To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made by the Attorney General
in his review of the alleged mishandling by the Crown Prosecution Service of forced
marriage trials.
<p>The UK Government is committed to tackling the brutal practice of forced marriage.
The Attorney General has spoken with the Director of Public Prosecutions about the
Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) long term strategy to increase the number of prosecutions
for ‘honour based’ violence.</p><p>The CPS is committed to improving its response
to these crimes. It has implemented an action plan relating to ‘honour-based’ violence
and forced marriage which will be taken forward by the CPS Violence Against Women
and Girls Strategy Team, working in close partnership with the police and third sector
experts. Further to the action plan, a joint protocol was published in December 2016
outlining the CPS and police commitment to the successful investigation and prosecution
of these crimes. The protocol enables police and prosecutors to quickly understand
the action they must take when a crime is reported to the police and referred to the
CPS for a charging decision, ensuring the safety of the victim is at the heart of
the process.</p><p>The Attorney General will be updated on the implementation of the
action plan and joint protocol at regular intervals.</p>
To ask the Senior Deputy Speaker, further to his Written Answer on 7 March (HL5612),
what is the industry standard categorising service; who within the Parliamentary Digital
Service (PDS) is responsible for the service; whether there is a contract or other
service level agreement between PDS and the service; whether PDS pays for the service,
and if so, how much is paid annually; whether the service reports to PDS in respect
of its activities and decisions, and if so, how; whether its classification of websites
is advisory or mandatory; whether Parliament is free to over-ride its classification
of religion-based hate websites; and if so, why there are no plans to unblock the
"Religion of Peace" website.
<p>The Parliamentary Digital Service (PDS) uses the Check Point URL filtering service
to categorise websites, and currently blocks a range of categories of website from
the Parliamentary Estate, including “Hate/Racism”. PDS does not control which websites
are put into which category by the filtering service; this is an automated process
conducted at an industry level.</p><p>It is not possible to provide an accurate figure
regarding the annual cost of the service as it is one of a number of services provided
within a contract. With over one billion websites to categorise, it is not practicable
for the filtering service to report to PDS in respect of its categorising decisions
for particular websites. While it would be possible for PDS to unblock a website that
has been included in a blocked category, there are no plans to unblock the “Religion
of Peace” website, which has been included in the “Hate/Racism” category, because
the site does not appear to have been incorrectly categorised.</p><p> </p>