UKPOL.CO.UK

Tag: Speeches

  • Stanley Clinton-Davis – 1970 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Stanley Clinton-Davis – 1970 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    The maiden speech made by Stanley Clinton-Davis, the then Labour MP for Hackney Central, in the House of Commons on 6 July 1970.

    I understand that it is the custom of the House for a speaker succeeding a maiden speaker to proffer his congratulations. It would be a little presumptuous if I were to do so, because I am about to embark on the same ordeal as that of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Major-General d’Avigdor-Goldsmid). I do nevertheless congratulate him, but I will leave the felicitations to someone more experienced than I am.

    I should like, first, to pay a tribute to my predecessor, Mr. Herbert Butler, who was a distinguished citizen of Hackney for many years before entering this House in 1945. He served as a Member of Parliament for 25 years. He was in his earlier political life the agent for the late Mr. Herbert Morrison in the early ‘twenties. Throughout his political life he has worked assiduously for the benefit of the people in my constituency. He did not seek the limelight, but what was above all important was that he was always accessible. He always held his weekly surgery, and I know that I shall be able to look to him as a very good friend for guidance in the many difficulties which will undoubtedly beset me here.

    My constituency is situated in the East End of London. It is part of the London Borough of Hackney. My hon. Friends the Members for Shoreditch and Finsbury (Mr. Ronald Brown) and Bethnal Green (Mr. Hilton) have part of the London Borough of Hackney within their constituencies, but my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) and I share the major part of it.

    It is often imagined that the London Borough of Hackney has a firm connection with the hackney carriage. Nothing could be further from the truth, although up to 1968 there were no fewer than six taxi drivers on the borough council, and today there are two.

    I believe that the London Borough of Hackney has become renowned in the world of local government for the new and hold conceptions that it has introduced over the years. Perhaps the most notable example was the Lea Valley Regional Park, an idea which was formulated many years ago by Herbert Morrison but which was acted upon by a present alderman, when mayor, Alderman Sherman. We are now looking forward to the time when that regional park will bring a great deal of joy to many thousands of Londoners. It was my privilege to be chairman of the welfare committee when we introduced the idea, new among local authorities, of Continental holidays for disabled persons. I am very glad that the Conservative Council there has continued with that plan.

    We have always looked outward, and have been keen on twinning with other cities and boroughs in the world. Perhaps the most notable of our twinning arrangements is that with the very great and beautiful city of Haifa. In 1969 I was mayor of the borough, and I was privileged to be invited to Haifa and see that wonderful city and meet its leading citizens. I was able also to have discussions, and to hear for myself the views of many people, ordinary people and the leading citizens, about some of the great problems which beset Israel at that time, and still do.

    I formed an imperishable memory of those views; that there was an overwhelming desire for an enduring peace. The people there desired to live as good neighbours with the Arab States surrounding them. They wanted above all to ensure that Arabs living within Israel enjoyed full democratic rights. They yearned to be able to exploit their technical skills in order to make fertile the deserts of the Middle East. All this is being frustrated by the present difficult situation. It was their desire to ensure that ordinary people throughout the Middle East could participate in the wealth that exists there but is at present denied to them.

    But they made it clear that certain things were not negotiable, and I was able to see for myself how reasonable those views were. For example, it is impossible to conceive that Israel could concede once again the Golan Heights, because from those heights for a period of about 20 years the kibbutzim below were shelled daily, and many lives were lost. That is not negotiable. Equally, it is not negotiable that they should concede the small tract of land some 10 miles from the shore where Natanya stands by the conceding of which Israel could, at one fell swoop in a successful attack be split in half. It is impossible to conceive that to be negotiable either From 1967, for the first time for many years at least, there was freedom of worship in Jerusalem: that is something which is not negotiable either.

    I for one deplore the mischief making of the Soviet Union in that part of the world. I deplore it, because it endangers a great democratic socialist State, and a State whose existence in the Middle East is fundamental to peace. I believe, and I always have believed, that Israel represents an oasis of democracy in a desert of totalitarianism, and I hope that the Government will not deny Israel the support which I believe she will need.

    I want to pass from that subject to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) and others, of the tremendous importance of race relations in the world generally and in our country in particular. The reconciliation of races is above all important, and we have a job to do in Britain because the eyes of the world are upon us, and the way in which we deal with that will have far-reaching effects not only upon our internal policies but on our foreign policies, too. This was stressed by The Times only the other only the other day, when it stated: The most urgent task is to switch attention away from immigration and on to race relations. While I welcome the continuation of the previous Government’s urban aid policies, I hope that the promised new legislation will not undermine the security of Commonwealth immigrants who are here. I hope that they will not feel that they, too, are on probation, so to speak, because of this new system of probation for new arrivals that is to be introduced. I hope that that scheme will not encourage certain people within the community to undertake a policy of harassment of those who are lawfully here in the hope of being able to drive them back under the style of voluntary repatriation. I welcome the assurance given by the Prime Minister the other day in respect of those who are already here. That assurance is in stark contrast to the talk we had heard during the General Election and at other times of “internecine violence” and “alien wedges”. Such talk is negative and dangerous in a sensitive field, and does immense harm to race relations.

    I was reminded of the debate in this House in 1905 on the Aliens Bill, when every blight on society was laid at the door of the then immigrant community seeking asylum here from the most terrible persecution. Smallpox, scarlet fever, and even miner’s worm—precious few of those immigrants were miners—were ascribed to them. They were declared to be a public charge on the country. They were alleged to be increasing the disease and crime in our society. It was alleged that they were depriving Englishmen of the employment to which they were entitled. It was alleged that they overcrowded cities, created insanitary habits and were responsible for a deterioration of the national standard of life. They were described in the most appalling terms—as “refuse”, for example. The proponents of the tough line in those days doubted the statistics which belied their arguments. They made suggestions that the figures were “cooked” in that debate 65 years ago. Sixty-five years ago people in this House were saying “I wonder.” We had the “Wolverhampton Wonderers” then; and they all claimed that they were not racialists.

    I want to stress the positive side of race relations. I believe that in my constituency we have a great example to offer to the country. It is so much more rewarding to talk about these things than to emphasise the alleged hopelessness and undesirability of the present situation. We have a long tradition in Hackney of racial tolerance. It is an area in which the fascists, both pre- and post-war, sought to merchandise their filthy wares, and they were met head on and routed. Today we have a cosmopolitan population considerably higher in numbers and proportion than in Wolverhampton, yet the atmosphere is far better.

    I give credit both to the Conservatives and to our party on the Hackney Council because both have taken positive steps to avoid racial antagonisms and to give encouragement to the Hackney Community Relations Council, which does enormously valuable work. The community relations council has a magazine entitled Harmony, embodying the task of the programme of reconciliation which it seeks to undertake. It has forged a strong link with the local police force, because there are antagonisms which very often develop between immigrants and the police. In that regard it has had the whole-hearted support of the local commander, Commander Brown.

    The community relations council has promoted seminars and meetings on all issues affecting community relations in the broadest sense—immigrants and housing, education in a multi-racial society, and even equality for women—all issues affecting the dignity of all people. Its meetings are very well attended, and they have been provocative meetings. It is all to the good that provocative views should be expressed. The community relations council has promoted play groups and is operating a legal advice service. It has never been afraid of tackling problems wherever they arise and tackling difficulties which exist in a multi-racial community.

