Female Genital Mutilation

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dobbs]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how many cases of female genital mutilation have been reported in the past 10 years, and how many cases have been prosecuted.

[The Attorney-General (Lord Hermer) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his Question, and I know that this is not the first time he has raised this very important issue before your Lordships’ House. The Home Office began collating data on a mandatory basis in April 2019. Since then, there have been 350 FGM offences recorded by the police. We have, though, only seen three convictions. Notwithstanding the complexities inherent in prosecuting these cases, the disparity between police reporting and successful prosecution rates is extremely concerning. We are determined to ensure that all the levers within the criminal justice system are utilised to increase accountability for this abhorrent crime.

But the response cannot lie just within the criminal justice system. The extent and complexity of FGM in our society means that we must address it in a multi-agency approach, not least through education and healthcare. That is why, for example, in healthcare we now have FGM clinics, which are mainstreamed in the NHS, and it is why at the borders we have a forced marriage unit on hand when victims are at risk of being taken abroad. It is also why we have had over 50,000 frontline staff undertake e-training in the last year. But the data shows, and the noble Lord’s Question raises the point, that there is much more to be done.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that information and his very encouraging response. Female genital mutilation means cutting off a young girl’s clitoris. It usually happens in a back room off some back street. It is being inflicted on thousands of children every year and yet, in 50 years, as the noble and learned Lord suggested, there have been only three convictions. Like the Post Office, bad-blood and grooming-gangs scandals, people will, rightly, in a few years’ time, demand, “Why was nothing done when we had the opportunity?” So, I am very glad to hear what the Minister says. It is not the Minister’s fault; clearly, it is not—we all bear a degree of shame for this past record. Will he encourage the setting up of a task force, to report very quickly, whose objective will be to increase the number of prosecutions and convictions? Without successful prosecutions and convictions, we will still be failing thousands of innocent children.

[Lord Hermer (Lab)]

I can reassure the noble Lord that I am determined to work with the Crown Prosecution Service, which I superintend, to increase the rate of prosecutions. I am determined we do that in a joined-up way, together with other parts of government and arm’s-length bodies, to ensure there is a whole-system approach to this abhorrent practice.