Istanbul Convention Bill

​I always look forward to spending Friday at work in the constituency, however, last week I was pleased to be in Westminster to support my SNP colleague Dr Eilidh Whiteford MP’s important Istanbul Convention Bill.

The Istanbul Convention is the most comprehensive legal framework that exists to tackle violence against women and girls and would take the UK one step closer to ending domestic violence. The bill requires the UK government to ratify the Istanbul Convention after it signed up for the treaty in 2012 but failed to pass it into law.

The bill had cross party support and despite shameful attempts from some Tory MPs to stop it from progressing, by talking for over two hours, the landmark law passed its Third Reading in the House of Commons with an overwhelming majority of 138 in favour to just 1 against!
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Eilidh deserves a huge amount of praise for the way in which she was able to skilfully steer this bill through Parliament.

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