That this House has considered 50 years of Pride in the UK.
It is a huge privilege to lead today’s debate, which commemorates the UK’s first Pride march in London on 1 July 1972 and all the Pride events that have taken place in the 50 years that followed. I sincerely thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this debate, and especially for ensuring that we have this important debate in the Chamber during Pride Month. More widely, I thank everyone who has organised, supported and taken part in the many Pride events over the years. It is thanks to the many who protested, marched and fought that we have many of the rights that I enjoy today.
I also thank all the Members of this House who have bravely spoken out over the years about their sexuality, their gender and even their HIV status. It is more important than ever that this House reflects the society we have the privilege to represent. I thank them for representing their LGBT constituents and for raising LGBT issues on the Floor of the House, in Committee and in legislation. It is essential that we continue to strive for greater equality, not just during Pride Month but whenever we can in this Chamber and in this House.
The first London Pride event was a demand for progress, and it was organised by the Gay Liberation Front, the UK’s first direct-action human rights movement of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The 1972 Pride march was attended by an estimated 2,000 people, who marched from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park with the intention of combating the invisibility, denigration and constant shame in which most LGBT people were forced to live at the time. Those marchers were inspired by the Gay Liberation Front’s list of demands, many of which are thankfully now enacted in law.
The progress on LGBT equality in the 50 years since has been drastic and significant. We have seen milestones such as: equal marriage; the abolition of section 28; the recent work of Time for Inclusive Education in Scotland; and the diversity of families as we celebrate the increased routes to parenthood that now exist for LGBT families.
LGBT people are protected in the workplace by equality legislation and hate crime laws, which serve to protect against harassment and attacks, but these still occur all too often. I urge the Minister to add a full legislative ban on conversion therapy to the list of milestones.
I will let Members decide for themselves to what extent the Gay Liberation Front’s manifesto for gay members of society has been realised in the past 50 years. However, it is clear that many members of the trans community and many LGBT people of colour have been left behind. UK Black Pride’s 2021 report, “We Will Be Heard,” spoke of a general feeling of unsafety in public and increasing racism towards LGBTQI+ people of colour, with nearly half of respondents having been insulted, pestered, intimidated or harassed in the previous year, compared with 27% of white respondents. The report also spoke of hostile media coverage of trans identities, with 70% of trans and 62% of non-binary respondents saying they would feel uncomfortable using a public toilet. The majority of trans respondents said they would avoid using a gym or sports ground for fear of discrimination or harassment.
The reality, sadly, is that we have seen an alarming rise in hate crimes against LGBTQI people, and a report found that 64% of the LGBT community, including people like me, have experienced violence and abuse based on their gender or sexuality, with only one in five being able to access support. Given these worrying statistics, what is the Minister doing to tackle hate crime against the LGBT community, especially those with intersectional identities? Trans people in 2022 are facing the same hate crime and discrimination that many of the LGBTI community faced in the 1980s. What will he do to ensure the UK is the safest place to grow up for trans, gay, lesbian and non-binary people? What actions will he take to counter transphobia in the media and in society, especially with the onslaught of concerns that have been raised about sports and other areas?
I know that many people wish to speak, but in the time available I wish to say that as a country that has held Pride parades for 50 years, we should be taking a leading role in promoting equality at home and abroad. Yet, sadly, the direction that this Government are taking is worrying for the LGBT community. There are uncertainties around the Rwanda scheme. In answers to questions on the scheme, the Government have been vague as to whether LGBTI asylum seekers will be exempt from deportation to a country that was found in the Home Office’s own report to pose a threat to LGBTI people. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us an answer on that. We should be extending the hand of friendship and ensuring that the UK is the safest place. We should keep in mind the difficulties faced by those who may have to admit their sexuality for the first time as part of an asylum application. Will the Minister use this debate to announce that no LGBTI asylum seeker will be subject to deportation to Rwanda?
As we come to the end of Pride Month, with events across the UK and the world, and look forward to London Pride this weekend, we can reflect on the massive legal and social changes that have made the UK a safer, more welcoming and inclusive place for LGBT people. We can reflect on the people who paved the way for current and future generations such as me: those of us who have made radical decisions; those who have marched and campaigned for gay rights; and those who still bear the scars of discriminatory policies, which many of us in this House can only barely recall, but which some will recall only too well from first-hand experience. The SNP will continue always to strive for progress, equality and human rights, but we must push to fully promote LGBT equality.
