Luke Pollard
MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“As the Member of Parliament for Devonport, where we not only base-port but refit Type 23s, I know that many of those ships that have given decades of service are no longer able to provide the capabilities we need.”
“It is unlike the SNP to be so positive about defence, isn’t it? The Type 83 and Type 32 were PowerPoints—there was no budget attached to them. That is why in the defence investment plan we set out a plan for a common combat vessel and a hybrid Navy to fulfil the opportunities that the retirement of the Type 45 presents for us.”
“If the right hon. Gentleman is talking about a salary of up to £1 billion, he is cosplaying as the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), isn’t he? Seriously, we are the third-largest cash spender in NATO. At the spending review next year, we will be setting out an increase in defence spending.”
“My hon. Friend really is the Member of Parliament for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, as she is determined to champion it so frequently. She will have seen in the defence investment plan our commitment to the new generation of fleet solid support ships, and she will have seen the work that this Government have undertaken since 2024 to address…”
“I say seriously to the House that my hon. Friend has been an incredible advocate for Rosyth. I have met him on a large number of occasions, and he has been absolutely determined to talk not just about the potential of Rosyth, but about the professionalism of the men and women who work there and the opportunity for young people to have a c…”
“We inherited a situation where the north-east was the region with the lowest Ministry of Defence spend in the country and we have made it a mission to increase defence spending in the north-east. We have an incredible talent pool in the north-east, with brilliant defence companies both large and small doing brilliant work.”
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“The Minister is probably correct that they take a lot of powers but might not necessarily change any policies. Given that there might be no change in the powers but that they could bring significant change when used, and that there is not always the same scrutiny of the exercise of those powers, I would be grateful if the Minister could set out her view on that. The Opposition have some concerns about the environmental noise area. On the INSPIRE side, we are concerned about the devolution agenda and how different levels of devolution can ensure consistent application. If there is a difference between the devolution of INSPIRE in Scotland and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, how would that be resolved? If they are applied in different ways, would the Minister be concerned about that?”
“I know that Minister’s officials normally have to prepare lines to rebut my saying these things, and I wonder whether we can find a way to avoid that dance each time and have a mini impact assessment or a form of words that enable the time that officials spend rebutting my concerns about the impact assessment to be spent on applying some of these elements. Now that we have got through the glut of DEFRA SIs ahead of the proposed exit day on 29 March, I wonder whether Government Ministers could persuade the House authorities through the usual channels to slightly adjust the set wording on the explanatory notes, to clarify whether there is “no impact” or “some impact”, so that we have those as two very different statements. These regulations could have some impact, but it has not been assessed.”
“What changes, if any, have been made? The Minister knows that a pet hobby-horse of mine is impact assessments, and I am afraid this SI prompts the same critique as the others, which I have mentioned in this place many times before. Page 11 of the explanatory notes, under the section on “Impact”, states: “There is no, or no significant, impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies” or the public sector, and therefore: “An Impact Assessment has not been prepared for this instrument because it creates regulation-making powers rather than changing any policy.” I am concerned that the difference between “no impact” and “no significant impact” is an impact, and an impact assessment of the difference between “no impact” and “no significant impact” would be required.”
“In SIs in the past, the Opposition have raised concerns about how many of the additional powers the Government are taking for themselves and applying via the negative procedure, potentially limiting scrutiny. We know that many of these powers are exercised by European authorities at the moment, who have a wide range of scrutiny functions derived from the European Commission and the European Parliament, and we need to look at the transfer of such scrutiny powers to the United Kingdom and how they can be properly reviewed, so will the Minister set out why she feels powers in negative SIs, and not affirmative ones, are the right ones to take? Key to many of the concerns is the lack of scrutiny. Will the Minister confirm for the record that the SI has been in the reading room and has had stakeholder feedback on its production?”