    One of the difficulties has been noisy parties. I am referring not to the parties in this House but to music and dancing which sometimes leads to antagonisms and to an explosive situation. The community relations council has been concerned to conciliate in that respect, in the field of employment, and also to take an active part in dealing with landlord and tenant difficulties, where there is so often exploitation of tenants who are ignorant of their rights under the law. This is something to which the Minister of Housing and Local Government referred the other day.

    The community relations council enjoys the good will of most sections of our community—the churches, synagogues, the Council for Christians and Jews, the Salvation Army, which has very deep roots in Hackney, and the Rotary Club, which has embarked upon a study of the work of immigrants within the professional and industrial life of the borough. This all provides a useful example of how to deal with the problem of reconciliation of people of different races. The choice before us, both nationally and internationally, is between chaos and community, as Martin Luther King said.

    I should like to see us making ourselves absolutely committed to racial equality. I want to see us making it absolutely clear that equivocation and procrastination in the quest for racial justice are not to be tolerated. Today, unhappily, bigotry and prejudice are rife in our country. Edmund Burke once said that when evil men combine, good men must unite. I hope that we shall unite to show that all bigotry and prejudice are evil, and that above all bigotry and prejudice that reject a man because of the colour of his skin or because of his religion are the most despicable expressions of man’s inhumanity to man.

  • Ben Bradshaw – 2023 Speech on Pride Month

    Ben Bradshaw – 2023 Speech on Pride Month

    The speech made by Ben Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter, in the House of Commons on 15 June 2023.

    As a number of hon. Members have said, we have come a long way, haven’t we, since I was the first openly gay parliamentary candidate to be selected? My Conservative opponent at the time said that homosexuality was a “sterile, disease-ridden…occupation” and described me as a homosexual who rode a bicycle, spoke German and worked for the BBC and therefore was everything about our country that was wrong. He went on to warn in his election literature that, were I elected, Exeter’s children would be in danger.

    Do not forget, Mr Deputy Speaker, that that was the end of the era of the 1980s and early-90s, which was a hostile environment for lesbian and gay people in this country. That was partly because of the backlash against LGBT rights and partly because of the Government-sponsored section 28, but it was also because of a vicious media campaign. I remember a front-page splash in The Sun when Labour announced its policy of ending the ban on lesbians and gays in the military, which was “Poofs On Parade”. I remember the front-page splash in the Daily Mail when we called for equalisation in the age of consent, which was “Gay MPs Want Sex At 16”. It was nothing to do with gay MPs; the Bill was sponsored by a straight heterosexual female colleague in this House.

    Thankfully, the Government, of which I was privileged and proud to be a member, swept away all that discriminatory legislation. We equalised the age of consent, protected LGBT people from discrimination in the workplace, lifted the ban on military service and repealed section 28. We introduced the Gender Recognition Act 2004, civil partnerships, adoption for same-sex couples, tougher sentences for homophobic hate crime, and IVF treatment for lesbian and bi women. We also ended discrimination in the provision of goods and services, introduced the Equality Act 2006 and saw the establishment of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. So there is a lot to celebrate—and there is still a lot to celebrate: it is heartening to see the acceptance and celebration of LGBT+ people increasingly becoming the norm among young people, who are able to be open among their peers in a way that would have been unimaginable for many people in my generation. Opinion polls consistently show that majorities in all age groups in the United Kingdom support LGBT rights and equality.

    As the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) pointed out, to their credit, David Cameron and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) continued Labour’s political settlement. Until 2015, the UK was consistently ranked the most LGBTQ+ friendly country in Europe but, as a number of Members have noted, we have now dropped to 17th. Why? Since the now discredited former Member for Uxbridge ousted the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, progress has stalled and in some areas begun to go very badly backwards, and, I am sorry to have to say this, the current Prime Minister, in my view, has the worst record of all three of the recent Conservative Prime Ministers. The Government have broken their promise to ban conversion therapy and reform the gender recognition process, have tried to block Scotland’s democratically agreed gender recognition reforms, and are threatening to go backwards on LGBT-inclusive sex and relationship education.

    Trans children and young people are not a threat to be contained. They should be celebrated and supported to thrive, both in education and beyond. And where on earth did the Prime Minister get the idea that forcing schools to out trans and non-binary students to their families was a good idea? The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children makes it absolutely clear that no young person should be outed against their will, except in circumstances where it is essential for safeguarding purposes. The Albert Kennedy Trust, a wonderful charity that supports homeless young LGBT people, has had a 58% increase in referrals in the last three years. These are young LGBT people driven out of their homes by hostile families. Are we seriously going to out people to those hostile families?

    Dawn Butler

    My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Yesterday, I hosted the Albert Kennedy Trust in Parliament. The trust recalled the tragic circumstance that 80% of people referred to it have been sleeping homeless and been kicked out since the Government started their culture war. Does he agree that things need to get better?

    Mr Bradshaw

    They do need to get better. A quarter of all homeless young people are LGBTQ+. Some 77% of those have suffered rejection or abuse from their families.

    Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)

    As a patron of the Albert Kennedy Trust, I was shocked when I first heard the statistics on homelessness among LGBT+ people. Is it not time we celebrate the work of the Albert Kennedy Trust and praise it for bringing to light these terrible statistics and tragic stories?

    Mr Bradshaw

    Yes, indeed. In fact, perhaps I should have declared an interest as a long-time supporter of the Albert Kennedy Trust.

    On crime, as other colleagues have noted, hate crimes against LGBT people and trans people in particular have risen dramatically. Now the Government plan to amend the Equality Act 2010 in a way that would make the exclusion of trans people the norm. Counselling and medical care for people with gender dysphoria and for young people in particular is practically non-existent. The south-west’s only clinic for gender dysphoria, in Exeter, has an initial waiting time of seven years.

    As other colleagues have said, we only have to look at America to see what happens when rational, evidence-based policy is replaced by hate, fundamentalist ideology and moral panic. In America this year, a record 520 pieces of anti-LGBT legislation have been introduced at state level, 220 of which focus specifically on trans and non- binary people. A record 70 anti-LGBT laws have already been enacted. Fifteen ban gender-affirming healthcare, seven require or allow students to be misgendered, four censor the school curriculum and there are many more.

    We had the appalling spectacle this week of grandparents in Canada stopping a school sports contest to demand that a 9-year-old cis girl be physically examined to make sure she really was a girl. They thought that she was a boy who had an unfair advantage over their granddaughter. This is what happens when Governments and the press pursue a culture war. We have friends, a gay couple with a daughter, who live in Florida. They are leaving because they are frightened. Culture wars, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) said, will not restrict themselves to attacks on LGBTQ+ people. The whole of the equalities space will eventually come into their sights. An attack on trans people is an attack on all of us.

    I am afraid that a number of politicians, right-wing think-tanks and powerful media supporters here in the UK seem to want us to go down the route of the Republican states in America. The deputy chairman of the Conservative party says he wants to run the next election campaign on these culture war issues and on trans issues in particular. I have a mild caution for him and the Prime Minister, from my experience 26 years ago. Then, the Conservative party thought that by running a virulently homophobic campaign against me they would hold Exeter and gain votes nationally. It suffered its worst swing to Labour in the south-west and its worst general election defeat in modern history. If it wants to continue to row back LGBT rights and equality, and to fight the next election on that terrain, I believe it will discover, as it did back then, that the British people are better than they think and a lot better than them.

  • Nickie Aiken – 2023 Speech on Pride Month

    Nickie Aiken – 2023 Speech on Pride Month

    The speech made by Nickie Aiken, the Conservative MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, in the House of Commons on 15 June 2023.

