Oral evidence: Female genital mutilation , HC 1091Tuesday 29 April 2014

Oral evidence, 29 April 2014.

Witnesses

Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley QPM, Metropolitan Police Service, and Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Niven, Metropolitan Police Service, gave evidence.

Chair

I welcome Assistant Commissioner Rowley and Chief Superintendent Niven. First, there are two matters that are not related to FGM. Mr Rowley, the last time you came before us was over the Duggan issue and you were planning to meet the family and try to resolve issues. Did that ever happen and are you happy that everything has been done to close that issue once and for all?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

That offer remains open. The family have not wanted to meet myself or the Commissioner at this stage.

Chair

But you have made that offer to them?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

Yes, and the offer remains open still.

Chair

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven, you also head Operation Yewtree, I understand.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

Yes, that is true.

Chair

You have just successfully had your first prosecution and conviction.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

Yes, that is true as well.

Chair

Are you pleased you have at last got a conviction?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

I am pleased for the victims that they have finally seen justice, and rightfully so.

Chair

The last figures we had on Yewtree—and as you know the Committee is following this carefully—show that there is a cost of £3.75 million, 40 members of staff and 9.5 agency staff, 16 arrests, four people charged and now one conviction. Are there any updated figures you have for this Committee?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

Not at the moment, but there is still quite a lot of work to go through. There has been a lot of data and a lot of referrals come through to us, not only about Jimmy Savile, but others as well. We continue to do that and provide a service to the victims who have bravely come forward.

Chair

Are there any more resources you need from the Home Office to conduct your work or do you have enough to conduct your work to the ability that you have been able to in the past? Is that enough for you or are you looking for more?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

Can I help on that?

Chair

Yes, of course.

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

I am responsible for Keith’s resources. The 25%-plus rise we have seen in reporting of sex offending over the last year, which builds on big increases in previous years, is creating a big stretch in Keith’s world and we are reviewing the resources and whether it is sustainable at the moment. We have a big increase in the number of current and historic sex offences being reported, and that is very welcome. We know from survey data that there is no evidence that sex offending is rising, but we are seeing massive increases in reporting, which is welcome. We have just had a year where we have the largest number of prosecutions for rape the Met has ever seen.

Chair

Thank you. A number of the questions we are going to ask both of you are very similar to those we put to Commander Chishty. The Committee is baffled—or I think the whole country is baffled—by the fact that, despite the number of women who have been affected by FGM, even an organisation like the Met that has a lot of community contacts and engagement has only managed to bring forward two prosecutions. Alison Saunders was very clear when we put it to her that there had only been 11 referrals to her. She said, “That is because we are not getting the referrals and if we had more referrals we could do more prosecutions and, who knows, get people convicted”. Chief Superintendent Niven, you are in charge of this area, of course under Mr Rowley. Have you been to France and have you looked at why the French are doing better at prosecutions than we have done?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

I have had a look at that. I have not been to France. We have invited the prosecutor, Linda Weil-Curiel, who came to visit our team. We have Project Azure, which is my oversight team for FGM.

Chair

When did she come?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

She came a couple of years ago. I don’t know the exact date. She met with the team and we did look very closely at what these convictions were and what they were about. The information I got is that they date back to 1979 and 1999. The case in 1979 is where a child had died after the parents had had her taken for FGM. The parents then reported that to the police and told them who the cutter was. That was then investigated and they found that the cutter had a list of all those who had been cut. I think it amounted to about 100 people and they mounted prosecutions after that. The case in 1999 was a teenage victim who came forward herself and reported to the police, and again it was a similar situation that there was a list of individuals who had been cut. That was the French system.

Chair

She is a witness before us next week, so we will be hearing from her. After the conversation you had with her two years ago, what action did you take and what has the Met been doing in order to try to do the three things that Mr Chishty said were missing: engagement with the community, getting the health officials to report and getting the education chiefs to do their job? Do you agree with his assessment that those are the three areas that basically have failed to report?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

Very much so. I took up my position in 2012 and I have to admit I did not know that much about FGM at that time. I have learnt an awful lot since then. But we have had a lack of referrals to the police and very few cases actually get reported to us. So it was: where could I go to find where the source of this? We work very closely with Nimco Ali, Leyla Hussein and Efua Dorkenoo who are key leaders in this. We have a strategy group and they come to that. What is the problem? That was the question I wanted to know: why am I not getting these referrals? There are a number of reasons. One is that I am told that individuals will not come forward and give evidence against their own parents. I understand that, because this is very sensitive. In other child protection matters, there would be a lead-up, so we would probably have referrals around other matters that would lead up to an event in a child’s life where child protection procedures can take place, but in this it is normally one event that takes place. So, we are not getting the referrals. My question was: is it happening here in London? I am told that it is, but we don’t have any figures or data around that. I started to say, “Okay, we will invite and encourage people to give evidence and we will protect them and we will support them, but if they can’t do that or they don’t feel confident to do it, then I want to target the cutters”. I have gone out in the press, so I have been on—

Chair

But none of that has worked so far. With the greatest respect, the only prosecutions you have are the ones that were announced by the DPP before she gave evidence to us. She announced it on a Friday and she give evidence to us on the Tuesday. I am not saying that the two events were linked in any way, but these discussions seem to have gone on for years without any action being taken.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

I totally agree.

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

Look at the numbers of referrals, Chair.

Chair

To the Met?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

To the Met. If I look at 2010 to 2013, one of the things that strikes me is the Metropolitan Police has uncovered more potential cases than have been referred by the health service. That seems to me completely bizarre.

Chair

How many were there, Mr Rowley?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

We uncovered 43 potential cases. That can be anything from a rumour about something that might happen through to something that has happened—as has been described already—and 34 came from health. If you just think about routine maternity examinations, for example, that seems nonsensical to me.

Chair

Do you therefore favour mandatory examination?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

Mandatory referral, certainly.

Chair

Mandatory referral by the health service and education?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

By the health service and education, because we need some of these cases—

Chair

What about the examination?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

I heard what was said earlier. I think it is a difficult thing to say that every child in the country will have a massively intrusive, intimate examination. It would be fantastically powerful in covering the problem, but whether it is justifiable in terms of balance. This is not something that one can examine by a child just dropping their knickers. It is a lot more intrusive than that and we would have to think very, very hard about it. I would defer to medical professionals about that.

Chair

So, rather than being forced to have this examination, if they are examined as part of the routine in schools or at the doctors’ surgeries, you would prefer to see that information come to you immediately?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

Yes, taking the opportunities that come through natural health practices and say, “Hang on, here’s an issue of concern”. It may be an old case where perhaps a mother is going for a maternity examination and it may be very clear to the doctor that she is a recent immigrant and, therefore, there were no British offences, but if that cultural practice exists and she is having children I think that is relevant.

Chair

Sure. When did you say that to the Home Secretary?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

I have not said it personally to the Home Secretary. We have been talking to the Home Office about legislation. We have given them that feedback.

Chair

No, we understand about legislation. When did you and Mr Niven say to the Home Office, “Look, the only way we are going to get to the bottom of this”—years and years and years, but no prosecutions—“is we need to have mandatory referrals”? When did you first raise this with the Home Office?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

We have been raising this in conversation with the Home Office and with Health Ministers for some time. The recent health guidance has changed, which is welcome. There have been some changes both from education and health at a national level.

Chair

You are a police officer, so you can be a little bit more precise. “For some time”; how many years have you been raising this?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

I know Keith has been raising it in conversations over the last six or nine months. Before that, I am not certain.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

I have spoken to a number of MPs and I have been to national meetings around this. It is absolutely right that it is a source of information when women present at maternity clinics because that is when these things present, and we are not getting those. I think part of the problem has been that it has not been recognised as child abuse. It has been recognised as a cultural practice that is acceptable in certain communities.

Chair

Indeed. We will come on to the change of the law later on.

Yasmin Qureshi

What estimates do you have of the numbers of referrals being made to social services that are not referred to the police?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

We don’t have that number because they don’t refer them to us, unfortunately. We don’t think there are massive numbers that social services know about that we don’t but, candidly, we don’t have the figures.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

I can tell you all the cases that have been referred to us and all the pieces of information, but when I have asked other agencies for that detail, they have not been able to provide it. I know that the health service, with the new intercollegiate guidance, are saying that now they are going to start recording every incident of FGM, so that will give us a reference point. Until we know what the other agencies have been investigating and dealing with, we do not know the scale of the problem. So I don’t know whether I get all the referrals or don’t get any referrals.

Yasmin Qureshi

I know you said that you agree with a mandatory referral from the health services, but presumably that is from all the services, social services or anybody else?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

Yes.

Paul Flynn

You state in your evidence that in 2013 there were 59 referrals to the Met relating to a perceived risk of FGM. In how many of these cases do you think the event was safeguarded or avoided, or in how many cases do you think it actually took place if there was any question of being at risk when you heard of it?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

There is a variety of cases and the action that we take is that if we get a referral and we think there is a risk, we work with the social services. In a number of those I think there were something like seven medical examinations, a number of arrests and some emergency protection orders taken out while these matters were investigated. That would be the safeguarding. That means that the social services are made aware of this, and if there is any ongoing risk, that would be managed by the social services. But of course if a child is at imminent risk of FGM, then that child goes into police protection or is on an emergency protection order. They are taken out of that situation while it is investigated to decide whether or not there is evidence, or where there is an ongoing risk that will be managed by the social services.

