Hate Crime: Homophobic and Misogynistic Attacks

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I acknowledge the work done by the Church of England in this area. I thank the right reverend Prelate for reminding me of the pastoral principles. The Church of England has been quite effective in its support for our trans community by actively dispelling some of the prejudices towards its members. He is right that the seeds are sown at a very young age. Relationship education is, therefore, very important to dispel those notions early on.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, I cannot be the only Member of your Lordships’ House who thinks that Section 28 poured pure poison into the lifeblood of this country. Will the Minister join me and express from the Dispatch Box her support for Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, the head teacher of Anderton Park Primary School in Birmingham, who has bravely resisted a homophobic—what would one call it?

[A noble Lord]

A mob.

[Baroness Corston]

A homophobic mob is protesting against some teaching in the school. As I understand it, these children are being taught about relationships; that some children have two mummies and some have two daddies. That is all it is, and if people do not like it, that is the way the modern world is.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I was alluding to that very thing when I answered the right reverend Prelate. The noble Baroness is absolutely right and I am glad that she raised this. I have the utmost admiration and every sympathy for Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, who has had to face abuse. Children of four years of age are not taught about gay sex. They are taught about relationships and that relationships can look different in different households. That is what breeds the tolerance which I was addressing in my answer to the right reverend Prelate.

Stalking

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Lib Dems.

Female Genital Mutilation

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The right reverend Prelate goes to the nub of the problem: it cannot be solved by legislation alone. Certainly, we are doing some work around the world in giving UK aid. At home, we need to get to the point where those community leaders not only see that this is wrong but articulate that to members of their community, explaining that this is not only unacceptable and illegal but that it maims girls for life.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, when I was the Member for Bristol East in another place quite a long time ago, I used to work with secondary school head teachers to discuss instances when girls said they were being taken to another country, often a home country of their family, for a long holiday. The school would then do what it could to investigate the purpose of the trip and try to alert the authorities. What work are the Government doing with schools?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I outlined to the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, professionals in schools clearly do not have only a duty of care to their children and a safeguarding role; there is now an offence for failing to protect a girl from FGM. Schools are now trained in spotting various safeguarding issues, including the signs that a girl might be taken away. Actually, the girl is not necessarily taken away or taken abroad; it can definitely happen here at home and we must not dismiss that. We have work to do in training our school staff but also the work in communities that the right reverend Prelate talked about.

Gender Pay Gap

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

All those initiatives by companies help to shed light on the types of companies that are employing people; their ethical, gender-based policies and parental leave are only a part of that. As to flexible working, the Government are trying to go further in enabling anyone who wants to work flexibly to be able to do so.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, on 11 February last—less than a month ago—my noble friend Lady Prosser asked whether the Government would consider legislating to require employers to develop positive action plans for measures such as all-women training schemes and quality part-time jobs. The Government Minister replied from the Dispatch Box, in a somewhat non-committal way, that these measures were good practice for companies and that some companies are adopting them. Does the Minister believe that that was an adequate response?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I hope I am always eloquent—not always, maybe—but legislating for positive action by discriminating against men, if you like, is not what we want to do. Certainly the Government supports equality of opportunity, but we will not legislate for positive action.

Stalking

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I commend my noble friend on the work she did with SafeLives. I have seen some of its work at first hand and the emphasis it puts on addressing the problems of perpetrators. The proposed domestic abuse protection order would enable courts to impose positive requirements on abusers to challenge them to change their behaviour, such as requirements to attend a perpetrator programme or an alcohol or drug treatment programme. Through the police transformation fund and the VAWG service transformation fund, we have invested in a number of new approaches to manage perpetrators of domestic abuse. I thank her for all the work she has done to this end.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness outlined the process of tracking or monitoring serious stalkers. The onus is then on the victims to report crime, leave their homes, change their behaviour, sometimes change their jobs and disappear themselves. Surely that is an unacceptable state of affairs.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, a victim would certainly report crime to the police, but it is envisaged that the police would then take up the stalking protection order, because it is unrealistic and unfair that a victim would have to come forward with processing the stalking protection order. The point I have been making is that stalkers are listed on various databases, such as the police national computer, the PND and ViSOR. In addition, there is the domestic violence disclosure scheme, or Clare’s law, which the noble Baroness will know about, as well as MAPPA.

