Violence against Women

Lord Boswell of Aynho Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I cannot take the noble Baroness much further than saying that the consultation on forced marriage will end on 30 March. We will obviously have to respond after that and consider—as the Prime Minister made quite clear last year—whether forced marriage should become a criminal offence in itself. However, we also have to look at other issues, particularly whether extra-territorial jurisdiction should be extended. There are very real problems in that area. The simple fact is that we can only sign up to the convention as a whole—we cannot sign up to it in part. Until we can get decisions on all parts of it, we will not be in a position to sign up. However, I make it quite clear to the noble Baroness that we broadly support the intention behind the convention.

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, we currently have the chairmanship of the Council of Ministers in the Council of Europe, and this issue affects and concerns noble Peers across all sides of the House and is widespread in this and other countries. Would it not be a wonderful opportunity, despite the reservations that my noble friend has rightly announced, to get on with this and get our signature on the paper before we leave the chair of that excellent organisation?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we would like to make progress on this, but the concerns, particularly in relation to extra-territorial jurisdiction, are very real indeed. My noble friend will be aware that, at the moment, we believe that extra-territorial jurisdiction should apply only to very serious crimes such as murder or torture. To sign up to this, we would have to change the law to make it cover such matters as common assault or harassment. We do not think that that is necessarily the right way to go about these things. However, colleagues in the Ministry of Justice will certainly look at these issues.