Paul Flynn

Do you think that FGM did not take place in the great majority of the 59 cases?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

Yes, the vast majority. This is about all the information we get. We might get a phone call saying, “That family are going on holiday. We think there may be FGM taking place”. We will not ignore that. We will go to the family and investigate it. We have had other cases whereby an individual rang up because he had seen an FGM helpline, thinking he could get FGM as a result of that and we then arrested him. It was a misguided belief. When we investigated it, he did not have any intentions of doing it; he was making some inquiries around it. We don’t dismiss, however low level it is, but we will safeguard and make sure that the children are checked, they are on the record, the social services are involved and their safeguarding futures are—

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

It is that range of the referrals that then reduces the larger number down to every investigation that has any evidence of criminality whatsoever. Besides us doing everything we can, we involve CPS in every one of those cases and Alison Saunders is keen to be personally involved in them all. We are not holding back anything that has any sign of criminality whatsoever; it is all going in front of the CPS.

Paul Flynn

What surprised and shocked me in this investigation—and I think I share the guilt of not knowing about it—is the apparently widespread acceptance in the area I represent of these practices, the widespread knowledge that there is a cutting season and that there are people who are known to be cutters. There appears to be a great reluctance, and the figures you gave are very telling on the cases coming from the police and the lack of cases from the health service, where we would expect an abundance of cases. Is the problem the acceptance of a practice because it was culturally acceptable in the Horn of Africa countries?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

I work very closely with prominent leaders and communities as well. In fact, approximately a month ago, I had 200 people from the community come into a community event that I had. The trouble is that I think there is an honest-held belief that this is a practice that is something that should take place, and that belief is held by certain community members and certain families. The information I have from the communities is that girls are terrified to talk about this. They go through it. It has been normalised in some communities. So unless we break that cycle, we could be having this conversation in 10 years’ time. I say this is where education has to play a key part. We need to get into schools, an environment where girls feel comfortable to discuss these issues. When that discussion starts to take place, the police will start to find out that information. At the moment I feel as if it is locked down. Leyla Hussein gave evidence here and she said, “They don’t even come and tell me, because they know I am a campaigner and they know that that will impact upon their business.” That is some of the dynamic and difficulty we have, but it does not stop us going out there and making sure that this is out in the media, and that is what I have been doing.

Paul Flynn

It is not a unique situation. There are the cases of the forced marriages—not the arranged marriages, but the forced marriages—which again are acceptable in certain immigrant communities, but less so among those immigrants who have been born here or brought up and educated here. Do you think the best way of tackling this is through the education and health service rather than relying on the communities?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

Absolutely, because what we have to realise is that if we investigate an FGM case, a girl has had to go through torture. Yes, we can prosecute one, two, three, four, five or even 200 people, but at the other end it is actually happening in order for us to do that. We have to break the cycle. We can only do that by putting it on the curriculum in public health and social education, so girls feel comfortable to talk about it and then they can get advice. Some girls do not even know that it is illegal and that is what we have to start with. There is a huge problem here, where it is right to start it, and I welcome this investigation.

Mark Reckless

You referred to a cycle and, rightly, an emphasis on education, but isn’t the other reason for this cycle because the prosecution and conviction part of what should be the cycle is not happening?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

I think there is a role for prosecution. We will not solve the problem, but if we dissuade some people and disrupt it, then that helps balance against education. You are absolutely right. The challenge for us is that if victims are not prepared to put their parents in prison—and one can understand why that would be—and if other agencies are not referring to us, then we are trying to bridge that gap ourselves. We are working very hard at it, but I wish there were more cases. Hence the operations we are running. We have run operations at the airport. That is both educational and has generated some arrests, not yet prosecutions. As Mak Chishty said, we are co-ordinating a national operation in the next few weeks that will have a surprise element to it, hence we are not sharing the exact dates, which is about us trying to reach out and reach past the lack of victim referrals, the lack of agency referrals, and try to get to the source of it.

Mark Reckless

I understand how it is difficult to pursue a prosecution where a victim does not wish to co-operate with something that may, as you say, lead to their parents going to jail, but are there not other examples where the police do put what they describe as reluctant witnesses on the stand and require victims who do not consider themselves to be victims to testify?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

Yes. We had one recent case where a victim initially referred and reported—I can’t remember to which agency—and the evidence potentially merited a prosecution. The victim had a change of heart and was so upset that she was threatening self-harm and suicide if her parents were prosecuted. Then it is a difficult decision for the CPS and the DPP about whether it is in the public interest to continue or not. They are massively complicated social issues. While compelling victims in domestic violence cases and victim prosecutions is something that we do, and it is possible in this area, I think it is several degrees harder and the issues are more complicated. I think a victim of sexual abuse or conventional physical violence will often be more willing to give evidence against parents or relatives. A victim of this, however barbaric it is, who feels that their parents are massively misguided, is reluctant to do so and that is the challenge.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

I can add to that. That victim did very much threaten self-harm and we believed it. Her feedback to us was, “I don’t want my mother punished; I want her educated.” That was the feedback that she gave us. There are powers within the law to force people to go and give evidence. That would have been the wrong thing to do, in my opinion. Forcing people is not the message that we want to send.

Mark Reckless

You wrote to us about a perceived double standard between FGM and cosmetic genital surgery. Could you expand on what you were getting at there, or what your proposals are in this area, and whether that link should be made in the way you were?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

There are three legal issues that concern us, and that is one of them. There is a provision in the legislation for cosmetic surgery to be allowable if it is necessary for the mental or physical health needs of the subject. We think that creates some greyness and some trickiness in the legislation and that it is difficult.

Mark Reckless

Has that really been what is holding back prosecutions?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

No, it is a factor that has come up in some cases. The reinfibulation issue—re-sewing up after childbirth or something like that—is tricky again: is that part of genital mutilation or isn’t it? That is probably going to be examined in cases in the near future. The third legal issue is the international one. There is such a high bar in terms of test of residence, which I think is excessive.

Mark Reckless

Isn’t there a fourth legal issue: that you should just go after this under the Offences Against the Person Act in the normal way, as with an assault?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

You can look at GBH offences, or neglect offences for young children, as in child neglect. Those are all offences that are in play and those are the sort of things that, alongside FGM, the DPP and her team look at when they are considering the cases we put in front of them.

Michael Ellis

I was glad to hear you both indicate that education is the key. Surely mandatory examinations, which have been alluded to, are wrong in principle and would in themselves be traumatic and damaging to many young people. Are you of the view that there is no place for a general mandatory examination of small children in this country—and I mean general, as opposed to specific in certain instances—or do you think there is some room for it?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

I refer back to what I said earlier. While on the one hand it would provide a tidy solution to identifying lots of cases, it would be so intrusive to do it at regular stages for every girl growing up in the country—it is such an intrusive examination—that I find it hard to believe that we would ever come to a way of doing that. I think it is about mandatory referral when any routine examination happens to identify a risk rather than mandatory examination.

Michael Ellis

There might be scope for particular protection orders, as exist in forced marriage in certain circumstances, but is it not all about education and more the shining of a spotlight on this issue? Would you agree with that?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

I certainly agree it is about education. Of course we will use powers. We can use child protection powers for examinations nowadays. So if there is reason to suspect a child is at risk or has been a victim, of course there are powers for intimate examinations, but that is very different to doing something as a routine for every young person. Education is definitely a big part of the secret here, but we want to play our part by doing as many prosecutions as possible and—something we have not discussed—we want to go after the cutters. We don’t think there are large numbers of cutters in London, but community information says they are believed to exist. No one has been able to point us to one yet, but we are still keen to do that.

Michael Ellis

The London Evening Standard has done a lot of work on this.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

I invited the London Evening Standard in to have a conversation about this, because I wanted to get the message very clearly out to the communities that this affects. We have worked very closely with Martin Bentham, and I thank him for his support around it.

Michael Ellis

He has done some very good work in this area.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

It has been excellent. It has, really.

Michael Ellis

Can I finish by asking you this. Do you both accept that prosecutions are desirable, but that the Crown Prosecution Service have a legal duty to ensure that they do not launch prosecutions unless there is a realistic prospect of conviction? They have to meet that standard in every case and there has to be sufficient evidence to justify the launch of a prosecution. Therefore, it is education in trying to ensure that victims are prepared to come forward and provide the evidence that would satisfy a jury.

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

Yes, exactly. It is the education that changes it from being socially acceptable in certain quarters to socially unacceptable, which generates more witnesses and victims coming forward and would help more prosecutions.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

It is secret at the moment. We want to make it overt, where people feel comfortable to talk about it, and then people have the confidence to come forward and give evidence.

