HC Deb 07 January 2003 vol 397 cc65-6W
Keith Vaz

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if the Lord Chancellor's Department will produce a yearly report presenting the results of legal proceedings abroad sought to settle disputes related to child abduction. [89053]

Ms Rosie Winterton

The Child Abduction Unit, which discharges the functions of the Lord Chancellor as Central Authority under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and European Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions concerning Custody of Children and on the Restoration of Custody and Children, maintains statistics on applications under those conventions in respect of children brought to and taken from England and Wales.

A summarised version of those statistics appears as part of the annual report of the Official Solicitor and Public Trustee, the latest version of which was published in October 2002. A copy is in the Libraries of both Houses and is also available on the OSPT website.