LGBT Rights: Brunei

I beg to move,

That this House has considered LGBT rights in Brunei.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I am glad that so many right hon. and hon. Members have been able to come today, because this is an important topic that is dear to our hearts and those of our constituents.

As Members will know, last week the Sultan of Brunei implemented the third phase of the sharia penal code—the SPC—which was first introduced in 2014. This phase of the code’s implementation licenses brutal executions and violent punishments of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, including death by stoning, effectively just for living their sexual identity. As a result, Brunei is now the eighth country that can punish consensual same-sex relationships with the death penalty. It also punishes women for abortion, which is a health matter, and anyone for sex outside of marriage, which is a private matter.

Last week in the House, the Minister gave a welcome statement about this situation. However, he said that the UK has a “close friendship” with Brunei as a result of our long-standing military and strategic partnerships, which I understand. He also mentioned Brunei’s membership of the Commonwealth. I believe that that relationship gives the UK special responsibility to act against this violation of human rights, which has implications for people both within and beyond Brunei. I will return to that point later.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this vital debate. When I clicked on the Commonwealth’s website this morning, the strapline that came up was “53 countries working together to…celebrate diversity” and to “protect human rights”. Given the situation in Brunei, which, as the hon. Lady says, is appalling, and the fact that same-sex consensual sex is criminalised in 35 of the 53 Commonwealth countries, does she agree that Britain must raise this issue at the forthcoming Commonwealth meeting?

I absolutely agree, and I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Later in my remarks, I will emphasise that Britain’s position in the Commonwealth gives us a position of leadership that we must act upon. Brunei is only one of the countries that are behaving in an egregious manner towards people because of their sexuality, and I would like us to use our influence.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Last November, I was privileged to visit Rwanda with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, where there are also questions about LGBT legislative equality. Surely the role of the British Government, and the Foreign Office in particular, is to provide challenge within the Commonwealth and to promote the idea that if a country is a member of the Commonwealth, it must advocate the equality legislation that the UK Government and other members of the Commonwealth partake in. It is simply unacceptable in 2019 for these barbaric acts to be undertaken against people who are LGBT, purely on the basis of the way they were born.

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is absolutely right, and I would like the Minister to urge his colleague, the Foreign Secretary, to use his position in the Commonwealth. I will return to that issue later.

I will set out the dangers that the penal code poses for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Brunei and outside, and also for other women. I will also identify how I believe Brunei benefits from its association with the UK through military, diplomatic and economic relationships. Finally, I will press the Minister on the ways in which this country can bring its influence to bear on Brunei. I have some specific suggestions for action that I would like him to consider.

First, I thank the all-party parliamentary group on global lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights—particularly Anna—the Brunei Project, the Kaleidoscope Trust, the Human Dignity Trust, Stonewall, ForcesWatch, the House of Commons Library, and others for having provided briefings for this debate. I also thank the parliamentary Digital Engagement Programme, which has brought members of the public into this discussion in a way that I never knew about. Because of that programme, the House of Commons Facebook post on this topic was seen by 35,435 accounts between 5 and 9 April. There were 6,061 post-clicks and 1,275 engagements, including reactions, comments and shares, and the post prompted 20 private messages to that Facebook page. I will refer to some of those comments and suggestions during my speech.

The Government of Brunei, as part of an increasing trend towards religious conservatism, introduced the SPC in 2014. It applies to both Muslims and non-Muslims, although the latter group is exempt from certain sections, and operates in parallel with common law inherited from British rule, which the Bruneian Government have said continues to be the primary means of administering justice. Punishments that came into effect with the implementation of phase 3 of the SPC include death by stoning for adultery, sodomy or extramarital sexual relations by Muslims, public flogging as a punishment for abortion, sex between women or consumption of alcohol, and amputation of limbs for theft. The SPC also criminalises trans people through charges of “indecent” dressing.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on making an incredibly powerful speech. Given the problems that some LGBT asylum seekers have recently found in gaining asylum, will she join me in calling on the Minister to raise concerns with the Home Office to ensure that we in this country are granting sanctuary to those LGBT people who face persecution in their home countries?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on refugees, I am particularly concerned at this country’s record, at the fact that, unfortunately, it often fails to give asylum to people who come here because of persecution due to their sexuality, and at the high evidential bar that seems to be imposed on them. I gather that that is particularly true for women.

The implementation of the SPC has been condemned by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression Caucus, so this is not just the west criticising south-east Asia; Brunei is not acting in step with its friends in other south-east Asian nations. I am also pleased to note that, despite things going backward in many parts of the world, India recently repealed section 377 of the Indian penal code, introduced by the British under colonisation, which criminalised sex between people of the same sex.

That is progress, but we need to keep progress and halt backward steps, because if we tolerate them, it signals to other countries that it is fine for them to go backward too. In too many countries, the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are being undermined and fragile gains lost to bigotry and authoritarian chauvinism. As I said, Brunei is now one of several countries where being gay is effectively punishable by death, but there are over 70 countries where it is criminalised.