Dr Huppert

Can I pick up on two issues? Thank you for what you have been saying so far. The first is about education. We have talked a lot about specific education and community engagement in this area. Do you think there is a problem that parents can take their children out of such sex education as there is in schools? Would you support calls for compulsory sex and relationships education for everybody on this issue and other similar ones, such as honour-based violence, domestic violence and sexual abuse?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

There are a whole range of serious safety issues, whether it is about the Prevent terrorism agenda, child sexual exploitation or FGM, where there is a big role for schools, and they are mentioned in various Department for Education-type circulars. Our experience is that the take-up is mixed. Some schools in areas where one would expect them to take it very seriously do absolutely that. That is very helpful and constructive and it helps us. In others, they are not picked up. It is a bit of a menu approach at the moment and that is not as strong as it could be.

Dr Huppert

Is that a “yes” to compulsory sex and relationships education or is it not a “yes”?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

That is from some of my expertise. What I am saying is that in specialist areas where we can see a role for it, like the risk of child sexual exploitation—so around the gang scene in London would be one example—or around FGM, there are schools in areas where it would be really important to influence young people as they are growing up. That is in within the sphere of my expertise and we would like to see more of it. It is in Department for Education guidance but it is not in force, so there is a lot of discretion there.

Dr Huppert

Mr Niven, do you have anything to say about this?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

One of the ladies who came here as a teacher said that she spent years trying to get it into teaching time, so she expressed a difficulty to say that she could not get it into the curriculum, into the agenda.

Dr Huppert

The other question I would like to understand—and this definitely should be within your sphere of influence—is that we have previously had evidence from the ACPO lead, and we have had a very different approach from his comments and from your comments. Who leads on policing these sorts of things within the UK? We had a discussion about what the ACPO office is. How does that interact with your work? Are you supposed to do policies set out by him or advice set out by him? Should he be following your examples? Who is supposed to be in charge of all of this?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

ACPO is about working with the College of Policing and ensuring there are standards and sharing best practice across policing, all the things that you know well on this Committee. There is a structure around that. Jon Murphy, the Chief Constable of Merseyside, leads on all the crime issues for the country and then he has a collection of people working to him on different subject areas: violence, acquisitive crime, organised crime. As part of that structure, Mak Chishty helps in the areas that he said in the approach to violent crime.

Dr Huppert

If we take as a premise that there has not been a sufficient response from police over many years on FGM, where should that response have been led from?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

Every Chief Constable is responsible for his or her own force in terms of the operational practices they put in place and the police authorities were once, and Police and Crime Commissioners are now, responsible for the strategies they set. There is an individual accountability. In terms of national best practice and trying to raise that, then that sits with the leadership of the police service in ACPO and it sits with the College of Policing, and Mak has been trying to share best practice. There are a small number of forces, realistically, who have communities where this is the biggest risk and he has been trying to share that out across the country, hence his support and help with the operation that Keith’s team have been building in terms of going to airports and rolling that out nationally and staging this national operation in the next few weeks.

Dr Huppert

It is good to hear the comments about the College of Policing, although of course it has only been in existence for a very short time. It probably was not responsible for anything three years ago before it existed.

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

No. A combination of MPIA and other bodies.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

But the driving it in London in the Met, that is me.

Chair

Thank you. Let us end this panel by me asking you this question about the future, as well as to some extent the past. You are defending a very poor record, are you not? This is not a good record. If you look at any of the other crimes and laws passed by Parliament to try to make sure that people are brought to justice, two prosecutions in 20 years is a pretty poor record.

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

We would all love to see more prosecutions. I absolutely agree with you.

Chair

But the record is poor. What is the reluctance in admitting the fact that the record is poor?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

I don’t think it is a binary about the record is poor or it is brilliant. I think—

Chair

Why do you think that Parliament passed these laws then? Just to sit on the statute book?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

I think the teams in the Metropolitan Police over the last few years have worked hard to try to bring people to justice, with the number of referrals, which range from rumours that somebody might be at risk through to a small number of cases where there is some evidence. The degree of effort that has gone into those has been enormous. I think as a system, whether it is about health, education, community safety—the whole system—we have not collectively, in a whole range of roles, done a good enough job of bringing this to sufficient profile.

Chair

Therefore, we have let individual people down.

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

We have collectively let people down, yes.

Chair

From that point of view, do you think that you have had enough heat from this place, from Parliament, and from Government on this issue? Clearly you are feeling the heat now, are you not, not necessarily sitting in front of us but there is political heat on this issue? There is heat on this. Is that right, Mr Niven?

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

It is.

Chair

It is heating up.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

It is heating up.

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

Keith is responsible for some of that, which I am pleased with.

Detective Chief Superintendent Niven

I am responsible for some of that, so I am absolutely delighted that it is heating up.

Chair

So you like being slowly cooked but you are also responsible for the cooking.

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

Well, we want the public profile because we want more referrals. Keith has been in and out of lots of Government Departments.

Chair

You have not said this before, of course, and it does not take the Home Affairs Select Committee to hold an inquiry for people to start rushing around. You have told this Committee that, between six and nine months ago, you started to have serious conversations with the Home Office about your views on mandatory referral, but did you feel the heat from Government before that? I don’t think it was around there, was it, under successive Governments until about six to nine months ago?

Assistant Commissioner Rowley

I think it has been patchily on the agenda and in the last year or two, for various reasons, it has come on the agenda much more strongly, which is welcome.

Chair

Thank you very much. Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses

Saria Khalifa, Youth Programme Lead, FORWARD UK, and Lisa Harker, Director of Strategy, Policy and Evidence, NSPCC, gave evidence.

Chair

Ms Harker and Ms Khalifa, thank you very much for coming. You can take it as read that the Committee in this inquiry that we are conducting has knowledge of this subject, so we will not be trying to go around again and ask you questions that you may have already heard. I am very interested in the helpline that you have created, which has resulted in a number of referrals. Could you tell the Committee about this helpline? We were unaware of its existence until you submitted your evidence. How is it working and what are the benefits of you being given encouragement and support for this helpline?

Lisa Harker

Thank you for inviting me to the Committee. The helpline was set up in June last year, on 24 June. It grew out of conversations with the Met and with organisations working with the communities, Daughters of Eve and Equality Now, and it is a dedicated, 24/7 free helpline for professionals or members of the public who have a concern about a child in relation to FGM. In the nine months to the end of March, since the helpline was set up, we have had 198 contacts. We have had contacts from around half of the local authorities in England. We are making referrals from some of those contacts that come into us. Around 40% of the calls or inquiries that have come to us have resulted in referral to children’s social care.

Chair

What are they saying to you? These presumably are the victims, or friends or family of the victims who are ringing the helpline. What are they saying?

Lisa Harker

They are a mixture of professionals—teachers, doctors—who have a concern that they have come across and want our advice about what they should do; 28% are coming from members of the public who have a concern about the child; 22% of the calls have come from a parent or a carer where they are concerned about their own child, and 5% from a relative. So they tend not to be victims, but adults who are in contact with a child.

Chair

Saria Khalifa, you deal with women in the African diaspora. One of the points that has been put to us is about the reason why this is coming to the fore—of course, we acknowledge what the campaigners have done: they have done much more than Parliament or Government has done on this issue over a number of years; there is no doubt about that. The point that has been put to us is that in a sense the community is growing up. It has been here a long time and what was acceptable 30 years ago is no longer acceptable to women of the African diaspora. Do you think that is right? Do you think the voice has been found by women of the African diaspora and they are just not going to have this anymore?

Saria Khalifa

I think there has been a change. Particularly a lot of the work that I do at FORWARD is with young people. What we are finding is that there is an increasing number of young women who have not undergone the practice. The challenge is that the ideology or that pressure is still there, so you will find girls and women, or young women, who say, “Yes, I haven’t had it done, but my mum will tell me if I go back home to my country of origin I must lie to people and tell them that I’ve had it done” or you hear sometimes from parents saying, “Well, I won’t send my children back to their country of origin because I’m concerned about it.” So I think there is still that community pressure to have the practice done. It needs more community engagement, so that the people who are against the practice of FGM feel more empowered and able to speak out against the practice so that there is a whole communal shift, as opposed to patches or pockets, where people are working with communities.

Chair

You have heard what the police have said. Let me put it to you, their explanation of the lack of prosecution has been a lack of referral from the community, a failure of the health authorities to report, and a failure of the education authorities to do the same. You do not have to give long explanations, but do you agree with that assessment?

Lisa Harker

I do and the difficulty of relying on the witness, the child.

Chair

Which agency should be the most proactive? Should it be the police, health services or education?

Saria Khalifa

I think it should be a multi-agency response, but the challenge is, if there is not training of professionals or a statutory obligation for people to report, then it is unlikely that there will be referrals. If people are not aware of what the problem is, they are not going to refer it on. From my experience within FORWARD, a lot of the referrals have come through education because they are well placed. They deal with young people a lot of the time. What we have heard anecdotally from within the health setting is sometimes people don’t feel able to refer or are not sure who to refer to, so there needs to be more clarity around the referral pathways: do you go to social services or the police? Because different documents differ.