    It is a huge privilege to speak in the debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing it. It gives me great pride to represent a part of London that has such a profound LGBT+ history. I feel fortunate that my constituency includes Soho, one of the world’s best known gay districts, as well as places such as the west end and Piccadilly Circus, which all form part of London’s LGBTQ+ social and cultural fabric.

    From hosting the first UK march in 1972, places such as Soho have developed at the centre of London’s gay community. Historically, it is of huge importance, and many of the conversations on gay rights started in the bars and spaces that still line the streets of Soho today. It was on those streets and in those spaces that people came to show their solidarity. They stood up not just for themselves but for the gay community everywhere. To that, I pay tribute. They made their case for reform despite visceral discrimination. They listened to those who opposed them and challenged them in open debate. Slowly but surely, they won the support not just of parliamentarians in this place but of wider society. I pay tribute to all those trailblazers. Because of those people, support in Britain for the LGBT+ community has been built on firm foundations. It is now embedded in our culture and supported by all mainstream political parties.

    Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)

    I agree with the hon. Member that we have had firm foundations in the UK. I think that we were ranked as No. 3 in the list of LGBTQI+ friendly countries, but we have fallen down that list quite considerably. Can she think of any possible reason why that might be?

    Nickie Aiken

    I have no reason to think why we would have fallen. It is important that we continue to have strong policy supporting the LGBT+ community, because it is the diversity of this great city of London and this great country of the United Kingdom that makes us strong. We must ensure that the rights of gay people and all people are at the forefront of our policymaking.

    I recently spoke to activist and campaigner Philip Baldwin on an episode of my podcast about the challenges that the LGBT+ community has faced, from fighting for equal rights to breaking down stigmas. He told me that in 2003, at the age of 24, he was diagnosed with HIV; a week later, he was told that he also had hepatitis C. Because of medical advancements, his HIV status is no longer a life sentence and his hepatitis C has been cured. When he got his diagnosis, it was not the life sentence that, back in the ’80s and ’90s, my friends had to face, because thanks to scientific and medical advancements and attitudes among scientists and doctors, people can now live with a diagnosis of HIV and have approximately the same life expectancy as everybody else. When I was a teenager, an HIV diagnosis was a death sentence.

    This new era of treatment was made possible in part by researchers at St Mary’s Hospital in my constituency of Cities of London and Westminster. From the early 1980s, St Mary’s became the site of groundbreaking trials that would change the course of treatment and research for years to come. Those included a pioneering study of 400 gay men led by Professor Jonathan Weber, the current dean of the faculty of medicine who was a junior doctor back then.

    When I was drafting my speech, I spent some time reflecting on how far LGBT rights have come in my lifetime. In fact, 2023 marks 20 years since the repeal of section 28: the law that, in dark days, banned the promotion of homosexuality in the UK. It gives me no pleasure to recognise that that law was brought in by a previous Conservative Administration.

    I note what my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) said about the relationship and sex education review currently going on. As a mother of two—one of them has now left school—I believe it is vital we ensure that our children are talking about sexuality, consent, respect and everything else that is informed within relationship and sex education. There should no ban, including on education on homosexuality and trans. It must be age-appropriate.

    We have talked about section 28 and how far we have come. Today, I am so proud that same-sex marriage is legal and that discrimination against the LGBT+ community is rightly outlawed. Conversion therapy is due to be banned, and I hope that it will be. The sooner that becomes law, the better.

    Only the other day, I was having a conversation about how far we have come in Parliament itself. Twenty years ago, when the then Labour Government introduced a Bill to allow gay people to adopt—I am sure my Conservative colleagues will be as interested in this as I was—the Conservative parliamentary party was whipped to vote against it. However, there were three Conservative MPs who rebelled and defied the Whip: George Osborne, David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Whether hon. Members agree with their politics or not, that rebellion was the start of a new wave of Conservative thinking about gay rights. It was that new generation of Conservatives, led by David Cameron in government, who were responsible for passing the last major piece of LGBT equality legislation. With the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, gay people were finally treated as equals, and the last piece of legal discrimination aimed specifically at this group of British people was removed.

    When David Cameron launched the Government’s gay marriage legislation—it was controversial in parts of our party at the time—I remember that he said:

    “I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative.”

    That resonates with everything I believe in. He was saying that the Conservative party is a home for everyone, so let us not forget how far Britain has come in welcoming LGBT people as valued and respected members of our society.

    We have made great progress towards LGBT+ equality in my lifetime, but the fight is far from over. As we have discussed, the world remains a dangerous place for many gay people. I was appalled to learn of the recent anti-gay Bill in Uganda. In the UK, we can still go further with gay rights, and we must ban conversion therapy. With that, I look forward with hope and with pride.

  • Angela Eagle – 2023 Speech on Pride Month

    Angela Eagle – 2023 Speech on Pride Month

    The speech made by Dame Angela Eagle, the Labour MP for Wallasey, in the House of Commons on 15 June 2023.

    As always on this occasion, it is a great pleasure to see you in the chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I add my tributes to Glenda Jackson, following today’s sad news. I grew up watching her performing in “Elizabeth R”. I then found myself sat next to her for seven hours in this place as we both attempted to make our maiden speeches. She got in just ahead of me, but in the end we both got in. I worked with her in government as a Minister, and I also had the privilege to see her in “King Lear”—at the Old Vic, rather than in New York—and I can attest to the stupendous nature of her performance in one of my favourite Shakespearean plays. We will all miss her. Of course, she was a Birkenhead girl—I just thought I would get that in before I continued. I am sure the whole House sends condolences to her son Dan, and to her wider circle of friends and family.

    I would like to draw attention to early-day motion 1275, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) and signed on a cross-party basis, including by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Dr Wallis). I think our thoughts have been with the only transgender Member of this House at the moment given the toxicity of some of the debate, which the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) raised in his very able moving of the motion in this year’s Pride debate.

    In the UK, every June the LGBT community and our allies celebrate Pride Month, and I am grateful, as I think we all are, to the Backbench Business Committee for continuing to give us time to have this debate. The events that take place during Pride Month give us all a chance to celebrate our history, which is very important as it teaches us and gives us hints about what may lie ahead in the future if we do not keep our wits about us. It also gives us a chance to celebrate the remarkable progress we have made as an LGBT+ community, from LGBT+ people being criminalised to legal equality, visibility and much more widespread acceptance. That is quite a journey.

    It is a remarkable change, and it has happened in my lifetime. I am older than I sometimes think myself to be, but I am not that old in the scheme of the social history of this country, so that demonstrates the scale of the change I think most of us in the Chamber, although not all, have witnessed. Pride also gives us the chance to show solidarity with other LGBT+ people around the world who have yet to make the progress that we have enjoyed, and who in 66 countries still face legal bans on their existence and in some extreme cases face the death penalty.

    Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)

    I thank the hon. Member for allowing me to intervene, and I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing this really important debate on Pride Month. This is very important to me and to constituents on Ynys Môn such as Bruce Hughes, and I look forward to the time when we can celebrate Pride Month right across Anglesey and really celebrate this solidarity and the remarkable progress we have made.

    Dame Angela Eagle

    I agree, and I certainly hope that Pride in Anglesey is as enjoyable as Pride in London, and also as enjoyable as Pride in Liverpool, which this year will be hosting Ukraine Pride too. It will not be quite as glitzy as the recent party we had for Eurovision, but it will in its own way be just as glamorous.