“That is a broad statement, so will the Minister clarify what considerations and technical tests she will apply in defining what scientific and technical knowledge means in relation to this measure? Simply being really good at science and sitting in a Government Department might not qualify, so it is important to have some external scrutiny of what that definition actually means. All the regulations that can be made by the competent authority under the SI are, pursuant to regulation 47, subject to the negative procedure of scrutiny, which means that the regulations become law on the day they are signed by the relevant Minister and will remain so unless Parliament agrees a motion to reject the relevant regulation.”
“The Minister mentioned stakeholder concerns and she is right to highlight the concerns flagged by Greener UK, but other organisations have also flagged concerns. They are concerned that the SI establishes broad powers for the relevant competent authority, usually the Secretary of State, to make amendments, by regulation, to a wide variety of significant legislation, which potentially has important implications for the environment. Although some of the powers are limited in that the powers may be exercised only to the extent that the Secretary of State considers it is appropriate to do so as a result of scientific and technical knowledge, the requirement does not apply to all of the powers in this SI. Indeed, it provides no clarity as to what “appropriate...as a result of scientific and technical progress”, actually means.”
“The clean air strategy was a disappointment with vague targets. Responsibility was shoved to some local authorities with a degree of power, but some of their resources were taken away. Stakeholders have raised concerns about how powers will be exercised in relation to air quality, so will the Minister set out any additional powers and the level of consultation? The key thing for lots of stakeholders is that if the Government change any of the powers, will the stakeholders be consulted and will the consultation be done in a meaningful way? On environmental noise, the current proposals are not good enough. They do not cover noise from domestic activities and noise created by neighbours, noise in workplaces and noise from transport.”
“A key concern is the governance gap between leaving the EU and the date when the Government’s proposed environmental watchdog starts to function. The public cannot have confidence in it if it is appointed by and reports to DEFRA. Some of the watchdog’s powers relate directly to the areas that the SI covers, so they are connected. We are concerned that the Brexit legislation is being used as an opportunity for the Government to take on additional powers, but not with the same level of scrutiny as we had before, and that the new environmental watchdog does not strengthen the protections that we have together. We have concerns about how the SI’s provisions fit together with the overall Government strategy on air quality. We know that the Government’s plans have been ruled unlawful numerous times by the High Court.”
“These regulations need to fit with the other jigsaw pieces the Minister alluded to that we passed before 29 March. Hon. Members who have sat on Delegated Legislation Committees on such topics will note that air quality, marine management, water and water resources are the subjects of many of the statutory instruments that we have passed. I say gently to the Minister that there is utility in mentioning how related instruments will fit together in the first and second stages when one statutory instrument is considered while others are held for future consideration. That will help scrutiny of those SIs; otherwise, all we have is random bits of legislation that do not seem to fit together. I am sure there is a method in the tactics that are being pursued, but it makes scrutiny much harder.”
“Stakeholders have raised concerns with the Opposition on which I will provide some detail. The Minister tried to head off some of the concerns raised already, but I would like to put a few questions on the record that perhaps she can answer. I warn her that our concerns are substantial, so she cannot be assured of the Opposition’s support; it will depend on the answers she gives. We are concerned that the regulations represent a power grab by Ministers, potentially enabling them to reduce current EU environmental protections by amending their own duties, standards and monitoring requirements, in particular for toxic emissions. The withdrawal agreement and the draft Environment Bill do not maintain the current EU protections or keep us in step with improvements. Indeed, we have not yet really seen the full extent of the Bill.”
“It is good to see you back in the Chair, Mr Hanson. I will use my remarks to raise a number of concerns on behalf of the Opposition about the regulations and the way in which they have been put together. They seem a little like the pile of vomit we sometimes see on the street after a night out. With a cursory glance, we wonder, “Why are all those bits in there, and where does the carrot come from?” [Hon. Members: “It’s too early!”] No, no. Everyone needs to be awake on this. When we see the broad range of topics included in the regulations and the Minister’s statement that they were held back before exit day, we must consider why all these measures are being included together. The only contingent stream seems to be that they all under the responsibility of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.”
