointed by that, as I would have been about any case of prejudiced or racist language that does not consider what a Member or politician has said or done but instead suggests that their appearance, faith, ethnicity or gender is what should be focused on. We surely need to move beyond that as Members of this House.

We also need to move beyond that in the online world, about which we have heard a number of powerful speeches. We need a more powerful regime than that in the Online Safety Act 2023. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) set out powerfully why change is needed there and how it can be achieved. I think that everyone in the Chamber was disgusted to hear the misogynistic abuse that has been directed towards one of the most formidable campaigners in the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). The right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) also set out clearly the need to prevent abuse from becoming the norm in online political debate and discussion.

Of course, in ensuring that the language we use does not prevent women’s participation in our politics, we also need to ensure, as we look towards International Women’s Day next week, that our politics delivers on the representation of women more broadly, and on the issues of concern to women. It is possible to achieve parity between men and women on these green Benches; it is possible to have a gender-balanced parliamentary party and a gender-balanced shadow Cabinet and Front-Bench team. My party has achieved that, and I hope that other parties will seek to achieve it in future, because, sadly, we are far from that. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) mentions leadership from a sedentary position, quite rightly. I believe that leadership was mentioned earlier in the debate, but he was not there for it. The debate has shown that women’s leadership is alive and kicking on all sides of the House, and I am very pleased to see that, but we need more action. That is why we believe that we should enact section 106 of the Equality Act 2010—so that all political parties publish data on the diversity of their candidates, including how many women they have standing for office.

Perhaps because the motion before us today focuses particularly on the issue of language, there has been less reference to incredible women in our society, but we did have a focus on some of them. We heard from the right hon. Member for Basingstoke about those involved in medicine, particularly gynaecology, and from the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) about the absolute legend who is Mary Earps, who has inspired so many girls and women in sport. Those advances should not be forgotten, but neither should the need for more action to deliver greater women’s equality in society. Unfortunately, we are moving backwards in some areas—we have heard about a number of them this afternoon. Reference has been made to the gender pay gap; at the current rate, it will take 41 years to completely close that gap. I do not know how many Members in the Chamber today expect to still be in the House in 2064. I hope everyone has a long and healthy career ahead, but that is surely too long for women to wait to get the equal pay we desperately need.

Of course, we have also discussed the appalling epidemic of violence against women and girls in our country. This debate follows the discussion about part 1 of the Angiolini review of the truly appalling events leading up to the murder of Sarah Everard. As she has done eight times previously, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), read out the names of the many women who have been murdered, and of course spoke about unnamed women as well. We heard some appalling examples from my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), who spoke about her constituents. There is surely a very clear need for action when we see, for example, that only 1.5% of recorded rapes lead to a charge, and that rates of prosecution for domestic violence are falling, and also the kind of press treatment of victims that my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) set out so clearly.

We also see the desperate need for action on women’s health—we have not had time to discuss that issue today —and action for women in the workplace. We need to deliver that change. There is a need for legislative alterations, and as we have heard today, there is a need for a change in the tenor of debate, so that we are always promoting women in our politics and they are never put off it because of divisive language.

Draft Gender Recognition (Approved Countries and Territories and Saving Provision) Order 2023

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2024 General Committees

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee with you in the chair, Mrs Murray. I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the draft order for the Committee. I welcome this further opportunity, after initial discussion in December, to debate the important mechanism in the Gender Recognition Act, which Labour passed in 2004. As the Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch) admitted when laying the order before the House in December, it is “long overdue”.

The list of approved overseas countries and territories for people from other countries who apply for gender recognition in the UK has not been updated since 2011, as the Minister for Equalities recognised today. The explanatory notes for the Gender Recognition (Approved Countries and Territories) Order 2011 state:

“The Ministry of Justice keeps changes to international gender recognition systems under continual review and expects it will be necessary to explore updating the list of approved countries and territories within the next 5 years.”

Let me repeat that: five years. Yet here we are, 13 years later, and the Government seem to have suddenly decided that action is urgently required. It is worth drawing Members’ attention to the fact that no timetable for future revision is promised in the explanatory notes to the new order. After the Government missed their last target by eight years, it seems that the Minister for Women and Equalities wants to remove any risk of breaking a promise in the future, or perhaps she does not think the list should ever be changed again. It would be useful to hear the view of the Minister for Equalities while he is present.

We need to interrogate the reasons for laying this order now, nearly a decade and a half after the list was last reviewed. In December, the Minister for Women and Equalities told the House that it was because

“some countries and territories on the list have made changes to their systems and would not now be considered to have similarly rigorous systems as the UK’s.”

According to her, those changes are needed because

“it would not be fair for the overseas route to be based on less rigorous evidential requirements”

and that

“Inadvertently allowing self-ID for obtaining GRCs is not Government policy.”—[Official Report, 6 December 2023; Vol. 742, c. 359.]

However, some of the countries that will be removed from the list changed their system of gender recognition many years ago. Denmark introduced self-ID in 2014, Portugal in 2016 and New Zealand as long ago as 2012.

I ask the Minister this: if inadvertently allowing self-ID for obtaining GRCs is, in his colleague’s words, “not Government policy”, why has it taken the Government 13 years to enforce that position? If it is “not fair” for the overseas route to be subject to less rigorous evidential requirements, why have the Government tolerated that so-called unfairness for so long? Do the Government believe it is fair that a trans person with a GRC from Denmark who arrived here at any time in the last 10 years could automatically have received a UK GRC, while one who arrives here in future could not? Why does Germany—a country that has, I believe, introduced a self-ID regime for changing birth certificates—remain on the approved list, while other countries with self-ID regimes for GRCs are coming off it? The Minister for Women and Equalities was unable to answer that question in the House. In fact, she seemed to suggest that Germany had been taken off the list. That was not the case; it remained on the list. Perhaps the Minister can explain to us in this Committee the response of the Minister for Women and Equalities to that question.

