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The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) for securing this debate on an important and difficult subject. I thank him for the work he does with the important and effective all-party parliamentary group for children.
I am grateful to other hon. Members for their contributions; they have represented their constituents with impassioned speeches. I fear that too many colleagues have felt as frustrated as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher). Indeed, I have had a number of such cases in my time as an MP.
I will try to respond to all the points that have been raised, but to protect the interests of individual children I will limit my comments to Government actions so as not to share any personal information about specific cases. Hon. Members should continue to contact Ministers if they wish to discuss their individual cases in more detail, and my officials are always available to discuss details privately, or in writing if that is more appropriate.
International parental child abduction is heartbreaking and highly distressing for all those affected, and the UK Government take it extremely seriously. We are a party to The Hague convention of 1980 on the civil aspects of international child abduction, and we operate the convention with over 75 countries in order to facilitate prompt returns. Ultimately, of course, decisions about returns are a matter for the courts in the country to which the child has been taken. Such decisions will depend on a number of factors, including habitual residence, as colleagues have set out, and whether the child objects to the return. Decisions about the long-term future of the child are to be made where the child is habitually resident.
The UK has clear measures in place to seek to prevent international parental child abduction in the first place. Concerned parents can get a specific issue order or prohibited steps order to prevent a child from being taken out of the country. Our courts can order the Passport Office to temporarily not issue a British passport to a child at risk of abduction, and our police can issue a port alert if a parent is concerned that their child is likely to be taken abroad without their consent within the next 48 hours, and that will remain active for 28 days.
Our charity partner, Reunite International, which we part-fund, has published prevention guides to help parents to navigate the options and support available to them, and those have been translated into several different languages to assist families across the UK.
When a child with British links has been abducted and taken abroad, our consular staff across the world are trained to provide ongoing support to those involved—work that is incredibly challenging for them. I have met many on my travels and they are, to a man and woman, exceptional in their commitment to try to support and find solutions. They are able to provide families with practical advice about travel, local customs, services and procedures. Of course, they can put families in touch with partner organisations, such as Reunite International, with which we work closely, to offer such specialised support. Our staff can also facilitate in-country contact with relevant authorities and courts to ensure, for example, that those courts are aware of any UK court orders. Where appropriate, the FCDO can officially “express an interest”—that is a formal term—in a case with the relevant authorities in-country.
As colleagues have mentioned, where a child has been abducted to or retained in a country with which the UK operates the 1980 Hague convention, and an application for the child’s return is made, the relevant UK central authority will liaise closely with foreign counterpart central authorities and the applicant until the final decision on return has been made.
As the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) has highlighted, the FCDO is not a law enforcement body, so there are limits to the steps that we can take. We cannot interfere in court proceedings in another country and we are unable to compel foreign jurisdictions to enforce UK court orders. Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) outlined, it would not be appropriate to be seen to be trying to influence foreign courts by expressing a preference for a particular outcome. We cannot physically rescue a child from abroad, or get involved in any illegal attempts to bring a child back to the UK.
We recognise that not all countries with which we operate the 1980 Hague convention operate it effectively. There can be lengthy delays in the return of abducted children to the UK, and in those cases we lobby Governments at the most senior levels, and make it clear that the UK expects both the spirit and the letter of the convention to be enforced.
The hon. Members for Enfield, Southgate and for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) raised the issue of north Cyprus in particular. I am afraid that the UK does not operate The Hague convention with north Cyprus, with which we have no formal relationship, and it does not share any information with our high commission on minors subject to UK court orders. Our high commissioner is therefore unable to ensure that those minors are safeguarded.
If the UK does not operate the 1980 Hague convention with a country to which a child has been abducted, the FCDO is still able to provide some assistance. We can, of course, provide a list of English-speaking lawyers in-country and can give basic practical information about the customs and procedures of the country to which the child has been taken. If necessary, we can support and offer guidance on finding accommodation locally as parents try to find solutions. As I have said, where appropriate, the FCDO can express an interest in the swift resolution of court cases, but we cannot interfere with court proceedings.