    I was talking about legal bans, and the situation in some other countries where people have not made the same progress as we have been fortunate enough to deliver in this country. Pride is about supporting their battles for human rights and dignity, and the all-party parliamentary group, which the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington and I are honoured to chair, does its best to bring those issues to the attention of the House and of Government agencies.

    We use Pride Month to assess how we must plan to protect and advance the equal rights that we have fought for, and we march and we protest, but we do also party, as I think has perhaps been mentioned before—it seems to be a theme. We party, and we parade and march, because visibility is a part of the celebration that Pride represents. It is about our own pride in our authentic existence, because being out in the open is so much better than being afraid and in the shadows. We must bear that in mind as the debates that problematise particular parts of our community continue to rage around us.

    Why do we do this? We do it because we have a collective memory of what it was like before we fought for change, and we do not want to go back to those dark days of prejudice, bigotry and oppression. What is the point of us carrying on doing it now that, apparently, we are accepted? It is because a diverse society is a stronger society. Everyone thrives better in an accepting society in which the norm is dignity and respect, rather than division and prejudice. I have a feeling that we are about to have to fight that battle all over again between those two visions of what a society should be like.

    We want a society in which people are not discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and we can celebrate remarkable progress at home and abroad in the battle for liberation for LGBT+ people. This year is the 20th anniversary of the repeal of section 28 in our country. It is also the 19th anniversary of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, which first gave legal recognition and protection to same-sex relationships, and 10 years since the equal marriage Act—the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013—which opened up that happy prospect to same-sex couples.

    There has also been very welcome progress globally for LGBT+ people. Just in the last year, same-sex activity has been decriminalised in five more countries—Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore, Barbados and the Cook Islands. However, as I said earlier, that still leaves 66 countries where it is illegal to be gay. Half of them are in the Commonwealth, where homophobic laws that were often imported during the colonial era still hold sway. We in the all-party group on global LGBT+ rights can celebrate some progress, but we know that the battles are far from over.

    We also know that there has been bad news this year, as well as progress, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington mentioned in his opening speech. The odious anti-homosexuality law just enacted in Uganda and signed into being by President Museveni is especially extreme in mandating life imprisonment for homosexual conduct, and the death penalty in some instances. It outlaws any “promotion of homosexuality”, which is a familiar phrase to some of us who lived through the 1980s, including advocating for LGBT rights. People can now be jailed if they advocate for human rights in Uganda. There is also a 20-year jail sentence for providing financial support to LGBT+ people, which includes giving them somewhere to live.

    Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)

    My hon. Friend is raising the very concerning situation in Uganda, a country I have visited many times. A number of embassies in Uganda offer space for the LGBT community to meet and organise for safety purposes because of the awful backlash. We should celebrate that, and continue to push for the British embassy to do likewise, as other European embassies have done, so that we protect our friends and colleagues who are fighting the good fight for human rights there.

    Dame Angela Eagle

    Well, certainly, and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington and I met the International Development Minister just yesterday to talk about this very thing. We also talked about what other response there might be to what is happening in Uganda, particularly in trying to protect LGBT activists there, but also to make it certain that there is no impunity for those advocating these kinds of laws. We raised the prospect of visa bans, travel bans and other ways of making our displeasure known, and we wait to hear what the Government will say about that. This is the most extreme law that has been passed on to a statute book, but similar statutes are now appearing in other African states. Notably in Ghana, but in other African states as well, there are big pushes to enact similar laws.

    Progressive momentum has also stalled in our own country. The UK Government cannot seem to decide whether they are going to maintain their acceptance of the gains made by LGBT people, or tee up an even more vicious culture war against trans people ahead of the next general election. Almost five years since the Government first announced their intention to ban conversion practices, there is still no sign of the oft-promised draft legislation that would achieve that very laudable aim, which would have widespread support across this House. We are still waiting to see that, yet every day of delay from this Government puts more vulnerable, usually young, people at risk from this highly damaging form of psychological abuse. As I think I said last year, I hope that the Minister might be able to confirm today that the Bill will be published soon. We were hoping it would be a Bill last year, and now we are told it is a draft Bill, but we have still not had sight or sound of it. I am sure that behind the scenes he is absolutely on the right side of these arguments, and I do not want to embarrass him in public, but I suspect there may be others who are not. I wish him well with any battles that he is having, and I hope that the Bill will be published before the summer recess, so that we can check that it is trans-inclusive and that it is effective because it does not contain a gigantic “consent” loophole.

    As the general election gets closer, the Prime Minister has decided to go along with an attempt to set up a response to what he referred to in his failed leadership bid last summer as the threat to “our women” from trans people. Daily screaming headlines in Tory-supporting tabloids have followed disgustingly, painting all trans women as potentially violent, predatory, and a threat to women and girls. That has created a climate of fear and hostility to all trans people, and seen levels of hate crimes against all LGBT+ people, and especially trans people, soar in the last year. There is a reason why Pride in London has decided to march in solidarity with trans people this year, and I hope that many of those who wish to see our society support everyone positively will join us on the Pride march on 1 July.

    With this targeting, we must remember that there are only small numbers of trans people in this country. If we read the headlines, one would think that everything that goes wrong, and all violence against women, was somehow perpetrated by trans women. It is out of all proportion and doing enormous damage, and I wish it would stop. I wish the Government would take a stand against it, instead of standing back, letting it happen, and calculating whether there is any political gain for them in allowing it to go on.

    I recognise a politically induced moral panic when I see one. I also recognise a discredited Government who are unleashing a culture war for their own political ends. All power to the elbows of those in the Conservative party who are trying to get this stopped: Labour is with you and we hope you will be successful. This kind of activity happened before in the 1980s, when the same tactics and tropes were used to demonise gay men. That led to section 28, which unleashed untold misery for a generation of LGBT+ young people, and for those who were perceived as “different”, whether they were gay or not. We cannot and must not let history repeat itself.

    I am a feminist, I am a lesbian, and I am a trans ally. I do not believe that allowing trans men and women to live with dignity and respect threatens my rights or my wellbeing in the slightest. We all advance together, or not at all. Even at this late stage, the Government could do the decent thing and abandon their divisive tactics. Instead of endless prevarication, they could publish sensible and inclusive relationships and sex education guidance, which our schools have been waiting for since 2019. They could stop playing dangerous and divisive games with trans people by trying to set their rights against women’s rights.

    All the anti-LGBT+ and anti-trans rhetoric is not spontaneously appearing out of nowhere. It is the result of carefully planned and well-funded efforts on a global scale. OpenDemocracy reports on a 2020 investigation that found that more than 20 US fundamentalist religious groups fighting against LGBT+ rights and abortion rights had spent $54 million in Africa pursuing those agendas—an investment that, shamefully, appears to be bearing some fruit.

    Lloyd Russell-Moyle

    The situation in Uganda is very similar. Uganda was the first African country to hold the UN world AIDS conference, and there Museveni gave out condoms to every person that joined. That was 20 years ago. When I last went to Uganda with the International Development Committee and former MP Stephen Twigg, we sat in classrooms where children were told that the way to stop HIV and AIDS was to not sleep with other men and to have a good wash after themselves. That is not just dangerous on an LGBT scale but dangerous for global health. Right-wing money has transformed that country, which was progressive, into a deeply regressive country.