“In relation to scientists approaching the Department and asking for changes, one of the key things about our marine environment is that fish and other aspects of the marine environment do not respect national boundaries. Ensuring that regulations and standards in our marine environment, especially in areas that jut up against our EU neighbours’ marine environment, is really important. Does the Minister anticipate changes in the way that standard and monitoring assessments are made by our EU friends that she will need to carry over into UK law, or does she expect the two standards, which are currently the same, to diverge?”
“The 2010 and 2015 strategic defence and security reviews were fronts for cuts; all hon. Members present know that, because we are the defence-focused MPs from every party. They were excuses for cuts and did not portray a decent strategic analysis of where we are as a nation or the threats against us. The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed was polite in her description of the 2010 SDSR, but we need a proper review that looks at the real threats that face us and that has a properly funded plan to address them, including long-term industrial strategies for combat air, naval procurement, autonomous marine and autonomous aerial. There is a lot to get right, and we should start with a decent strategy that enables us to look at it properly.”
“That is certainly what we need to do with our submarine programme and our future capabilities in naval warfare in terms of the basing arrangements. I look forward to meeting the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), to talk about the refit of the Stonehouse barracks as an interim measure. It is not right that when at home, not on operations, our Royal Marines are being asked to reside in blocks without hot water or decent heating. That is not acceptable to Plymouth, which is a military city that is proud of its Royal Marines, and it should not be acceptable to any hon. Member. I hope we can put cross-party pressure on Ministers. We could go into the line-item spending on defence, but we need to start from the top. What are we trying to do with defence? Where is our strategy for it?”
“Our cross-party argument is that, instead of putting pressure on the Minister, who already has many demands on his time and on the pennies in his budget, the civil clean-up programme that is cleaning up our civil nuclear power stations should be extended to those nuclear submarines. We have to find a way to recycle those submarines. If we wait for the Ministry of Defence’s budget to provide the funds, I fear that we will wait as long again as we already have—many decades. The first submarine was tied up before I was born; we cannot wait that long again for it to be done sustainably. That is why we need to look at the issue carefully. I agree with the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on the need to value the whole-life costing and to invest to save.”
“Devonport is also where we tie up old nuclear submarines; there are 13 awaiting spending to ensure their safe and sustainable recycling. That is why a defence spending debate is important, because those nuclear submarines—those big expensive tickets—frequently drop off the bottom of the priority list. They get left and tied up not only in Devonport but in Rosyth. That is why we need to get our defence spending level right. The argument that I and the hon. Members for Berwick-upon-Tweed and for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman), who represents Rosyth, have made is that we should use a different funding mechanism to support the recycling of those submarines. We know that the defence budget does not have enough pennies in it and that there will always be a greater priority than recycling old nuclear submarines.”
“It is good that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), who I call a friend, has secured the debate. We disagree on nearly everything except defence, so it is a good place to be. As Devonport’s MP, I talk a lot about defence and defence spending—and rightly so, because it is the country’s largest naval base. It is home to the Type 23s with tails, which are soon to be replaced like for like by the new Type 26s; our amphibious capabilities, Albion and Bulwark, although sadly we lost the HMS Ocean due to Conservative cuts earlier in this Parliament; and the basing for the fantastic and underappreciated flag officer sea training arrangements. In Babcock, we have a refit capability that is second to none around the world; it is currently refitting HMS Vanguard and our hunter-killer class.”
“14. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on extending the provisions of the Energy Act 2004 to include recycling nuclear submarines.”
“I thank the Minister for his reply, but it is disappointing that that is the first time a Minister has said no to the cross-party request to extend the civil clean-up of nuclear sites to include old nuclear submarines, of which there are 13 in Devonport and six in Rosyth. Will the Minister lend the same support as his predecessor did and agree to meet the cross-party campaign? We have to find a way to safely recycle the submarines.”