I challenge the Minister to tackle hate crime; to do all he can to promote safe and legal routes to asylum in the UK; to ensure that for all the LGBT community facing oppression in their home states the UK will be a safe place and that they will not simply be returned to a place where their life may be in danger; and to champion LGBT equality at home and abroad. I want to know that my son will grow up in a world that in 50 years’ time is much more secure than the one I have grown up in.
As one of the co-chairs of the all-party group on global lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) rights, let me begin by wishing my constituents and everyone across the UK a very happy Pride as we approach London Pride this weekend. It is important to recognise how far we have come over the past 50 years, and it is pleasure to follow the excellent opening remarks from the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley). It is poignant that this debate follows the one on Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, because this shines a light on how far we have come as a country; when there are still countries around the world today where being LGBT+ is punishable by death, we are lucky to live in a country such as the UK that protects our rights in law. Of course that does not mean that there is not still progress to be made and things that need to be done.
I have been incredibly lucky as a young openly gay man growing up in the UK. I was very supported by my family and my school was miles ahead of its time; Carshalton Boys Sports College had a fantastic, inclusive, relationship and sex education curriculum before it was mandatory. I have had nothing but excellent experiences in every workplace I have been in, so I have been one of the lucky ones, but that is not the case for every young person growing up who is LGBT+ in the UK today. That is why Pride still matters to this day and why it is so important to continue shining a light on those issues, because there are still people who think that they may be better off dead than being openly who they are. As long as that is the case, we must continue to celebrate, to be visible and to raise these issues.
On people who still struggle with their sexual orientation, did the hon. Gentleman happen to see the documentary Dame Kelly Holmes has just broadcast, where she demonstrates with great heartache the problems that were caused in her life by the ban on gay people serving in the military, the misery that that has caused her, despite all her fantastic achievements, and how she is now striving to overcome it? Will he join me in wishing her all the best as she is now out and proud?
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention and I will absolutely join her in congratulating Dame Kelly Holmes on her bravery. Indeed, sport is one of the areas where we continue to see struggle for the LGBT community. We still see homophobia, biphobia and transphobia; they are very pertinent in sport, which is why it is important to continue to raise those issues.
My first Pride was back in 2012, which coincided with this place deciding on whether two people of the same sex could get married. It was a new experience for me. I did not know anyone else who was going, so I went along on my own, which I do not think I would have the confidence to do now. The experience of my first Pride really struck me and stayed with me. What it highlighted to me was that I have been lucky but only because of the brave people who came before me and gave up so much to fight for the rights that I enjoy today. I am lucky enough to come to this place and say, “I am an openly gay man and I have had a pretty decent life so far.” I thank everyone who came before us.
There is always more to do. That was touched on by the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East, particularly in relation to conversion practices. I do not want to go over too much of the ground that I know has already been covered. The Minister was present in the debate that we led in Westminster Hall just a few weeks ago. I do not want to repeat all the arguments that were made there. I will just stress that conversion practices are still taking place in the UK today. The need to ban conversion practices is not symbolic; it is needed to protect people from undergoing harmful practices simply because of who they are. That surely cannot be acceptable in 21st century Britain, which is why it is so important to do so and, indeed, to make sure that such a ban is inclusive of gender identity as well.
I pay tribute to colleagues who, sadly, could not make it to today’s debate, but I know would have wanted to if their diaries had allowed. I am thinking in particular of my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Jacob Young), for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), for Darlington (Peter Gibson), my right hon. Friends the Members for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), and for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), my hon. Friends the Members for Southport (Damien Moore), for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) and many others. I am sorry if I have not mentioned all of them. I particularly pay tribute to the bravery of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Dr Wallis), the first ever openly trans Member of Parliament. I do not want to steal their story away from them; that is for them to tell. But I just wanted to put that on the record.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman is setting out perfectly some of the challenges, but does he agree that there is a more sinister and deep-rooted issue with misinformation and disinformation that has been funded by the religious right and is seeping into our society, part of which plays into what is happening in the USA on abortion rights and reproductive healthcare? Does he agree that we must do something about that and we must work together cross-party to challenge that misinformation and protect our trans and nonbinary siblings?
