Female Genital Mutilation

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. The study we have commissioned is looking at what needs to be done to collect further data. We are looking at establishing a pilot scheme to look at the health service, the police, the Ministry of Justice and other data collection points to ensure we get the proper picture of FGM instances.

The noble Lord is right that many women and children are transported abroad for this. I am sure he will be aware that Operation Limelight is an ongoing operation to target inbound and outbound traffic to and from countries with a high prevalence of FGM. It is both raising awareness about the crime and following up where leads are in place to ensure that people do not leave the country for that trafficking purpose.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I disagree with the previous questioner: the NHS data is extraordinarily helpful. It says that, of the known cases, less than 9% are adults and all the rest are children, but by the first time they are seen in the NHS, 98.9% are adults and aged over 18. What is the Home Office doing, along with the NHS, to ensure that word is out in the various communities—not just the Muslim community—that perpetrate FGM? It is important that those two services are joined up.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. One of the key things we need to do is ensure that those people who perpetrate FGM and encourage others to do so are held to account. That is why I again point to the prosecution figures and to the information collected by the National Health Service, because, again, someone only goes to the National Health Service when they have already been offended against. Those are both important issues, and the purpose of the policy study we are undertaking is to gather more information. Again, it is important that we have a proper definition of FGM and honour-based abuse. We are currently looking at that with other government departments to come to some conclusions in, I hope, the relatively near future.