Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [HL]

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 26th October 2018 Lords Chamber

These amendments are minor and certainly technical in nature, and I commend them to the House. I beg to move.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD)]

My Lords, as we have heard, the Bill would insert a reference to Section 5A of, and Schedule 2 to, the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 into Section 8 of the Children Act 1989. By doing so, the Bill would amend the Children Act 1989 to state that proceedings under Section 5A of and Schedule 2 to the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 are “family proceedings”.

I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lady Featherstone for her long-standing commitment to fighting FGM. Unfortunately, she is not able to be in the Chamber today to speak in Committee, but I know that she very much supports the intents of the amendments.

We on these Benches are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for bringing this sensible and valuable change to the law, and to the Government for their backing. As we heard, these amendments are technical in nature, and we are very much supportive of them. It is vital that we continue the fight against this deplorable practice, and we should be using every tool available to us to ensure the safety of these young girls.

[Baroness Gale (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, said, these are technical amendments, and I am pleased that he was able to bring them before the House today. He explained in detail exactly what they mean, and there is little to add other than to say that we fully support them, and that we know that they will help to make this Bill a much better Act when it comes on to the statute book. I know that the Government will support this as well. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and I look forward to seeing this on the statute book very soon.