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady; that could not be more true. One of the most bizarre things that seems to be invading the debate at the moment is the idea that a person will wake up on a Monday and suddenly decide that they are trans, and that by Friday they will have had invasive surgery that cannot be reversed. Of course that simply does not happen. There is so much misinformation going on about what is happening in the UK today, and we must not allow that to permeate the debate. I hope that parliamentarians can take that much-needed lead in calming that debate down and having a discussion based on fact and on what is needed to progress our country and make it an even better place to grow up LGBT+.
Coming back to that point, it is important that, when the Government bring forward the conversion practices Bill later on this year—I hope it will be later this year—it is trans inclusive. I hope the Government will make the decision to do that themselves, because there is no doubt that there will be an amendment tabled in the House, and I must warn my own Whips in advance that there is absolutely no way that I could fail to support such an amendment. It is much more desirable to come forward with that from the beginning. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) for her fantastic campaigning on this issue. She has been quite superb.
I hope we will not allow this issue to become a wedge issue. Politicising the trans debate to gain electoral capital from it is not something that any political party should think is desirable. To any politician in this place from any political party who is thinking of doing that, I would point out that we already have an example of where it has not worked, in Australia. The Australian federal election was heavily fought on that issue, and it did not work. I would really advise against doing it.
I will wrap up my remarks, as I realise I have been talking for quite some time, but for me the reason Pride is still important and must still be celebrated today goes back to the point I made earlier. Some people believe they would be better off dead than being who they truly are. Pride is all about celebrating the fact that people can be who they are without living in fear, and that is pertinent given the current toxic debate going on in the country.
It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), my co-chair on the all-party parliamentary group on global LGBT+ rights. I look forward to working with him over the coming period to try to ensure that a lot of the legal protections and acceptance that we have seen develop in our own country can be exported to other places around the world so that our LGBT+ friends across the globe can enjoy the same kinds of rights that we are here celebrating today.
We are here to celebrate an incredible journey towards the legal recognition and equal treatment for LGBT+ people that has been achieved in the UK in the past 50 years. This change is progressive and life-affirming, but it did not just happen. It did not just descend as an inevitability because time and history were moving on. It was campaigned for and won in the teeth of the most intense bigotry, ridicule, hostility, violence and intimidation. It has made our society better, safer, stronger and more respectful as a place to live and thrive than it was before. That is a tremendous achievement and it is what, essentially, we are here to celebrate on this 50th anniversary. It was won because LGBT+ people and their allies fought for it because they did not accept the status quo that they were born into and grew up in. They realised it was wrong, they wanted it to change, they had a vision of how it could change, and they went out and campaigned for that change.
But we know that LGBT+ rights are fragile and progress towards equality must never, ever be taken for granted. Look at the horrific attacks on Pride celebrations in Oslo just a few days ago if you think that Pride and LGBT+ people are accepted and respected as we would like to see across the developed world, let alone the rest of the world. Listen to the homophobic rantings of President Putin in Russia or Viktor Orbán in Hungary, scapegoating LGBT+ people for their own political advantage. Consider the Trump-enabler Steve Bannon’s comments as he celebrated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that he supported that attack because the Russians were not “woke” and knew “which bathroom to use”. When one thinks about those phrases and how they are weaponised across different countries, it is possible to discern that there are connections between people who are campaigning to get us back in the closet, to get women back in the kitchen, to get us to know our place, and to turn our society backwards. We have to beware of those connections.
I congratulate the hon. Members for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) and for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), who delivered a tour de force on the history of the struggle for equal rights. I really do feel humbled to stand in this place and think of the change that has come since those 2,000 brave activists took to the streets 50 years ago. They laid the groundwork for me and for others, as others have said, to have a happy life as an LGBT+ community.
On Saturday, as the LGBT+ community begins its march through the nation’s capital to mark the 50th anniversary of Pride, a group of veterans will, with quiet dignity, have their moment of inclusion when they join and march with uniformed armed forces serving personnel for the first time. I am delighted that this invitation has been extended, because these veterans will wear their medals with pride, knowing that in their ships, squadrons and regiments they met every challenge the rigours of service life placed in their path side by side with their colleagues.
However, this group of veterans met so many other challenges, because they served in the shameful years of the ban on homosexuality in the armed forces. Twenty-two years ago, the ban on homosexuality and LGBT personnel serving in the armed forces was lifted, but while it was in place it inflicted staggering cruelty on many men and some women who had stepped forward to serve their country.