    Dame Angela Eagle

    There is increasing evidence of that kind of global network operating in a reactionary manner. The Global Philanthropy Project reports that the anti-gender movement outspent the LGBT+ rights movement by three to one between 2013 and 2017, deploying $3.7 billion of resource, and creating an extensive network of organisations to push their divisive, pernicious agenda. Key funders were based in the USA and Europe, with Russian oligarchs playing a key role in Europe. We know that Putin talks about this a lot; we know that Orbán talks about it a lot. We know that in the Spanish election such anti-trans rhetoric is being used by the Opposition.

    Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)

    There is an issue about how that money is financed: about the relationship between financing dark money and extreme right-wing propaganda and possibly the use of Scottish limited partnerships. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is time the Government got a grip on that?

    Dame Angela Eagle

    Speaking personally, and not as someone on the Treasury Bench—I have no idea what their view would be—I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Scottish limited partnerships are an obvious loophole that needs to be closed much sooner rather than later, and he is correct to point it out.

    After all this, it is not a coincidence that the American Civil Liberties Union has revealed that by April this year—not the end of this year, but April—417 anti-LGBT+ Bills had been introduced in state legislatures across the United States, and 283 were education-related Bills. There are increasing numbers of so-called “don’t say gay” Bills that, section 28-like, seek to ban discussion of trans issues in schools. Some “force outings” by mandating that parents should always be informed of any pronoun change at school, or any discussion about it, because they somehow perpetrate the narrative that schools are secretly teaching children to be trans and not to tell their parents. Others ban drag performances; still others ban the pride flag being flown from any public building, and threaten to prosecute parents who allow their children to change pronouns and live in the gender that they wish to live in. Even if that is parental choice, they seek to legislate to go into people’s homes and stop that happening. These are not nice, benign Bills; they are increasingly extreme. Almost all those proposals—not quite all of them—are now being suggested in the UK, with the current exception of the ban on drag, although there have been some far-right demonstrations against “drag story time” events in Britain.

    We need to say from this Chamber that the way forward is empathy, not division; it is understanding different and diverse people, and what they need to thrive in society. It is about understanding, not fear, and respect for the right of everyone to live with dignity in an inclusive and diverse society. Pride is about that.

  • Elliot Colburn – 2023 Speech on Pride Month

    Elliot Colburn – 2023 Speech on Pride Month

    The speech made by Elliot Colburn, the Conservative MP for Carshalton and Wellington, in the House of Commons on 15 June 2023.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered Pride Month.

    Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I associate myself with the comments you have just made.

    As one of the co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on global lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) rights, very ably co-chaired by the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), I wish everyone a very happy Pride Month indeed. I have looked over some of the Hansard records of Pride debates we have had in this place over the course of the past few years, and I think it is always right and positive to start with the good news and the progress that we have made—not only in the UK but globally—towards further equality for LGBT+ people around the world. Last year and the year so far have been no exceptions, with new conversion therapy bans brought in around the world and more countries achieving decriminalisation.

    However, sadly, we meet here against the backdrop of a very worrying and concerning backwards step in many parts of the world, where we are seeing attacks against LGBT+ people—not just where we might expect them, but here in the UK as well. I will touch on some of those attacks throughout the course of my speech. Having looked at Hansard records of Pride debates since the start of this Parliament—they have become an annual tradition—I note that a lot of the concerns that were raised in those debates are, sadly, still very much relevant today. We have not yet seen enough action on some of the points we have raised, and indeed, some points I want to raise today are new.

    I will start with the global perspective. I reiterate the good news that we have seen new conversion therapy bans and decriminalisation. That is to be welcomed, but it has to considered alongside the extremely serious and worrying backwards steps and the anti-human- rights agenda that we are seeing in many parts of the world. The best example we can give of that is the Anti- Homosexuality Bill that Uganda has shamefully just passed. I know full well that that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has expressed its deep concern and is having conversations, and I appreciate its efforts. Again, to touch on a positive, I have seen examples of British missions around the world doing incredible work, liaising with activists on the ground, sometimes in extremely difficult circumstances. Our ambassadors and the mission staff around the world are to be congratulated. However, I urge the Government to go further by ensuring that this is a foreign policy objective and an aid objective; that they are using every tool at their disposal to influence change and support activists in very difficult circumstances, and indeed to support those who will inevitably try to flee such discrimination.

    The Bill in Uganda carries the death penalty. We know full well that people will be scared for their lives, and we need to make sure that we are there for them, not just in Uganda but in the many other places where we are seeing backward steps on LGBT+ rights. I hope the Minister can give us some assurance that he is having conversations with the FCDO and that decriminalisation, stopping legislation of that kind, and tackling discrimination against LGBT+ people around the world remain foreign policy objectives for this Government. I commend the good work that I have seen missions do.

    To bring the debate back to home, I want to repeat a lot of what has been said in previous Pride debates—we have to say it again, sadly, because we have not seen progress. The obvious thing to start with is conversion practices and conversion therapy. We have been raising this issue for years now and a Bill has been promised several times, but we are still waiting for the draft Bill to be published. The Government have cross-party support to get the Bill through the House, and to get it through quickly.

    I remind the House and those watching that every single day in the UK, right now, people are being subjected to dehumanising torture—that is essentially what conversion practices amount to—but they are without recourse to justice because those practices are perfectly legal at the moment. It is urgent that we act with speed to bring forward that legislation as soon as possible, so I hope the Minister can give us an update. I know that we spoke about this during business questions, but I hope he will be able to tell us a little more about the timetable for the conversion practices Bill. I can guarantee him massive cross-party support to get it through this House.

    Another issue that we have raised before but again needs focus is the increase in LGBT+ hate crime across the United Kingdom, and particularly the level of hate crime towards transgender people—I will touch on the toxicity around trans issues a bit later.

    Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)

    I thank the hon. Member for giving way and for making such a significant opening speech. Over 24% of young people experiencing homelessness identify as LGBTQ+. Does he agree that the Government need to do more to address this issue, and that one of the ways of doing so would be to improve the monitoring of gender identity and sexuality in housing and homelessness services?

    Elliot Colburn

    I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention, and I do think she is right. Perhaps the Minister could update us on the conversations he is having with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on the issue, because it is a fact that around a quarter of all young homeless people identify as LGBT+. We know full well what the reasons are: they are fleeing unsupportive households, but many do not know where to go for support, do not have the capacity to access support, or—for whatever reason—do not get that help and support. It is a massive cohort of people, so I hope the Minister can tell us a little more about the conversations that the Government Equalities Office and DLUHC are having to tackle that specific issue. I thank the hon. Lady for raising it.

    I want to touch on something that has appeared on the horizon since our last Pride Month debate: the Government’s recent announcement on their review into relationship and sex education in schools. I do have concerns, which I know are shared by many in the education sector and further afield—this also relates to the Department for Education’s new trans guidance for schools—that the RSE review will lead to a backwards step and will, potentially, bring back section 28 by the back door, which we do not want. Section 28 is something that our party had to apologise for, and we have come so far since that moment. We do not want to see it brought back. Many might say, “That could never happen,” but I ask colleagues to look to the United States, where several states have introduced section 28-style legislation. We cannot allow that to happen here in the United Kingdom.

    I therefore urge the Minister to give us some assurance that the RSE review will not break our pledge to ensure that RSE is mandatory, because it is not just about LGBT+ people; it also teaches about consent, it teaches women and girls about healthy relationships and to avoid sexual violence where possible, and it teaches boys not to avoid dangerous behaviour. RSE is a great achievement that we should be proud of. We should not be shy about the fact that this Government introduced it. The House should send a strong message that we will not accept a watering down of those protections.

