Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions her Department has had with participating European countries regarding compliance with obligations under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

The Government takes International Parental Child Abduction (IPCA) extremely seriously. For example, the Foreign Secretary raised IPCA with her Polish counterpart on 25 June 2026, and our Embassy in Bucharest convened a working group focused on improving implementation of return orders under the 1980 Hague Convention in April. While compliance with Convention obligations ultimately rests with the authorities in the country where the child is located, we will continue to work with our European counterparts to improve the enforcement of return orders, as we set out in the Westminster Hall debate on 28 April 2026 (28 April 2026, International Parental Child Abduction, Westminster Hall, column 315WH).