European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-25
Topic: Civil Rights
Angela Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Kennedy for tabling the amendments. Yesterday, not only were female Members of this House having our photograph taken to commemorate 100 years of women being Peers—being able to be Members of your Lordships’ House—many of us also went to see the unveiling of the statue of Millicent Garrett Fawcett, at which the Prime Minister spoke eloquently about the rights of women and how important they are, and we commemorated and celebrated the work of Millicent Garrett Fawcett. Would it not be a tragedy, therefore, if an unintended consequence—I think it would be an unintended consequence—of Brexit were that somehow we reduced the protection available to women and girls from violence in any way? The points made by my noble friends and noble Baronesses on the Liberal Democrat Benches in support of the amendments are valid The Minister may recall that on Second Reading, my noble friend Lady Sherlock illustrated the complexities that could come for child protection and family law when we leave the EU. Her experience and understanding of that is reflected in the comments of my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws today. From experience, she can say how the European protection order, which guarantees mutual recognition of legislation across the whole of the EU, adds to the protection that we all wish to see for women and young girls. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said, we hope for a substantive response from the Minister on this issue today The ability to share data on perpetrators, as well as a host of other measures that tackle human trafficking, FGM, the enforcement of child maintenance orders—an issue raised by my noble friend Lady Sherlock previously—and the sexual exploitation of children could all be put at risk. I was reminded by my noble friend Lady Gale, who has a huge reputation on these issues, that the Minister referred in Committee to the Istanbul convention, which should offer much-needed protection. Can she tell us when it will be ratified Will there be a gap between exit day, when we lose the EPO, and when the new Act will be on the statute book? What cover will allow us to ensure that all aspects of what we have now under the EPO will be enshrined in our legal system Another issue raised by my noble friends is funding. Although the Government’s previous commitment of £100 million is needed to keep the sector going, it will not plug the gap left by the loss of EU funds. The loss of those funding streams threatens to push small, specialist providers, which receive a significant amount of their funding from the EU, into a position where they can no longer operate to ensure the protection that women and girls need All that is being asked for is a report and information so that we can identify where the problems are and understand the Government’s response. I was disappointed to hear from my noble friend Lady Lister that she still has not had a response from the Minister to the issues that she raised. The whole point of the gap between Committee and Report is to ensure that the Minister has time to respond to questions from noble Lords. I hope that the Minister will say today why she did not respond at the time and what can be done to rectify that, because it is not satisfactory to raise issues in Committee and have to raise them again on Report because answers have not been received I am sure that the Government’s intentions in this are honourable, but we need to know in practice how these commitments will be met to ensure that we do not put women and young girls at risk of violence in a more difficult and precarious position than they are at present. I hope that the Minister will give a substantive response today on how the Government will address this.