“What advice can you give me as to how I can place on record the concerns of the people I represent, and have you had any indication from the Ministry of Justice that a Minister will be coming to the House to make a statement on this matter, so that we can question why she was released and why they feel she is no longer a threat to children?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Late last week, the Parole Board announced that Vanessa George, the prolific serial child abuser from Plymouth, is being released from jail. She abused toddlers and babies at the now closed Little Ted’s nursery in Plymouth and then shared these images with a national network of paedophiles for their sexual pleasure, and was rightly jailed. I cannot express to you the pain and horror felt by the families involved at the release from prison of Britain’s most prolific female paedophile. As she has not revealed the full list of the children that she has abused, the horrors are probably much greater than those for which she was convicted.”
“With Devonport-based HMS Montrose forward deployed, we now need to consider how we can rotate crews effectively, not just on the Type 23s, but on the Type 31s, which hopefully will also be Devonport based. What advances and learnings have arisen from the forward deployment of HMS Montrose that could be applied elsewhere?”
“All these things can be done if we have the ambition to do them, and I know that the general public want politicians to have more ambition here, so I ask the Minister to please bring forward the date to end the sale of diesel and petrol engines and to make it legally binding, so that the entire country can know that there will be no more diesel and petrol engines used on our roads.”
“We need to take action on climate change, while recognising that there will be an increase in the amount of cars on our roads. In relation to the points raised earlier, I just want to add one thing. It is about how we deal with planting. This is not directly about petrol and diesel engines, but rubber crumb and brake pad emissions must also be built into this process, and if we are re-engineering and reimagining our whole transport system based on more electric engines and on ending diesel and petrol use, we need to be more inventive about how we plant alongside our roads. We need taller trees, mid-level bushes and low-level shrubs to capture particulates, to muffle noise and to ensure that there is a carbon offset.”
“I support the measures to encourage more people to walk, run, cycle and use public transport, but we must be honest and acknowledge that in many parts of the country, public transport systems do not have the volume and frequency necessary to achieve that change. That is why we need to recognise that the greater number of vehicles on our roads must be matched by a reduction in petrol and diesel engines. In the 2107 general election, I put forward the idea of extending the M5 from Exeter to Plymouth to ensure that Plymouth can harness jobs and investment opportunities. I am glad that Labour Front Benchers have committed to undertake a study of that extension when in power, but we must be sure that it is accompanied by the quid pro quo of ensuring that no diesel or petrol engines are used on the motorway extension.”
“That autonomy will change the way we interact with our vehicles—cars, buses, trucks and vans—and we need to be clear that autonomy is in many cases quite scary. My hon. Friend the Member for Hove spoke about the fear of going into an electric vehicle for the first time, and many people will certainly fear using an autonomous electric vehicle, but they will reduce accidents and, in theory, create greater capacity on our roads. We will have more cars on our roads, however, because at the moment we only have cars travelling on our roads with people in them. That sounds like a very basic point, but with autonomous vehicles, we will have cars, vans, trucks and buses on our roads with not a single person in them. The number of cars on our roads will also increase due to population change.”
“I do not want it to be a vague hope or a chance encounter with reality. I want it to be a legally binding date that will focus the minds of industry and ensure that the Government of the day have a plan to incentivise the early retirement of these engines and ensure that EV charging points become the norm nationwide and not just in areas of best practice. There is another element that we have not mentioned so far, and that is autonomy. By the early 2020s, more and more cars on our roads will be autonomous. They will not have a driver in charge of them. As we get into the 2030s, nearly all our cars will be autonomous, and they will be electric, as they should be. That is what must happen here, but it will mean a fundamental change.”
“Friend the Member for Hove has said, we are already a global leader in this area, so we are at risk of throwing away that natural advantage. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) said, we need to be clear on the two dates in this debate: the date for banning the sale of new petrol and diesel engines and the date on which there can be no more use of diesel and petrol engines on our roads in Britain. The Government are lacking ambition on both those dates, and I encourage the Minister to bring them forward. We cannot afford to wait until 2040 and 2050 in that respect. We must be bolder in our ambition, and that means not only putting forward an ambitious date but ensuring that that date is legally binding, because I do not want this simply to be a mission, as outlined by Ministers in 2018.”
