King’s Speech

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, in the time available to me, I would have liked to address my remarks to the effect that the new legislation will have on two of my main areas of interest: equalities and prisoner welfare. However, that would have made a very short speech indeed. The word “equality” does not feature once in the gracious Speech and one government equalities pledge, made more than five years ago, has still not found its way into proposed legislation. I refer, of course, to a conversion therapy banning Bill.

I should not have been surprised. After coming first as the most LGBTI-friendly country in the Rainbow Europe rankings between 2011 and 2015—this coincides with the time when the Liberal Democrats were in the coalition Government—we have since slumped to 17th place today. But do not worry: I have a cunning plan to help the Government out. Reading the runes, I feared that this Bill might drop off the parliamentary agenda, so I entered the ballot for Private Members’ Bills to bring in my own Bill—and guess what? My conversion therapy prohibition Bill came first in the ballot. This is definitely meant to be; we will be able to debate this issue in Parliament, as we should.

It is a shame that a mental health Bill has also been omitted from the Government’s agenda. I do not need to take up the House’s time to spell out how much of an effect poor provision and lack of resources are having on those suffering from mental illness as my noble friend Lord Allan has already more than done that issue justice today. Compared with crowd-pleasers such as pedicab regulations and a football regulator, which I am sure are important to many—well, football is at least—the Government have chosen to put mental health in the “too difficult to tackle” box before they lose the next general election.

However, we have the criminal justice Bill, some aspects of which are very welcome, such as taking steps to equip our police and criminal justice systems to better tackle violence against women and girls, criminalising the sharing of intimate images and introducing a statutory aggravating factor at sentencing for offenders who murder partners at the end of a relationship. However, long sentences and mandatory terms of imprisonment may well be contrary to some of the Government’s other worthy aspirations for prisons. You cannot grow your way out of an increasingly overcrowded penal system by locking up more and more people for longer and longer periods. In this country we lock up more people per head of population than many other countries, even those more right wing than this one. In fact, we lock up 50% more per head of population than the EU average. While mandatory sentencing and increased length of sentences might look good to right-wing voters on an election leaflet, they will be counterproductive in the longer run—not that this Government need necessarily worry about the longer run.

Every pound we spend housing prisoners is a pound less to spend on rehabilitation and support to help ensure that, on release, prisoners can take their place in society as citizens and do not end up back in prison, costing the taxpayer even more money and causing victims of crime even more suffering in future.

Finally, I want to tackle race hate, which is of course an equality issue. This feels particularly timely given the impact the horrific Israel-Gaza conflict has had in the UK. The Home Secretary has only added fuel to the fire with her divisive rhetoric and declarations of “hate marches”, which have incensed our Muslim communities and many others, while British Jews continue to feel unsafe, as well they might. Since 7 October anti-Semitic incidents have increased by more than 600%, while Tell MAMA, an organisation that measures Islamic hate crimes, has recorded a similar sixfold increase. This month is Islamophobia Awareness Month, and perhaps the Government should realise that backing one side against another here in the UK is harmful, not least further damaging their prospects in the next general election with the votes they will lose from the Muslim community. All our communities deserve our protection and support, not only in times of conflict. At this time, when we remember all those who suffered and continue to suffer in war, please let us learn the lessons of the past. Never forget what war can do to humanity.