Mr Winnick

In the evidence of FORWARD UK, it states that the estimate of some 66,000 women in England or Wales who have been subject to this practice is underestimated. Why do you come to that conclusion?

Saria Khalifa

The figures are based off both what was being reported at the time in 2007 through health, but also based off the 2001 census. Why we believe it is an under-representation is we know immigration has considerably changed since 2001, so we are assuming that, with the new prevalence data that is being currently collected, the numbers might be higher, because they are an extrapolation of countries of origin.

Mr Winnick

You may have heard one of the senior police officers giving evidence today made a valid point that, among the thousands of women who have been subject to this, a good number—perhaps the majority—the operation has been done overseas. What sort of estimate would you make of the numbers of those who have been subject to such practice in the United Kingdom?

Saria Khalifa

I think it is very difficult to give estimates because there isn’t anybody recording that information.

Mr Winnick

Would you put it in the thousands rather than the hundreds?

Saria Khalifa

I would not want to give a number because I do not know. That data just isn’t being collected anywhere about whether it is happening in-country. I think also community members have an awareness that if they say that it has happened in this country they are more likely to get prosecuted, so people know to say it happened abroad. Most of the cases I have dealt with, with girls who have undergone FGM, will tell me, “It happened abroad. It happened prior to me becoming a British citizen”.

Mr Winnick

Yes, and your organisation, which does such valuable work in dealing with child cruelty, Ms Harker, there is no doubt whatsoever, is there that it is an ongoing practice at the moment in this country?

Lisa Harker

There is really no doubt in our mind that it is an ongoing practice and that, while we have only received 198 contacts in the last nine months, this is just the tip of the iceberg. As we see changes in levels of awareness and debate about the issue, more people are coming forward to report concerns.

Mr Winnick

There have been suggestions that females as young as five are being subject to this horrifying practice. Do you have any evidence that that is so, as young as five?

Lisa Harker

We have no solid evidence of the age range. We are aware that it is most commonly reported among young girls between five and eight, but there are concerns that children of a younger age are being subject to FGM, perhaps because of the increased scrutiny in schools that may be encouraging parents to act when children are younger.

Saria Khalifa

In terms of evidence, FORWARD has recently been working on research with young people, young women in particular, from FGM-affected communities. Through this survey there were girls who have responded that it happened under the age of five or five years old when they have had FGM.

Mr Winnick

Do you find that there are elements who say, in effect—they will be few in number; nevertheless, this is what they might say—“Yes, well, this may be a controversial practice but, nevertheless, it is a cultural practice that has gone on for centuries and those who are not part of our clan, or group, or whatever, should not interfere. It is almost racist”, so the argument runs? Have you heard that argument at all?

Saria Khalifa

Yes, we do get that argument a lot. There is a lot of discussion around cultural relativities, but I think all cultures should be allowed the freedom to change, adapt and modify and if something is harmful—as FGM is: it is very harmful to girls and women—communities and cultures should be given the space and the opportunity to change those cultures. What we have seen is the campaign on FGM has started in-country—has started from communities in Africa where it is happening—and women who it has happened to are saying, “This is something we no longer want in our communities.”

Mr Winnick

Would it be right—I put the question to both of you—to describe the practice as one of the cruellest things that can be done to young women and there is absolutely no possible reason, cultural or otherwise, for it to take place in Britain?

Lisa Harker

We are absolutely clear that it is child abuse.

Lorraine Fullbrook

Could I ask you both, with regards to the 2003 Act, do you think there is a case for amending the Act to cover all women and girls in the UK regardless of whether they have citizenship or residency?

Saria Khalifa

I think there definitely is the need to amend the Act because what we are finding is in some cases where people do not have permanent residency—if they are here on work visas, student visas—then they are not protected. Their daughters are not protected, and there have been cases where people have said, “Our intention is to have FGM done. We will have it when we leave the country. There is nothing really anyone can do,” and I think that means we are not able to protect all girls who are in the UK.

Lorraine Fullbrook

Would you concur?

Lisa Harker

Yes.

Yasmin Qureshi

I want to explore with you the issue about the effectiveness of multi-agency guidelines on FGM. From your knowledge, how aware are the health care bodies, educational bodies and social care professionals about these provisions?

Saria Khalifa

In regard to FORWARD’s work, we deliver a lot of professionals training—nationally, we deliver that to about 1,500 professionals. If we are lucky, what we will find is that 5% to 10% of people in the room who we are training will have heard of the multi-agency FGM guidelines. The challenge is that they are not statutory so people do not feel that they are obligated to know about the guidelines, although once read, I think they are very good guidance.

Yasmin Qureshi

Can you give an example of a local authority that perhaps has a good multi-agency group on FGM or who seems to be ahead of the game, as opposed to the others?

Saria Khalifa

I think the model that is being used in Bristol is a very effective model. They have an FGM partnership safeguarding group that involves safeguarding, police, health, social services, as well as community members—both older community members as well as young people. They co-ordinate their approach, they co-ordinate the training, so that everybody knows what is happening within Bristol. Similarly, in London, Lambeth do a fantastic job—they have an FGM forum—and Hackney is doing fantastic work regarding safeguarding on FGM and engaging with communities. There is a variety of good practice examples across the country and I think it works well when everybody knows what the other person is doing.

Yasmin Qureshi

I don’t know whether you were here, but earlier we heard from Assistant Commissioner Rowley that there should be mandatory reporting by doctors who see a cutting has taken place. In the same way, do you think that there should be a mandatory rule in place, because from what you are saying when it is left as voluntary, people’s knowledge seems to be quite small?

Saria Khalifa

Yes. I think there should be mandatory reporting, but also clarity around what that reporting means once it is reported. From my understanding when speaking to different professionals, there is a hesitancy about: “What happens next if I report this to social services or if I report this to police? What happens to that woman? What happens to that child?” I think that is also what is holding community members back from disclosing. You hear a lot of fear stories around, “If we tell somebody or I am pregnant and I have had FGM and I deliver, they will take all my children away”. That leads people to think, “I would rather not engage with services because I am not sure what the end result will be.”

Lisa Harker

I think we would have some concerns about going straight to mandatory reporting. It is absolutely the case that all professionals need to know what their responsibilities are in relation to children in those circumstances, and they are very clear under the Children Act—and, indeed, their own professional bodies should be enforcing that. In terms of mandatory reporting, when mandatory reporting is introduced, there is a tendency for any kind of abuse of over-reporting and also of fear that children will not come forward to disclose. I think we have to be quite careful before jumping to mandatory reporting.

Yasmin Qureshi

Thank you. That is very helpful.

Mr Clappison

Can I ask each of you how your organisations rate the level of services provided to survivors of FGM by the NHS?

Lisa Harker

They are very low. There are some FGM clinics now in the country—around 15, I think—which obviously provides some sort of health support for FGM victims. Our concern is that there is no integrated support to provide therapeutic help as well as health support for victims, other than that provided by some groups like FORWARD and others. We think there needs to be much more joined-up services for victims of FGM.

Saria Khalifa

Adding on to that, the challenge is also how accessible services are, particularly to young people. Most of the FGM specialist clinics are geared towards older women who are about to get married or are pregnant. In one case I had of a young girl in Sheffield who had undergone FGM—she is 14—the closest specialist clinic to her was Birmingham. How does a 14 year-old travel from Sheffield to Birmingham, particularly as the case might be if her parents were not pro her getting support or getting deinfibulation?

Chair

Thank you. On behalf of the Committee I want to thank you for all of the excellent work that you do. [Interruption.] Sorry, yes, Dr Huppert has a quick question. I will thank you after Dr Huppert.

Dr Huppert

I do not mean to stop the thanks, but one question I have asked a number of our witnesses—and I would be interested in your take on this—is about broader issues in this space and whether sex and relationships education should be compulsory at all schools for all pupils. Do either of you have an opinion on that?

Lisa Harker

Yes, we strongly support statutory PSHE, of which sex and relationship education would be a part. We feel this is perhaps the most important aspect of the preventative work that needs to be done with young women. I think the work that is happening in Bristol tells us that there is a new generation of young women coming through and questioning this practice but, without raising levels of awareness in all communities and allowing that debate to take place amongst young people, we will not see that change in social norms.

Saria Khalifa

I completely agree. It is essential that we teach young people about healthy relationships, about safety, around violence, particularly as we are seeing that violence is impacting more and more on young people—we have got gangs and violence within teenage relationships, as well as FGM—and as you were saying, once they find out about these issues, a lot of young people are very vocal about campaigning against them and wanting to create change in their communities.

Chair

Thank you very much.

Mark Reckless

Can I just clarify, when you say “statutory” and your support for that, do you mean that parents should not be allowed to remove their children from these classes, which should be compulsory? Is that the view of both of you?

Lisa Harker

Our view, yes.

Chair

Thank you very much. I thank you again on behalf of the Committee for all the excellent work that you have done on this subject. We may come back to you after we have finished our inquiry, or during the inquiry, for further information. Thank you very much. Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses

Norman Baker, Minister of State for Crime Prevention, Jane Ellison, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, and Edward Timpson, Minister for Children and Families, gave evidence.