How are we in this position without, according to the Minister’s definition, undermining the integrity of the UK process? Where is the consistency? I suggest that, unfortunately, the timing of these new changes has little to do with rigour or fairness in the UK system of gender recognition and everything to do with partisan politics. The Minister is absolutely right to state that the debate on the Floor of the House covered a range of issues. I think that that decision to cover a range of issues was the Government’s. These matters are significant, albeit, as the Minister rightly said, for a small number of people. We should focus on those people and on understanding the impact on them rather than turning this into some kind of broader ideological debate.

I will leave the Committee to draw its own conclusions about the timing of this move and about why the Government saw fit to introduce the order at the last minute in December, with so little notice that that Members were unaware of which countries had been added to the list, even during the statement made by the Minister for Women and Equalities. On that note, I think it would be helpful if the Minister stated whether there was no formal warning that the SI was being laid at the time of that debate. Will he ask the Minister for Women and Equalities to correct her comments to the House on the day of that statement? She maintained that the SI was laid

“well before the statement to the House”

and that

“we have done our bit”.—[Official Report, 6 December 2023; Vol. 742, c. 376.]

Will there be confirmation that that is inaccurate? The SI was not formally laid until after the statement, and it was not published by the Vote Office until straight after the statement: not before, but after. Will there be an apology to the staff of the House for the chaotic way in which this process has been gone about—again, a process for which the Government had 13 years to prepare, but still appears, sadly, to have been a complete shambles?

The order will make significant changes to the overseas list. It adds 14 countries and territories and removes 23, including several EU countries, Australian states, Canadian provinces and US states. The order newly recognises China, Iran, Belarus and Cuba—regimes that have, let us say, mixed records on LGBT+ rights—while de-recognising many of the UK’s closest friends and allies. The Minister for Women and Equalities said in December that this mechanism is not a tool for diplomacy, which is correct. However, it is not a tool for grandstanding or political point scoring either. The mechanism is for those who already have gender recognition in their home country and want to be able to access the mutual recognition route to obtain the same recognition here. That is why it is important to understand the criteria the Government have used to reach this decision.

The Government say that the SI is about protecting the integrity of the system. Can the Minister tell us how many nationals from the countries coming off the list have been granted UK GRCs? He mentioned some statistics, but how has that changed over time, particularly with regard to countries that have adopted self-identification? As I mentioned, several have done so, but the Government have not changed the list since those changes. If the Government believe there is a threat to the integrity of the system, surely they need to be able to spell out that information to us this morning.

The Government have said, and the Minister has just repeated, that they have conducted research in collaboration with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to verify their understanding of each overseas system in question and measure that against the UK standard route to obtaining gender recognition. However, weeks after the order was first laid, we still have not seen any of that research. Members are again being asked to make a decision on the basis of limited information. That is not how such decisions should be made. The notes to the SI are clear that systems vary widely, and there are no exact matches with the UK GRC system. Will the Minister commit to publishing that research urgently so that Members can actually understand the recognition criteria? That information is vital.

I understand the Government’s argument that those who have undergone arduous or even brutal processes or practices to obtain legal gender recognition in countries such as Iran or Kazakhstan should not face additional barriers to obtaining that recognition here. As I said, the purpose of the mechanism in the GRA was to reduce burdens in obtaining a UK GRC, not to create them. Does not the Minister understand that removing some of our closest friends and allies, including our Five Eyes security allies, from the list, while adding regimes such as China, Belarus and Iran, legitimises the human rights record of the latter group? Does he not see how that suggests that the Government might be on the side of authoritarians rather than democracies?

The Minister referred to his conversations with representatives from other countries. Can he tell the Committee whether there was any pushback on these provisions, or whether there was an overwhelming welcome? It is helpful and important for the Committee to understand that, particularly when it comes to our allies.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this has more to do with an election year than with facts and a genuine examination of what is best for the people concerned?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. The question is why this change is being introduced after 13 years, given that there were changes to a number of other countries’ recognition systems many years ago—perhaps Members are not aware of that—and the Government did not update the list then. Instead, they chose to do so just before Christmas. If this is such a significant issue, why has there been no Government action until now?

I have tried to interrogate this issue with a series of written parliamentary questions asking what discussions the Government have had with representatives of every country and territory being removed from the list. I regret to say that I received exactly the same answer to every question:

“The Minister for Women and Equalities has been in conversations with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office…and is monitoring the international reaction to this legislation. Diplomatic posts have been consulted on and notified of the changes,”

and the Government are confident that

“our international counterparts are well informed about”

the changes. That is not the same as a direct conversation between the Minister for Women and Equalities and her foreign counterparts. Can we get confirmation of that today, please? Since this order was laid, have we received any representations from those territories and countries? It is important that the Committee understands that.

Let me be absolutely clear: Labour supports the mechanism for updating the overseas list and the principle of reciprocity and mutual recognition for GRCs for UK nationals living in other countries. That is why we enshrined those provisions in the 2004 Act, and why we have supported changes to the list in the past. We support the principle of reciprocity and mutual recognition not only for GRCs for UK nationals in other countries, but for equal marriage, adoption and pension rights. Does de-recognising so many of our closest friends and allies in relation to this matter potentially put those rights at risk? Will the Minister please indicate to the Committee whether there is any danger of that? Has he received any representations about those matters from other countries? Is he confident that these changes are compliant with the UK’s obligations under the European convention on human rights and other diplomatic treaties?

I want to press the Minister to answer some of the questions I put to the Minister for Women and Equalities in December, but to which I did not receive a satisfactory response. The GRA requires the Government to consult the Scottish Government and the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland before these changes, and the order confirms that that happened. Will the Minister please tell us what response was received from those bodies?

Last January, when first announcing plans to revise the list, the Government also promised to carry out an equality impact assessment to inform any changes. It appears, however, that a full impact assessment has not been produced, unless I am mistaken. I would appreciate it if the Minister confirmed that in his response. Why do the Government not foresee that these changes will have any, or any significant, impact on the private, voluntary and public sectors? If there is no anticipated impact on those sectors, why does the Minister believe the integrity of the UK system is under threat unless these changes are made? There seems to be a contradiction, so perhaps he can elucidate that for the Committee.

