“All people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.”

That was Harvey Milk speaking back in the 1970s. Until Sean Penn came along and won his Oscar, I suspect not many people outside the lgbt community and maybe even some in it, had heard of Harvey Milk.

Milk was a pioneer. A champion of the gay community in San Francisco. But his actions resonated across America and around the world.

He was the first openly gay man elected to public office in the world. Becoming so, he did more to expose the myth of LGBT people than anyone before him.

The myth that we are anything other than normal, incredible, every day, extraordinary, run of the mill, unique, awful and glorious members of the human race. Just like everyone else.

It was a tragedy, that for Milk, the cost exposing this myth was his own life, lost the year I went to university and came out.

We’ve certainly come a long way in this country since the time of Henry VIII. He would have cheerfully put Harvey Milk, and many of the people in this room to death. We had to wait for good old Victorian Values to come along before the death penalty for homosexuality was finally rescinded in 1861.

But it was another hundred years for the law to stop being a complete ass, when it finally recognised that what goes on between consenting adults is none of anyone’s business but their own.

Lord Arran, a sponsor of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, quoted Oscar Wilde in the debate. When Wilde was released from Reading Gaol, he wrote to a friend, “Yes, we shall win in the end; but the road will be long and red with monstrous martyrdoms.” Lord Arran added, “Today, please God, sees the end of that road”.

Well the road wasn’t quite at an end. During my election campaign in Exeter in 1997 my Conservative opponent said memorably: “Ben Bradshaw is a homosexual, he works for the BBC, speaks German and rides a bicycle – he is everything about this country that is wrong.” He helped deliver me the biggest swing to Labour in the South West, becoming, along with Stephen Twigg the first MPs always to have been open about their sexual orientation. And we’ve come a long way in the last 12 years. An equalised age of consent, the repeal of Section 28, gays in the military, adoption and immigration rights, gender recognition and civil partnerships. The legal framework we have now in Britain for LGBT people is among the best in the world.

But we know from our history that the march of progress is not inevitable. Weimar Berlin was probably the most liberal place of its time. But look what happened then – in not completely dissimilar global economic circumstances than those we have today. So we must remain vigilant. We must also continue to work in those areas where discrimination and prejudice persist. First, internationally. We may enjoy the best legal framework in the world, but in most countries lgbt people still live in fear or worse. In Britain there is still prejudice and fear at school, in the street and in the workplace and, yes, that includes DH and the NHS.

I was rather shocked to discover when I joined this department less than two years ago that the department and the NHS were among the poorer performers in Whitehall on lgbt issues. Beaten by organisations with such proud progressive traditions as the police and the prison service, Lloyds Bank and Goldman Sachs, the Ministry of Defence Police and Guard Service and the Ford Motor Company.

Stonewall publishes an annual list of the top 100 organisations. The Department of Health doesn’t even make the list. 40 of the 42 NHS organisations that applied to Stonewall to be included in the Top 100 are not on the list either. Aside from Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust at number 58 and NHS Plymouth at number 88, we don’t even register.

This is not acceptable, particularly for an organisation whose whole purpose is caring.

A couple of years ago, a report called ‘Being The Gay One’ highlighted the nature and extent of the problem in the NHS. It documented really depressing accounts of homophobia and prejudice.

Ten years ago, the Home Office recognised that it had a serious problem. And so did the organisations it was responsible for. Today, it’s those same organisations that dominate the Top 100. They did this with a combination of the commitment of senior management, the dedication of their equivalent of PRISM and with an annual budget of £100,000.

Well, I’m pleased to announce that starting next month, we will do the same. £100,000 each year form the next three years to drive a change of culture in the NHS and Social Care. Liam will talk further in just a moment about what the money will be used for.

One of the other criticisms made of us in the past is that we have not followed good practice on data collection. If you don’t know where the people and the problems are, you can’t tackle them. Stonewall recommend all organisations include a question on sexual orientation when surveying staff or customers. It’s astonishing that we haven’t done that, but we will, from this year in the DH and NHS staff surveys and those of patients – starting with the next GP patient survey.

After Harvey Milk had been elected he said, “All over the country, they’re reading about me. And the story doesn’t centre on me being gay. It’s just about a gay person who is doing his job.”

That’s what we all want really, including me. Not to be that gay MP but, a Government Minister doing a job. Judged for what we do not what we are.

I would like to pay special thanks to Liam, who has shown real leadership on this and to Hugh Taylor, who is sorry not to be here today and has been personally instrumental in helping deliver the announcements I have just made.

We now have commitment from the very top. We have the resources we need to make a real and lasting difference. And I know that in PRISM and the new Equality and Human Rights Assurance Group we have the people in place who will make a difference.

Thank you.