Chair

I welcome the Ministers from the Department of Health, Children and Families and the Home Office. In particular, I congratulate Jane Ellison on her appointment as a Minister. It is the first time you have appeared before this Committee. Congratulations. Of course, Mr Timpson has appeared before in his current position. We have a Division at 4.40 pm, so I am going to try to make sure we get through all our questions quickly and succinctly before then. If not, we may have to come back and complete the evidence. We have heard compelling evidence from many individuals that things are happening—the heat is on. The police have told us in evidence to us today that they feel the heat—that things are changing and declarations are being signed, meetings are taking place, awareness campaigns are in existence. But as we start this inquiry and as we look at the evidence, Jane Ellison, we are concerned that the record so far—we are not blaming individuals—after 20 years has been poor. On 7 December you were elected chair of the all-party group on FGM, and you have been a great campaigner on this issue. You are now a Minister in a Department that can do something about it, but do you accept what we have found in the evidence that we have received so far, that the record is poor?

Jane Ellison

Chairman, first of all, thank you very much for inviting me to give evidence to this important inquiry. I am on the record numerous times as a Back Bencher, as the chairman of the all-party group, which, as you say, I founded in 2011, as saying the record to date was poor, but I believe sincerely—and I said it as a Back Bencher and I say it again as a Minister—that this Government’s record is considerable in taking steps forward. There is a way to go, but we have begun in earnest on this really important journey to make sure that we eradicate FGM in the UK.

Chair

You were with me at Asda in Battersea when we heard the news about the first prosecution. We were not shopping; we were involved in a campaigning activity. You must have been delighted when you heard about the first prosecutions that were being made.

Jane Ellison

Chairman, obviously, we have to await the outcome of the courts but, yes, of course, again I have made no secret of the fact that I think that a number of successful prosecutions would send an important signal that the law is taken seriously and will be enforced. However, I also take the view—particularly as a Health Minister—that every successful prosecution is a child or a woman we did not protect. Therefore, I see the value of successful prosecutions for sending an important message, but I hope we do not have many of them, because I would rather protect the girls and get to them before that happened, but of course it sends an important signal.

Chair

Mr Timpson, your Secretary of State has been quite active on this issue. He has met with a number of the campaigners. Presumably an admission that perhaps in the past the Department—previously called Education, now Children and Families—has not been as active as it should? I understand that the Secretary of State has now written to all the schools. Is that correct, and do you have a copy of the letter to share with the Committee?

Mr Timpson

Chairman, that is correct. The Secretary of State wrote to all schools—I even have a figure of 31,660 schools and colleges. That happened on 3 April. That was a few days before the schools broke up. One of the fundamental reasons for doing that was not only because we have the new “Keeping children safe in education” guidance out, which complements that letter, but also, because a lot of these abhorrent crimes take place during the summer holidays, it was important to get that message out before schools broke up. I have copies of the letter for each member of the Committee.

Chair

That is very helpful.

Mr Timpson

I have put it to my officials that we should also be putting a copy of this letter on the gov.uk website. Also, I can tell the Committee that in the Secretary of State’s back-to-school missive, which goes out in August, he will again be reiterating the message about FGM as a specific issue, notwithstanding that there are a whole host of other safeguarding concerns that he wants to make sure that he is also on top of.

Chair

Have you had any reply from anyone to that letter? I mean 31,000 letters, presumably not all personally signed by Michael Gove, but—

Mr Timpson

It does have his signature on all of them, but I cannot vouch for the fact that he personally signed each and every one of them.

Chair

You have sent them off. Has anyone written back and said, “Thank you very much. We are now happy to tell you that we have found someone who has been the subject of FGM and we would like to report it”?

Mr Timpson

What I do know is that it has had one of the highest return rates of those who have opened the e-mail that this letter was attached to, and also those that then followed through and clicked through to the new guidance itself.

Chair

Do you mean there are some head teachers who do not open e-mails they receive from Michael Gove?

Mr Timpson

I know it is hard to believe, Chairman, but—

Chair

It is hard to believe. Mr Timpson—I think in the past many schools have found that they have been inundated by e-mails and missives coming from Government. They start to lose their value as a consequence, so—

Chair

This is the point I am making. I know it sounds amusing but the worry is—we are glad he has written; it is obviously a very important step—that you are now telling us that some head teachers may not have even opened the e-mail because of the fact that they get so many e-mails from the Secretary of State. Have you had any responses, though?

Mr Timpson

That I will need to get further and better particulars on.

Chair

Yes, would you?

Mr Timpson

What I would say is that is not the only activity we are doing to engage with teachers. So, for example—

Chair

Yes, I understand that, and we will come on to talk about the rest of the stuff, but in respect of this letter, which we welcome—because we note the fact that two years ago we asked him to write about honour-based violence as well as forced marriages, and he felt he should not write and did not write; so we are glad he has written this letter—will you come back to us and tell us how many people have replied?

Mr Timpson

Absolutely.

Chair

That would be helpful.

Chair

Minister of State, you are the lead department and we have heard your very passionate speeches against FGM. We saw you at Question Time yesterday when you answered questions on this. First of all, can you deal with one issue to do with your Department, and that is the case of Afusat Saliu, a young woman whose children she fears are going to be the subject of female genital mutilation if she returns to her country of origin. Her local MP has written in. Tell us about the policy. We know you are against FGM—everyone in this room is against FGM—but when somebody facing removal from this country comes forward and says, “I am afraid that my daughters are going to be subject to FGM,” is it going to be the policy of your department to stop the removal?

Norman Baker

Any individual who claims that, upon return to another country, she would suffer female genital mutilation may qualify for refugee status if she is able to demonstrate that her fear of return is well founded. Factors taken into account will be whether, for example, the country to which she would be returned tolerates FGM, whether it actively encourages it, whether they are unwilling or unable to tackle this when it happens in particular communities within those countries and, as a general principle—which is the standard for any assessment—we will not return individuals who face a real risk of persecution on return, so these matters are—

Chair

In this particular case, which is in the public domain, Afusat Saliu is not being removed?

Norman Baker

I cannot tell you what the outcome of that particular case is, because it is a matter for the Immigration Minister—insofar as it is a matter for Ministers at all—to consider. What I can say is that if we believe an individual would be subject to female genital mutilation upon her return, then that would be a relevant factor to take into account, and it is likely she may well qualify for refugee status if the fear of such action is well founded.

Chair

That is very helpful. We have heard from the police about what they are doing. Let us find out from the Home Office what you are doing. Of course, you are a recent Minister, so we do not hold you responsible for either the successes or the sins of your predecessors, but the Committee gets the feeling that there has not been the kind of Government heat put on the various authorities on this subject. Did you find that when you took on this job or do you feel, as a result of the campaigning that has gone on, that now the Government feels very strongly that something needs to be done?

Norman Baker

We certainly feel strongly that something should be done. We feel that not just in the Home Office but across Departments, and this is a matter that is shared across Departments and—dare I say—shared across the Coalition. We initiated from the Home Office a statement from all Departments condemning FGM. I have to say that was welcomed by the Departments. I have copies here for all the Committee members that Mr Vaz will circulate.

Chair

That is very helpful.

Norman Baker

It was signed by myself at the Home Office, Jane Ellison here from the Department of Health, from Ed Timpson here at Education, from Damian Green on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, Oliver Heald as Solicitor-General, Lynne Featherstone at DfID and Alison Saunders. Subsequent to the meeting where we had to sign this, other Departments have been ringing up the Home Office to ask if they could also add their names.

Chair

Right. Apart from busy-ness, which we welcome, and this very, very important piece of paper signed by all these very important Ministers, what practically have you all done?

Norman Baker

I do not think you should underestimate the value of Government Departments coming together, by the way, I really do not. It is very important.

Chair

No, we do not. That is why you are all here today, Mr Baker.

Norman Baker

Indeed. What we have also done—as you probably know—is we have secured money from the European Union, €300,000 or thereabouts. That is to be spent on a communications campaign later this year within the UK. There is an e-learning package to be launched later this year. We have a new local safeguarding children’s board outreach programme later this year. We have an FGM community engagement fund that has been launched. We have a European skills sharing event to spread this across—

Chair

So lots of public engagement on this and lots of community awareness?

Norman Baker

Indeed, because we have—

Chair

How much of that is directed against the communities that are specifically affected? As you know, the evidence that we have received so far is that it is not generally done in every community; it is specific to some. We welcome everything that you have said—these are public awareness campaigns that many of us sitting around the table have known about for many years—but in terms of practicalities, stopping the cutters, what is the Home Office doing?

Norman Baker

We are not acting “against the communities”, to use your words; we are engaging with them—I hope constructively—in order to work with those who are able best to get the right result, which is to minimise FGM. For example, that is why Lynne Featherstone at DfID and indeed Justine Greening, the Secretary of State, have been involved in allocating £35 million to engage with communities abroad, which is important if we are to influence the diaspora in this country. Those engagements are often African-led engagements, rather than simply the British Government telling people what to do.