I am grateful to you, Mrs Murray, for affording me the time to ask these questions. I am sorry that there have been so many, but that reflects the fact that the process has been so incoherent and chaotic. I have reservations about the motives for making these changes now, as opposed to previously, and the process by which they are being made—[Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Order. The shadow Minister is speaking. Can we please give her some respect and listen to what she has to say?

[Anneliese Dodds]

This is an unwelcome break from precedent, because past changes to the list, including under a Conservative-led Government, were not introduced with the divisive rhetoric we heard in the Chamber.

As I said, the Labour party remains committed to the provisions for updating the overseas list we wrote into law, as well as to the principle of reciprocity and mutual recognition for GRCs for UK nationals living in other countries. We do not want to undermine those important provisions or to add to the confusion and division that has been created by the process. However, I want to be clear: were Labour given the chance to serve, we would not use such a sensitive and complicated issue as part of a broader political argument. I hope that, the next time the House comes together to discuss changes to the list, we do so in an atmosphere that is more in tune, frankly, with the Minister’s opening remarks, which I appreciated, than with some of what we saw in the Chamber just before Christmas. I also hope that we come furnished with clear Government criteria for any changes, confident that our allies had been fully consulted, and with a commitment from Ministers to transparency about the future impact of any changes, particularly on UK nationals in relation to those other reciprocal rights.

[The Chair]

Before I call Kirsten Oswald, I remind Members who would like to speak to stand so that I can see who wants to contribute.

Gender Recognition

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for Women and Equalities for advance sight of her statement. I welcome the chance to respond to her on these important issues. Such opportunities are vanishingly rare, given that I believe this is the first oral statement she has made on the women and equalities brief this year. Like Santa Claus, it seems she gets to work when Christmas is around the corner.

I started this morning by joining a debate on the Government’s continued failure to ban conversion practices, a promise that was made over half a decade ago. I was sorry not to see the Minister there to explain that failure in person—no conversion practices ban, no commitment to making every strand of hate crime an aggravated offence in order to tackle the staggering rise in violent hate crime targeting LGBT+ people, and no provision to schools of the guidance that has been promised repeatedly but not delivered. She has been unable to deliver in any of those areas, and she even tried in her statement to say that legislation passed over 13 years ago has caused those delays—you couldn’t make it up.

Let us be clear. There are millions of British LGBT+ people in this country. I would love to hear from the right hon. Lady what she is doing for them, after her Government ditched their LGBT action plan, disbanded their LGBT advisory panel and frittered away taxpayers’ money on a cancelled international conference that LGBT+ organisations refused to attend.

Of course it is important that the list of approved countries is kept up to date. That was what Labour provided for when we passed the GRA back in 2004. The list was last amended in 2011, when two countries were removed from it and nine added. At that time, the Government said that they expected that it would be necessary to update the list

“within the next five years.”

Here we are 12 years later and the Minister has just got around to it. That is the kind of timescale our country has grown used to when it comes to Conservative delivery. Indeed, even she herself said that it is long overdue.

The right hon. Lady outlined several changes, and it is important that we understand fully why the decisions have been made. Why is there so little information on why they have been taken? As just one example, as I understand it, Germany approved self-ID this summer, but it is still on the list. Is that because its changes apply to birth certificates rather than to GRCs—it does not have such a certificate—or is it because of the timing of its reforms? There is no clarity and no information. We are talking about likely very small numbers of people, but for those individuals it is important to get this right. It is extremely difficult to determine the Department’s approach on the basis of an extremely thin explanation.

Many people living in this country who hold GRCs from the overseas route will be worried about what this means for them. Will the Minister be clear—do the changes impact their rights in any way? What about those with applications that are still outstanding?

As a result of the changes, many countries that are close allies of the UK have been removed from the list. Will the Minister explain whether she has had bilateral discussions with each of them over the implications of this move? She referred to thorough checks, but not to any bilateral engagement; does that mean that none took place? If so, why was there no such engagement on an issue on which I suspect we as the UK would expect to be consulted were the shoe on the other foot?

On that note, what assessment has the Minister made of the impact of the changes on the mutual recognition of UK GRCs in other countries? Did she consult her newly appointed colleague in the other place, the Foreign Secretary, about the diplomatic impact of the changes? If so, does he agree with them? I note that, for example, China is now on the approved list, but our four closest Five Eyes allies are not.

The Minister mentioned that there was consultation with the Scottish and Northern Irish authorities, but she did not say what the upshot of that was. She also did not indicate what the impact of the change is on our arrangements with Ireland. Will she please clarify that?

Finally, changes to the rights of foreign nationals in this country may lead to wider concerns about the mutual recognition of marriage rights, and other rights such as adoption. Will the Minister clarify whether the Government have any plans in those policy areas?

Let me be clear: Labour wants to modernise the Gender Recognition Act while making sure that that does not override the single-sex exemptions in the Equality Act. We recognise that sex and gender are different, as the Equality Act does, but I am afraid the Minister’s statement only underlines how chaotic her Government’s approach has become, with the Conservatives apparently completely divided on these issues and focused on rhetoric rather than delivery. LGBT+ people deserve better.

[Kemi Badenoch]

It is extraordinary that the hon. Lady would say that the Conservatives are divided on this issue. Does the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) agree with her? The disgraceful way that she has been treated by members of the Labour party shows that we beg to differ. We are united on this side of the House; they are not.

The hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) asked quite a number of questions and I will take the time to go through them in sequence. First, she complained that this is the first time she has heard me give a statement on this issue. The fact of the matter is that I am in this House for oral statements and there is plenty of opportunity to ask questions, and the Minister for Equalities has been in Westminster Hall. One thing I am very keen to do is to stop the Labour party using this issue as a political football. They have messed this—[Interruption.] They laugh, but it was Labour party MPs who, during the debacle over section 35, stood on a platform, on stage, with an attempted murderer complaining about this Government, so I refuse to countenance any criticism from them. They have messed around so much on this issue.