Between the mid-1950s and 1996, the men of our armed forces who were thought to be gay were arrested, searched and questioned by officers trained for wartime interrogation. That was despite homosexuality having been decriminalised in 1967. This interrogation could run on for days, and then they would be charged, often without legal counsel or support, and on many occasions an arrest was based on little or no evidence. Heterosexual men were falsely accused by service police officers, losing careers and in some cases homes and families.
After harrowing investigations, these men were taken to military hospitals, where they were subjected to degrading and shameful medical inspections conducted in accordance with the confidential Defence Council instructions held by every unit of the armed forces. At court martial, in the moments before those convicted were sent down, operational medals and good conduct badges would be stripped from their uniforms. As they walked from prison, they were dismissed in disgrace, with criminal records as sex offenders.
These men typically served six months in prison for the military criminal offence of being homosexual. That continued until 1996, and administrative dismissal of LGBT+ personnel continued for a further four years, until January 2000. They were cast out of the armed forces family, outed to their own family and friends, and many lost their homes and livelihoods. Their service record cards had the top corner clipped and were marked in red pen with the annotation “Dismissed in disgrace”, causing a lifetime of employment issues. In the past, in their moment of need, they were shunned by military charities—something that I am grateful has now changed.
Despite a six-month delay in his appointment, I would like to welcome the right hon. Lord Etherton QC as the chair of the Government’s LGBT veterans independent review, who I gather will be meeting veterans in London this weekend at Pride. The independent review will, for the first time, assess the number of people affected by the historical ban. Lord Etherton’s report will give Government an opportunity to finally recognise the service of LGBT veterans. The report must make reparations for the appalling cruelty those veterans faced, and the consequences that they have endured for a lifetime. If we are to take real pride in their service, and if we are as a nation truly sorry for their treatment, it must deliver restorative justice.
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That leads me very neatly into my next point, which is on the current public discourse on trans issues. Again, the Minister was present in Westminster Hall when we had a debate on the reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. I do not intend to go over the specifics of that again, but I completely agree with the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East about the current public discourse and the toxicity of the debate that has arisen around trans issues in the UK and, indeed, in much of the world at the moment. We have a responsibility to try to take the heat out of that discussion and try to calm things down and actually talk about the real issues—what is actually needed.
Much of the public discourse at the moment is completely nonsensical. It is driven in the most awful way. Again, the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East—I am embarrassing her by referencing her far too often—hit the nail on the head. Much of what is said about the trans community today could almost be copied and pasted from the text books of history: things that were said about openly gay men, lesbians and bisexual people in the past, particularly around the threat they posed to the safety of women, to the safety of children, and to the rights to practise religion freely. Much of that is completely nonsensical. I really hope that, in this place, we can start setting a better example for the public discourse that we need to have and really take the heat out of it. I think the debate we had in Westminster Hall on reforming the Gender Recognition Act was a good one and got to the heart of some of the issues. Serving with colleagues on the Women and Equalities Committee during our inquiry into the GRA, I was struck, when we were taking evidence both from those in favour of reform and from those opposed to it, by how much agreement there was between the two sides.
Both sides agreed that there needed to be much better healthcare support for trans people in the UK, ranging from mental health support all the way through to more physical interventions. It was agreed that many of the structures that exist in both legislation and institutions do not currently work for the trans community or for anyone else. They agreed that there was a lot of confusion, and that implementation of exemptions within the Equality Act 2012 and the GRA, for example, was confusing.
Of course we will find people who preach and say things that we find abominable or crazy, but overall Pride for me is about everyone just getting to live their lives in peace the way they want to—not bothering anyone else, not trying to impinge on anyone else or to tear down the foundation of society as we understand it, but just wanting to live their lives. Pride is so important to this day because some people still do not feel they can just live their lives. For as long as that is the case, I will continue to come here and celebrate my LGBT+ family and make sure that we in this House never forget how far we have come or how far there is to go.
Women in the USA are now experiencing the shocking reality of a bonfire of the rights that they thought were established and permanent with the reversal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court. In the USA, some of those fundamentalist justices now have their eyes fixed firmly on same-sex marriage, the legality—for goodness’ sake—of same-sex relations, and even the use of contraception. This means that all the progress that we have been celebrating, and perhaps in our more complacent moments thinking could never be reversed, has just been reversed in front of the eyes of half the population of America. We must never forget that those same reactionary forces are lurking here in the UK working to achieve the same goal, often with generous fundamentalist funding from various nefarious organisations.