Chair

Very helpful. Before I bring in Jane Ellison, Lorraine Fullbrook and then James Clappison, can I ask you very quickly: do you individually favour the mandatory referral by the health officials, doctors and educationalists to the police when they have found out that a young girl has been subjected to FGM? We have had very powerful evidence today—which you may not have heard—from the police saying that the reason why they have sent so few cases to the DPP is because communities, health officials and those in the education sector are not referring to them. It is a chain of despair here, and a chain of lack of referral. Do you favour that there should be mandatory referral? Jane Ellison?

Jane Ellison

Chairman, I am glad that you have raised this. With regard to reporting children, yes, and my own—

Chair

You do?

Jane Ellison

Yes; however, my understanding, though, Chairman, is that it is already a requirement on anyone in a front-line professional role under the Children Act—I think Edward could talk more about that. My understanding is that children—and we see this as child abuse, and we are quite clear at DH that that is what this is—have always been covered. The problem has been that for too long too many people did not see it as child abuse. They put it in another category, whether it was culture or whatever. So I am quite clear on children, yes, but my understanding is that that really is already provided for in the law.

Chair

It is there to be used but it has not been used?

Jane Ellison

Essentially, yes. We have certainly made it clearer to health professionals. But when you have spoken to the other Ministers, Chairman, if I can have the opportunity to say something about reporting of adult women and FGM, which is a little bit more—

Chair

You can do it now if you would like to.

Jane Ellison

It is slightly more complicated because most of the cases of FGM the NHS sees are historic. They are in adult women and they are seen at the moment the woman presents in maternity, for the most part. That will change over the years, but that is for the most part what we are seeing now and have seen in recent years. Most of those women will have been cut in another country as a child in a place where it may not have even been against the law—for example Sierra Leone, where it is still not against the law. For us there is a real challenge in how we mandate health professionals about reporting something that was not in itself a criminal offence at the time it took place, and how that sits alongside patient confidentiality for adult patients. We are requiring and mandating the recording of that. That started on 1 April: for the first time ever NHS acute trusts are required to record all incidents of FGM, family history of FGM, in a patient’s records and that will also follow out of the hospital.

Chair

Very helpful. Minister Baker, are you in favour of mandatory referral?

Norman Baker

As Jane says, I am quite clear that this is child abuse. I am also quite clear that the Children Act 1989 requires anyone who has information that a child is potentially or actually at risk of significant harm to inform social care or the police. If they do not do so, my understanding is that they could be brought before the General Medical Council or some other mechanism such as that. The Director of Public Prosecutions has suggested that it should be an offence not to report FGM, as well as having controls within a regime like the GMC. That is something that I know my colleague Damian Green, at the Ministry of Justice, is looking at with the DPP. There are issues around that and there are complications.

Chair

What is your feeling? Do you think it should be done?

Norman Baker

I think that when people find cases of children who have been subject to FGM, then it is a duty upon them already to report that, and they should certainly take it more seriously than some appear to have done.

Chair

Mr Timpson, on the one point of mandatory referral you think it is there and it has just not being used?

Mr Timpson

It is there. It is under section 47, and it has been made even clearer under the new “Working Together” guidance on what the duties are on professionals, in order to refer on any concern they have about a child who may be at risk of significant harm or has had significant harm upon them. What we are talking about here around mandatory reporting is whether we should go further and make the non-reporting a criminal offence. There is a split view across not only the academic and professional sector, but also in the charitable sector. For instance, the NSPCC have some concerns about how that may have an impact both on the number of cases that are reported and the ability of the system to cope, but also that we are not dealing with the underlying causes of whether people know what they should be reporting. For instance, I know Eileen Munro—who helped both this Government and the previous Government reform much of the work around child protection—has her own concerns. We need to think about that carefully, but during the last Education questions the Secretary of State for Education did make clear that, in relation to cases where professionals are working in a regulated setting, there is a case to look more carefully at whether mandatory reporting could be more effective than the current system we have in place.

Lorraine Fullbrook

I would like to ask all three of the Ministers about the 2003 law on FGM and the extent of the coverage to women and girls on the citizenship and residency angle. A number of witnesses have given evidence to the Committee that have had concerns about this and think there should be changes to the 2003 Act. Would you support the extension of the cover to include women and girls, irrespective of residency and citizenship?

Norman Baker

As you rightly raise, there is an issue about extra-territorial jurisdiction and, as I understand it, at the moment people have to be permanent residents to be brought within the Act. What is being considered at the moment is whether or not that should be a test of habitual residence rather than permanent residence. For example, if someone—just to take a case—had come over here to claim asylum and was still in the country, not a permanent resident, no indefinite leave to remain but was still here for a long period of time, then whether or not that sort of person should be captured by legislation. Personally I am sympathetic to that idea.

Jane Ellison

I am sympathetic to it as well, particularly for health care professionals who, do not forget, will be seeing somebody in a situation where the primary concern is to care for them—because they will be in a hospital or in a health care setting because they need care. It is already pretty complicated for health care professionals, because of some of the things I alluded to earlier, so I think anything that would make some of these considerations a bit more straightforward would probably be welcome.

Lorraine Fullbrook

Can I ask a sub-question? Some of the witnesses who have come before us have asked for clarity on the law on deinfibulation under the Act, and whether there should be greater clarification in the Act.

Jane Ellison

I hope the Committee will forgive me, but because of the case that is before the court and because one of the people who is being brought before the courts is an NHS doctor, I would rather not comment on that.

Mr Clappison

One of the things that we have regarded as a Committee is that there have been lots of good intentions expressed in the past about this, with good faith, but not much has happened. Mr Baker, you gave us a very long list of activities that were going to be carried out. Will you be evaluating if those activities have had any effect and, if so, how?

Norman Baker

Of course. We evaluate any Government activities, as a matter of course, to find out whether they are working. Certainly I do within my area, because we want to justify further expenditure, apart from anything else. If we can show something is working, then that is easier to do that, so of course we want to do that. I am clear that there has been a very helpful step-change in this country, which to be honest I think the Government can take some credit for. But it is not just the Government; it is also campaigning newspapers, like The Guardian and The Evening Standard and so on, and it is profoundly brave individuals, like Leyla Hussein, who have come forward and made statements. That mixture of activity has made a significant change, so there are now constituents of mine, for example—and I am sure it is the same for Jane and Ed—who would not have even known about FGM two or three years ago, who are now saying, “This is terrible. What are we doing about it?” So I think the public awareness is very helpful to us in our activities. I think there has been a step-change in that regard. I think it is important we—

Mr Clappison

I join with you in paying tribute to the newspapers and to the voluntary organisations; it is a question of making sure that Government money is spent as effectively as possible. That is the question I am asking you. How are you going to know whether this has been effective or not, the skills workshops and all the rest of it you are talking about?

Norman Baker

By normal means. For example, you can measure how many people respond. We are issuing these documents—which again I am happy to leave with the Chairman of the Committee—a statement opposing female genital mutilation that is designed to be helpful to those who may be subject to FGM, and as I mentioned is the Government declaration. We will measure this by talking to communities themselves; by getting a response from those communities. For example, we can measure it by the number of people who are picked up by the NHS. We can measure it by the number of prosecutions. There is a whole range of measurements we can take to see whether it is successful or not, but it is more of an art rather than a science. I am confident that the steps we are taking, which are based on advice from the communities themselves as well as just officials in our different Departments, are the right steps to take at this particular point.

Keith Vaz

Can I just bring in Jane Ellison and then Edward Timpson?

Jane Ellison

It is a very good point, of course. I think one of the key things is that tackling FGM has been dogged by an absence of reliable data. The Home Office is sponsoring an update to the now famous prevalence study, which is the 66,000 and 22,000 figure that everyone quotes. That set alongside the real data from the NHS, which will be reported for the first time back to us in September and then maintained ongoing, will give us the first ever UK picture of what is happening—so, the prevalence study and the real data from the NHS. What we will then be able to do with that data is set that, monitor it over time, but in particular to look at that alongside prevalence studies that show us movement dropping off over time within generations, within certain communities and countries. The UNICEF study from July last year was particularly good as a benchmark for that. That is one of the things that is the most important measure: how quickly do we drive change between generations? We have never had a base point—a benchmark—to start from in this country before, but now we are going to have one.

Chair

Can I just bring in Edward Timpson? Then I think we are going to have a vote and then we will have to come back.

Mr Timpson

I agree that having benchmark data is crucial to establish whether we are making improvements going forward, but it is also looking at the quality of the services that are available and what outcomes are being achieved as a consequence. The very fact that FGM is the only specific safeguarding risk mentioned in the Ofsted inspection guidance on safeguarding gives us a tool that we did not have before to understand where FGM is happening, whether it is being properly tackled at local level. I think that is an advancement from where we were a few years ago.

Yasmin Qureshi

A very quick point. First, I want to thank Jane Ellison for all the work that she has been doing on FGM. It has been great. Second, I want to thank you for your evidence today, because you have given us a very clear and accurate picture of what is really going on with the FGM and I want to say thank you for that.

Chair

We are always happy to accept thank yous. Michael Ellis?

