Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill

I agree entirely that this is an extremely urgent issue. Nobody can use the excuse of parliamentary time any more, given the way that business has been collapsing in recent weeks. There is plenty of parliamentary time; what we need is political will. I hope that my Bill will be a step along that road and give us the opportunity to examine this in more detail and to push the Government to follow up their words with actions. They have said consistently that they want and intend to ratify the convention, but we have reached a hiatus, the process has stalled and the convention has now been languishing on the backburner for over four and a half years, which is far longer than Council of Europe conventions usually take to ratify. The Bill is an attempt to shift the logjam and give the Government the impetus they need to take the final steps to bring the UK into compliance.