The hon. Lady claims that Labour has a policy on gender recognition. It is the policy we announced three years ago. Hollow, empty, repetitive—they have done absolutely no work whatsoever on this issue. Let me take her questions in turn. She asked why countries such as Germany have been removed from the list—

[Anneliese Dodds]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. It is not possible to intervene while the Minister is responding during a statement.

Conversion Practices

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate with you in the Chair, Ms Fovargue. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) for securing such an important debate, for his powerful contribution and especially, as many Members have mentioned, for ensuring that Sienna and Ben’s testimonies were heard in this place.

I do not know how others are feeling, but I have to confess to a certain sense of déjà vu. Just 18 months ago, we were in this Chamber considering a Petitions Committee debate on transgender conversion therapy. That debate, like this one, featured contributions from Members on both sides of the House concerning why a ban on all forms of coercive conversion practices was urgently needed. We have seen that again today, although this discussion has covered a wide range of other matters, which I will come back to. Here we are, a year and a half since that last debate, and there are still no legislative proposals before the House for a ban on conversion practices. When we met in June last year, I described the policy process towards developing a legislative ban as chaotic; today, I can emphatically say that it has been shambolic.

Let me briefly recapitulate the merry-go-round that Ministers have been riding on—the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) has gone through some of that. It is more than half a decade since the ban on so-called conversion therapy was first promised in the Government’s ill-fated LGBT action plan, which was published back in the summer of 2018. After commissioning research and setting up an LGBT advisory panel to develop proposals, a draft conversion therapy Bill was first promised in the 2021 Queen’s Speech. In March 2022, it was reported that the Government planned to drop the plans entirely, only to U-turn and recommit to a ban in the Queen’s Speech that year, but one that would exclude transgender conversion practices. Then, at the beginning of this year, the Government U-turned again by committing to a trans-inclusive ban, but when the King’s Speech finally arrived, there was no draft conversion therapy Bill. If hon. Members are a bit lost, that reflects the chaotic nature of what has happened. Four Prime Ministers and more than five years since a ban was first promised, we are no further along.

I suspect the Minister may join me in lamenting this sorry saga, but ultimately it is LGBT+ people I feel sorry for, because they have not been kept safe. I look forward to the Minister explaining what his Government’s policy on conversion practices actually is now, because I want to understand why no draft Bill has been introduced and why the Government find it all so difficult. Is this really about policy differences, or is the problem that personalities in the Minister’s Department simply do not want to deliver on what was promised? Can he confirm that there is a draft Bill ready to go, sitting in No. 10 waiting for sign-off from the Prime Minister? Does he welcome the move by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), backed by Members of the Conservative party, to introduce a private Member’s Bill to do what the Government seem unable to do and ban conversion practices once and for all?

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Lady can probably anticipate my question. As legislators, we are entitled to know what the Opposition’s policy will be, if there is to be a different Prime Minister—a different personality—in place in the next year. Can we have clarity on puberty blockers, which form part of the proposal? Will there be a lower age limit? Will parental consent be required?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising those issues. However, they are distinct from a ban on the practice of conversion therapy. I will come back to the exact drafting and how a ban should operate. I am slightly surprised that no one has mentioned that a review is being conducted by the paediatrician Hilary Cass into the treatment of children and young people in gender identity services. It has already produced an interim report and it is producing additional research. I think it is sensible to follow what that expert review produces. We will certainly examine its findings very closely, as we have its interim report.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am delighted to hear the hon. Lady say that her party will wait for the outcome of the Cass review, but what does she have to say about the statistics I cited showing that the vast majority of young girls and teenagers referred to the gender identity clinic at Tavistock for therapy are same-sex attracted? Does she have any concern that what is going on here is a type of modern conversion therapy, converting young gay women into boys?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady for her intervention, but I have actually said that a number of times before. The interim Cass review is clear about an issue that has not received any publicity from Government Members: the lack of psychological provision in general for children and young people, which is also impacting on those in gender services. That did not come as any surprise to those of us who do casework—we are well aware of that—but sadly the Government have not focused on it.

I also want to ask the Minister about pre-legislative scrutiny of a future Bill, to which the Government are apparently still committed. When will it get under way? Is the Minister confident that we will be able to conduct meaningful scrutiny before the end of this Parliament and the general election, or is this effectively window dressing to hide the reality that the proposals have been junked by the Minister for Women and Equalities with the connivance of the Prime Minister? Does this Minister accept that, as things stand, there simply is no meaningful Government policy on conversion practices?

We have been here before, and we have already heard all the excuses for the lack of action. Eighteen months ago, I asked whether the Government had gathered any evidence about the impact of a well-drafted ban on conversion practices on the provision of legitimate talking therapies.

[Neale Hanvey]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I will continue for the moment, but the hon. Gentleman is welcome to intervene on me later if I have not answered his question.

I asked for any evidence or statements from medical bodies suggesting any concerns that a conversion therapy ban would have a chilling effect, or that a trans-inclusive ban would put such treatments at risk. I did not get any answers then and I do not expect to hear any today, because these are straw-man arguments, unfortunately erected by those trying to justify inaction. I say respectfully to the hon. Member and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) that conversion refers to changing, and not to the exploration of people’s real selves, including for young gay men or young lesbian women.

[Neale Hanvey]

The shadow Minister is raising the central point of my contribution. Many young people who have been through gender services and have then decided to desist from transition have realised that, in fact, they were always gay. What safeguards or principles does she envisage would be introduced to prevent the acceleration through affirmation of young gay people into gender services, where they are experiencing conversion therapy of radical surgical and medical intervention, which is distorting their future lives? One young man said that his sex had been lobotomised.

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Member, but I will not take any more interventions—I am conscious that there are others who need to speak. The point about surgical and medical interventions is precisely what the Cass review has been working on. I will come to the issue of precisely how a Bill would be drafted, so the hon. Member will hear my comments on that in a moment.

However, I need to ask the Minister another question. Last summer, I wondered whether we would back here in another year asking exactly the same questions. Well, here we are, asking the same questions and, I suspect, getting exactly the same answers, going round in circles. I feel sorry for the Minister; I know that his hands are tied. The hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) was spot on in that regard, although perhaps even this Minister would not be able to live up to his celestial claims. Surely the Minister is getting fed up with making excuses for his colleagues, who do not have the courage to tell LGBT+ people that banning these abusive practices is not a priority for the Conservative Government.