Before I warn more about backlash and the dangers that progress will be reversed, I want to take this opportunity to celebrate just how far LGBT+ people have come since that first Pride march wended its way from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park 50 years ago. Unlike most of the people in the Chamber today, I was alive when that was happening, although I was not on the march. That would have been slightly too precocious of me, given that I was born in 1961—you do the maths.
The first Pride was organised by the Gay Liberation Front and attended by 2,000 people, as the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) said in her opening remarks. They were spat at, and they faced abuse on the streets for daring not to be ashamed of who they were, because repression and dissemination work best when people internalise the shame that those who want to keep them repressed try to put upon them. That is why the concept of Pride—of being proud and open and out about who you are—is such a powerful one. Again, it is the 50th anniversary of Pride in this country that this debate is celebrating.
That first Pride was a very different occasion from the carnival attended by 1.5 million people when we last had a Pride in London, pre-covid in 2019. I sincerely hope that this weekend’s 50th anniversary will resemble the 2019 carnival, rather than the first one. LGBT+ people have come a long way together with our allies, and we should all be proud of the progress we have achieved. Male homosexuality was only decriminalised by that pioneering Wilson Labour Government in 1967. Until then, jail awaited anyone who tried to be open about their sexual orientation. Many police forces carried out campaigns of entrapment, and gay men were regularly blackmailed, beaten up and prosecuted for being gay. Lesbians were not even mentioned in the law, and though their status was unclear, they too felt that they had to hide away.
When young people today hear about this oppressive history, they can scarcely believe it, so much have we managed to change by working together. That is the nature of the progress that we have achieved. Indeed, I watched Dame Kelly Holmes’s documentary yesterday. She went to see some LGBT Olympian boxers training together, and they did not even realise that when Dame Kelly joined the Army, she could have been dismissed in disgrace for her sexual orientation. They were astonished. This is massive change within only a few generations, and we should all be proud of achieving that.
The march to legal equality had many setbacks, not least the arrival of the odious section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which put back the cause of equality for years and caused untold misery for many of the most vulnerable people in our society at the most vulnerable time in their lives. Even now, it leaves a legacy of unaddressed bullying in our schools, which some teachers worry about confronting. The decision of the Thatcher Government to write into the law of the land the ridicule of LGBT+ relationships as “pretended”, and to ban what they called the “promotion of homosexuality”, led directly to the formation of Stonewall in 1988. It was the beginning of a more focused attempt to push for basic human rights to apply to LGBT+ people. Meanwhile, trade unions organised to support LGBT+ people facing discrimination at work and incorporated the fight for equality into their workplace bargaining.
Today is the first day of the TUC LGBT conference, and I wish them luck from this Chamber and send greetings for the work they are doing, but the TUC published a poll of HR professionals today, which demonstrated that one in five of UK workplaces does not have any policies in place to support LGBT staff at work, and only half of managers said they had a policy prohibiting discrimination, bullying and harassment against their LGBT workers in their workplace. Although we have changed the law, we still have much to do to ensure that all employers treat their LGBT+ employees with the respect they deserve and that employees are properly protected from bullying at work.
There are fantastically good examples of great progress, but there are also some places where there has been no progress. We ought to support the TUC and the LGBT TUC, who are doing their best to change this reality in the workplace.
All the work I have mentioned helped drive real change and increased understanding of issues that had remained hidden for too long. The increasing willingness of LGBT+ people to come out brought these matters into the open, and there was a softening attitude to LGBT people among the public. As someone who became a Minister in the 1997 to 2010 Labour Governments, it was clear to me that public opinion on this issue had moved faster than the previous Government’s attitudes.
Throughout the 1980s, hostility to LGBT+ people was used explicitly by the Government in their political propaganda to portray the Labour party as loony lefties—that is the phrase that was always thrown at us. That effort was enthusiastically supported and highlighted by the Tory-supporting red-top tabloids in lurid and bullying headlines, which are still imprinted on my brain today. You know, it worked, Mr Deputy Speaker. I remember vividly canvassing in Battersea for the now Lord Dubs in the 1987 general election, only to have doors shut in my face after being told that Labour only stood for—the House will have to excuse me for using this language, but I think it is important in the context—the blacks and the queers. That is how well the weaponisation of this stuff, which all centred around section 28, worked.
