Schedule 7 - Minor and consequential amendments
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [Lords]
9:45 am
Mrs Ann Cryer (Keighley, Labour)
As a well meaning reader of The Guardian, I think that the Evening Standard probably got it right in that there were 120 deaths throughout the country. Many of them occurred in the Met area, but there were also cases from throughout the country.
On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth, when the Department for Constitutional Affairs was the Lord Chancellor's Department, the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie), held a range of meetings across the country, particularly in areas where there are ethnic communities. Certainly, a meeting was arranged in Brentford and in Bradford. That is where I came across the formidable District Judge Marilyn Mornington. It was she who had the idea of creating a criminal offence. She comes across many problems relating to the issue and she felt that the creation of a
specific criminal offence would be a step in the right direction.
Of course we have to consult the communities, but let us talk to women, too, and not just to so-called community leaders. I remember a time in Bradford when if the local authority was asked to consult the community, it meant a particular council official picking up the phone and ringing five named persons in the Pakistani community. That was consultation. We do not want to go down that path. The meetings that the Lord Chancellor's Department organised were excellent. People from all over the country were there, and I met a group of women from Sahela in Cardiff who had some good information.
Shortly after the report of the group looking into forced marriages was published, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office set up the FCO community liaison unit with the help of the Home Office. There, a group of people—mainly women—have a hotline for girls in difficulties who either are about to be, or have been, forced to marry. It does some wonderful work. With the combined help of the FCO community liaison unit, our high commissions, MPs who help girls individually, social services, and, in particular, police forces, such as West Yorkshire police, we are moving in the right direction, but what we are not doing is stopping the practice; it is continuing apace. We are simply helping girls in awful situations, but once a girl has been forced into a marriage, her life is in tatters, no matter what we as a society do to help her. For the rest of her life, she is practically cut off from her community and family. Frequently, she even banned from seeing her brothers and sisters.
I readily withdraw my amendment, but I hope that the Minister will take into account everything that has been said this morning, particularly about consultation with the community. We must remember that there are women out there who are suffering, so we must listen to what they have to say. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 7, as amended, agreed to.