Fiona Mactaggart – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Fiona Mactaggart on 2016-03-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has recently discussed the Istanbul Convention with the (a) Welsh and (b) Scottish Government; and if she will make a statement.
Karen Bradley
The previous Government signed the Istanbul Convention to show the strong commitment it placed on tackling violence against women and girls and this Government remains committed to ratifying it.
The devolved administrations are responsible for implementing the obligations of the Convention in their territories and the Government continues to liaise with them about ratification.
The UK already complies with the vast majority of the Convention’s articles but further amendments to domestic law, to take extra-territorial jurisdiction over a range of offences (as required by Article 44), are necessary before the Convention can be ratified. The Ministry of Justice is currently considering the approach to implementing the extra-territorial jurisdiction requirements in England and Wales and will seek to legislate when the approach is agreed and Parliamentary time allows. Ministry of Justice officials have been in contact with their counterparts in the devolved administrations about the requirements of Article 44.
