Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of hate crime committed against Muslim women on the wellbeing of the Muslim community.
Answered by Jake Berry
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Dissolution.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many women have applied to become members of Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group (a) since it was first set up and (b) in the last 12 months.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The AMHWG was set up in 2012. In 2018 we launched the first open recruitment process to appoint members. During this process 24 women applied to be independent members. The Working Group is led by Ms Akeela Ahmed OBE, founder of a civil society platform dedicated to amplifying women’s voices, and we have appointed Ms Asma Ali, Data Protection Officer and Solicitor for the Police Service of Scotland. Ms Iman Abou Atta is an ex-officio member, as Director of Tell MAMA.
Asked by: Baroness Cox (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the ruling by the Grand Committee of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Molla Sali v. Greece on the application of sharia law, issued on 19 December 2018; what plans, if any, they have to (1) provide support to women and girls in the UK who suffer as a result of the application of sharia law, and (2) ensure that relevant vulnerable people are made aware of their rights in relation to the application of sharia law within the UK judicial system.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The Grand Chamber found that the difference of treatment suffered by the applicant, as a beneficiary of a will drawn up in accordance with the Greek Civil Code by a testator of Muslim faith, as compared to a beneficiary of a will drawn up in accordance with the Civil Code by a non-Muslim testator, had no objective and reasonable justification, contrary to the applicant’s rights under Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. The Government’s initial assessment is that the judgment does not affect inheritance law in England and Wales. Inheritance law in Scotland and Northern Ireland is a devolved matter.
People may choose to abide by the interpretation and application of Sharia principles if they wish to do so, provided their actions do not conflict with the national law. All individuals retain the right to seek a remedy through the English and Welsh courts in the event of a dispute, and the law of England and Wales in relation to the inheritance of property prevails.
The independent Sharia review was published in February 2018. The Government’s commitments in response, including supporting awareness raising campaigns with voluntary organisations, can be found in the Integrated Communities Strategy green paper published in March 2018.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Anti-Defamation League, Teaching Hate and Violence: Problematic Passages from Saudi State Textbooks for the 2018–19 School Year, published on 20 November, and in particular the highlighting of school text books in Saudi Arabia that promote hatred against Jews, Christians, women, other Muslim sects and homosexual men; and what representations they are making to the government of Saudi Arabia about this issue.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Saudi Arabia remains a Foreign and Commonwealth Office human rights priority country, particularly because of the use of the death penalty, women's rights and restrictions on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion and belief. We raise our concerns with the Saudi Arabian authorities using a range of ministerial and diplomatic channels of communication, including our Ambassador, the Embassy team and the European Union in Riyadh. A major component of Saudi Arabia’s V2030 is educational reform. As the Saudi Minister of Education recently commented this will take a number of years. In March we signed an MOU that will enable a partnership in developing educational curricula. Our bilateral relationship means we can engage constructively in a way that is sensitive to a country’s culture and history.
Asked by: Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether, and if so why, Muslim women are not progressing at the same rate as non-Muslim women in economic engagement and employment.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Race Disparity Audit, published in October 2017, revealed an unemployment gap between BME and White people. The Prime Minister committed local and national government to “explain or change” the disparities. We are committed to increasing BME employment by 20 per cent by 2020. We have made substantial progress, and we are now 71% towards this target.
Asked by: Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase the number of ethnic minority women, including Muslim women, occupying FTSE 100 finance chief roles.
Answered by Lord Henley
Diversity and inclusion in the boardroom and the workplace is a hugely important element of building an economy that works for all. The Government is committed to a cohesive society, where everyone – no matter what their background – has the opportunity to enter into and progress at work and achieve on merit.
Sir John Parker’s business-led review into ethnic minorities on FTSE boards published in November 2017, showed that only about 8% of FTSE 100 Directors were from an ethnic minority background, and just over 2% were British citizens from an ethnic minority background, compared to the 14% of the UK population. That is why Government supports and has been promoting the recommendation made by Sir John that all FTSE 100 companies should have at least one director of colour by 2021.
We are supporting the Hampton-Alexander Review to meet their targets of women holding 33% of senior leadership positions and 33% of board positions in the FTSE 350, by 2020. We are also supporting the Women in Finance Review Charter, which commits firms to support the progression of women into senior roles in the financial services by focusing on the executive pipeline and publicly reporting on progress against internal targets.
Asked by: Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the average length of sentence for (1) Muslim, and (2) non-Muslim women convicted under any terrorism legislation since 2010.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
It is not possible to determine the average sentence length of a cohort that includes indeterminate sentences. The Home Office releases statistics quarterly on The Operation of Police Powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 and subsequent legislation. The most recent publication was released on 14 June 2018 and includes public statistics relating to sentence length of all offenders convicted under this Act since 2009-10 until 2017-18. These can be found using the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/716000/police-powers-terrorism-mar2018-hosb0918.pdf.
Asked by: Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) Muslim, and (2) non-Muslim women have been remanded or convicted under any terrorism legislation since 2010.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
28 women have been remanded or convicted under terrorism legislation since 2010. Of these, 27 were Muslim and 1 was non-Muslim.
Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of women of Muslim faith in prison on 1 October 2017.
Answered by Phillip Lee
According to published figures, as of 30 September 2017 there were 254 Muslim women in prison.
This is the closest published data to the requested date. We publish end of month prison population figures broken down by religion and sex quarterly, and the statistics can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-figures-2017.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department's policies of the conclusions of the Tell MAMA Annual Report for 2016 on Anti-Muslim Hatred on the gender of victims and the majority identity of perpetrators of such hatred.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
We take hate crime in all its forms very seriously: the United Kingdom has some of the strongest hate crime legislation in the world. The statistical breakdowns provided by Tell MAMA give an invaluable insight into the extent and nature of the deplorable abuse which Muslim citizens are subjected to on account of their belief or appearance. It is notable that most reported offline incidents of anti-Muslim hatred involve male perpetrators and that the majority of victims of offline incidents are women, most of whom are visibly Muslim. The Government has committed funding of £100 million to counter violence against women and girls with prosecutions and convictions for such offences rising 63 per cent since 2007-08.
This Government has done more than any other to tackle anti-Muslim hatred. We set up the first ever cross-government working group on anti-Muslim hatred. We have funded Tell MAMA, the first service to record incidents, support victims and raise community awareness of how to report anti-Muslim hate incidents. We are also disaggregating religious hate crime data held by the police to reveal the true scale and nature of the problem. Funding has been made available for the security of mosques and other faith establishments.