We have a different approach; we acknowledge that there are complexities.

[Peter Gibson]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I will push on to give others time. There are complexities but it is our job to protect the public from harm. Labour, like the BMA, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and countless other organisations, believes that conversion practices constitute abuse. We are clear that a Bill to ban those practices must, of course, be carefully and sensitively drafted, so that it does not cover psychological support and treatment, non-directive counselling or the pastoral relationship between teachers and pupils, or religious leaders and worshippers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) set out clearly that those practices are not a part of religious worship. She provided a clear answer to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who always puts his points respectfully. These are matters that legislators can work through sensibly, and I am confident we will do so.

A ban would not cover quiet conversations and friendships, contrary to the claims of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). A ban would not cover discussions within families, which are based on the need for love and support. A ban would not—and must not—have an impact on the provision of psychological, medical and supportive services for children and young people. As I said, much more support and psychological counselling is needed, not less, and that is very clear from the interim Cass review.

Labour also believes that any ban must be carefully, tightly and clearly worded, and appropriately implemented and assessed. That should surely be par for the course for any legislation, and it must apply to a ban on conversion practices, too. I remain confident that it is possible to deliver a ban without ending up in the quagmire in which the Government have found themselves.

I have the utmost respect for the Minister; I know he is in a difficult spot. I say, slightly cheekily, that someone cannot choose their boss. However, if he did rise to say again that this is all too difficult and complicated, I would gently ask him whether he considers the Conservative Government are still fit for purpose.

[Peter Gibson]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Anneliese Dodds]

Sorry, but I have said I will not to give others time.

LGBT+ people need a Government that will not simply use complexity, which is common to all legislation, as an excuse for inaction. The Government should instead ensure that every LGBT+ person can live their lives in dignity and free from abuse, just like everyone else.

Women and Equalities

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2023 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Women and Equalities questions on 25 October 2023.

[Anneliese Dodds]

I would therefore counsel the Minister to advise his colleagues to stop briefing the press on these issues and get on with delivering, because there are failures when it comes to delivery for LGBT+ people. Yesterday I met Michael Smith, who was viciously attacked at a bus stop simply for being with his partner. Police-recorded sexual orientation hate crime has increased by more than 70% in the last five years, and more than a third of all hate crimes are now “violence against the person” offences. I know that the Minister cares deeply about this subject, so can he please explain why his Government do not agree with Labour or with the Law Commission that every violent act of hatred should be punished in the same way—as an aggravated offence?

[Stuart Andrew]

Let me say to the hon. Lady that as someone who was hospitalised after being attacked because of my sexuality, I know how difficult that is. It is not just the attack that is painful but what is left afterwards.

I will continue to raise each of these issues, but I want to make this point. I keep hearing that we do not care about LGBT issues. It was this Government who introduced same-sex marriage, and it was this Government who introduced it in Northern Ireland. It was this Government who introduced Turing’s law in 2017. We have modernised gender recognition certificates and made them affordable. We have removed self-funding for fertility treatment for same sex-couples, lifted the ban on blood donation, and tackled LGBT-related bullying in schools. We have apologised for the way in which LGBT people were treated in the armed forces, and we have provided funding to ensure that LGBT rights across the Commonwealth are protected.

[Official Report, 25 October 2023, Vol. 738, c. 818.]

Letter of correction from the Minister for Equalities, the right hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew):

An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) in Women and Equalities questions. The response should have been:

Pride Month

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wish to pay my respects and offer my sympathies to Glenda Jackson’s family and friends, as others have done. I think any of us in this place would be proud of her record as an MP, serving her constituents and as a Minister. The fact that she also won two Academy awards and three Emmy awards during a truly illustrious acting career as well is genuinely awe-inspiring. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, tor enabling me to say that.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate and pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing it. I also thank everyone who has contributed to the debate today in such an inspiring way and to those who have shared their personal experiences in particular. I am proud to be surrounded right now by so many trailblazing colleagues who have championed LGBT+ representation in this place and many other places during this Pride month. The speeches we have heard speak to the enormous contribution of the LGBT+ community in Britain that we are here to celebrate. I hope we will all feel joy and inspiration from that contribution at Pride events across the country this month.

Personally, I am really looking forward to being at London Pride again and I was absolutely delighted that Oxford Pride celebrated its 20th birthday this year. It was great to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) about the history of Brighton Pride and the other amazing Sussex Prides. I was pleased to be at Hastings Pride last year, which was fantastic.

Pride celebrations present an opportunity to reflect on the progress we have made in furthering LGBT+ rights, but we have to be honest and open and say that that progress was incredibly slow. That is why we still celebrate and commemorate those who made it happen. To be the first to stand up and call for change is not easy at the best of times; to do so at a time when LGBT+ people were so demonised and ostracised was much harder.

One of the many awful examples of the way LGBT+ people were treated in the not-too-distant past, as has been mentioned by a number of speakers, is the ban on lesbians, gay men and bi people serving in the armed forces—a ban that endured for decades under Conservative and Labour Governments. Labour lifted the ban in 2000, as a first step towards delivering the justice that those brave servicepeople deserve but, 23 years later, we are looking forward to seeing the publication of the findings of the LGBT veterans independent review.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I am sorry that I have not been here for the whole debate, but I caught many of the speeches on the television and enjoyed them all. The independent report was due to be published on 8 June this year, but it is facing a delay. Will my hon. Friend put pressure on the Minister to go back to Government and make sure that the report comes out before the summer recess, so we have a chance to ask questions in this place?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that important point. I am also grateful to him and many others in the Chamber for the work they have done on that issue, with the amazing organisation Fighting With Pride, which has worked so hard on it. I encourage the Minister to do all he can to ensure that that review is published, because we need to act on it and act urgently. Sadly, that injustice lasted for a long period, so we are talking about some people who are reaching their older years now. They need to see the outcomes of that review. They have been incredibly brave in talking about their experiences and, having heard some of their stories, the manner in which they have responded, despite appalling, traumatic experiences, has been incredible to behold. They need that resolution and support so that they can move forward and have at least a little closure, if not justice, on what happened to them.

