Female Genital Mutilation

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell of Babergh, who has espoused the cause of halting FGM for at least as many years as I have months. When I entered your Lordships’ House, I very much felt that I did so to represent music, culture and the arts, but what I discovered from listening to debates about FGM so appalled me that I became quite passionate in my own espousal of this cause. It is an appalling practice, and what really staggered me was that it is happening in Great Britain; I simply could not believe it. It is bad enough that it is happening in the way that it is in many countries—and I know that there are charities tackling that—but that this is going on in this country is completely staggering. I gather that some children are brought to this country to be subjected to FGM. Does the Minister have any figures not just on the people who live here who are being cut but on the ones who are possibly being brought here for that purpose? It would suggest that there is not a sufficient fear of the law.

When this issue was recently debated in your Lordships’ House, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, was asked about the discrepancy between this country and France, which the noble Baroness has just referred to. He said, with considerable justification, that France is a very different country from this one and that the idea of mandatory examination here would offend civil liberties and the mothers of young girls would be very upset. It is a fair point. I therefore undertook to ask several friends with young children how they would feel about it. Their initial response was exactly as the noble Earl predicted. However, when I said to them, “If the fact that you allowed your young child to be sensitively examined—however much you may baulk at it—saved five, 10, 20, 100 or who knows how many other children from being mutilated, would you feel differently?”. At which point they said, “If you put it like that, yes; I could not possibly refuse something that might save other children from this horrendous practice”.

I know that the Minister and everyone in his department and the Department of Health are very concerned about this—none of us doubt that. None of us wants to see this practice continue. We all think that it is barbaric. However, although progress is being made, we have not yet, as we have heard, obtained a conviction. I ask the Minister to consider—I use that word very carefully—mandatory targeted examination. If one is considering it one is not necessarily saying that it is going to happen, but the fact that the Government say that they may need to consider it would send a message to families who might be considering cutting their children. They might suddenly realise that they could be held to account. As far as I can see, this is a win-win situation for the Government. Even if it stopped a handful of children being cut, it would have achieved something.

I shall keep my speech very short because I have previously gone on and on about the barbarity of the practice. We do not need to hear those arguments again because we all share the same feelings about the practice. I simply ask whether the Minister will consider the possible mandatory targeted examination of children.