European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-19
Topic: Civil Rights
Helena Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the amendment would insert a new clause that required the Government to report to Parliament on how co-operation with the European Union on tackling violence against women and girls will continue post Brexit. Importantly, it would require government to report to Parliament on progress rather than to make legal provision. It is hoped that violence against women and girls post Brexit will be pushed up the agenda in the negotiations if the Government are encouraged to report on it After exit day, women subject to violence could lose significant legal rights and protections such as European protection orders as well as a whole host of other measures aimed at tackling human trafficking, female genital mutilation and other crimes that disproportionately affect women. When similar amendments were considered in the other House, the Government responded by saying that they are already required to report on progress towards ratification of the Istanbul convention—I imagine I might be treated to that argument today However, the first Istanbul report was published by us last November and it made no reference to the European Union, European protection orders, the European arrest warrant or other forms of cross-border co-operation with the European Union. The amendment asks the Government to report on the action they are taking to continue co-operating with the European Union in the fight against violence towards women and girls and to ensure access to justice for victims. I therefore hope the Government do not give a similar response to that given in the other place, because it was demonstrably unsatisfactory. Given the gravity of what we are discussing—namely, how to protect abused women fleeing the country in which they live to escape an abuser—I hope to hear how the Government expect to continue protection for such women and girls post Brexit Amendment 222 is coupled with Amendment 224, which is on a related but distinct issue, around funding. As it stands, European Commission funding through streams such as the Daphne fund, the rights, equality and citizenship fund and the European Social Fund supports a wide range of research and service delivery aimed at tackling violence towards women and girls in the United Kingdom. Of the 140 projects supported by the €364 million included in the rights, equality and citizenship programme since 2014, just over a third had a UK lead or partner—so we do very well out of that. I shall mention one organisation that I know rather well: the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, a national charity which started by dealing simply with Iranian and Kurdish women but has expanded to support Middle Eastern and Afghan women and women from Africa who have been victims of violence, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and domestic abuse. That organisation currently receives up to 40% of its funding from European Union sources. It will no longer be eligible to apply for such funds once we have left. It will create an astonishing funding gap The Government have partially recognised the problem. They have committed to replacing some of the EU funding that goes to UK organisations and they have said that they will certainly try to replace a large part of the European Social Fund. However, no such announcements have been made regarding the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme fund, which has an explicit target of dealing with violence towards women and girls. Surely, by now the Home Office has set about quantifying the funding received by anti-violence and women’s rights groups and other women’s organisations from the European Union: we ought to have calculated some sums by now Part of what Amendment 224 entails is for the Government to report to Parliament on just how much funding is received by these organisations from the EU and, once we have that information, to consider how it will be remedied in the future and how organisations doing incredibly important work can receive reassurance about what will happen. Those are the matters that I raise here. Again, I mention the crises that we have seen publicised recently around women’s refuge beds and the absence of funding from local authorities to the refuge movement: many of those absences of money are already causing real problems for women’s organisations. The loss, on top of that, of money from Europe will have a significant impact, so I should like to hear what the Government are going to do about it Some £80 million of funding is already committed by the Government to existing projects and the shock of Brexit on the funding streams is not being addressed at the moment. I hope the Minister will not respond by highlighting funding that has already been promised: it will not be enough. We are talking about a different aspect of the fragmented funding sources here and I would like to hear what will happen in the future. I want to hear a commitment to reporting regularly to this House. I beg to move.