Illegal Immigration

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend, regarding the Supreme Court’s decision, that as of 14 June 2022 it did indeed regard it as a fact that there was a risk of refoulement. However, that is a fairly narrow interpretation of the rest of the system that is currently set up in Rwanda. Again, I will not speculate on how things may change. I also note that the Supreme Court specifically acknowledged that there were cases where it could see the situation changing in the fullness of time. I expect that this is the area we are looking to explore.

As regards my noble friend’s suggestion of an affirmative SI, I am happy to take that back and enter that into the conversation that is taking place.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, it is of course quite right that when the facts change or, to put it better, are emphatically revealed by the Supreme Court, wise people change their minds. They do not attempt to legislate to change the facts. Will the Minister acknowledge that, contrary to various statements that have been made in this House by Benches opposite, the Supreme Court acknowledged the special role and expertise of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in evaluating the facts—that is, the safety of countries?

As for treaties, does the Minister agree that, whatever new treaty comes, there is a treaty in this area. It is a very well-established treaty called the refugee convention. It is so well established that aspects of it are arguably now part of customary international law. I know that the Minister cares about the rule of law. If the Government are going to disapply or abrogate the European Convention on Human Rights, will he encourage his colleagues to counsel what effects there might be on the behaviour of the Russian Federation and others—and those currently in jeopardy, including Ukrainian prisoners who are relying on interim orders for their lives and protection from the Strasbourg court?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Of course, I agree with the noble Baroness. The Supreme Court did acknowledge that the UN has a role to play in this; indeed, it was heavily referenced in the Supreme Court’s judgment. I also accept that a treaty already exists regarding refugees; that is incontestable. As regards what might happen regarding the ECHR, I have already said that that was not part of any of the discussions around this particular decision. This was a domestic court’s decision. I think it is a few steps away to discuss the ECHR, and the noble Baroness is well aware of my views on the subject.

Migrants: Barges

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I can confirm that the Home Office went above and beyond the UKHSA’s initial advice in managing the legionella situation, which was to have no new arrivals to the “Bibby Stockholm”, and decided to evacuate the barge immediately. We have robust and well-rehearsed processes in place across the government estate to test for legionella bacteria and it is not unusual to identify it in water systems, which is why they are subject to regular testing.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, has the Minister had the opportunity to consider, at least initially, yesterday’s devastating report from the public inquiry into the scandal that is Brook House detention centre? I will not waste your Lordships’ time with the details, but they are worth a read. Has he had the opportunity to read the published remarks of His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, and his comments about how he has been thwarted by Home Office Ministers in doing his job of independent review? I am sure that noble Lords would be grateful for a response.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

At end insert “, and do propose Amendments 90F, 90G and 90H in lieu—

90F: Leave out Clause 1 and insert the following new clause—
“IntroductionIn interpreting this Act, regard shall be given to the United Kingdom’s obligations under—(a) the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms;(b) the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees including the Protocol to that Convention;(c) the 1954 and 1961 UN Conventions on the Reduction of Statelessness;(d) the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child;(e) the 2005 Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking Human Beings.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that this Bill was not a manifesto commitment at the last election; it is rather the extended version of a populist slogan for the upcoming one. That distinction is even more constitutionally significant when the Executive propose to expunge the age-old common law jurisdiction of His Majesty’s courts to issue interim relief in expulsion cases, the judicial practice of considering international obligations, and the Human Rights Act 1998 duty to interpret legislation compatibly with convention rights and freedoms where possible.

Noble Lords, and in particular the noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope and Lord Etherton, rejected the Government’s suggestion that the previous amendment to Clause 1 offended our legal traditions. None the less, we have softened it still further, removing references to “acts and omissions” and intended compliance only in the spirit of dialogue with the other place. Now, it merely requires that those interpreting this measure give regard to the human rights treaties mentioned. Without this amendment, an eventual illegal migration Act 2023 could become effectively exempt from the European Convention on Human Rights under domestic law as soon as its provisions are brought into force.

Again, in attempted dialogue with the other place we have clarified the amendment to Clause 4 to ensure that the duty to remove—so central to the Government’s scheme—is revived the moment a first instance court dismisses an application unless permission to an appeal court is granted. Without this amendment, the duty to remove applicants would continue, even where our higher courts are still considering the safety of a third country such as Rwanda.

