Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the debate entitled European Pact on Migration and Asylum, which took place at the Council of Europe between 24 and 28 January 2022; and what steps she plans to take to assess its conclusions.
Answered by Kevin Foster
A: The UK government is aware of the debate entitled European Pact on Migration and Asylum, during the recent session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and notes the resolution agreed by PACE on the EU’s Migration and Asylum Pact.
The UK Government is committed to increasing cooperation with European member states to strengthen borders and to deter secondary movement to the UK.
The Nationality and Borders Bill, which is currently before Parliament, will drive forward reform of the UK’s asylum system.
Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the debate on so-called honour crimes at the Council of Europe on 28 September 2021.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
So called 'honour’-based abuse (HBA) is a terrible form of abuse, and we are clear that we will not allow political or cultural sensitivities to get in the way of tackling it. No-one should suffer because of who they are or what community they are born into.
Our focus remains on preventing these crimes from happening, supporting and protecting survivors and those at risk, and bringing perpetrators to justice. The Home Office is providing up to £150,000 to the charity Karma Nirvana this year to run its national HBA helpline; between April and September 2021 the helpline provided assistance to 1,212 users of the service. The joint Home Office/Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Forced Marriage Unit has provided advice and support for thousands of victims of forced marriage and delivers regular training to police officers and social workers.
The Government’s recent Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy set out a number of further actions to tackle HBA, including that the Home Office will seek out community advocates who can talk to community audiences to explain why HBA practices are wrong, that the College of Policing will produce advice for police officers to advise both first responders and investigators on how to deal with cases of HBA, and that the Department for Health and Social Care will work to criminalise ‘virginity testing’ to send a clear message that this practice is wholly unacceptable in our society.
We welcome the insights communicated in the debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe last month. The Government pays close attention to the experiences of our international partners in tackling HBA and works closely with them in tackling it. For example, in 2018 the Government signed a protocol on female genital mutilation (FGM) with the United States to increase collaboration and the sharing of intelligence between the two countries. This enabled the UK and the United States to run Operation Limelight (a joint operation between border staff and the police which seeks to raise awareness of FGM and forced marriage at the border in order to safeguard potential victims) concurrently at several ports in the two countries.
Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the debate that took place at the Council of Europe on 30 September 2021 on the Convention on Cybercrime.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The Government strongly supports the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime as the leading international treaty on cybercrime. We also welcome the work of the Council of Europe to develop the Second Additional Protocol to the Convention, to ensure that the Convention remains effective if the face of changing threats in cyberspace, and that it continues to provide an effective legal basis for international cooperation to tackle these threats.