The FCDO can also help with contacting the relevant in-country authorities and organisations when the left-behind parent is overseas. If that parent would like the FCDO so to do, it can contact the relevant UK police force to ask about progress in tracing an abducted child and find out whether they have contacted the police overseas to assist in finding that child or children.
I will try to tackle some of the specific issues about certain countries that have been raised by hon. Members, but only in a general sense, without highlighting particular cases.
Andy Slaughter
I listened carefully to what the Minister said about TRNC, and I am not sure whether she said that the police would talk to the law enforcement authorities there. As I have said, there clearly has been co-operation in a number of respects. Can she say any more about those contacts? I understand that we are not going to establish diplomatic relations, and I am not advocating that, but at the moment the prospects are bleak because there is literally no redress. Can she shed any more light on what can be done?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s specific question, the reality, I am afraid, is that we do not have a relationship because that country is not formally recognised. We do not have any formal mechanisms with which to work.
In response to questions about specific countries, and without referring to specific cases, Poland is a close partner in many ways, as my hon. Friend for Bolsover set out, and especially in recent months as it has supported Ukraine following Russia’s illegal invasion. We are working very closely together in lots of matters relating to that. It is one of the countries with whom we have the largest number of Hague return orders, and we recognise that Poland has not enforced the 1980 Hague convention return order on several occasions. As affected hon. Members will know, we have raised that with Ministers in the Polish Ministry of Justice at every available opportunity, and we will continue to do so. Indeed, the Minister for Security raised those cases with the Polish Ministry of Justice just a few weeks ago. We are also planning exchanges between our experts to share knowledge of the management of Hague return orders, and we are co-ordinating with other countries that share our concerns about Poland’s enforcement of return orders.
A number of Members have raised the question of Brussels II. I am afraid the reality is that Brussels II does not provide a cure-all for these troubling cases, and current EU member states are still not able to solve similar cases through that mechanism. The reality is that we have non-return situations, which are difficult to manage.
We support countries that are struggling to enforce the convention owing to capacity constraints. For example, today in Brazil, our consular staff, along with a representative of our judiciary and staff from the Central Authority, which represents England and Wales, are participating in a knowledge-building conference on parental child abduction, which we are part funding. Delegates from the US, Canada, Australia and the UK will share knowledge that will help Brazilian judges to navigate parental child abduction cases and bring them to a swift conclusion. That builds on work we have undertaken over the past six months with our charity partner, Reunite International, which has provided training in mediation between parents as an alternative remedy to formal court processes for judges in Brazil.
In Japan, UK officials recently met legal representatives in a successful Hague convention return case, as part of our ongoing commitment to learn lessons on how different countries undertake Hague 1980 proceedings, in order to improve the support we provide to left-behind parents and to try to resolve more cases as needed.
Supporting British nationals overseas remains the primary public service of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. We continually seek to improve the professionalism, scope and nature of our assistance, in accordance with the Vienna convention on consular relations, and we compare our consular services with those provided by comparable countries.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith asked whether there is legislation we should consider, and I will ask my ministerial colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), within whose portfolio the matter formally sits, to invite Members with concerns to perhaps discuss it with him at a policy level in due course.
Our expert consular staff at home and abroad work extremely hard to support victims of parental child abduction, and we take every case very seriously. We recognise absolutely that the situation is very distressing for those involved, and our staff work with empathy and do their very best to offer the help needed to resolve these cases as quickly as possible.
Consular staff are sadly not lawyers, medics, police detectives or social workers, but they try to do all they can to ensure that British citizens have the information and support they need to help them to deal with the incredibly difficult situation that they face. They use their expert knowledge of the countries in which they operate to try to help parents to navigate new legal systems, signpost them towards support services and ensure that ongoing support is provided to left-behind parents.
I know that, for every parent still waiting for the safe return of their child, this is an impossibly difficult situation. The FCDO, with all the resources we have, will continue to do what it can, in-country and with other countries equally frustrated by non-compliance with The Hague convention, to try to reduce the number of cases still on the books and bring those children home.