I want to say a huge thank you to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) for introducing this Bill. Four years after the signing of the Istanbul convention we are here today to try to push the Government to ratify. That is long overdue,
I want to say, too—I intend to say a few uncharacteristic things—that I know how much the Government care about this issue. Long before I was elected to this place I worked very closely with Home Office officials, some of whom I know are here today. I worked with the Home Office under the then Home Secretary, now the Prime Minister, for years, and I never saw anything that led me to believe they had anything but commitment to improving legislation in the area of domestic violence and sexual violence. In practical terms, when things had to be delivered—that costs money and falls under the Department for Communities and Local Government’s auspices—things did tend to break down. But in legislative terms, the Modern Slavery Act 2015, the measures against coercive control and other steps let me know that there was that commitment, regardless of all the things that divide us—and, my gosh, I could talk out a debate on how many things divide us, but I like to sleep at night and was raised properly.