Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 24th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way with regard to his new clause 10, but I wonder whether he has thought through the constitutional implications of allowing a vote in this House to have any formal standing when it is neither a statutory instrument nor primary legislation. Would that not risk bringing the courts into the proceedings in Parliament?

[Philip Davies]

I always bow to my hon. Friend’s superior knowledge of constitutional issues. I would never enter into a competition with him on that, because I would certainly lose. However, I do not think there is anything to fear from new clause 10. All it asks for is a debate on the report in Parliament before the Government give a response. It would not even necessarily make the Government beholden to the outcome of that debate, but it would at least ensure the Government were aware of the views of MPs before they responded.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. How would that be tested? If the Government decided not to have a debate in Parliament, it could not be taken to a judicial review, because the courts could not consider a proceeding in Parliament.

[Philip Davies]

There is plenty of evidence of Governments ignoring what Parliament has to say to them on a number of occasions, whether on appointments, Select Committees or whatever. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s concerns and I always take them seriously. I will reflect on what others have to say in the debate; they may be able to persuade me that new clause 10 is not worth pursuing. However, I do not envisage the problems my hon. Friend envisages. I suppose we ought just to leave it at that and perhaps move on from there. My hon. Friend may well have the opportunity to have his say and explain in greater detail why new clause 10 should be resisted. I am sure the House will listen carefully to what he says, as will I. It would be a sad—and rare—state of affairs if I found myself voting in a different Lobby from my hon. Friend. New clause 10 should find favour with campaigners in favour of the Bill and the convention, because it gives Parliament more say over what happens post-ratification.

New clause 11 relates to annual statistics. This is very important. I have heard many assertions from campaigners that we must pass the Istanbul convention to eliminate violence against women, and that if we do not ratify it we will not have any reduction in violence against women. Campaigners say that if we pass the convention there will miraculously be no violence against women. New clause 11 requires the Government to use their

“best endeavours to obtain statistics on the levels of violence against men, women and all domestic violence victims in each country who are ratified members of the Convention and to make them publicly available and published annually.”

The point of that is to allow us all to see for ourselves whether ratifying the Istanbul convention actually makes any difference at all to levels of violence against women and levels of domestic violence. At the moment, we do not really know too much about it.

In preparation for this debate, I tried to get figures on countries that have ratified the convention to ask them if they had seen a reduction in violence since ratification. We should want to test whether it will actually make any difference at all. Unfortunately, the House of Commons Library told me that it did not have any such figures and that these figures did not exist. So anybody who stands up today and says that passing the Istanbul convention will reduce levels of violence against women is doing so in the full knowledge that they have no evidence at all to support that claim—unless, of course, they have done what I did. In the absence of any House of Commons Library figures, I wrote to the ambassadors of all the countries who ratified the convention to ask whether they could supply me with any of the information.

I do not know whether anybody else in the House has actually bothered to find out whether ratifying the convention makes any difference to levels of violence against women. Perhaps anybody who has done so could intervene now and share that information with me. No, I did not think anybody would intervene. I did not think that anyone would actually have any idea of what they were talking about before they came here today, but of course someone coming in on a Friday and knowing what they were talking about before pontificating would be breaking a great tradition. I have done the work for them—again. I contacted the ambassadors of the countries that have ratified the convention and asked for their figures. I am sure everyone will be interested to know what has happened in those countries since ratification. I am sure the Minister will be delighted to know. Maybe the Minister does not know this either. It is quite extraordinary, really.

Sweden signed the convention in May 2011 and ratified it in July 2014. It came into force in November 2014, with reservations. I will come on to reservations later, because I know that is a subject my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch feels very strongly about. From the figures given to me by the Swedish ambassador, the total number of reported offences in 2013, before the convention was ratified in Sweden, was 39,580. When the convention came into force it was 42,217. In 2015, after ratification, it went up to 42,252. The preliminary figures for 2016 show another increase in violence, with reported offences at 43,179. The offences included in this category—I am very grateful to the Swedish ambassador for sending this very detailed information—are all forms of assault, murder and rape, including attempted rape, regardless of the victim’s age. In Sweden, therefore, ratification of the Istanbul convention has not made a blind bit of difference to levels of violence against women. In fact, all that has happened is that levels of violence have continued to increase. What do all those who claim that the convention is essential to reducing violence have to say about that? Absolutely nothing—that is what they have got to say about it.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I wonder whether there might be other factors involved. My hon. Friend will no doubt have heard the President of the United States expressing considerable concern about the dangers now arising in Sweden.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I do not intend to deviate too much from the matter in hand, but he raises an interesting point about what might be the driving force behind that. I think the point he is getting at is that he thinks the levels and nature of immigration into Sweden might have been a contributory factor—a point made by President Trump last week. There may well be truth in that. I do not know; I did not ask the ambassador for any assessment on that. All we do know is that ratifying the Istanbul convention has not led to a decrease in violence against women in Sweden, and so all the people claiming that that is what is going to happen might want to think again.