The fact that that ban endured for so long reminds us how difficult it was for LGBT+ people. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) for his reflections on what has changed, in one of many moving speeches we have heard in this debate. He referred to the 1985 vote for a resolution committing to lesbian and gay rights in the Labour party, and I was proud that Labour led the way in delivering a number of moves towards greater LGBT+ equality.

There are many people in this Chamber who pushed for and helped to deliver those changes. My right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) detailed that record; in the interests of time I will not repeat his word, but I want to be crystal clear in saying when Labour is next in government, as I hope we will be, we will continue to stand up for LGBT+ people and build on that proud history of breaking down barriers for everyone. To any LGBT+ person who is watching this debate I say, “Labour will always have your back.”

It is important to say that because, as so many have reflected, these are worrying times for many LGBT+ people. There have been many reflections on the appalling rise in hate crime. Hate crime motivated by sexual orientation has risen by almost 500% over the past decade; crimes targeting transgender identity are up by over 1,000% and violent offences have increased sixfold across all five strands of hate crime over the same period.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I need to push a point: when it comes to the Government’s invoking section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 against the Parliament of Scotland on its Gender Recognition Act, where does the hon. Lady’s Front-Bench team stand?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful for that intervention. I believe the hon. Member will be well aware of where Labour has stood on these matters, as we always stand on these matters: we believe it is incredibly important that LGBT+ people are not used as a political football in any circumstances. We have long called for a resolution to that issue and for the Scottish and UK Governments to work with each other, but I am afraid that they did not do that. We should have seen that, and above all we should have seen trans people treated fairly during this period. I am afraid it is they who have been let down.

I know that some on the Government side—not the Minister, I am sure—may say that the rise in hate crime is down to better recording of hate crime rather than an increase in crime itself. Although we welcome, of course, improvements in police-recorded hate crime, that does not explain the huge soaring of the levels of hate crime against LGBT+ people and other groups. My party will follow the recommendation made by the Law Commission five years ago to strengthen and equalise the law so that every category of hate crime is treated as an aggravated offence. This is not about redefining what hate crime is, as some have wrongly claimed; it is about fixing a basic inequality in the law so that everyone who falls victim to hate crime is treated equally. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) for her powerful words on that subject. The Government should have made that change years ago, and I hope that the Minister will commit to doing so today.

Labour will also seek to build consensus around modernising the Gender Recognition Act to remove indignities for trans people while upholding the Equality Act, its protected characteristics and its provision for single-sex spaces. We will also appoint an international LGBT+ rights envoy to raise awareness and improve rights across the world—rights on which many countries are, unfortunately, going backwards, as Members have reflected. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington rightly spoke about Britain’s influence in that matter. We can do more, however, and I praise the Kaleidoscope Trust for all its work in that area.

We have heard again, perhaps understandably, the claim that this is the gayest Parliament in the world. I know that there are gay, lesbian, bi and trans people in Parliaments right across the world, but sadly they are far too often unable to be public about who they are because of the appalling reprisals that they would suffer.

[Charlotte Nichols]

During a recent visit to Kenya with STOPAIDS, charities over there that support people in the LGBT community—they live in a country where that community is illegal—were really impressed and excited about our being allegedly the gayest Parliament in the world. One thing they said to me that I found quite moving was that, even in the gayest Parliament in the world, we are still going backwards in many places on LGBT rights, so it is important that, while we recognise that achievement, we acknowledge that being the gayest Parliament in the world does not mean that we are putting through the best policies for LGBT people here or globally.

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that strong warning against any form of complacency. Many speakers have referred to that during the debate. Sadly, there are areas in which we are going backwards. I have just mentioned the unfortunate increased levels of abuse, including physical abuse, that many LGBT+ people have been experiencing. Sadly, that often also takes place in the workplace. Labour is committed to taking action against that. We will bring in a new deal for working people that will require employers to create and maintain workplaces free from LGBT+ harassment, including by third parties—it often comes from customers and service users.

We need to tackle the issues around LGBT+ healthcare as well. We will ensure that we have one of the biggest expansions of the NHS workforce in history so that everyone, including LGBT+ people, can access the treatment that they need on time. We will heed the advice of experts from the British Medical Association and Mind that conversion practices constitute abuse. We need an inclusive ban of such practices in all their forms for all LGBT people, and of course, we can do that while protecting the provision of legitimate counselling and talking therapies. We need a ban that is laser-targeted at coercive conversion practices, not one that can be assailed by strawman arguments about what does and does not constitute conversion therapy. International best practice shows that that is perfectly possible via well-drafted and precise legislation. Of course, the ban must close loopholes allowing anyone to “consent” to conversion practices, as no one can consent to abuse. I was encouraged by the comments made from the Government Benches on that subject. I would appreciate it if the Minister could give us an update on this issue. It is urgent, and I know that many of the campaigners who have worked on it for many years really want to see progress.

We will always seek to bring people together around these issues, discuss them using evidence and make sure that we respect each other in those debates, rather than ramping up rhetoric and using LGBT+ people as political footballs. Pride Month reminds us that division will get us nowhere and that there is power in coming together to demand action and change. I hope the Minister will agree that we cannot continue to see progress stall on LGBT+ rights in Britain.

I hope we can stand here in Pride Months to come and celebrate LGBT+ people walking safely through our streets, freely going about their lives without fear of harassment, hate crime, conversion practices or other forms of unequal and prejudiced treatment. For too long, progress has been blocked by division and delay, but the British people are fair-minded; they want to see LGBT+ people treated with dignity, equality and respect. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey said in her powerful speech, a diverse society is a strong society.

Legislative Definition of Sex

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate with you in the Chair, Sir George. I am grateful to everyone who signed both petitions and to my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for the respectful way in which she began the debate.

