Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:03 pm on 16 December 2016.

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Photo of Brandon Lewis Brandon Lewis Minister of State (Home Office) (Policing and the Fire Service) 12:03, 16 December 2016

As I said, a range of areas, including murder, sexual offences against children, forced marriage and female genital mutilation, are already covered. The whole point is that we need to look carefully at what is covered by extra-territorial jurisdiction before we take a step further in that regard.

We have carefully considered this Bill and we support its key principles, which place a duty on the Government to take all reasonable steps to enable us to become compliant with the convention, and require the Government to lay before Parliament a report setting out the steps to be taken to enable us to ratify the convention and to make an annual report to Parliament, as the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan outlined in her opening speech, on the measures taken forward to enable the UK to ratify the convention, including any legislative proposals, and post-ratification any measures to ensure we remain compliant.

As I have made clear—and as my hon. Friend Dr Mathias also made clear in her powerful speech—we are committed to ratifying the convention, and in principle therefore we welcome this Bill. However, there are some aspects of it which we will need to consider carefully. As Members will appreciate, the Istanbul convention applies to the whole of the UK, and it covers areas which are devolved, such as crime and criminal justice matters. I am therefore keen to ensure that we have appropriate time to consult more fully with the devolved Administrations on the measures in this Bill. In particular, the Government have concerns about the timescale put forward in clause 2, which would require the Government to lay a report that includes the date within four weeks of the Bill receiving Royal Assent by which we expect the UK to be able to ratify the convention. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan mentioned areas that could be considered for extra-territorial jurisdiction. Any new ETJ provision will require primary legislation in Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as England and Wales, and I therefore have some reservations about the four-week timescale.

In addition, clause 3(1)(e) would require the Government to lay an annual report post-ratification which set out the UK’s ongoing compliance with the convention. As Members may be aware, once we have ratified the convention we will be required to provide updates to the Council of Europe on compliance. This clause risks duplicating that existing requirement.