Serious Crime Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-02-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): I entirely agree that we need to listen to young women, mothers and families, which is why it has been so important that, over the past few years, young women have felt strong enough to come forward and champion the cause for themselves The Bill includes a number of vital measures, such as the FGM protection orders, a new offence of failing to protect a girl from FGM and anonymity of survivors for life. We welcome those measures and give them our full support. However, although they address the matter of ways to respond when a girl is at immediate risk of being cut or has been cut, they do not go far enough in helping to prevent the crime of FGM in the first place The new offence would, for the first time, give parents and girls the opportunity in law to challenge the public encouragement of FGM. It has a stronger preventive effect than any other measure in the Bill, and it seeks to change the culture and break the cycle The measures currently on the statute book are not working. Thousands of girls in the UK are at risk, yet, since FGM was made a crime 30 years ago, there have only ever been two prosecutions and no convictions. Our proposals will criminalise every published statement or speech encouraging FGM, and will allow the police to issue encouragement warning notices and to follow up with encouragement warning orders, the breach of which would be a criminal offence. This would be a proportionate response and would send out a message of zero tolerance of such violence against girls. It is precisely the message that we need to send, as it makes a clear statement that there is no cultural excuse for violence against women and girls. I hope the Minister will feel able to respond positively to those amendments. New clause 2 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) along with many other right hon. and hon. Members. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work, for pursuing child abuse cases and for ensuring that the perpetrators are brought to justice. Labour Front Benchers are entirely sympathetic to his approach, and we think that it is absolutely the right thing to do. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that new clause in his closing remarks, and I hope that the Government will feel able to support my hon. Friend. If they feel that the wording needs to be tidied up so that it flows a little better, there is an opportunity to do that when the Bill returns to the other place New clause 11, which was tabled by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), relates to the protection that should be offered to 16 and 17-year-olds. The Children’s Society has provided an informative brief about why 16 and 17-year-olds need that additional protection. Briefly, it recognises that 16 and 17-year-olds in other parts of the world have protections that we do not have in this country, which is why we support the measure New clause 17 relates to mandatory reporting. We will be moving to a vote on this matter. An amendment was moved in Committee, which dealt with a consultation on mandatory reporting. We listened very carefully to what was said and feel that our new clause deals with some of the issues that the Government were concerned about, and we hope that they will support it today.