Business of the House

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government are considering a number of ways of tackling knife crime, including having additional police, increasing stop-and-search powers and revisiting sentencing, to ensure that people who commit the most serious offences spend longer in prison.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Last year, Huma Younus, a 14-year-old Pakistani Catholic girl, was one of an estimated 1,000 young girls, mainly from Christian and Hindi communities, who was kidnapped, forced to convert and made to marry an older man. Last month, the high court in Karachi told Huma’s distraught parents that because she had had her first menstrual cycle her marriage was, in its eyes, legal. So, on the eve of International Women’s Day, may I ask the Government to raise Huma’s case with the Pakistani authorities? May we also have a Government statement to reassure this House that those in receipt of UK aid money are protecting children such as Huma?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There was a debate in Government time on the issue of the persecution of Christians. We raise that issue regularly with foreign Governments in respect of the treatment of their nationals and the protection of women’s rights. The overseas aid budget is committed to doing that. These issues are well raised on the Floor of this House in order to remind the Government to raise them with the relevant Governments.