The amendment to Clause 52 has been tightened to provide that courts must not only attempt but ensure that they give reasonable opportunity to the Secretary of State to object before granting interim injunctions preventing removal. Without this amendment, no British court would retain its common law power to prevent removal, despite grave risk to a person subject to ongoing legal proceedings. Noble Lords will remember that the Government have already taken the power to ignore Strasbourg interim relief under Clause 53.

In summary, without these amendments, the Government could argue a power, or even a duty, to remove new arrivals—potentially even as we rest this summer—before the Supreme Court hears the Rwanda test case in relation to past arrivals this autumn. That is what is at stake: one of the gravest executive power grabs and abrogations of the rule of law in living memory. That is why the, yes, unelected but more independent Chamber should exceptionally stand firm to protect the constitutional role of our courts and the rule of law.

In a state of sadness and some disbelief that things have come to this in our beloved land of rights advancement, from Magna Carta to the post-war settlement, I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I simply cannot accept the proposition advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. As the House will remember from the last occasion, a court always has regard, if possible, to the international treaties binding the United Kingdom, as was made clear by Lord Dyson in the Supreme Court in the Assange case.

The noble Baroness’s amendment is simply unnecessary, and, in addition, it would have the effect of changing the constitutional relationship of our law and international law. I am afraid, therefore, that I cannot accept her proposed Motion. I invite noble Lords to vote against it in the event that it is not withdrawn.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords. I have moved Motion A1 and I ask noble Lords to approve it.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 1B in lieu—

1B: Leave out Clause 1 and insert the following new clause—
“Introduction
In interpreting this Act, regard shall be given to the intention that its provisions, and any acts and omissions made as a result, are intended to comply with the United Kingdom’s obligations under-
(a) the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms;
(b) the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees including the Protocol to that Convention;
(c) the 1954 and 1961 UN Conventions on the Reduction of Statelessness;
(d) the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child;
(e) the 2005 Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking Human Beings.””

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg to move Motion A1 as an amendment to Motion A. Ministers suggest that our Amendment 1, Amendment 7 as a consequential and Amendment 90 are wrecking and unnecessary. These criticisms are contradictory. If the Government take their international obligations so seriously, why should they be afraid to ensure that those charged with operating this proposed legislation, which clearly impacts on the rights of vulnerable people, understand that Ministers intend not to violate these rights? Why should Ministers have been unable to make a statement of their belief in ECHR compatibility in the Bill?

Alongside that strange logic comes a pseudo-legal argument from the Mickey Mouse school of jurisprudence that even to reference binding international obligations in domestic instruments somehow offends the sanctity of our dualist system. This is nonsense. It is because of our system, whereby international obligations signed by Ministers do not automatically become directly enforceable domestically without parliamentary approval, that successive Governments of both stripes have had to refer to various treaties or their contents in a host of relevant domestic measures. Section 2 of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 expressly gave primacy to the refugee convention. In 2009, in the EN Serbia case, the Court of Appeal found that that provision did not constitute informal or backdoor incorporation or undermine the principle of dualism, which is designed to protect parliamentary sovereignty and not to insulate Governments from their obligations. The Children Act 1989 takes its central best interests of the child principle directly from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—two of numerous precedents.

The treaties in our Amendment 1 were chosen by truly cross-party, all-party and non-party consensus for relevance to the people, measures and rights engaged by this Bill. The Government’s real objection, and to consequential Amendment 7 and Amendment 90, is that no one, especially His Majesty’s judges, should be able to second-guess Home Office decisions. That is simply contrary to the rule of law on which any civilised society, let alone a great democracy, must be built. None the less, in the spirit of respectful dialogue, we have listened, compromised and amended our new Clause 1, softening its requirement to require having regard to the various conventions when interpreting the Bill. There is no way that that can now be regarded as incorporation rather than interpretation.

Further, the consequential Amendment 7 is reformulated so that the Section 2 duty to remove a person will stand, notwithstanding an application for judicial review, if a court refuses permission, or even just refuses to make an interim injunction. To respond further to concerns from the other place and the Benches opposite about so-called protracted legal knots, interim relief preventing a removal is to be granted under our new version of Amendments 90 only after the Secretary of State has had a reasonable opportunity to tell a court why this should not happen. Far from being wrecking amendments, these are wholly reasonable compromises to restore some semblance of legality and respect for international obligations, domestic judges and the rule of law. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

As I have said in this House many times, the purpose of these provisions is to prevent people smugglers encouraging fraudulent claims to be children. On the question raised by the right reverend Prelate as to whether Rwanda will provide appropriate care for the children, this matter was extensively canvassed during the Rwanda litigation, and the court was satisfied that sufficient arrangements had been made in the memorandum of understanding. I invite noble Lords to refer to the judgment in that regard. I am very grateful to the right reverend Prelate for his indication that he will not press that amendment to a Division.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords, particularly to the noble and learned Lords who gave their ruling on the backdoor incorporation point. Of course, Section 2 of the 1993 Act was much stouter than either version of our Amendment 1.

