It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing the debate. I also thank him for his words; some of them meant a lot to me, and I am sure they meant a lot to anybody who was watching as well.
My speech will not be a complete response to everything I have heard, and I will probably reserve my response to some things to a later date. I will just make a few short comments, because I am still figuring out how I want to talk about some of these issues and what I want to say. That is because I am in two minds, and I am struggling with the best approach. On the one hand, I value signals and the things the Government and politicians do to set standards and set the tone. Unfortunately, I have witnessed first hand what can happen when these debates become public and become toxic—what can happen when the less than decent people in our society choose to take things from the words that are spoken. I have personally felt what happens when people feel empowered to target people and to go after those they feel are different and vulnerable. It is not pleasant, it is not nice and we should all work to stamp it out, no matter where it is and no matter our political views.
It is also important to have role models. Some hon. Members here today are the first LGBT person to be selected, to be elected or to serve—whatever it is—in their part of the country, and that it is extremely important. I speak to a lot of young people, and it is so important for them to see us simply being there and to know that we are there.
I do think it is a valid point that we should ensure that our set standards and ways of talking about things are rigidly stuck to. To pick up the point the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) made
about Wales, he is absolutely right—and I will, hands down, say this every day of the week and twice on Sunday—that the Welsh Labour Government have done some terrific work on LGBT, which I thank them for. However, he should also look at the hate crime numbers in Wales, because although the Government and what is going on in the Senedd might be great, what is going on in the streets and the valleys is not necessarily anywhere near that, and it is certainly a far cry from where we want it to be.
One reason for that is that we have to take the public with us on this journey. While it is important to have role models, to set the standards and to have signals, I value the words that other people say—however hard they sometimes are to receive—because it is important that we know what the public are saying. Members may think what they will about my hon. and right hon. colleagues on the Conservative Benches, but they are nothing if not prolific vote-garnerers. If they say something, take a view and represent a perspective, it is because it is out there. Whether we like something or not, we sometimes have to hear it, listen to it and respond to it in as constructive a way as possible.
I have no qualms, and absolute confidence, that our side of this argument will win out—whether I will be an MP when that happens is probably a lot less likely. It will win out, because the one thing that will always be outed is the truth. The right hon. Member for Exeter is right: we have always been there—homosexuals and trans people have always been there. Whether it is the Romans, the Assyrians or the Babylonians, they are there in the historical texts.
We just need to find a way to talk about the trans issue and gender identity and to get the balance right between what parents might want or feel at the time and what is needed to push society forward. All I can say is this: right now, things are so toxic and so bad that it is an incredibly miserable time for a lot of people out there. We should all reflect on that for a short while. Hopefully—fingers crossed—we can all be in the same Lobby one day getting that ban on conversion therapy and getting this legislation through. We can have the society we know we can have—one that is fair, equal and prosperous.
3.15 pm