Marriage and Civil Partnership: Minimum Age

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Latham]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. We cannot tell people what to do if we are not doing it ourselves. We have to lead by example, and the change that I propose is one way in which we can do that. We need the three relevant Departments in the UK: DFID; the Ministry of Justice; and the Department for Work and Pensions—no. Which Department is the Minister from?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Paul Maynard)]

Does my hon. Friend mean the Home Office?

[Mrs Latham]

The Home Office—yes, that is it. I thank the Minister, who is so new that I cannot remember which Department he is from.

Those Departments have to work together to bring this change about. Maybe this long debate will be one of the first steps in that process, but as soon as the Queen’s Speech—whenever it is—is over, I intend to bring this matter back as a ten-minute rule Bill or a private Member’s Bill, because it is really important that we set a good example to the rest of the world.

In addition to attempting to stop child marriage on the international stage, it is crucial that we meet the international human rights standards that have been established to put a stop to the practice. I agree with the assertion by the chairwoman of the global advocacy group, Girls Not Brides, Mabel van Oranje:

“Britain’s delay in reforming its own marriage laws is increasingly counterproductive.”

Forced marriage is defined by the Home Office as

“a marriage conducted without the valid consent of two parties, where duress is a factor.”

It is marriage—a lifetime commitment—entered into by an individual against their will. In the UK, law dictates that forcing someone to marry is a criminal offence. It is child abuse, domestic abuse and a form of violence against women and men.

England and Wales outlawed forced marriages in 2014. That was, in part, down to the work of a campaign by Jasvinder Sanghera of Karma Nirvana, which started in Derby. I know her well, and she has worked tirelessly with that organisation to stop forced marriage, to help girls who have been forced into marriage to escape and to make sure that girls in such marriages are safe. Many of the girls who have been married early for cultural reasons do not feel safe in their own homes.

The outlawing of forced marriage was enshrined in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which sets out that forcing someone, including children, into marriage is illegal and can lead to a maximum of seven years in jail. Previously, the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 came into force along with forced marriage protection orders, which are designed to assist those who are threatened with forced marriage, or by a third party on someone else’s behalf. Those orders can be used to prevent a forced marriage from taking place, or to protect someone who has already been forced into marriage.

I welcome the fact that in the UK, forcing someone into marriage now carries a maximum sentence of seven years in jail. I also acknowledge that in many ways the UK is a world leader in the fight against forced marriage. Unfortunately, however, that does not prevent the practice from happening. The Home Office estimates that between 5,000 and 8,000 people are at risk of being forced into marriage every year in the UK. In 2017, more than a quarter of cases dealt with by the Forced Marriage Unit involved children aged 17 and under, and the vast majority of the victims—77.8%—were female.

The ability to marry at 16 with parental consent is a significant discrepancy in the law here. Too often, parental consent means parental coercion for 16 and 17-year-old children, and sometimes for even younger children, because children can be taken out of school in the UK and sent to another country, where they are married at 14 and kept there until they are 16, and then brought back to the UK at 16. We are told that these girls have parental consent. The organisation Girls Not Brides warns that this “legal loophole” means that child marriages, and potentially forced marriages, are still sanctioned in the UK, because in a number of cases parents do not act as the safeguarding mechanism that the law intended them to be.

In some communities in the UK, the legality of marriage at 16 can result in forced child marriage, whereby parents can consent on behalf of their children. Furthermore, many vulnerable teenagers are being sent overseas to marry. Forced marriage is a violation of human rights and is contrary to UK law, including the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, which states that a marriage shall be voidable if

“either party to the marriage did not validly consent to it, whether in consequence to duress, mistake, unsoundness of mind or otherwise.”

Such marriages must be identified and ended. However, an amendment to the law to increase the legal age of marriage to 18 might stop these marriages in the first place, by making them an illegal impossibility here in the UK. On a personal level, individuals may be more mature and able to resist forced marriages at the age of 18, by which stage they may have managed to get to university, or to get a job after they have finished training.