Dr King, not a judge but a man of God, famously said:

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important”.


Across this House yesterday, we pleaded for kindness. Today, we come with a more modest plea: for the rule of law. I have moved the Motion and ask the House to approve it.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 7B in lieu—

7B: Clause 4, page 6, line 6, at end insert “if the court seized of the application refuses permission, interim relief or the application.””

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Beith) (LD)]

The original Question was that Motion D be agreed to, since when Motion D1 has been moved as an amendment to Motion D. The Question therefore is that Motion D1 be agreed to. The matter will be decided by a Division.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 90D to the words so restored to the Bill—

90D: Page 54, line 3, at end insert “without attempting to give reasonable notice to the Secretary of State so as to allow representations as to why, notwithstanding ongoing proceedings as to the legality of a decision to remove the person, they should nonetheless be removed.””

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand that Motion T1 is consequential on Motions already passed. I beg to move.

Motion T1 agreed.

Support for Migrant Victims

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Yes, I can. The experts have given evidence from within the sector, and we have also looked at evidence from police representatives and a variety of others. As I say, I cannot answer the question as to why it has taken so long, but it is good that the evidence is being considered in full and, as I say, I shall follow up with a full report as soon as we have a response to publish.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, which aspect of Article 59 do the Government have a concern about? Noble Lords will remember that this is about migrant women who are victims of violence, but it is not carte blanche to give them all residence; it is very carefully caveated. I remind noble Lords that it is where the competent authority considers that it is necessary in order to get them to co-operate with law enforcement. Can the noble Lord help me a little with what the problem is?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

In response to the noble Baroness’s question, it is important to note that we are far from alone in this. As noble Lords will be aware, the majority of countries that have ratified the Istanbul convention have reservations on one or more of the 81 clauses. In the case of Article 59, I think there are 12 other countries that still have reservations. We have made it very clear that our compliance position on Article 59 is under review, pending the support for migrant victims scheme evaluation. Our reservation is without prejudice to the policy conclusions that we reach in the light of this evaluation. I cannot really go further than that at the moment, but I will come back to the noble Baroness and the rest of the House as soon as I possibly can.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an absolute pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and I agree with so much of what he said. I do not normally support the contemporary fashion for many speeches at Third Reading, but, because of the Minister’s kind words about the late noble and learned Lord, Simon Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, I want to echo the tributes to him at this opportunity. He was a titan of our chambers and of so much more. He was, above all else, an incredibly kind human being. Kindness is a quality that has been mentioned in this Chamber today a number of times.

The Minister is quite right that Lord Brown was much more sympathetic to the Minister’s position on this Bill than perhaps I have been, but I would like to leave noble Lords with some words from Lord Brown at ping-pong during the passage of last year’s Nationality and Borders Act. He was pressing me all day, by every available means of communication, to press an amendment that would have made that legislation—which is now defunct, I understand—subject to our international obligations under the refugee convention. This is what he said in the Chamber that night:

“My Lords, I rise, I hope for the last time—a hope which will be shared by every Member of this House”—


self-deprecating, as always—

“—to support this amendment. There are not many issues that it is worth going to the stake for, but surely the rule of law is one. I have spent 60 years of my life on it and do not propose to stop here. I suggest that your Lordships support this too”.—[Official Report, 27/4/22; col. 299.]

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to echo some of the words of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I, for one—like, I am sure, many noble Lords—do not have any pleasure in this Bill receiving its Third Reading because it lacks kindness, compassion and humanity. It is also not going to be effective, regardless of the rhetoric from the Dispatch Box.

For many of us who have been on this Bill, the way the Home Office has acted towards this Chamber has been with complete discourteousness. We had a late impact assessment, a late child impact assessment and they tried to keep us here for long hours to do our job, which is to scrutinise effectively.