“We are already missing out on our fourth and fifth carbon budgets as a country, and although the Ministers in the Department heap praise on achieving the carbon budgets as we are now, we need to do more heavy lifting to achieve those fourth and fifth carbon budgets, as was required before the net zero commitment, and now that we have that commitment, we must go faster still. That means reappraising policies made before the net zero announcement, and that must mean bringing forward the date for ending the use of petrol and diesel engines. The context is also important. We are lagging behind our friends and other countries in banning petrol and diesel engines, and we are slower than many of our peers in rolling out hybrid, hydrogen and electric vehicle charging points, but it does not need to be that way. As my hon.”
“I welcome the announcement that we will achieve net zero—that is a good ambition—but I am concerned that it is at risk of falling into the trap of being easy to say and hard to match. That is why we need to ensure that people find it easier to say “net zero” than “Paris climate change commitments” and that the actions are commensurate with that greater ambition. We must be much more honest about the enormous economy-transforming fundamental changes that are required to deliver net zero, not many years away but now, if we are to do that.”
“It is a pleasure to speak, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) for introducing this timely debate so well. Using phrases that I hope will soon be consigned to the history books I want in my remarks to encourage the Minister to get the revs up, to find the bite and to accelerate our action on ending the sale of new petrol and diesel engines, and I want to speak very briefly about the three C’s in relation to this: the crisis, the context, and then the choice that we have. We all know about the crisis: the climate crisis that this Parliament declared put clearly on the political agenda that we must take bolder, swifter and more radical action. That has happened in language, but not yet in deeds. We need Ministers to be bolder and swifter.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for the way she is introducing the debate. Does she agree that at a time when the Conservative leadership contenders are splurging billions of pounds in spending commitments, not a single penny is available for the WASPI women and that really shows where their priorities lie?”
“We have come so far in terms of LGBT equality in the past 25 years. We now need the law to catch up with some of those welcome, positive advances and changes in our society, because Britain is not yet a place where LGBT people can feel safe, included and free to be themselves. I am hopeful that the Minister will give us positive news, as a step towards making Britain the safer place that we want to see.”
“The vast majority of people are good, law-abiding citizens who do not want to hurt their neighbours or people online, but sometimes their words are inappropriately or clumsily chosen or typed quickly. However, we are not talking about those people in this debate. It is really important to make a distinction between those who might accidentally fall foul of using language that is not appropriate or timely anymore, and those who are persistent bullies: people who abuse, make death threats or rape threats online, and talk about outing people inappropriately or revenge porn. That is the type of stuff that we are talking about. Those people are not normal, law-abiding citizens; they are the people who my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge spoke about, and who we must do something about.”
“We have more LGBT representatives than any other Parliament on the entire planet, so let us use that and those lived experiences to help drive the legislative change that my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey spoke so clearly about. I say to the Minister, although 150,000 people signed the petition, we should not think of it as 150,000 people but as 150,000 episodes of lived experience, of people who have been bullied and have felt the impact. Bullying is a bit like an economic driver—if it did not work people would not do it. Bullying does work: by bullying someone, a person can create an effect on the person they are bullying. That is why bullies do it. In some cases, people fall into it accidentally.”
“That is really important. I want to pay tribute to some people who have not been mentioned so far. We have spoken about the importance of police and enforcement and about social media companies upping their game, but I want to say thank you to all those who work in third-party reporting centres, the organisations, charity groups and community groups across the country that do so much to support, nurture, encourage and protect those who are victims of abuse, both on and offline, but frequently go without a mention. I have used an online reporting centre myself to report homophobic abuse, and it was a good experience that made me want to encourage others to do it. This is the gayest Parliament in the world.”