    James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)

    Last weekend, I popped into Bracknell for the inaugural Pride event. As a proud LGBTQ+ champion, it was great to see so many people there. What struck me, aside from the fantastic organisation from Luke, Brad, Bracknell Forest Council and many others, was that it was an excellent party. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should be celebrating inclusion and diversity?

    Elliot Colburn

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. [Interruption.] I heard from a sedentary position that gay parties are the best parties, and I absolutely have to agree. Pride is a celebration. We describe it in many different ways, but we come together and we celebrate, and we are proud of who we are, so I am grateful to him for attending that event in Bracknell and I completely agree.

    I also hope that the Government will not be tempted by the calls from some to out trans kids to their parents. I benefited, as I know did so many people who went to school at the same time as me, or before or after, from the safe environment that schools provided to talk about these things without fear of it getting back to a household that may not necessarily be supportive. I was lucky; I was naive at the time when I came out, and I should have known that my parents would be absolutely supportive, which they were, but school provided that safe and non-judgmental environment for me to be able to talk about things, and I know that has been valued by so many others. I understand the need to make decisions about a child’s welfare in correspondence with parents— I do not think anyone objects to that—but the idea of outing trans people to their parents is dangerous, because many families will not be understanding and supportive, sadly. We need to ensure that schools remain a safe place for LGBT+ pupils.

    I will touch on the current toxicity around the trans debate—it would be churlish not to talk about it in some detail. Sadly, that toxicity is something that we have had to speak about in Pride debates, and I know that many other colleagues will want to talk about it today. I fear that we as a Parliament, and the institutions we represent, have completely lost control of the conversation, which is being imported from other parts of the world and which often has completely nonsensical and irrelevant arguments brought into it. At its heart is a very vulnerable group of people who are already marginalised and who are now being further demonised and pulled into a national discussion that they did not ask for.

    Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)

    The hon. Member makes an important point. Specifically on that toxic and damaging debate that we have seen in this country, particularly over the past year, does he agree that we have to somehow persuade everyone involved to dial down the rhetoric, to be more reasonable and to listen to one another? I have absolutely no problem personally with gender recognition reform or the legislation that was passed by the Scottish Parliament, but I also understand that there are people with genuine concerns. By not listening to them, we have inadvertently dialled up the toxicity, and the people suffering are the trans community.

    Elliot Colburn

    The hon. Lady is absolutely right. If we do not dial down the rhetoric, calm that debate down and listen to each other, we will only ever hear those with the loudest voices and those who scream the loudest. The Women and Equalities Committee, of which I am proud to be a member, ran an inquiry on this space not that long ago. One of our conclusions, funnily enough, was that there was a huge amount of agreement, so we were perplexed, when drawing up our conclusions, as to why there should be such anger. It did not seem impossible to us that a way forward could be found, so I hope the Government can update us on what they plan to do to try to dial down the rhetoric in this space.

    Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)

    The hon. Gentleman has been opening the debate with his usual common sense and insight, but has he thought that the toxicity of this debate is deliberately created by those who wish to cause fear and then use that to cause division? Then they can victimise already vulnerable people in a way that is designed to increase the toxicity and fear, rather than dial it down.

    Elliot Colburn

    I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who co-chairs the all-party parliamentary group, for that intervention. She is absolutely right. We see this issue being purposefully used, sadly.

    That brings me to one of my final remarks in the debate. This issue is not just about trans people or the LGBT+ community more widely; there is a clear and concerted anti-human-rights agenda, and it will not stop at trans people alone. It will move on, as we have seen in the United States, to attacks on women’s reproductive rights, and it will go on to the rest of the LGBT+ community and then other parts of the equality space as well. The idea that this is just a discussion on trans rights is nonsense; it already permeates a lot further and it will continue to do so. We need to be able to call that out for what it is.

    That is not to say, however, that there are not, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) has just said, genuine concerns that people are absolutely right to express. It is our job as parliamentarians to help navigate those conversations and to come up with good legislation and good ways forward, but we need to be setting the standard in this place, and we must not allow Parliament to further that agenda. I can see by looking around the room that we will not have that today, which is reassuring, but I hope that colleagues who are not in this debate will take note and recognise that we need to be responsible for what we say, for dialling down the rhetoric and for making sure we can find a way forward, because the current status quo is just going to crumble; it cannot sustain. It is just driving up hatred and anger, and the longer that continues, the more dangerous things can become.

    Having said that, we have seen good progress being made not just in the past year, but in the decades that preceded it. I feel very lucky and grateful to be able to be an openly gay man serving in Parliament and living in the United Kingdom. I hope that we do not get tempted by some of those siren voices and slip backwards. I look forward to hearing other colleagues’ contributions and an update from the Minister on the Government’s work to ensure that Britain remains one of the best places in the world to be openly LGBT+.

  • Martin Docherty-Hughes – 2023 Speech on the Armoured Cavalry Programme – Sheldon Review

    Martin Docherty-Hughes – 2023 Speech on the Armoured Cavalry Programme – Sheldon Review

    The speech made by Martin Docherty-Hughes, the SNP defence spokesperson, in the House of Commons on 15 June 2023.

    Let me associate myself with the comments about the former Member for Hampstead and Kilburn—a great actor, but, I have to say to Labour colleagues, a great socialist, who will be deeply missed. I express my condolences to Labour group Members—a great loss to socialism.

    I have sat on the Defence Select Committee for almost five years. I have sat through enough evidence sessions and seen enough gloss poured over the evident shortcomings of this programme by Ministers and officials alike to treat today’s statement with much scepticism. Despite the fact that we are seeing various cheaper competitor platforms to Ajax tested in the theatre in Ukraine before our very eyes, we continue with what I think is an absolute classic 24-carat bespoke option straight out of Main Building’s fevered imagination. Today’s news is telling us that Ajax will not be ready until the end of the decade—the Minister may correct me if I am wrong—meaning that a full 20 years will have passed between concept and deployment. That is, frankly, unforgivable.

    Yet so many of us across the Chamber would tell us today that it does not have to be like this. To give just one allied example, Norway has recently terminated its contract for the NH90 helicopters after problems were found, and will return all those helicopters while demanding a full refund. What is stopping the MOD from doing the same with Ajax and General Dynamics?

    As we have talked about Ukraine, if we eventually ever see any of these vehicles deployed in the field, would the Minister be happy for the UK to supply them to a country fighting for its survival against a technically advanced adversary?

    James Cartlidge

    I did not have the pleasure of appearing before the hon. Gentleman in the Select Committee. Obviously, we bring forward this capability to ensure that it can add huge capability on the frontline when it really matters—that is what it is being tested for. That is why it is really good news that the Army is now training on that vehicle at Salisbury Plain. Of course, that has happened much later than we wanted. That is why we are here and have the Sheldon report. Ultimately, we want to improve our acquisitions system, but procurement can be complex, even for simple things such as ferries, as the Scottish Government have themselves discovered.

  • Tobias Ellwood – 2023 Speech on the Armoured Cavalry Programme – Sheldon Review

    Tobias Ellwood – 2023 Speech on the Armoured Cavalry Programme – Sheldon Review

    The speech made by Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative MP for Bournemouth East, in the House of Commons on 15 June 2023.

    May I immediately associate myself with your kind words about Glenda Jackson, Madam Deputy Speaker?