I say very gently to the Minister, even though he has been very robust in his defence of the Bill, that it is not the job of this House to come up with a whole new Bill; it is our job to come up with amendments which make a Bill more effective. I believe the amendments we have passed make the Bill more effective, more compassionate and kinder in how we treat some of the most vulnerable people who seek asylum on these shores. I say very gently to the Minister, as he takes this back and it goes to the other place and as he speaks to the Home Secretary: think about the amendments, which are trying to make the Bill more effective; and make sure that the Home Office comes back, hopefully, with a Bill from the other place with a bit more compassion, kindness and effectiveness, and a lot less rhetoric.

Missing Asylum Seeking Unaccompanied Children

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to find all the asylum seeking unaccompanied children who have gone missing from Home Office care.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Borders (Lord Murray of Blidworth) (Con)]

While the responsibility for locating missing children is ultimately for the police, the Home Office works closely with local authorities and other partners to try to locate missing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and ensure that they are safe. As part of this, the Home Office continues to collaborate with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the National Crime Agency to ensure consistency in our national approach and response.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful for that. Could the Minister help the House with the number of those who were lost and the number who have been found to date, and whether photographs have been passed to the police for a national campaign? What about the ongoing safeguarding issue? Recent court proceedings reveal that 40% of those now in unregulated hotels are under 16, including some as young as nine. Is that not a grave and dangerous dereliction of duty?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The noble Baroness would not expect me to comment on ongoing litigation. I can provide her with the statistics: there are presently 154 unaccompanied children who are currently missing. Of that 154, 100 have since turned 18, and 25 of the 154 currently missing were age-disputed individuals.

Windrush Generation: 75th Anniversary

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Friday 7th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for bringing forward this debate and, if I may say, for the tone in which he opened it. It is right that this House should take note of this important anniversary of the arrival of the Windrush generation. This is, as he has said, a moment to celebrate the enormous contribution of so many who came to rebuild Britain after the Second World War. Notwithstanding complex colonial history and a mixed welcome, they came as some of the most loyal and patriotic British subjects to work in our NHS, construction, transport and, as he said, other vital public services—often, it must be remembered, in undervalued and back-breaking employment.

However, we must also reflect, as the Minister has done, on the betrayal of their children. In one of the worst scandals in British history, inhumanity and illegality on the part of government cost people jobs, homes, healthcare and liberty and saw some of them forcibly transported to faraway islands that some had never known in their adult lives, despite lives of hard work and service to the United Kingdom. Many died broken-hearted and uncompensated. Some are uncompensated still; I am grateful to him for his update, but I hope that the noble Baroness the Minister will take the opportunity perhaps to go further on the ongoing plans to right that wrong, and do so for all outstanding claims very quickly. What is His Majesty’s Government’s estimate of outstanding claims for compensation and what prospect is there of resolving all such claims this year or before the next anniversary?

Preparing for this debate gave me the opportunity to return to Amelia Gentleman’s fine book—which will shortly be returned to your Lordships’ Library. The Windrush Betrayal records not only outstanding and persistent independent journalism, but the real human stories of Paulette Wilson, who had worked in catering in the other place, Anthony Bryan, Sarah O’Connor and countless others and how their lives were devastated by a toxic cocktail of culture war, cruelty and incompetence which we must never repeat. I commend the book to all noble Lords, particularly those with close interest in the working of the Home Office. I remind your Lordships that the background to that scandal—the scandal of demanding papers of people who had come to this country as children 50-plus years earlier—was called the hostile environment: a policy of targets that will always penalise the lowest hanging fruit, and a policy of deterrence. People who had evidence of working and paying tax for decades were detained and even removed, while their landing cards were destroyed in the annals of the Home Office.

It is incumbent on those who speak from this particular spot to always mention ships. Today that task is easy. However, my noble friend the admiral reminds me that the “Empire Windrush” brought not only Caribbean Britons but a number of Polish refugees to these shores. At the time, they were rightly welcomed by the then Government while the refugee convention was still being negotiated and settled. Today, the refrain is a little different. The refrain is “Stop the boats”. There is a universal aspiration that should be striven for with justice and compassion so that human beings are never again relegated to statistics, with all the consequences that will follow. Debate the boats, by all means, but never let us forget the stories of those who came in ships.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 3rd July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, the House will be aware that I support the direction of travel of the Bill quite strongly. It represents a serious effort—it may be a vain one, and will certainly be so if the Government accept all the loopholes in the amendments we have discussed this afternoon—to address an issue of considerable concern to our fellow citizens. But, although I support the direction of travel, that does not mean that I think it perfect in every sense. I will therefore take a minute to support Amendment 131, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead—to which he has just spoken—and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich.

