UN Vote on the Independent Expert for the LGBT Community Debate
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Chris Bryant
Main Page: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)Department Debates - View all Chris Bryant's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
UN Vote on the Independent Expert for the LGBT Community
Chris Bryant Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Sir Alan Duncan
The right hon. Gentleman always cleverly hides a technicality in his question, but I certainly endorse universality. Such rights are inalienable and do not depend on where someone lives. Human rights are for everybody, regardless of age, location or anything else.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The sad truth is that gay men in particular are still being persecuted in Russia and beaten up by the police. Gay men in Iran are still being executed for their sexuality. Gay men in so many other countries around the world can be arrested or imprisoned simply for holding hands. I therefore entirely endorse everything that the Minister has said today. However, is it not a particular irony for British people that 90% of those who live in Commonwealth nations live in countries where homosexuality is illegal because we, the British, wrote those colonial laws? Is it not time that we took that as an important part of campaign for a better world?
Sir Alan Duncan
Many of those Commonwealth laws are totally out of date, highly inappropriate and should be changed. The Commonwealth system, our diplomatic efforts abroad and, indeed, this House, with all the contacts that individual Members of Parliament have across the world, should all be used to the full for that objective.