Mahsa Amini

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Gillian Keegan

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

As I outlined to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), we cannot comment on this action or on any future discussions that may take place.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Today is the International Day of the Girl and, of course, everybody in this Chamber stands firm against the violent oppression of women in Iran. We have seen similar brutality in other countries such as Afghanistan, where the Taliban have cracked down on gender-based rights and where 53 Hazara girls were recently killed in a terrorist attack. Many women and girls wish to flee these violent regimes for their own safety. Will the Minister support women in Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere by creating a dedicated UK asylum and resettlement route for women at risk of persecution solely for asserting the rights that we take for granted?

[Gillian Keegan]

We continue to work closely with like-minded partners to ensure that Iran and other countries are held to account, including via the Human Rights Council in Geneva and the UN General Assembly in New York. Our permanent representative in Geneva, Ambassador Simon Manley, specifically raised the death of Mahsa Amini at the 51st session of the Human Rights Council, and he called on Iran to carry out an independent transparent investigation into her death. We joined 52 other countries in a joint statement to the Human Rights Council urging restraint. Of course, we will continue to work with those partners when we see human rights abuses in other countries.

Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Gillian Keegan

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Q We are, as a Committee, concerned about overly criminalising children, but none the less would you feel that that same fear is there for adults as well?

Lisa Hallgarten: That may well be true. With any law, you want to ensure that it is not counterproductive. If people are less likely to point their finger at a perpetrator or to report an incident because they think it is inappropriate for the person who did it to be potentially imprisoned, that is something I suppose you would want to take into account in creating law. Young people especially do not want to criminalise their peers. They do want this to be taken seriously, but that is not necessarily the same thing.

[Gillian Keegan (Chichester) (Con)]

Q Thank you so much for coming. We have been hearing a lot about how one of the powers of this Bill is the prevention side through education, and it is helpful to have that laid out with your expertise. One of the things on which different witnesses have given us different information is how to get that balance right, while protecting children and victims, between a school child who has just made a bad judgment and has maybe not been educated correctly versus somebody who is a serial criminal. The police have described how they and the Crown Prosecution Service take each case on the merits to some degree, but do you think we get the balance right in this Bill? It is incredibly difficult to do that, and we have had people who say, “Well, it is the same to the victim.” Do you think we are getting the balance right here?

Lisa Hallgarten: I wonder whether it is the same to a victim, actually. Every incident is very particular. Some women would think, “That person is pathetic and sad,” and other people would feel really invaded and offended and harassed by the experience. For each woman it will be different. There is no perfect law that will address every victim’s experience of this.

I do not have the Bill in front of me, I am sorry to say, but I did not see anything about a prosecution being in the public interest. I know that in terms of sharing sexual images and the guidance to police on whether to prosecute, there is something about whether prosecution is in the public interest. For a lot of young people, it would not be in the public interest. It would be in the public interest to teach children not to behave that way in the first place. I am not sure whether the Bill is the place to address that, but certainly it needs to be addressed. Prosecution should not be automatic and it should be taken into account that a young person’s life could be ruined for something that was genuinely a spontaneous moment of stupidity. We would not want that to happen.

Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Gillian Keegan

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Gillian Keegan (Chichester) (Con)]

Q I want to thank you specifically, because I had not heard of upskirting until you started this campaign. I think a lot of people in the country are much more aware of it now. Until I started reading this, I had not heard of down-blousing either. What is your view on down-blousing and including it in the Bill? Is it a similar offence and intrusion to upskirting? Is it as popular? Is it happening at festivals, as we speak?

Gina Martin: I have heard about it. My personal experience is that all of the hundreds and hundreds of stories that have come to me over the past year have been about upskirting. I have not received that many stories about down-blousing. I do not know why that is. Of course, I think it is horrible. I would like to see a million things sorted out and prosecuted against. This being an upskirting Bill, I have to focus on that issue, but thank you for raising it.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Q Gina, thank you for coming before us today. I know what you have gone through.

I understand that you want to see something move as quickly as possible. There are concerns that legislation that is made in haste is not necessarily always effective. We have had examples of that in the past. Would you consider that it is important that we are as thorough as possible in taking evidence and in looking at ways of making this piece of legislation as robust as possible, with as few loopholes as possible?

Gina Martin: Yes, of course I would.