Michael Ellis

Thank you very much. You mentioned, Minister Ellison, about Sierra Leone and, Mr Baker, you also mentioned a number of Ministers from different Departments who have signed that helpful letter. I cannot remember now whether anyone from the Foreign Office has signed it, but it strikes me that we can perhaps look at the issue of whether the United Kingdom Government can apply some gentle diplomatic pressure to countries with which we have close relations—I think Sierra Leone is one of those; and after all, many of these countries now receive generous international aid from the United Kingdom—as to whether they might consider they ought to create a new criminal offence, if it is not already on their statute books. Do you think that is something that we could look at? I know none of you are from the Foreign Office, but is that something that would be of some assistance?

Norman Baker

What I do know is that DfID is heavily involved in countries where FGM is common, and in a sense that is a less threatening approach from the British Government than perhaps the Foreign Office might be to suggest laws. I think suggesting laws to those countries is difficult sometimes, but providing help and engaging with communities themselves and getting them to lead the campaigns themselves—as DfID is trying to do—is a very sensible approach.

Michael Ellis

I am not suggesting gunboat diplomacy from the Foreign Office, but do you think there is some room here for some application to countries where it is not a criminal offence to discourage this practice from continuing?

Norman Baker

I think if we do not engage with countries overseas, then we will never solve the problem fully in this country, put it that way. How we engage needs a bit of careful thought. I think the DfID approach to engage with the communities themselves and get them to lead the campaign—as they are doing, an African-led campaign in many cases—is a very sensible approach.

Jane Ellison

I think DfID has a world-leading programme and what they are doing is brilliant. If I might say so, I think the UK needs to be a bit more humble about its own record on FGM before we start suggesting to the rest of the world about criminal law. I think that we are getting there now, but in the past perhaps we have not been in a particularly strong position. The one other thing that it is important to recognise is that the international movement against FGM is being led by African nations. The most recent motion that was put before the United Nations was led by African nations. We have much to learn from Africa and other practising jurisdictions, just as much as we have things to share with them. I think the emphasis needs to be on working together and co-operation.

Michael Ellis

That is interesting. Have you looked into whether there are prosecutions in many of these African nations and how they go about securing prosecutions? As you say, no doubt there is an awful lot for us to learn about how they are prosecuting cases, if indeed they are.

Jane Ellison

Obviously I am Health Minister so I cannot comment, but as a Back Bencher I did look into this. Indeed, I think I made the not particularly unhelpful point at the time to the Minister—whoever it was—that Burkina Faso had had a prosecution and we had not at that point. There are things we can learn. Kenya is a particularly good example. There is some very interesting work there going on, for example, about how they have offered girls refuge and a safe place from which to give evidence and from which to be protected during the point at which they are a witness. I think there are lessons and, as I say, the way DfID has engaged with this and the money and time they are putting into this is one of the ways, but we do need to be open to the fact that there are lessons to learn in both directions.

Michael Ellis

What about protection orders? I asked about this with earlier witnesses. Do you think that there is room for protection orders for FGM as there are for forced marriages? Is that you, Mr Timpson? [Interruption.]

Chair

Sorry, we were just trying to obtain a copy of the letter. We did not know Mr Ellis was about to ask his question. Carry on.

Michael Ellis

Is that your portfolio, Minister Timpson?

Mr Timpson

It is the Ministry of Justice, but if you are talking about effectively applying for a civil remedy—in many ways like an injunction or a protection order—then there is merit in looking at that. I know that is something that the Ministry of Justice is considering themselves.

Michael Ellis

Finally from me, do you think, Ministers, that one of the key elements here is communication and education; so two elements, if I can put it that way? In fact, advancing the education agenda to better equip the communities to understand the impact of this issue and to prevent it from continuing to occur, and also the work of newspapers—such as the London Evening Standard—who have led on this issue and done an awful lot to put the spotlight on it, do you see those as the key platforms going forward on this, education and communication?

Norman Baker

I think they are both very important and without education and communication we will make relatively little progress. There has been a lot of concentration on prosecutions and prosecutions are an element of where we are, but it is not by any means a be all and end all. If we are going to eradicate this appalling practice, then we have to win hearts and minds, as well as simply prosecute people. Certainly, it is very important to do that. I think it is important to educate the population at large—the entire population, as a matter of fact—but also particularly to win hearts and minds among those communities who tend to practise FGM.

Jane Ellison

If I could give a brief example on that point about education, in my borough of Wandsworth and the work that is going on there, a key part of their strategy against FGM is using community health workers. We have some tremendous people working really hard at the front line in the right languages, in the right way, using the right language. In some cases, people do not even know FGM is illegal and that the law follows you overseas. Using some of those key people to deliver messages within their own community is absolutely essential.

Chair

Thank you. Can I just say to colleagues there is no vote, so we can go through.

Dr Huppert

Just to follow on from the question from Mr Ellis about education, one of the things I have put to a number of our witnesses—they have all been supportive with the exception of the police who said it was not their role—was about the idea of having compulsory sex and relationships education at school. It seems that many of the girls at the moment who would be most at risk are the people who get pulled out of this. I would be interested in all of your assessments on whether that would be a helpful way to make sure that they all get the messages that they do need. Jane Ellison, I think you spoke in a debate about compulsory PSHE.

Jane Ellison

Not recently.

Dr Huppert

No, as a Back Bencher.

Jane Ellison

I think I will defer to Ed on this to lead off.

Mr Timpson

I think the Government over numerous debates has made its position very clear and has looked and relooked again at both the sex and relationship education guidance, the statutory guidance that is there for secondary schools—I think we need to make that distinction clear, as opposed to primary schools where it does not have that compulsory element to it—to make sure that it fits with the current world in which we live. We very much go along with the premise that it is schools who are best placed and the teachers within them who know their children, and know their wider society, to make the judgment as to how to tailor any education, including sex and relationship education and everything that flows from it, in a way that is best going to meet those needs. There are so many competing interests in what that would entail that you could not possibly—whether it is through training or through deciding exactly what should be taught through compulsory SRE—ensure that everything everybody would want to be taught is capable of being done. We believe and trust the teachers to carry out what would be the best things for their pupils in order to meet their needs.

Dr Huppert

But should it be possible for a parent to withdraw a child from education about FGM? Should that be at all possible?

Mr Timpson

There is not a specific aspect of the law that is relevant to FGM. What you are talking about is more generally around sex and relationship education. I would prefer to view it from the other side of the lens, which is to say a good or an outstanding school that understands what the risks are to its pupils, if that would include FGM, for example, or many other different forms of abhorrent practices, such as child sexual exploitation, gang and youth violence and many others that are covered in the new “Keeping children safe in education” guidance, then they would be able to tailor it to ensure that those children get the necessary information, guidance and advice that they need in order to make good decisions.

Dr Huppert

Just to be clear, they would be able to compel the children to have this in some form?

Mr Timpson

No.

Dr Huppert

Given that we know that there is heavy parental involvement in FGM and a number of other things, there is this issue that if you say that the parents can choose for their children not to be educated—if they have that right, which is the way that it currently works in most cases—they can make sure their child does not get the education the way it is specifically trying to get there. We will end up educating the people who are least in need of the education.

Mr Timpson

We take a different view on where, ultimately, the decision should be made about what a child has to be taught and what is made available to that child as part of their education. We have a curriculum and we have had a recent review and consultation on that curriculum. Much of it I know has been welcomed. There are things that people would still want us to go further on, but we believe we have the balance right. There are many who would feel that if all of those aspects that are not compulsory were made compulsory, that would skew the balance too much away from the parental responsibility that still exists where it comes to children’s education.

Dr Huppert

We know that it is the parents in many cases who force the children into FGM, and you are still saying it is the parental responsibility to educate them about the fact that the parents should not be allowed to force them into it?

Mr Timpson

No, what I am saying is that in law it is the responsibility of the parent to ensure that their child is educated.

Lorraine Fullbrook

We had some information from the Commanders and the Assistant Commissioners earlier on comparing the UK conviction rate and the French conviction rate. It was suggested that the reason for this was that the French have compulsory examinations of children. We have had various positions as to whether people would or would not support this. Can I ask for each of your views on compulsory examination?

Jane Ellison

Mrs Fullbrook, the Protection Maternelle et Infantile is the state-funded medical body that conducts check-ups in France, but FGM medical checks are not compulsory. It is part of the programme, but parents can opt out of it and my understanding is that many do. I think it is important to put that on the record.

Lorraine Fullbrook

Absolutely, because that was not made clear to us earlier.

Chair

Thank you very much for that because there was a misunderstanding.

Jane Ellison

I did ask my officials to check that, knowing it was an area of interest for the Committee. The Government has no plans to introduce medical examinations. My own view, which I have not changed from being a Back Bencher to being a Minister, is that there are so many better ways we can focus our efforts on prevention and support and that that would not be the right route to go.

Lorraine Fullbrook

Could I ask for the Minister for Children and Families’ position on that?