I do not want to add to the background as the noble and learned Lord has obviously explained that very clearly. However, this does come under the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and I tried to draw to the attention of both Houses when we chaired the Delegated Powers Committee and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee respectively: the way in which power has been slipping through the hands of Parliament, with extensive and wide powers being taken by means of secondary legislation. Some might say that their use is improper, but let us say “extensive” for the purposes of this afternoon. Too often, these issues should have had a degree of scrutiny appropriate for primary legislation, and it is not satisfactory to introduce major issues of policy without that scrutiny.

We have to remember that we do need secondary legislation. Without it, the Government’s machine would gum up completely. But we need to make sure that its use is restricted to what it says on the tin—namely, issues of secondary importance. In my view, Clause 39, entitled

“Meaning of ‘serious and irreversible harm’,”


is of pretty fundamental importance.

I agree with the need for regulation. The world moves on much faster than the rather stately pace of primary legislation. That is why I could not support Amendment 132 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, and the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Paddick, because it seeks to delete the whole clause. We need some regulatory power. In much the same way, I am concerned about Amendment 130, because it opens up a whole series of other loopholes that impede the impact of the Bill as a whole.

In response to the wider powers that the Government are seeking under the present formulation, Parliament is entitled to ask for some limits on future ministerial power. Let me use the analogy of driving down a road. The Government are entitled to drive down the road, but in turn Parliament is entitled to ask for guard-rails—guard-rails that will ensure that a future Minister cannot swerve off into parts of—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way and for all his remarks thus far. Would he agree with me, in the light of the Companion, that this would be a good moment to hear from his noble friend the Minister?

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

If the noble Baroness had given me another two sentences, I would have finished. I was going to say we need guard-rails to make sure that future Ministers do not swerve off in directions hitherto undreamed of. It is because I think Amendment 131 represents those guard-rails that I support it.

UK: Violence Against Women and Girls

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I congratulate my noble sisters on facilitating this debate on the vital issue of violence against women—an epidemic exacerbated by decades of austerity.

While I totally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, on the need for more judicial training, today also feels like a moment to celebrate our judiciary. I pay tribute to my dear friend, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, who retired from your Lordships’ House last week due to fading health. It is sometimes hard to believe that it was as late as 1991 that rape within marriage was outlawed in this country, and that it was judges, not parliamentarians, who established such an obvious and civilised reform. This is what the ever self-deprecating noble and learned Lord said about his landmark decision in the Crown v C years later in 2017:

“I have few boasts to my name by way of legal achievement, few jewels in my judicial crown, but I can and do boast of being the first judge in this jurisdiction … to rule that a husband is not permitted in law to have intercourse with his wife quite simply whensoever he chooses—in short, that there is such an offence as marital rape. That decision was said at the time to fly in the face of centuries of established legal principle but in fact, happily, it was upheld by both the Court of Appeal and indeed the Appeal Committee in your Lordships’ House”.—[Official Report, 10/3/17; col. 1584.]


But now, six years later, it is political priorities and economic resources, rather than the law, that are letting so many women in the United Kingdom so badly down. As we have heard, attrition rates between the reporting and charging of rape, let alone trials and convictions, are so dire as to amount to de facto decriminalisation of one of the gravest offences, the prevalence of which casts a very long shadow on any society’s levels of basic common decency.

Further, we are now in a vicious spiral of such low trust in policing and the criminal justice system, on the part of women in particular, that they are reluctant, as we have heard, even to come forward as victims of terrible, inhuman and degrading abuse. Rape and other types of violence against women are complex crimes, and all the more difficult, evidentially, on account of their intimate nature. It takes expensive expert personnel and generous support services to even begin to tackle the problem, and years of neglect now render the challenge even greater. Will the Minister commit to making this a personal priority for his tenure in the Home Department?

Will the Government guarantee the provision of specialist rape provision in every police force in the country, of more publicly funded refuge places and of other priority support for victims? Will the Prime Minister, himself a father of daughters, lead a public campaign for women’s and girls’ dignity and rights, in contrast with, I am afraid, the rather laddish and often misogynistic political culture of recent years?