“One of the tests I give to people, especially those folks who sometimes accidentally fall foul of online abuse is: “Would you say it in a pub? Would you just rock up to someone else’s conversation in a pub and shout ‘faggot’?” It is a good test, and well worth trying. If someone did that, they would probably be aware that there would be a consequence, but that consequence is not always there in the online world. “Would you interrupt a conversation or introduce yourself? Would you listen to other people?” In pubs we do one thing, but we know there is a regulatory system there that polices our bad behaviour—we will get kicked out, barred or arrested, and we could get prosecuted. But online, things are much less certain and it is easier to hide behind the mask that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge spoke about.”
“What Britain does matters, what we do in this place matters and what the Minister says matters; whether we agree with the introduction of homophobia and abuse against other protected characteristics as a discrete criminal offence, the language around this debate also matters. I was really pleased to hear the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) speak about his support for human rights, because that is effectively what we are talking about. We can categorise and sub-categorise ourselves all we want, but we are talking about the protection of individuals so that they can live their lives and fulfil their potential, based on who they are. That is very, very powerful and we need to do it. The distinction between online and offline that has been mentioned by a number of Members is important.”
“We meet a lot of inspiring people in this place, but I have been more uplifted by their experience than by anything else. I spoke to some of them afterwards and asked, in relation to this upcoming debate, whether they had been the victim of online abuse. One trans kid looked at me and said, “Yes, of course. Every day. Every single day. I carry around an ‘insult machine’”—his phone—“and I get a notification when someone wants to hate me”. That was really worrying, because it was true. I spoke to another person, who said, “Why would my friends do that?” That showed that in some cases people live free from abuse, but that is not everyone’s lived experience. It really lifted my heart and showed where we could be if we took the right steps.”
“All too frequently, when people report online abuse it is not actioned by the people at the other end. I do not know where my report goes when I press “report”, whether it goes to an algorithm, or to someone in Dublin or San Francisco, or just up the road in Old Street. Where I want it to go is to a person who looks at the piece of abuse and at what its impact could be on the individual. All that matters. Last week, something gave me cause to hope: my fantastic friend and the co-chair of Labour’s LGBT group, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), organised a fantastic showing in Portcullis House of trans photographs—young trans kids with their parents—from the British Film Institute’s Flare exhibition, and I had the opportunity to meet many of the young trans people.”
“Although I am hopeful that the Minister will listen to the petition and the speeches today, we need the Government to get tougher with online social media. At the moment, it seems appropriate to roll out Nick Clegg every now and then to apologise for Facebook, but we need to recognise that online hate drives traffic, traffic is the basis of advertising and advertising is the basis of the economic model of our social media companies. The more traffic that can be driven, the more money that can be made, and that is where hate drives money, and profit. We need to not be blind to that in this debate, because the online social media companies have a role in this as well. They cannot just leave the reports for algorithms to deal with; they must take responsibility and, importantly, take the reports seriously.”
“A third of young people had been targeted online in that way, as had one in five black, Asian and minority ethnic LGBT people, compared with only one in 10 white LGBT people. I use those statistics not to say that one group is worth more than the other, but to show how prevalent online hate can be and how someone can be abused for being black and gay or for being disabled and gay. Hate begets more hate begets more hate in the online pile-ons we frequently see. How algorithms work has been mentioned, and directing more and more traffic to those posts that generate the most controversy and interest directly contributes to the perpetuation of hate because it drives an economic value for hate. We are talking about the criminalisation of online hate, but we should also talk about its economics.”
“He spoke about us embracing it all, and that matters, because when you break down LGBT into the different bits someone is not just gay in isolation; they can have many other characteristics and that is where the research from Stonewall that a number of colleagues briefly mentioned really highlights what is going on. When asked by Stonewall whether they had been victims or targets of homophobic, biphobic or transphobic abuse online in the last month, 8% of women and 10% of men said they had been, but the figure for non-binary people—those who identify as being neither a man nor a woman—was 26%. One in four 18 to 24-year-olds had been personally targeted in the last month, which shows that the problem is perhaps more acute in younger age groups than in older ones.”