Although changes to the law have helped to safeguard people from forced marriages, it is important that educational professionals and local communities are fully aware of the signs of forced marriage. The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation’s executive director, Diana Nammi, recently stressed the importance of education in a televised interview, saying:

“We need to educate the community as well, we need to let them know that child marriage is a brutal situation.

Many of them think it is just a sexual relationship, but it’s a huge responsibility on the shoulders of the children and they are not prepared yet.”

To conclude, I strongly believe that the legal age of marriage should be increased from 16 to 18. It is important that we rewrite marriage law here, so that it is fit for the 21st century and aligns with international law.

I was pleased to learn that 79% of 2,700 respondents agreed with me that the minimum age for marriage and civil partnerships should rise from 16 to 18 in a recent poll, which was conducted between 10 and 14 May on the social media pages of the House of Commons. I thank the House’s digital engagement programme for conducting this research for me.

At the heart of this matter is a moral dilemma about our values, not only here at home but internationally. This country is an advocate on the international stage for the eradication of child marriage and we must practice what we preach. I am on the International Development Committee and I have been out to many countries and seen how some of them are trying their best to raise the age of marriage, but that is not happening here. As I say, we must practise what we preach. Ultimately, I am in agreement with UNICEF’s assertion that

“marriage before the age of 18 is a fundamental violation of human rights”.

Meanwhile, forced marriage has a profound personal impact. In a recent Sky News feature, one interviewee—Mrs Khan—recalled her experience, which captures the sad reality of forced marriage. She said:

“It took away so much freedom from me. I could have met someone I loved. Instead, I was forced to get married, forced to have children, forced to put up with so many unbearable things.”

Therefore, I would like to see the Government pass clear and consistent legislation that establishes 18 as the minimum age of marriage, with no exceptions for customary law, parental consent or judicial consent. It is also clear that increasing the minimum age of marriage to 18 would provide a vehicle to help to safeguard girls and boys from being married before they are ready, or indeed from entering into a forced marriage by legal means.

I will finish my speech today by quoting the judge, Mr Justice Peace, in the landmark legal case, Pugh v. Pugh, in 1951. He spoke of the capacity of young people to marry and his words are as relevant today as they were then, 70 years ago. He stated in his conclusions:

“According to modern thought it is considered socially and morally wrong that persons of age, at which we now believe them to be immature and provide for their education, should have the stresses, responsibilities and sexual freedom of marriage and the physical strain of childbirth. Child marriages by common consent are bad for the participants and bad for the institution of marriage.”

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey.

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), to his post. It is good to see him here in Westminster Hall.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) not just on raising this issue but on making what really was a powerful speech. We use the word “powerful” so often in this House, but her speech really was exemplary, setting out so many of the arguments that I am now wondering what I will say. She and I will remember our visit to Ethiopia as members of the Select Committee on International Development. We spent quite some time in a village community where DFID was working to encourage young girls to defer their marriages. It was working successfully, particularly with the community elders—the leaders—and had transformed the lives of some of those young women.

As we have heard from Mabel van Oranje, the chairman of the global advocacy group Girls Not Brides, the UK should practise what it preaches. Girls Not Brides argues that the major impacts of getting married young are that girls are more likely to drop out of school; they never have a chance to develop the vocational skills that will enable them to enter the world of work; and they are at greater risk of marital rape, domestic abuse, serious depression and health problems. All of those issues were discussed with us in those communities in Ethiopia, and the benefits of deferring marriage were clearly shown to us. Indeed, we had the opportunity to meet a number of the young women who were benefiting substantially.

I will give a couple of examples to flesh out the arguments that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire has made. One of them refers to a lady called Amina, whose parents were born in Bangladesh. Interestingly, it has also been made clear to me that the proposals to change the law in Bangladesh to allow marriage at 16 cited British law as a justification. Amina—not her real name—is now a mother of four in her 30s, and lives in London. She had never talked to her husband before her wedding, just after her 17th birthday. It was an arranged marriage, arranged by her parents; it put an end to her studies and plunged her into depression. She says:

“The marriage was all about fear. I was a total stranger in my own house. I was really naive. I felt like a child myself when I had my first children…It was a big sacrifice of my life. I had no chance to explore things. I went through terrible times.”

