Violence Against Women and Girls

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Uddin

Monday 4th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, this is a very sensitive subject. I found Christina Lamb’s article in the Sunday Times very distressing and upsetting, but very powerful. Why did it take the UN so long to condemn those actions? The words of Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, who was quoted in the article, deserve mentioning:

“It’s mindblowing. We were there for our sisters when terrible things happened across the ocean, when they took away abortion rights in US, the killing of women in Iran, the abduction of Yazidis … but with us they looked away and I can’t think of a reasonable answer”.


Unfortunately, I can think of an unreasonable answer, and it disgusts me. From a personal point of view, I hope the perpetrators get what is coming to them—and believe me, I do not mean sanctions.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I say to the Minister and all noble Lords who have raised concerns that I can never look away from rape as a weapon of war, whoever commits that violence. It is really important that we stand together with those who were victims of rape on 7 October, just as I do with all those still being raped all over the world in the name of war and conflicts. I am deeply unhappy about what is happening to women seeking services in this country. Also, we cannot look away from such detrimental violence perpetrated on the children, girls and women of Palestine, from which they may never recover.

Policing of Marches and Demonstrations

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Uddin

Monday 13th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I wholeheartedly agree, and I was very emphatic on that point at the Dispatch Box last week. We saw vile examples of anti-Semitism by a minority at the pro-Palestine march. The fears that our Jewish community has experienced over the weekend and the days leading up to it are shocking and disgusting, as I said last week. There is no place for hate on Britain’s streets, and the police have confirmed that investigations are ongoing.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as someone who marched with hundreds of thousands of very peaceful protesters last Saturday, I witnessed not one single incitement to hatred of anyone. It was a march for peace until the EDL came on to the scene, and we all saw what happened. Will the Minister assure all those who marched for peace that they will not be chequered by the way they are being depicted as jihadis? The simple fact is that they were not.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, a quick surf of the internet this morning would suggest that the noble Baroness is wrong. I suggest that trying to conflate the activities of the violent thugs who tried to invade the Cenotaph and those of the marchers, some of whom were indeed peaceful, is also wrong. The fact is that 15 officers were injured at the Cenotaph, two of whom required hospital treatment, and my best wishes go to those officers. I think the police behaved entirely appropriately in dealing with the violence, and I seriously hope that they also deal with those marchers who were doing precisely the things that the noble Baroness has alleged they were not.

Black and Minority-ethnic Children: Police Strip-searches

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Uddin

Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I think I said at the end of my answer to my noble friend that the IOPC has also been asked to look at the more general legislative framework around this particular subject and to give us more comprehensive findings.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am absolutely gutted to hear the Minister respond to a question by saying that there must have been some reason. I am a child protection officer and have been a long-standing social worker, so I am all too aware of the issues around safeguarding—as the noble Lord should be, as a Home Office Minister. Can he say that he is either waiting for the review or that he has already taken the decision that there must have been a reason? It is either one or the other; it cannot possibly be both. I will make another point. Given what the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said, surely everything leads to the conclusion from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, that racial discrimination is endemic in the Met. Can the Minister answer?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I have to correct the record, because I did not say that there “must” be a reason; I said that I assumed that there was a good reason. To be absolutely clear, that is very different. I agree with many of the conclusions that the Children’s Commissioner has come up with—they seem to make a great deal of sense to me—but I would prefer to wait for the context of the various reviews that are being undertaken at the moment before giving a further opinion on this matter.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Baroness Uddin

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who always makes an outstanding and unique contribution to this House.

A joint statement by faith and civil society groups calls the Bill “sinister” and “un-British”—counterintuitive to our long-held tradition of welcome. The Bill is deemed pernicious in its intent, with troubling aspects resulting in inevitable breaches of international laws and conventions, including proposed offshore detention facilities, the revoking of citizenship without notice or appeal, and, appallingly, border officials being authorised to push back families to their inevitable consequential deaths.

