Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Victoria Prentis and Rupa Huq(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Attorney General
I know that the hon. Lady cares very deeply about this region—she and I have visited it together. I reassure her that my discussions with those I met, both in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, were very frank, and I am confident that our messages were delivered clearly. I made clear the importance of international humanitarian law being respected, civilians being protected, and compliance with the Geneva conventions when it comes to detainees.
Dr Huq
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), has stated that the Government respect the ICJ’s independence and role, but do not think that its ruling of plausible genocide was helpful. Given the forcible displacement taking place, the demolition of homes and structures, the near famine in Gaza, and the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied west bank worsening daily, how does the Attorney General—who has seen all this stuff with her own eyes—propose to uphold international law before it is too late?
The Attorney General
The hon. Lady and I served on the Justice Committee together, and I know that she shares my deep feeling that we must do everything we can to make sure that international humanitarian law is respected in the region. The UK has repeatedly raised with Israel the need to limit operations to military targets, to protect health facilities, and to avoid harming civilians. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have repeatedly raised those matters with their counterparts.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Victoria Prentis and Rupa Huq(10 months, 1 week ago)
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The Attorney General (Victoria Prentis)
We are steadily increasing the number of rape cases sent to the Crown court. We are preparing to launch a joint justice plan, which will transform how the police and the Crown Prosecution Service investigate and prosecute domestic abuse cases.
I will welcome my friend Andriy Kostin, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General, who is not quite here yet because his plane has not arrived, in my office after questions. The relevance of that is that a team of UK experts is supporting his office to investigate and prosecute cases of conflict-related sexual violence in Ukraine.
Dr Huq
Last July, the then Solicitor General, the hon. and learned Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), told the House, in a written answer to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon):
“A new VAWG strategy for 2023-2025 is being developed for publication later this year.”
That year has come and gone, as has that Solicitor General, so can the Attorney General tell us the status of the strategy and its content, who the Government are consulting, and when it will be published?
The Attorney General
The hon. Lady takes a long-term interest in these affairs, and she I have discussed them for many years. I reassure her that a great deal of work has been done. The work in the rape sphere, which I referenced earlier, is very commendable. After having a really difficult time in prosecuting rapes for many years, we are back up to 2016 levels, and indeed are exceeding them. The joint justice plan, which will build on the rape work in the domestic abuse sphere, will be ready very shortly—we are saying “in the spring”, but I think she will have to wait only a few weeks.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Victoria Prentis and Rupa Huq(1 year, 6 months ago)
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The Attorney General (Victoria Prentis)
Tackling violence against women and girls remains one of the Government’s top priorities. We are doing everything possible to make our streets and homes safer for women and girls. Since the launch of the joint action plan, we have seen a significant increase in charge volumes for adult rape since January 2021.
Dr Huq
More than one in nine rape prosecutions were dropped last year because victims withdrew their support, crushed by what can be a three-year wait for their day in court and the humiliation of victim blaming. Will the Attorney General fix those problems and accept the joint inspectorate’s conclusions that the system is obviously failing rape victims when many of them find the legal process overlong and more harrowing than the original offence?
The Attorney General
I thank the hon. Lady for her interest in this matter; it is something she and I discussed for many years as colleagues on the Justice Committee. We know it is important that justice is given as speedily as possible. Digging into the attrition of victims, particularly in rape cases, is very salutary. It is one reason why the Government have increased the money available to support victims fourfold in recent times. On the law tour next week, which the Solicitor General referred to, we will be visiting an independent sexual violence adviser in Nottingham. We know that, where a victim has support, they are 50% less likely to withdraw from proceedings.
Marriage Registration Certificates
Debate between Victoria Prentis and Rupa Huq(8 years, 12 months ago)
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Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady, and to speak in this debate, which we are all grateful to the Second Church Estates Commissioner, my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), for securing. I should probably declare an interest, given that two members of my staff intend to get married—not to each other—in the next year, so I was under a certain amount of pressure to attend this debate. We talk of nothing but wedding dresses in the office.
It is almost 19 years since I married my husband on a cold and frosty December day. Since then, the idea of marriage has evolved considerably, but it remains important to many of us. It is noticeable that the mothers in this debate—I hesitate to call it “the audience”—go particularly shiny-eyed when we talk about our daughters getting married. As the mother of a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old, I am already thinking of those happy days that I hope will happen one day—but not too soon.
We should recognise that families today look very different to how they looked even 20 years ago, when I thought about getting married, and extremely different to how they looked two centuries ago, so I will focus on how we adapt to that change.
Dr Huq
I did not declare my interest as a mother before; I do so now.
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point that the constitution of families has changed dramatically. Is she aware that, according to Gingerbread, there are now 2 million single parent households, which is 25% of all families with children, and 90% of those single parents are women? Given those figures, this erasing of women from history, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) has called it, seems even more anomalous.
Victoria Prentis
The hon. Lady makes a point that I will come on to shortly.
First, however, I will again quote the Prime Minister, from his speech to the Relationships Alliance summit, which I referred to earlier. He said:
“We all know that a strong family begins with a strong relationship between two loving people who make a deep and lasting commitment to each other…in Britain we recognise and value the commitment that people make to each other. And that’s just as vital whether the commitment is between a man and a woman, a man and a man or a woman and another woman.”
As we have heard from other Members this afternoon, it was in that same speech that the Prime Minister announced plans to address the “inequality in marriage”, to enable mothers’ names to be included on marriage certificates as well as fathers’ names.
I have discussed this issue at length with one of my constituents, who has been in a relationship for a considerable time; in fact, we are all eagerly awaiting her engagement as well. She pointed out that she is estranged from her father, who subjected her and her siblings to sexual abuse over a number of years, and has not seen him since she was 10. As a result, she would not want his name to be included on her own marriage certificate.
I looked into this matter and I understand from guidance from the General Register Office and from my own diocese in Oxford that
“If either party does not wish to put their father’s details in the Register or they do not know who their father is, you should not put ‘unknown’ or leave the column blank. You should put a horizontal line through both columns to show that no information was given.”
Although that would reflect in some ways my constituent’s wishes, it would also mean that there would be no mention of her mother, who understandably had to act as both mother and father to her during the very difficult circumstances of her upbringing. I feel strongly that a marriage certificate should recognise such a scenario.