Women’s National Commission

Baroness Gould of Potternewton Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, we have an excellent UN ambassador in New York. We also have our own Minister, Lynne Featherstone, who leads on all our international issues overseas, so we have really good representation. In fact, we had the largest contingent at the last CSW session.

[Baroness Gould of Potternewton]

My Lords, one of the strengths of the Women’s National Commission as a representative body of over 670 organisations was that it was able to deal with specific issues. As the Olympics are almost upon us, what action have the Government taken to follow up the extremely valuable work done by the Women’s National Commission, along with the Metropolitan Police and the London boroughs, to reduce the level of trafficking in order to reduce the level of prostitution during the Olympics? Will the Minister tell us what action was taken and the outcome of that action?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises concerns that we also have about the trafficking of women, but I reassure her that all these considerations have been taken into account. We are working across government on these issues. Would the noble Baroness allow me to give her and the House a fuller answer by writing to her? There are a number of areas that we are looking at and working on and it would be helpful to the House.