    We now have in the Chamber not one, but three current or former procurement Ministers who bear the scars of this project. I am pleased that we are able to discuss the matter so openly and I commend the recent work that the MOD has done to get on top of the issue.

    Ajax is now a case study that the MOD and DNS should use on how not to do procurement. This is all about the British Army’s recce vehicle. The current one being used, the Scimitar, was introduced in 1971. It is good to hear that the soldiers the Minister met said that the replacement is better than the last—that is brilliant, because it was built in 1971. Ajax’s journey has been miserable. It started in 2010 and the delivery date was 2017, yet it is not expected to enter service until 2030. Something very serious has gone wrong.

    I absolutely welcome Clive Sheldon’s report. The Committee will look into that in more detail and, rather fortuitously, a Sub-Committee study on procurement, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), is currently under way. I am sure that he will have more words on how we will digest the report in more detail.

    The Minister covered some of the issues. Concerns include the relationships between different entities within, or associated with, the MOD. The senior responsible officer has been criticised for not being a single point of contact or owning the actual project itself but having to have a number of projects going concurrently. Concerns got stuck because of people taking a rigid view of their remits. It is not just with Ajax that there is a problem; there is also with the land warfare capability. We have similar problems with the main battle tank and the armoured fighting vehicle. I hope that those problems will be addressed when the defence Command Paper comes out.

    James Cartlidge

    I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee. Of course, we are absolutely committed to engaging with his Committee and, indeed, with the Sub-Committee, before which I will appear next week. I was born in 1974. He makes a striking point about the existing vehicle being from 1971—it is the same age as my elder brother. I take his point that one might therefore expect servicemen to say that it is night and day.

    I put great store by meeting those on the frontline, and I will always continue to do that. It was a great privilege to go to Bovington. One of the soldiers I sat next to in the Ares version had been in a Challenger 2 when it was hit by an IED—I think it was in Iraq or Afghanistan; he did not say. He felt confidence in the protection. It is so important that we interact with the soldiers on the frontline. Ultimately, that is the point: we want to deliver a better acquisitions system for them and I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend’s Committee to that end.

  • Chris Evans – 2023 Speech on the Armoured Cavalry Programme – Sheldon Review

    Chris Evans – 2023 Speech on the Armoured Cavalry Programme – Sheldon Review

    The speech made by Chris Evans, the Shadow Defence Minister, in the House of Commons on 15 June 2023.

    Before I start, if you will allow me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to pay tribute to Glenda Jackson, our former colleague, given the sad news that she recently passed away. She was a doughty champion for social justice and was the greatest actor of this or any other generation. I am sure further tributes will be paid in the coming days.

    What the Sheldon review has shown without a shadow of a doubt is that Ajax is the biggest procurement failure for a decade. The review is beyond damning. For a report to state,

    “Reporting was at times lacking, or unclear, or overly optimistic. That led to senior personnel and Ministers being surprised to discover in late 2020 and early 2021 that the programme was at much greater risk than they had appreciated”,

    is frankly embarrassing.

    There is no place to hide any longer. The failure to manage this contract was on this Conservative Government’s watch. It was they who allowed the relationship with General Dynamics to break down to such an extent that every time Ajax was mentioned, here or in the press, there was fevered speculation that the contract was about to be cancelled. That has caused anxiety for the Army and above all for the workers in General Dynamics in both Merthyr Tydfil and Oakdale in my own Islwyn constituency. Even the threat of losing 400 jobs would be devastating for the south Wales economy.

    This programme has cost £5.5 billion and has been running for 13 years, but has yet to deliver one deployable vehicle. If this was the private sector, heads would roll, so I ask the Minister this: has any action been taken against anyone responsible for this mess? What new procedures have already been put in place on other major programmes to stop similar mistakes happening? Ministers must ensure that our NATO obligations are met in full, but, whether it is Ajax, delays to Wedgetail or a modern war-fighting division, NATO must have concerns. Have any been raised with the Government about Ajax?

    I well remember the sense of excitement from workers at Oakdale when this contract was signed in 2010, just after I was elected. The Ajax contract was then labelled a game changer, not only for south Wales, but for the Army. It is truly sad that we have arrived at a point where Ajax has become a byword for waste and incompetence.

    Workers at General Dynamics should have been listened to, but they were not. There was a

    “lack of appreciation of diverse and contrary voices, especially from those working on the ‘shopfloor’. These voices were not fully included, and were too easily dismissed.”

    Those are not my words, but the words of the report. Perhaps if workers had been listened to, we would not be standing here now.

    As the Minister knows, Ajax is not an isolated case: 37 out of 39 defence equipment contracts being run by the Ministry of Defence are marked red or amber by the National Audit Office. That includes Morpheus, which is extremely important to our armed forces. Have the problems with that programme’s communications system been fixed, or are they unfixable? What contingency plans are being made for Morpheus?

    For a contract as important as Ajax, with so much speculation around it, it is amazing that we have not had an oral statement on Ajax since December 2021. For too long, the Government have avoided scrutiny on this issue. On this and other future contracts, will the Minister commit to giving regular updates to the House? We are, after all, ensuring soldiers’ safety—the most important thing about the contract—and spending taxpayers’ money. I find myself in agreement with the Minister when he says that change has to come. It is not a moment too soon.

    James Cartlidge

    I begin by agreeing with the hon. Gentleman on Glenda Jackson; I do not think she was in the House when I was here, but she was an amazing actress and I join in his sentiments and echo them entirely.

    I recognise that the hon. Gentleman is not just the shadow spokesman but has a clear constituency interest, and I respect that. He talks about fevered speculation and the impact on the workforce, and I totally understand that. We do not want to see that. He talks about coming to the House: I am here today to be absolutely clear with everyone about the latest position. In fact, my colleague the Paymaster General regularly updated the House on the position around Ajax when he was the Minister. My predecessor, now the Lord Chancellor, also issued a written statement earlier this year that was very detailed about the programme, so I think we have been consistent in updating the House.

    On some of the hon. Gentleman’s specific questions, he asked about action on individuals. What we said when commissioning this review was that disciplinary action would be taken only if there was evidence of gross misconduct, and Mr Sheldon found no evidence of misconduct, let alone gross misconduct. That is the clear reason why individual action has not been taken.

    In terms of action across programmes, I point the hon. Gentleman to the very significant investment by the Army of £70 million over the next 10 years in Army procurement programmes, including in the past two years a doubling in the number of SROs and a doubling of the amount of time that SROs spend on their responsible major projects. Those are significant investments.

    I also point out to the hon. Gentleman some of the improvements we have seen. I accept that we need to go further but, if I may draw a contrast, this is not the first review of acquisition. Bernard Gray issued an independent “Review of Acquisition for the Secretary of State for Defence” in 2009, which described a poorly performing procurement system. That review found that

    “the average programme overruns by 80% or c.5 years from the time specified at initial approval through to in service dates”,

    and that was under a previous Government.

    These problems have been around for some time and it is disappointing. I have pointed to the improvements we have seen, but let me be absolutely clear: the ultimate reason we have this report is to learn lessons and the way we respond to it is to deliver a fundamentally better acquisition system. I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman on that and I hope we can all work together to that end.

  • James Cartlidge – 2023 Statement on the Armoured Cavalry Programme – Sheldon Review

    James Cartlidge – 2023 Statement on the Armoured Cavalry Programme – Sheldon Review

    The statement made by James Cartlidge, the Minister for Defence Procurement, in the House of Commons on 15 June 2023.