Mr Timpson

First of all, I think it is interesting, from our previous conversation, that there is an opt-out from what was deemed to be compulsory. The Government has a clear position and I think for good reason. This would be a big change and we believe that there are other ways to try to tackle this issue, which may be more nuanced but cumulatively will be more effective, so it is not a route that we are currently looking to go down.

Norman Baker

If I could clarify from the Home Office point of view, there is a lower standard of proof required in France for convictions. A lack of requirement for corroboration, for example, is required to support prosecutions in France, unlike in England and Wales. In practice, an incriminating statement by the accused or by a third person suffices for a conviction, and obviously that would not be sufficient in our own legal system in this country, so we are not quite measuring two things that are similar.

Chair

No. Even though we are not, isn’t it right that we should look at the French experience to try to compare what we are doing? We accept that the jurisdictions are different, Mr Baker. Have you been over to France? Have you spoken to your opposite number? This is what members of the Committee have done when we started our inquiry. We went over to Paris. We have talked to officials there. We have been to see some of the parliamentarians. There is a lot that can be learned. I am not saying everything the French do is marvellous, in the same way as they do not think everything that we do is marvellous, but it is important as we try to grapple with this subject that we look at good practice. They do have a lot of people from the diaspora from Africa who are there.

Norman Baker

Yes. The first thing I would say is that we do not regard ourselves as being the fount of all knowledge and I am very willing to accept that there are people elsewhere in the world—whether it is in Africa or in France or anywhere else—who may have insights or experience that is useful to us in framing our policy as we go forward. I am certainly happy to talk to anybody who has something to offer. I have asked my officials if I could speak to my French opposite number about that particular matter. That conversation has not yet occurred.

Chair

That would be very helpful.

Mark Reckless

Minister Baker, we had Commander Mak Chishty set out to us earlier the apparent ACPO position, which—if we understood him correctly—is that there should be compulsory examinations at least where girls are judged to be at risk. Does the Home Office disassociate itself from that?

Norman Baker

I think “disassociate ourselves” is a rather strong way of putting it. I am not sure I share the same view—if that was the view that was expressed—for the reasons that Jane Ellison has given a moment ago. If I may give a further reason, mandatory checks would require a hugely intrusive practice upon young girls and that would cause its own problems if it were to be followed through.

Mark Reckless

Commander Chishty told us he had taken up this role five years ago. He did not know who had asked him to do it or why; it was something to do with the ACPO office. There seemed to be some good work at least being done with the Metropolitan Police from what we heard, but there is a bit of a gap where people seem to be assuming that ACPO are sorting stuff out, but they are not, and what is being done by the Home Office or the College of Policing to ensure stronger action by the police, not just within the Met, on this issue.

Norman Baker

There have obviously been discussions with the Director of Public Prosecutions. Police and Crime Commissioners have been engaged in this issue. The College of Policing certainly is I think a better way to secure a more uniform approach from the police across all 43 forces than hitherto was the case. As you know, ACPO is generally being replaced by the new arrangements, so in a sense—I would not quite say it is on its last legs, but it is a disappearing part of the police family framework. I am confident that the combination of what the Home Office is doing with other departments, the DPP, the College of Policing and the approach of the Police and Crime Commissioners is the right way to get a better overall approach across the country. It is certainly true that some police forces have been further advanced in looking at FGM than others. The Met in particular has been in the forefront.

Mr Timpson

If I could just add to my colleague’s answer. Of course, at a local level the police are represented on the local safeguarding children board. We know from both the work that is being done by the Home Office and also Sue Woolmore, who is the independent chair of the independent LSCBs, and the work they have done on child sexual exploitation, their view that FGM is something that they need to be more engaged in understanding the prevalence of at a local level, then that binds the police in at the point at which they can have more effect than just simply viewing it across the national landscape.

Chair

Let us conclude this session with just a couple of questions. First of all on your letter, thank you for providing it. I am a little concerned that at the top it says, “Please do not reply to this message by e-mail as this mailbox is not monitored. If you want to reply to this, go to the Department’s website”. I wonder whether when this letter was e-mailed in the subject you put the words, “Female genital mutilation” because you and I and all Members of Parliament get 200 e-mails a day. I cannot imagine what head teachers must get. Certainly, from what you have said, they get quite a lot from the Secretary of State.

Mr Timpson

Chairman, the point I was trying to make was that in the past there has been from previous Secretaries of State a volume of missives and they have been very much sanctioned to a level that gives them more authority.

Chair

Right, so has this been? They know that they have to open this?

Mr Timpson

First of all, the fact that it has been extremely well publicised, that this has been going out to schools, but also that we have had the highest click and return rate on this letter suggests that it has had the greatest impact that we could possibly have had from this type of correspondence. Of course, we are following it up in the back-to-school as well.

Chair

I do not want to sound mealy-mouthed about this—we are very grateful the letter has been written—but we do feel that we need to know what is happening after the letter, because the letter is not enough if we have identified education as being so crucial to the referral mechanism. You certainly understand that?

Mr Timpson

As I said previously, I am very happy to follow up with the Committee what response we have had.

Chair

Thank you. In respect of the Department of Health, I think getting that information from local CCGs and health practitioners to the Department from 1 April is certainly a very important step forward. We welcome that, but we would like to know what more you plan to do. Minister Baker, in terms of the large amount of European money you are about to spend on this issue, what the Committee would like to know in more detail following this session is when this is going to start. You said later on in the year, but that does sound like—I am not accusing you of this, but sometimes Ministers say, “We will do this in spring” or in autumn, and autumn becomes winter and winter becomes spring, and then there is a general election, and you know what happens to the civil service when a general election comes. As you all recognise, this is obviously something happening every day of every week in the UK and we are keen to see this started. We are not saying it should not start—we welcome what you are doing—but we want to start it straightaway. Are you involved in the Prime Minister’s summit? Are you taking the lead as far as the summit is concerned?

Norman Baker

The final arrangements have not been finalised for 22 July, but certainly I am very keen to be involved, as I imagine our colleagues from other Departments are.

Chair

Surely you must be involved; you are the Minister with ultimate responsibility in the Government. You must be involved in something of this type.

Norman Baker

It is a very helpful question, Chairman, and I will refer it back to No. 10. Seriously, what I can say is—

Chair

In respect of the summit, what members are saying would be helpful—and I am sure you do not have control of the invitation list because you are not the Prime Minister—is if the international dimension was recognised, points made by Mr Ellis about DfID and some of those countries, Sierra Leone and Somalia, this would be very, very welcome if they were included.

Norman Baker

I can assure you that the international dimension is, in fact, if anything, primary over the domestic agenda for the Prime Minister’s summit. I am sure DfID and the Foreign Office will be involved in these matters. In terms of the number of strands I referred to the Home Office as dealing with, which you referred to, I am very happy to write to you with specific start dates and so on.

Chair

Please.

Norman Baker

I can tell you they are not happening in spring, but with a spring.

Chair

Excellent. I am sure we would expect nothing less from you and we would like to see community groups involved because they know what is happening.

Norman Baker

They will be.

Chair

Finally, if we had a benchmark of what you think your policy has been—in respect of: has it been a success or failure in, say, six months’ time?—Jane Ellison, is it based on prosecutions, convictions, awareness? What have you said to your officials? Knowing your history, I am sure you have gone in and spoken very robustly to them. What have you said? “In six months’ time if I have to go back before the Home Affairs Select Committee, I would like to say to them there have been”—what? More prosecutions, more people charged? What?

Jane Ellison

The first thing I would like to reassure you, Chairman and the Committee, is that what I have told you about the new information standard we have set and the reporting is just the tip of the iceberg of the work that we have under way. We have a major programme of training, guidance—all sorts of things—going to look at every part of how the health services can protect girls and look after women. I am very happy to come back and update the Committee at a future point on that. With regard to success, in terms of longer term success, certainly when the next generation of girls from practising countries and communities start coming through maternity, that will be the long-term measure: that we see people coming through who have not had FGM and that we stop it in this generation, that women who have had FGM do not cut their daughters. We can stop it that quickly, because there is no incidence around the world of it recurring if you stop in a generation. It is a big opportunity.

Chair

But the short term?

Jane Ellison

In the short term, the first measure is going to be that we get that data back—we will be chasing that up in the autumn—and we look at that. Then we look at how we can share that sensibly, not being hamstrung by data protection concerns but share it in every which way we need to with all other relevant public bodies to protect girls.

Chair

Your message to the doctors?

Jane Ellison

My message to the doctors is we are here to look after women and protect children, and I am delighted so far with the response. Already, just requiring people to report this is setting off conversations, and I have had e-mails from junior doctors saying, “For the first time we’re all talking about it in my hospital and we are really getting to grips.” My message to them is: thank you, carry on; this is too important to get wrong.

Chair

The benchmark for the Home Office in six months when we have you back here?

Norman Baker

Six months is a short time and—as Jane has quite rightly said—this is a generational issue. I think in six months’ time it is about making sure that communication has been even greater than it has been so far, making sure we have reached out, engaged and listened to and spoken to and influenced those communities in this country where FGM is more prevalent than elsewhere and that it is generally still fully on the radar as it presently is.

Chair

But not more prosecutions, Minister?