Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office written question – answered at on 17 July 2026.
Tan Dhesi
Chair, Defence Committee
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.
Hamish Falconer
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
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).
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