The two petitions that form the subject of the debate and the large numbers of people who signed them make it clear that views on the issue are strongly held. It is vital that the Members of this House set an example on such matters, engaging in constructive, respectful and polite discussion of them. This discussion is important, because as well as the engagement on the petitions, many people relatedly seek clarity on the Conservative Government’s plans for the Equality Act. That includes my party, the Labour party, the party of the Equality Act. As many have remarked, it is now 13 years since my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) piloted that landmark legislation through this place, introducing a legal framework against discrimination by employers, businesses, schools, public bodies and many other institutions that many countries lack and still seek to learn from.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point about the Equality Act. I agree that it has been protecting people for 13 years in a whole range of areas, including in relation to not just gender identity, but race, age, breastfeeding and disability. Does she share my concern that the Conservative Government have a wider agenda here? The Prime Minister said that the Equality Act was

“a Trojan horse that has allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life.”

Does my hon. Friend agree that the wider agenda is to remove all the protections that we all enjoy?

[Anneliese Dodds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that there is huge confusion about the Government’s position. We heard those comments from the Prime Minister last summer. In 2020, we heard the then Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), criticising what she claimed to be a “focus on protected characteristics” and saying that that had led to

“a narrowing of the equality debate”.

A similar position has been maintained by her successor, the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), and yet, confusingly, we have also had the Prime Minister claiming to back the protections that the Equality Act contains for women. To listen to him, one would not think that those protections had already been enshrined in law for 13 years—a law that, of course, his party opposed repeatedly as it was being passed.

That is important context, because we cannot understand the Government’s intentions when we have a Prime Minister who will attack the Equality Act one day, only to cast himself as its defender the next. Today, I can be very clear that Labour remains committed to protecting and upholding the Equality Act, including the public sector equality duty, its protected characteristics and its provision for single-sex exemptions.

I ask the Minister to be clear in her remarks. Does she support the Equality Act? Does she agree that statements attacking it from her colleagues risk eroding public confidence in its protections? And will she commit to explaining to her colleagues, including the Prime Minister, that the overwhelming consensus view of the British public is in favour of those protections and of greater equality and fairness?

On the specificities of future changes that many have talked about during the debate, as the party of equality Labour wants trans people to be treated fairly and with dignity and respect. Labour also supports the protection of certain spaces that are for biological women, such as refuges for vulnerable women, which are provided for by the single-sex exemptions contained in the Equality Act. Indeed, it is thanks to Labour’s Equality Act that it is possible today for service providers to create and maintain single-sex services where that is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. That system has been in place for well over a decade, and many of the service providers I speak to tell me that it provides an effective and robust framework for dealing with what are often difficult decisions around service operation. We can see that in codified form in, for example, the guidance of Women’s Aid Federation of England on these matters.

The Equality Act protects everyone, which is why any changes to it need to be carefully thought through and why clarity on these issues is important. Labour believes that we need to have a common-sense approach that provides clarity for service providers for different circumstances—both those in which trans people should be included and those in which excluding trans people is a proportionate means to a legitimate end. The problem is that the Government have provided no indication of how they would provide that clarity, aside from leaning into the idea of amending the Equality Act—something that contradicts their written response to today’s petitions. I hope that the Minister can set the record straight on that. It is especially important given that we have heard contradictory statements on the subject from different parts of her Government.

Some colleagues have already referred, I think helpfully, to the recent exchange of letters between the Government Equalities Office and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The chair of the EHRC made it clear that any potential future changes to the Equality Act could bring clarity to some areas but potential ambiguity to others. That is why the Government need to urgently explain what future changes, if any, they are in the process of identifying and set out whether they agree with the EHRC that such changes could bring greater ambiguity to other areas, and if so what the impact of that would be on anyone with a protected characteristic.

Detailed policy and legal analysis is clearly required before the UK Government can effectively respond to the EHRC’s letter, so can the Minister confirm whether that detailed policy and legal analysis is being carried out? If so, will she commit to publishing it so that the House can scrutinise the Government’s position, and will she confirm whether the Government plan to reply to the EHRC? When the Government come forward with any proposals out of all the rumours that we have heard in the press, Labour will respond accordingly. The last Labour Government did more to advance the cause of equality than any other in history. The next will put equality at the heart of their policies, and break new ground for women and for LGBT+ people.

I associate myself with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) in relation to recent votes on legislation, and I have to broaden her point. We have seen extensive engagement from those on the Government Benches on the issues that we are discussing today. We need to discuss them—politely and in detail—but I wish that we had seen over the last 13 years the same level of engagement from those on the Government Benches while so many women got poorer and poorer, while so many women saw their health deteriorate, with maternal mortality now increasing, while so many women and girls have become increasingly unsafe, and while impunity for violent men has in many cases increased.

International Women’s Day

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is always an honour to speak in this debate and celebrate the wonderful achievements of women. I thank the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) for proposing the debate and the Backbench Business Committee for securing it. I associate myself with her remarks celebrating women in this place for all of their achievements. So many trailblazers have been mentioned: Betty Boothroyd, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), Barbara Castle, Maureen Colquhoun and many more. But we need many more. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) said, on the Opposition Benches we are proud of the fact that more than half of our representation is female. We need to see that change across all parties and extending away from this place into local government. It was wonderful to hear many Bristolian examples from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), and from right across the country, of women in local government, but we need many more.

I thank everyone who has spoken in this debate, and above all my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). She delivered, yet again, her powerful memorialisation of the women killed over the past year. It was an honour, yet again, to have some members of the families of those individuals join us in the Public Gallery. There can be no starker or more sobering illustration that so many women still lose their lives to male violence and far too many others are still living in fear of it. Let us compare our situation in safety here to the situation that those women remain in right now, in our country, in their homes, in their workplaces and on the street.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for speaking so authoritatively about the behaviour of male perpetrators and the need to end their impunity, including when they commit gateway offences such as exposure. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), who was absolutely right that we should call a spade a spade, and a murderer a murderer. As the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) rightly said, these are not soap operas but despicable crimes and despicable criminals. That must always be the case in the broadcast and print media, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) so powerfully set out in her contribution. That must also be the case on social media, and I associate myself with the remarks from my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead.