The Bill stands accused of racism and a draconian misuse of power, supposedly for the public good. I understand the fear expressed in an infinite number of emails about many aspects of the Bill, particularly Clause 9, now exponentially fuelled by the explanations and questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. Clause 9 contradicts everything decent about adherence to international human rights law and will empower the Home Secretary and the Government to deprive an individual of citizenship without having to give notice if it is not “practicable” or in the “interests of national security” or the “public interest”, and without an opportunity for the individual to defend themselves, contradicting our basic right to stand innocent until proven guilty. With this Bill, the Government are saying to British citizens: “You are guilty, with no way of proving innocence.” This concern is exacerbated by what we know about the disgraceful treatment of British citizens of the Windrush generation, many of whom perished and suffered enormously without being able to prove their citizenship.

The Government refer to ambiguous terms of “national security” and “the public interest” to strengthen the discretionary powers of the Home Secretary and others in the Government and to justify actions that they are all too aware will breach international laws and conventions. We cannot allow the Government and the Home Secretary carte blanche with added discretionary powers, given what we know about the danger of discretion in handling protests, stop and search, and so on. Combined with the police Bill, the widening of discretionary and absolute powers by citing national security makes the Bill one of the most regressive, dangerous and dehumanising pieces of legislation proposed by this Government. Consequently, the Bill will directly affect two in every five people from a non-white ethnic minority background.

Leading law experts and women’s NGOs are equally vociferous in their concerns that the Bill undermines the Government’s own commitment to ending violence against women and girls, poses additional threats for victims and survivors with insecure immigration status, and shows a glaring lack of genuine insight into maintaining proper oversight of how legislation and policies affect all victims and survivors, regardless of their immigration status. Organisations including SafeLives, Women for Women Refugees and Rights of Women are fearful of the consequences for abused women and girls who may be held in detention centres without adequate information or access to legal services and safeguards.

We have debated, with wounds, the effect of Uighur detention centres, yet in the same breath have no qualms about proposing offshore centres that we decry as barbaric practice elsewhere, leaving aside the unreasonable expectation of extremely vulnerable people navigating an alien system to prove their case. Many may indeed languish in uncertainty as a consequence of reporting sexual violence, exploitation and abuse.

Will the Minister assure the House and external women’s organisations that the proposal for a firewall between the police and immigration services will be given serious consideration, given what she knows already about the danger of Immigration Enforcement’s migrant victims protocol for asylum claimants? Does she agree that this plainly two-tier system, albeit dependent on entry point, is inherently discriminatory and places particularly women and girls fleeing conflict zones in greater danger?

The Government’s claim of increasing

“the fairness of the system to better protect and support those in need of asylum”

is as utterly flawed as the ambition to deter illegal entry into the United Kingdom is fanciful. Have the Government defined what set of criteria constitute “reasonably practical” when deciding not to give notice of deprivation of nationality, given that a deliberate act to make a citizen stateless is prohibited under Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

We are witness to the genocidal brutalisation of the stateless Rohingya people of Myanmar. Have we learned nothing? Has our conscience been so lost as to emulate Myanmar’s arbitrary policy on citizenship? The effect of deterrence by any means necessary will allow rescue workers to “push back” families to their deaths. Watching children, women and men die in our waters and calling it a Nationality and Borders Bill is an affront to the rule of law and humanity, which we constantly claim in abundance in this Chamber.

Under the Bill, border security staff are being asked to breach our commitments to the refugee convention and, critically, duty of care law. Are we seriously asking our officials—

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Me again.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am nearly finished. Are we seriously asking our officials to watch as people die, which may be considered manslaughter by gross negligence in our English courtrooms?

Over generations the UK has contributed to destabilising many nations, most recently Afghanistan, and the same can be said for Iraq and countless African countries. What result did we expect when the UK and its allies dropped an average of 46 bombs a day—

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness did say she was nearly finished and she nearly is not.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in closing—