For some of us, the so-called war on woke began at least 40 years ago. It has been waged, often unrelentingly and always irresponsibly, ever since. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) talked about wedge issues. He was absolutely right to call that out, because it is an example of the weaponisation of people’s vulnerabilities and personal characteristics to bully them, to other them and to make them feel that they do not belong in our society. It is that which we have to confront.
The fact that public opinion had moved beyond the ossified attitudes of many in the Thatcher and Major Governments created an opportunity for rapid legal reform to drive social progress when we returned to Government. We took that opportunity because we had a huge progressive majority in the House of Commons and public opinion was further ahead than even us in deciding that this change needed to be made. We lifted the ban on LGBT+ people serving in the armed forces—only after a court case, but that was how it was thought best to achieve it; we equalised the age of consent; we repealed section 28; we allowed unmarried couples, including same-sex couples, to adopt; we removed discrimination against LGBT+ people from the sexual offences statutes; and we legislated for civil partnerships, finally allowing same-sex couples to marry and to enjoy the same legal protections that were available in heterosexual marriage.
The House of Lords was then—it is not now—an implacable opponent of this crucial reform agenda. It delayed and opposed progress. It was especially stubborn in its refusal to contemplate the repeal of section 28 and the equalisation of the age of consent. We tried for three years to repeal section 28 and nearly lost three local government Bills in the confrontations we had with the Lords before we succeeded. We managed to achieve the equalisation of the age of consent only by using the Parliament Acts, as the House of Lords simply would not pass it.
All of this was done in the face of huge hostility in the tabloid press, which ran banner headlines about gay mafias running the country and Labour obsessing about gay rights. All we wished to do, as a Government, was to accord equal rights and freedom from discrimination in law to LGBT+ people, whom we wished to see treated as human beings in our society—equal and equally respected. The battle was hard and difficult, but it was worth it because we won.
When I first came into this House, I certainly never imagined that 30 years later, I would be sitting in one of the gayest Parliaments in the world. [Hon. Members: “The gayest.”] It is the gayest Parliament in the world. I often think that, particularly late at night when we are waiting for the votes that never seem to come. The fact that we are here in numbers, and across parties, means that we can work together to preserve the gains made and improve the situation for LGBT+ people in our country and internationally.
I end my contribution to this celebration of 50 years of Pride with a warning. LGBT communities are facing a backlash in the UK. Hate crime against the community is rising disproportionately. According to Galop, the LGBT+ anti-abuse charity, two thirds of us experienced violence or abuse last year, with nearly a third of that consisting of physical violence, and four in 10 trans people have suffered a hate crime this year. Much of that goes unreported in official crime statistics, but it all has a detrimental psychological effect on the individual victims.
The Government started with a positive agenda for LGBT+ rights, but that has now stalled. We look to the Minister to get it going again and ensure that it ends up at the destination that we all hope for, and I know he intends. Perhaps some in the Government are falling victim to that same temptation to pursue a divisive war on woke with a special focus on trans people. I know that he is not in that group of people, and I wish him all power in making his arguments. I hope that he can prevent that happening or getting any worse, because it singles out people who are already marginalised by portraying them as a threat or holding them up to ridicule.
All this official bullying has a familiar ring to it for those who were around in the 1980s, as I was. It is as reprehensible and destructive now as it was then, and it has to be defeated. We learned that the much-delayed yet long-promised ban on conversion therapy will now exclude trans people, and will contain a consent loophole that means it is not a ban at all. I have been a Minister, so I know how pragmatic the Minister will have to be to get the legislation on the statute book. Again, we will work cross-party to make that ban as effective, thorough and applicable across the board as we can. I hope that the Government will relent on the fact that there is currently no place in that ban for trans people. With that battle going on, it is no wonder that the UK has fallen from 1st place to 14th place in the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association Europe’s ranking of gay friendly European countries. I want to see us back in first place.
Sadly, it seems that the Government have chosen to use LGBT people as a useful wedge issue as the general election approaches. I hope that whoever makes those decisions will step back from doing that and think about the damage it does. Those of us who support LGBT people will do everything in our power to make certain that it does not work and does not succeed.
Despite those setbacks, working towards true equality and full human dignity for LGBT people remains an important priority cross-party for all those who wish to live in a fairer and more inclusive society. That is what I will be marching for at the 50th anniversary of Pride, and I expect to see Mr Deputy Speaker—in some T-shirt no doubt—and all other hon. Members present along the way. We hope the weather holds out. We will be marching with pride for what we have achieved, with confidence that there is more to do, and with determination that we will do it.