Visas: Forced Marriages

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I take what the noble and learned Baroness says. In cases where there has been an objection, I understand that both the applicant and the sponsor were over 18. The noble and learned Baroness may have seen in some of the articles just how the system is played to ensure that they are not acting contrary to the law when they try to ensure that a forced marriage takes place. But I will certainly bring that point back. The noble and learned Baroness is absolutely right to be concerned about it.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that Jasvinder Sanghera, the founder of the forced marriage victim support charity, accused the Home Office of failing to act? She said:

“Even when officials know it’s a forced marriage, they see tradition, culture or religion and they’re reticent to deal with it. They are turning a blind eye”.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I take what the noble Baroness says but I dispute that the Home Office was actually turning a blind eye to something that the now Prime Minister, formerly the Home Secretary, has given such focus and effort to in her tenure in both posts—and, of course, legislation has come into place to back that up.

Women: Events Industry

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I hope that if any good can come out of this pretty grubby incident, it will be to highlight the fact that employers, or, indeed, people employing casual staff for the night, cannot hide behind confidentiality or gagging clauses if this sort of behaviour goes on, because they will be void.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

Has it crossed the Minister’s mind that the only reason we know about this is because a journalist went undercover and was able to reveal that it was happening? How would one of those young women have complained, and to whom?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point. The person who raised this was a journalist and she was also a woman. I understand that the Presidents Club has been meeting for 33 years and this is the first time, to my knowledge, that this sort of behaviour has been reported at one of its events.

Women: Political and Public Office

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I certainly know that there is a cross-party working group, chaired by the Leader of the House of Commons, which is developing an independent complaints and grievance procedure. I cannot answer for other political parties but I am pleased to say that I have seen and signed the code of conduct. I think it is absolutely right. I cannot believe that standards of conduct on this Estate were not in the Ministerial Code before now but they now are—writ large.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Government consider extending the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act beyond the present term for which it is enforced to allow political parties to have women-only shortlists?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, positive discrimination in that sense is something that the Conservative Party has not subscribed to. I hope, though, that political parties will see that if they do not have diverse representation they are far less likely to appeal to the public at large—who elect them.

Sustainable Development Goals: HIV

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord knows that the UK Government have put women and girls at the heart of all their development assistance work. We know that women are disproportionately affected by not just HIV/AIDS but a number of other complex issues. In the programmes we are working through at country level, we are therefore focusing on ensuring that, as the SDGs rightly say, no one—no one—is left behind.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that there are now many thousands of AIDS orphans, particularly in Africa? They frequently find that other family members take their parental possessions, and they are destitute. Do the British Government have any programmes in Africa to support such children?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, this is a really important question. On a recent visit to Zambia, I saw some of those orphaned children being taken care of predominantly by grandparents, particularly grandmothers. We found that, through programmes such as social cash transfer programmes, we are helping to keep children in school and receive an education. However, that does not really respond to the wider issue of ensuring that those children are supported throughout their childhood, and we work very closely with a number of NGOs on the ground to ensure that children have access to good healthcare and education.

Crime: Domestic Violence

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords—

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords—

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords—

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I will give way to my noble friend Lady Corston.

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that domestic violence is a major cause of women in this country ending up in prison? With which organisations in this country are the Government working to eradicate this drastic harm to all these lives?

[Baroness Northover]

I am well aware of the importance of domestic violence in bringing about women being in prison, and all the other challenges that women in prison face. We are very keen to carry forward the work that the noble Baroness did to try to ensure that we address the reasons why women end up in prison, which is often not in their interests or those of the family. We are working across the board with a number of different organisations. I myself have been at various meetings where these organisations have put their case, which is a very cogent one. We will continue to do that. Anything that the noble Baroness wishes to feed in to me, I would be very happy to receive.