I have had dealings with Brunei for a very long time, in so far as I know the people there. What I do not understand is how anyone as civilised and used to working in the west as the Sultan and the people around him would even contemplate being so barbaric. That is the big question: why are they doing this stupidity?

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am also baffled—why do this? I hope the Foreign Secretary will be able to use the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group later this month as a place to talk openly, frankly, but firmly to the Sultan’s representatives and ask that very question.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. It is outrageous what is going on. Does she agree that the Government should review the deployment of our troops to Brunei?

I would certainly like us to use the fact that we have troops in Brunei as a measure of leverage. I understand the strategic position that those troops hold, but it is important that we do not just give troops unconditionally when the nation of Brunei and the Sultan are benefiting from those troops.

Last September, a Defence Minister confirmed to me in a written answer that Brunei’s armed forces had had UK military training during the previous 12 months—2017-18. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should make the case for there being no further military training for Brunei until this issue is resolved?

That is certainly a way of using our position of influence. I ask the Minister to consider that, and to talk to his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence about how we are deploying our military, to what purpose and whether that is appropriate given the Brunei state’s attitude towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. I contend that it is not appropriate, and I really would like the Minister to consider talking to his colleagues about that.

I commend the hon. Lady for securing the debate. Is she aware of the petition started by my constituent Sarah Quinn, who is a brilliant counterpart of mine in the Scottish Youth Parliament? Her petition calls on the UK Government to do more to use their influence to stop human rights abuses against LGBT people in Brunei. The petition is just 16,000 signatures short of the 100,000 it needs to secure an even longer debate on this subject, so will the hon. Lady encourage others to sign it?

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman’s constituent on taking that step. It is great to see such campaigning by young people, and I certainly encourage everyone who watches or hears about this debate to take that sort of action and to show the Government, who I believe agree that this is an egregious breach of human rights, that we want them to take firm action. This is not good enough. An abuse of human rights anywhere is an abuse of human rights for us all; it is an attack on all of us.

As was mentioned, Brunei is a strategic partner of the UK in the region, and we have close military, diplomatic and economic ties. I would like us to make use of those ties as a form of leverage. On military ties, as others mentioned—I will try not to repeat what they said—the British Army in Brunei comprises an infantry battalion of Gurkhas and an Army Air Corps flight of Bell 212 helicopters. That arrangement has been periodically renewed since 1962 by a series of agreements known today as the Brunei garrison agreement, the most recent of which was signed in 2015 and lasts until 2020. I understand that the Ministry of Defence has already begun discussions about the continuation of that agreement. Will the Minister communicate my hon. Friends’ suggestions to the Ministry of Defence for consideration in negotiations about the future of that agreement?

Since 1997, the garrison in Brunei has been the only remaining British military base in the far east. Obviously, we want to keep our strategic influence there. However, the continued presence of British armed forces in Brunei offers clear defence and security benefits for the Sultan—the Sultan wants us there too. According to the UK Defence Journal, Brunei

“sees Britain as its biggest European ally to count on if necessities arise”,

and

“the UK is expected to be prepared to support Brunei against an expansionist China; not mentioning the British role as a political ‘stabiliser’ for the Sultan.”

Is my hon. Friend aware that this afternoon the Police Federation has announced that it will boycott the Dorchester for its police bravery awards? Will she join me in congratulating the Police Federation and hoping that other organisations will follow suit?

I thank my hon. Friend very much for that intervention, because it brings me to my next point. I might not be able to afford to stay at the Dorchester, but I can talk to organisations that use the services of other organisations about how we all make our own decisions about how we spend our money and where we bring our trade and business. I want companies with interests in Brunei to think about their influence, but also, crucially, about the safety of their staff there. I understand concerns about economic boycotts, and I also understand the need for us to have a relationship with Brunei. I do not want Brunei to feel cornered, because dialogue is essential, but I want it to feel encouraged to change its mind and do the right thing.

Friendship has limits. We need to show how we feel when our allies or associates treat their own citizens’ human rights, and potentially ours, as optional. I have various things that I want to ask the Minister. I will start with the members of the public who, via the parliamentary digital engagement team’s work on the Commons Facebook page, gave various views—this is not a statement of endorsement, but of representation. Their views included taking away the Sultan of Brunei’s honours; freezing his assets; boycotting his businesses; suspending Brunei from the commonwealth; guaranteeing assistance and/or asylum to all persecuted lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Bruneians; withdrawing military support; and recalling the British ambassador to Brunei. It would be good for the members of the public who contributed those ideas to have them at least considered by the Minister. Many respondents rightly pointed out that several of Britain’s other allies have similarly egregious human rights records, and that Government policy should apply consistently to them, too. Some respondents said that the UK should not interfere with the laws of another country and should focus on its own issues—I represent this, even though I do not agree with such a view.

My hon. Friend will obviously be aware that the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting will be held in Kigali in about 18 months’ time. Perhaps I could suggest to the Minister that an agenda item on equality and LGBT legislation could be developed for that Commonwealth summit, where Rwanda will take over the chair. While we in the United Kingdom have the chair, this issue should be very much at the top of all the agendas of Commonwealth Ministers.