    With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement to update the House on the review conducted by Clive Sheldon KC on the lessons to be learned from the armoured cavalry programme, which is the Army programme centred on the Ajax vehicles. The Defence Secretary has previously acknowledged that the programme was a troubled programme. Albeit that he has more recently announced that it has turned a corner, it is against the backdrop of concerns he had about the programme, and those of this House about what was known at the time of publishing the integrated review, that he commissioned an independent review by a senior legal figure to investigate the circumstances.

    In May last year, Clive Sheldon KC was appointed to lead a lessons learned review into the armoured cavalry programme. The review’s terms of reference were to

    “identify lessons and make recommendations to help Ministry of Defence (MOD) deliver major programmes more effectively in future, with a particular focus on how MOD shares and elevates issues across the Department.”

    An earlier Ministry of Defence report, by David King, specifically relating to the health and safety concerns about noise and vibration, was published in December 2021. We continue to make good progress on implementing the recommendations from that report, some of which are echoed in Mr Sheldon’s review.

    Mr Sheldon submitted his report to Ministers on 19 May, and I am today publishing that report, unredacted, on gov.uk, and placing a copy in the Library of the House. I wish to formally thank Mr Sheldon and his team for the painstaking work that they have undertaken to enable us to better understand how the MOD can improve the governance, culture and leadership of our major programmes. They interviewed some 70 people and considered tens of thousands of pages of evidence.

    The resulting report makes for difficult reading, highlighting a number of systemic, cultural and institutional problems across several areas of the Department. These problems include: fragmented relationships and the conflicting priorities of the senior responsible owner role. It also points to a reticence to raise, and occasionally by seniors to listen to, genuine problems in a timely, evidenced manner.

    We accept these findings and most of Mr Sheldon’s 24 formal recommendations, with 15 accepted and nine accepted in principle. Crucially, the review did not find that either Ministers or Parliament were misled. Equally, the review team did not see any evidence of misconduct by any individual, let alone gross misconduct, and nothing that would justify disciplinary action. It is, though, true that many of the behaviours highlighted in the report are far from ideal, but in many cases they have already been recognised and acted on, both specifically on the armoured cavalry programme as well as across the Department.

    Where work is not already under way to implement a recommendation, we commit to making the necessary changes at pace. In the interest of time, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will address the recommendations in the themes set out by Mr Sheldon in his executive summary, rather than going through each of the recommendations.

    A number of recommendations relate to MOD’s internal relationships, including with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. Considerable effort has already been made to address these issues within and beyond the Ajax programme. This has resulted in much improved working and reporting arrangements, in particular with the Defence Equipment & Support organisation and also the newly established acquisition safety cell that advises the Investment Approvals Committee on equipment safety matters. Escalation routes also exist for DSTL through the chief science officer where concerns are not acted on.

    Another area of focus is SROs. I know that many colleagues are interested in this point. We fully agree with the need to improve how senior responsible owners are supported and much work has gone into upskilling and supporting SROs, ensuring that they have the time and space to focus on delivering their programmes and can build skills through the Major Projects Leadership Academy.

    Today, four in every five of our major project SROs are committing at least half their time to leading their programmes—half the Army’s 19 SROs dedicate 100% of their time. We also agree in principle with Mr Sheldon’s presumption for a minimum tenure, subject to compatibility with employment law.

    Finally, the report comments extensively on a culture that led to issues not being escalated and makes recommendations to improve that and the flow of information. Transparency has improved since the period of this report. For Ajax, there are detailed updates through the SRO to Ministers that ensure the potential issues are exposed early should they arise in the future. Processes will be further strengthened through the defence acquisition operating model and guidance. Work is also under way to implement a project delivery data strategy to strengthen the use of data to both support performance reporting and assist in early identification of issues. Of course, the main aim of commissioning this review was to learn lessons to improve procurement—not just on Ajax, but across the MOD’s programmes.

    Ultimately, the core of our intent is to ensure that the equipment we procure for the British armed forces is of the highest possible standard and, furthermore, that our service personnel have faith in the system and the taxpayer has faith in our spending of money from the public purse. Quite simply, we need to deliver change across the Department, turning widespread desire for acquisition reform into tangible reality, in particular driving increased pace and agility into acquisition, so that we can keep pace with technology and maintain our competitive edge.

    Although I recognise the many challenges in this programme to date and the need to learn lessons, I would stress that there is already intense work under way in the Department—especially at DE&S—to improve performance, with encouraging signs. For example, between December 2020 to December 2022 we saw a reduction from 6.1 years to 5.1 years in the time that it takes to go from outline business case to delivering equipment into the hands of our armed forces.

    In further positive news, I hope the House will welcome the significant progress made to recover the Ajax programme. I can confirm that, as of Tuesday afternoon, the Household Cavalry has been undergoing standard Army field training on Salisbury plain in a range of Ajax vehicles. Focused on individual and crew training, this step marks the restarting of British Army training on these sophisticated vehicles, and I hope underlines that this project really has turned the corner. Indeed, last Friday I had the great privilege of visiting Bovington to experience the Ajax vehicle at first hand.

    I am pleased to report that the soldiers I met described the vehicle and its capabilities as “night and day”—a phrase used repeatedly—compared with their current equipment. In describing Ajax’s strengths, the soldiers I spoke to emphasised the platform’s high mobility, increased firepower from the new cannon and a highly sophisticated sensor suite that really helps them do their job, representing in totality a very real and positive step change in capability—all packaged in a vehicle with high levels of crew protection and survivability. As training increases across other field Army units on the 44 vehicles already delivered, in parallel General Dynamics’s personnel in Wales continue to run their production lines to build the operationally deployable vehicles, with the end goal of 589 fully operational vehicles by 2029.

    To conclude, I reiterate my gratitude to Mr Sheldon and his team for their considerable efforts and for distilling his findings into clear lessons and recommendations for the future. Our focus now is on understanding and applying those lessons, ensuring that they are implemented in the armoured cavalry and other major defence programmes, as well as ensuring that we deliver the game-changing capability that Ajax will provide to the British Army as quickly as possible. I commend this statement to the House.

  • Vladimir Putin – 2023 Comments on the Death of Silvio Berlusconi

    Vladimir Putin – 2023 Comments on the Death of Silvio Berlusconi

    IMPORTANT NOTE. The text of these comments from the Russian President are for informational purposes. Under Putin’s leadership, the country of Russia has started a war on the country of Ukraine and he is currently being investigated for war crimes.

    The comments made by Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, on 12 June 2023.

    Pavel Zarubin: Mr President, hello.

    Excuse me, can I have just a minute of your time, please? Right before the ceremony [for presenting the Hero of Labour medals and the Russian Federation National Awards], tragic news arrived on the passing of Silvio Berlusconi. You had special friendly ties with him. Can I ask you for a few words about his role in Russian-Italian relations and in global politics?

    President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Yes. He was indeed a politician of European, and it can be said, of global scale. There are few people like him in the international arena nowadays. He was a good friend of our people and did a lot to develop business-like and friendly relations between Russia and the European countries.

    He initiated relations between Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance. It was with his assistance and on his initiative that respective interaction mechanisms were created.

    But he was primarily Italy’s politician, of course. He was an unusual person for a politician because he was very sincere and open-hearted. He also had a privilege that politicians of this scale lack – the privilege of saying what he meant.

    I am very sorry. I want to express heartfelt sorrow and condolences to Italian people and all of Mr Berlusconi’s family and friends. It is a great loss not only for Italy but also for global politics.