Extracts from Business Questions - March 9

As has been said, yesterday was International Women’s Day, yet my constituents were shocked to learn, via the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children this week, that no fewer than 55 cases of female genital mutilation took place in Peterborough in the final three months of 2016. May we have a debate on prosecutions of the perpetrators of this evil trade, so that we can protect our young girls and women? FGM is not culturally acceptable, and it is time that we tackled it and drove this abominable practice from our country forever.

I agree with my hon. Friend: FGM is a crime, and it is child abuse as well. There have been a number of changes to the law, including in particular the Serious Crime Act 2015, that have extended both powers and penalties to deal with FGM. As he knows, the majority of cases recorded by the NHS are crimes that were committed overseas on non-UK citizens, where probably the right priority is to give help and support to those women who have been abused. However, he is right that we must not hesitate to bring people before the court where there is evidence.

• Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)

  In his statement, the Leader of the House said that there would be a debate on the Department for International Development’s programme in Nigeria. He will know that there is an impending famine in eastern Nigeria. I wonder whether we could have a wider debate on the famines in Yemen and Somalia, and the famine in South Sudan that the World Food Programme has just announced, and on how DFID’s programme could do more to prevent conflict rather than just resolving it, given that conflict is a driver of those famines.

• Mr Lidington

  That sounds like an ideal subject for one of the longer debates in Westminster Hall. I am sure that my hon. Friend would be the first to agree that DFID is devoting a lot of resource to help bring relief to South Sudan.