We need stronger action against violent misogyny online. I am afraid that the Online Safety Bill is simply not tough enough to deal with that cancer in our society. We need more action on policing and in other areas on criminal justice, too. Police-recorded rape and sexual offences are at record highs, but just 1.5% of recorded rapes lead to convictions. More than two thirds of women have experienced some form of sexual harassment in a public space, and 86% of 18 to 24-year-olds.

The criminal justice system is in disarray, I am afraid to say; we all know that, because as constituency MPs we see it in our casework every single day. Women’s refuges—those that are still open—are full. Women and girls are being put at risk. Many of us will question, as hon. Members have done today, why there was no mention of making Britain safer for all in the Prime Minister’s five key priorities.

No one believes that ending violence against women and girls will be easy, but we certainly cannot do it with short-term, sticking-plaster solutions. We need a comprehensive approach. That is why Labour’s cross-cutting Green Paper “Ending Violence Against Women and Girls” sets out our plan to embed action across every Department. It includes proposals for a new street harassment law, tougher sentences for rapists and whole-life tariffs for those who rape, abduct and murder. It includes having domestic violence specialists in every 999 control centre. It includes making misogyny a hate crime. It would ensure the compulsory vetting of police officers in every police force. We would give victims access to the justice that they deserve. We really cannot delay.

Nor can we delay in other areas that are critical to women’s lives. Previous Labour Governments did not delay: they introduced the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and of course the Equality Act 2010. We are determined to go further. We will match that record and go beyond it by putting women’s equality at the heart of everything we do, and we will start by taking action on the gender pay gap. It is disturbing that that gap has increased by 12% in the past two years alone.

[The Minister for Women (Maria Caulfield)]

indicated dissent.

[Anneliese Dodds]

Those are ONS statistics. We need proper action to eliminate that inequality for women, so I am delighted to be working with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and with Frances O’Grady to review how we can go further and faster to close the gap. We also need action so that flexibility for women in the workplace is not just in the hands of employers. We need equal pay comparisons between employers, not just within a single employer. We need a modern childcare system, as my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) has ably set out.

As I have the floor for a few more moments, I want to talk about a group of women who rarely get a hearing in this place. I am talking about midlife women: women in their 40s, 50s and 60s. They experience a series of immense pressures—they are often expected to hold down a job, care for elderly parents and support older children—but when we look at how they are faring economically, we can see that over recent years things have moved backwards for them. In the past decade, women in their 40s and 50s have seen their real wages fall by almost £1,000 a year. Since the pandemic, 185,000 women between 50 and 64 have left the workforce at a cost of up to £7 billion to the British economy.

[Karin Smyth]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Does she agree that it is astonishing that the Government are not looking at the issue in the way that we have done? They are concerned about growth in the economy and particularly about the loss of women from the workforce, but they are not looking at social care or childcare. Does she agree that if they want to steal our plans, they are welcome to do so and we will cheer them on?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I would be delighted if the Government stole those plans. I would also be delighted if they looked at Labour’s measures for the NHS, because a fifth of the women I spoke about are on an NHS waiting list. I have been up and down the country talking to women on gynaecology waiting lists, women who are not getting breast cancer referrals on time and women who have not been able to access cervical cancer screening, for which rates have been falling. We can see how big a problem there is and we can see how our plan for the workforce is so urgently needed.

We would also love the Government to steal Labour’s plan for larger employers to have menopause action plans. Many businesses have welcomed that measure, but so far the Government have not yet adopted it, although the nodding of the Minister on the Front Bench leads me to hope that they may do so. We need action on that, and we need greater action for women.

Women need answers to these questions because, sadly, too many women will feel that they have little to celebrate on this International Women’s Day in our country. Sadly, that applies even more in many other countries, as hon. Members have discussed throughout this debate. Earlier this week, I had the immense privilege of taking part in a roundtable with women activists from Iran and Kurdish women. Their strength is inspiring, but what they have been through is horrendous. We must stand with them, as has been said. We must also stand with the women of the United States, following the attacks on their bodily autonomy. We must stand with the women of Afghanistan and of Ukraine. We must stand with women in countries subject to appallingly high rates of femicide, such as El Salvador. We must stand with women from all nations in which women’s lives are devalued.

My mission as shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities is to ensure that every woman is recognised, valued and empowered to reach their full potential. I want us to be able to look forward to a future in which our debates in the week of International Women’s Day can focus solely on the brilliant achievements of women and girls in all their diversity—those women and girls who make this country great—rather than on having to detail so many barriers holding them back.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last year, the gender pay gap was 12% higher than it was in 2020, the year in which the Minister for Women and Equalities was first appointed to the Government Equalities Office. If not the Minister, can anyone on the Government Front Bench please apologise to women for that increase this International Women’s Day?

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the shadow Minister for that question. It is disappointing that she cannot welcome the progress that has been made, and not just in terms of the gender pay gap: we are supporting pay transparency, which is equally important in making sure women are paid the same as men. We are launching a science, technology, engineering and maths returners pilot to enable 75,000 people to return to the STEM sector, mainly women. On carers’ leave, flexible working and shared parental leave, and through supporting the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) with her private Member’s Bill on harassment in the workplace, there is huge progress on supporting women in work.

[Anneliese Dodds]

No apology, then, for that increase in the gender pay gap over recent years, and no real action, it seems. Other figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the gender pay gap for women in their 50s and 60s is nearly four times higher than it is for those in their 30s. Some 185,000 women aged between 50 and 64 have also left the workforce since 2020, at a cost of £7 billion to our economy. Will the Minister back Labour’s proposal for larger companies to publish menopause action plans to support women to stay in work, boost productivity and grow our economy, or will that action to support working women again just be dismissed as left-wing?

[Maria Caulfield]

I am pleased that the Labour party is getting with the programme—that it can actually define what a woman is, for a start. We will not take any lectures from the Labour party; perhaps it needs to get its own house in order before lecturing the rest of the country, because according to The Daily Telegraph in January, the Labour party paid its black workers 9% less than its white workers. It absolutely needs to get its own house in order.