Female Genital Mutilation

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Karl Turner]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who has raised the issue on several occasions in the House. She is absolutely right that the police need to do much more, and they need to work with other authorities.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I am pleased and grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing today’s debate. To pick up on that last point, there is one thing that the police need to think about. There was a recent and well-known exposé in a major national paper. Some hon. Members were present at the annual general meeting of the all-party group on female genital mutilation when the Director of Public Prosecutions explained that prosecutions were not possible on the back of that exposé. However, the idea of going after the aiders and abettors, for which the 2003 Act more than makes provision, is one thing that we need more heft behind, because it is obviously a more promising route than trying to get children to report their parents.

[Karl Turner]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. I had the opportunity through Hilary Burrage, who has campaigned tirelessly on female genital mutilation, to meet the leading French prosecutor. What the hon. Lady suggests is exactly the action being taken in France. Working in that way clearly helps to prevent perpetrators from committing the offence.

I am pleased that we now have a victims commissioner. It is not a party-political point, but it has taken at least 12 months for that to happen. I am sure that Baroness Newlove will do an excellent job and continue the good work of Louise Casey. I want to know the Minister’s thoughts on how much the victims commissioner should prioritise female genital mutilation.

Over recent months, we have heard many positive words, but I am concerned that positive words are not reducing the shocking number of victims on the ground or delivering the justice that victims deserve. The NSPCC rightly states that preventing future victims should remain a priority, but we need to see justice for the 50 victims who will suffer the abuse this very day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karl Turner]

I do have views, and my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. She has raised the matter in the House on numerous occasions. An issue that follows from that is the obvious lack of data collection. It is accepted that robust data collection and assessment of the problem are urgently needed. A Government equality impact assessment was published last year and stated:

“Lack of data is an ongoing issue in the government’s work to prevent and tackle FGM.”

It will be impossible to tackle the problem without robust systems in place to identify its true level and at-risk children. I am pleased that this is now a priority in the Crown Prosecution Service’s action plan, but the Home Office assessment said that a large-scale community-based study would have a very high cost, and that the Department will continue to examine alternative options and to consider how existing data may capture information about FGM.

[Jane Ellison]

I apologise for intervening again. On that specific point, the House may like to know that nearly a year ago Quality Now! led a Home Office-funded two-day expert methodological workshop. It made specific recommendations on how robust data could be gathered in ways that would be less expensive than those that the hon. Gentleman described. That report and the recommendations have been sitting in the Home Office for almost a year. It is good that it funded the original workshop, but a plan exists and could be funded cross-departmentally to get us away from relying on data that are extrapolated from the 2001 census. Hon. Members will be aware of how much Britain’s demography has changed since the 2001 census.

[Karl Turner]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. She is more expert in the matter than I am, and has raised the issue consistently since being elected to the House. I welcome her thoughts on the issue.

I have said previously that the Crown Prosecution Service action plan is a step in the right direction, and I welcome it, but I would be interested to know whether the Director of Public Prosecutions believes that current legislation should be reviewed, and whether evidence to prosecute under other legislation is easier to support. The CPS action plan is not the silver bullet. We need a national action plan—an integrated cross-departmental plan—that is adequately funded to stop this despicable crime.

I am concerned that for many years there has been interdepartmental buck passing. When I say that the issue is not party political, I mean that sincerely. The reality is that the previous Government failed dreadfully in tackling the issue. They had 13 years in which to take the matter on, and since then the current Government have not done a lot. We must have a national action plan because the issue needs strong political will, not just warm words.

Given that this crime produces 20,000 victims every year, I suggest that the Minister’s Department has a single Minister with specific responsibility for providing justice to victims. As the NSPCC rightly states, female genital mutilation is a form of physical child abuse that should be dealt with through the child protection system. Reticence or failure to intervene effectively is not acceptable in other instances of child abuse, nor should it be in the case of FGM. We need a standardised FGM data collection policy. I wholeheartedly welcome last month’s landmark passing of the UN resolution calling for a global ban on FGM, and I hope that the UK will now act on the issue with focused priority.

Finally, I suggest that statutory teaching of sex education in primary school may assist in helping to eradicate this vile practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Grant]

I would disagree, but obviously, the adequacy of the law is something that we will always keep under review. I know that the Director of Public Prosecutions has had conversations with the Home Office and Ministry of Justice officials—I think the hon. Gentleman is aware of those—on the effectiveness of the law, and whether new laws or other legislation, such as the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims (Amendment) Act 2012, might help in those areas. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the matter will be kept under review, but I will discuss a number of other things in my speech that can be done in the interim.

[Jane Ellison]

The Minister may well be moving on to this point, but I just want to agree with what the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) said. If the police wanted to go after the people who were organising this, they could. I hope that the Minister will address in her remaining comments the fact that, ultimately, there is a lack of will. We all know that children are not going to report it. They are too young. They are not going to report their parents, but people are setting up the travel and the medical care when the children get back, and they are meeting them at the other end. Where there is a will, there is a way. This has been held back by some misguided notion that it would be racist to pursue the issue. It is racist not to. If these girls were white middle-class children, we would be protecting them a lot better than we are now.

[Mrs Grant]

I hear everything that my hon. Friend has to say, and I am aware that she knows a considerable amount about the matter. I do not accept that there is a lack of will, but I hear what she has to say, and I will make sure that as much action as possible is taken to deal with the issues that she highlighted.

I very much welcome the action plan that the Director of Public Prosecutions published recently, with a view to bringing a successful prosecution for female genital mutilation. The willingness of victims and others to come forward and give evidence in court is crucial. We need to create a climate in which victims, and those close to them, feel able to report offences to the police and to receive the help and support that they need to give evidence, so that perpetrators of this unacceptable, dreadful practice can be brought to justice.

Of course, the law is only one part of tackling the problem of female genital mutilation in this country, and prosecution after the fact does not relieve the victim from a lifetime of pain and discomfort. Ideally, we want to prevent the mutilation from happening in the first place. We need to educate people and change their attitudes— sometimes long-established attitudes. A holistic approach and a multi-agency response are vital.