“The use of “bum boys” for instance, by one of the contenders to be Prime Minister merits, I think, extra reflection in trying to get something better at the end of this. We must strive for better, and that is why, when I woke up this morning and checked my Twitter, I was overjoyed to see Olly Alexander’s speech yesterday at Glastonbury. He is a fantastic LGBT icon, and he used a moment in his set to talk about the importance of equality. Today we are talking about online homophobia, and it is really important to do that because it is a specific type of hate that we see online, but Olly Alexander spoke about the importance of the LGBT community not just standing with other people who are LGBT but against racism, sexism and ableism.”
“I was speaking about age-appropriate sex and relationships education and the abuse that came back was direct. I will not mention all the words I was called, but they included faggot, queer, fag and bitch. I will not drop the C-bomb but that was used as well. One reason LGBT people take on insults and make them our own is the frequency with which we hear them. That, and the hurt the insults cause both off and online is one reason why we sometimes make the words our own, to take the strength away from the people who use them. But we should not have to absorb the insults and suck them up. We must also recognise that the language that is frequently used in our political debate can be equally disappointing.”
“We also know there is an awful lot of hate towards those folks who are trans. We need to look at the lived experience of all those people. As I frequently do before these debates, I posted on my Facebook page inviting the good folks of Plymouth to send me their views about online homophobia, and I was pleasantly surprised. It might be because those who like a Labour MP’s page are not some of the biggest bigots in the world, but the stories that came back were really interesting. I was expecting some abuse myself, a repetition of some of that which came when I spoke in a debate in the main Chamber about LGBT-inclusive children’s books, including the fantastic “And Tango Makes Three”, about two gay penguins that adopt a baby penguin. For those who have not read it, it is well worth a trip to the local library.”
“When people talk about LGBT+ equality—I know there are lots of them here today—we often just say LGBT. However, if we break down what “LGBT” means, we can see different lived experiences for all those different communities online. By and large the debate around LGBT is so much driven by people such as me—the “G”s in “LGBT”—that we do not frequently pick up the “Ls” in public debate, which is not only a recognition of the hatred towards gay people and lesbians that exists, but a reminder that in many cases women are marginalised in these debates anyway, so they get narrower and narrower. In gay culture, it is fashionable sometimes to diminish the Bs, to say that bisexuals have not made their proper decision yet, and that is something within our own community—and sometimes within our community online—that we must challenge.”
“I am very proud to be gay, and I say that because I am Plymouth’s first ever out MP, which means something in a community in which we have not always been out and proud; instead, we have often been hidden at the periphery of society and written out of the very history that we have contributed to. LGBT people have not always been at the forefront of our public life, especially in a naval city such as Plymouth, but that is changing, which is a good thing. That is why I feel very passionately about this issue. It is also important that we talk about people not as one homogenous blob of LGBT people but as individuals who all have different experiences: in their family lives; in their working lives; in their societies; and even at different times of the day.”
“However, we also need to reflect that the vast majority of people in our society are not in control of laws; they do not get to write the legislation they will be governed by. However, we can do so here, and that is the real opportunity presented by this petition, because it speaks to lived experience, not only of the 150,000 people who signed it but of countless others who are victims of abuse all the time. I have said this in a number of different debates and every time I get emails from people saying, “Oh! I didn’t know.” I would like to think that it is because I am so epically fabulous that I do not need to out myself all the time, but frequently I do.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Walker. It was a real privilege to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) introduce this debate with such clarity and passion. At risk of “fanboying” on both sides of my place, it is good to see Bobby Norris here today—the leadership he has given on this issue has been incredible—and to see my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle); to witness the leadership she has shown in this debate was also a privilege. So I am between two incredible people here. Hate is on the rise; we all know that in our communities and it is no different in Plymouth, which I represent. We need to recognise that hate is on the rise and we also need to properly identify the reasons and causes, and deal with them.”