Another example, that of Zee, has been reported by Reuters. When Zee was 13, she returned home from school one day to find an engagement party underway at her home in the north of England. Her excitement at the celebrations quickly turned to shock when she asked her mother, “Who’s getting married?” and her mother said, “It’s you!” She told Reuters that her betrothed was represented by a photo; he was an older cousin whom she had never met, who lived in Afghanistan, her parents’ country of birth. She said to the reporter:

“One day I’m not even allowed to talk to boys and the next I’m getting married…I was dressed up”—

this was at the engagement party—

“to look like a Christmas tree—very sparkly, very bling. Everyone was happy. The only person who was miserable was me”.

Zee escaped by running away from home, but many are not so fortunate. The latest figures I have from the Government’s forced marriage unit—the Minister may have more recent ones—are that of the 1,196 victims dealt with, one in four was below the age of 18. That is around 300 people. Interestingly, one in five was a male victim, so we must not forget them either.

The points that we are making are serious, because every one of those victims is an individual life. It cannot be acceptable to say that the numbers are not great; those are substantial numbers, and the impact on those young people is lifelong. The impact is not just on them, because if a marriage is good and positive, it is good not just for the people involved within it but for any children they might have and, indeed, for the community around them.

This is national Marriage Week, so the next part of my speech will touch a bit more widely on the importance of marriage. Marriage is a major life-changing decision that establishes a family, often—though not always—with children as part of it. Strong marriages contribute greatly to a stable and flourishing society, including the wellbeing of those children, so it is in all our interests to promote good marriages, including through public policy. It is what everyone wants from marriage.

However, although marriage is a source of great pleasure, it can also be challenging. At times it requires perseverance, which more often than not requires a degree of maturity in understanding human relationships, and understanding both ourselves and others. That must be very difficult at the ages of 16 or 17—and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire has said, remains difficult for many years afterwards. Marriage is far easier if we make a wise choice at the outset about who we marry and who we will be compatible with, because it is going to last a very long time. As I say, that necessitates an understanding of ourselves, as well as of others.

The Church of England marriage service says of marriage that

“No one should enter into it lightly or selfishly”.

It is

“a sign of unity and loyalty which all should…honour. It enriches society and strengthens community.”

We should not expect that of 16 or 17-year-olds, especially in today’s complex world. When my hon. Friend’s mother or grandmother was getting married, life was so much simpler: often, one married someone within one’s local community, who had grown up with the same values and customs. That so often is not the case now. Life is complicated for these young people, and they also have much higher expectations for their life fulfilment than maybe two or three generations ago. It is too big an ask to expect them to be able to make that decision at 16 or 17, even if it is their own decision and not forced on them. The risk of allowing those young people to marry is too great. We should support them and, I believe, protect them from what could be not just their most major, life-changing decision, but the most damaging decision that they could make. Making the wrong major, life-changing decision can be the biggest mistake of a lifetime.

For many reasons, I fully support my hon. Friend’s proposal. Indeed, I would go a bit further and say that anyone contemplating marriage should be offered the opportunity to take advantage of the wealth of resources out there to help people, particularly young people, make the right decision. We as policymakers could do that, for example, by promoting policy No. 11 in the manifesto to strengthen families—the Minister is smiling. I carry a copy in my handbag, virtually permanently.

[Paul Maynard]

I am not surprised.

[Fiona Bruce]

I am very glad to hear that; we are making some impact. Here is policy No. 11, which as I say, I am unashamedly talking about in national Marriage Week:

“Promote high quality marriage preparation by waiving Marriage Registration Fees for couples who take part in an accredited marriage preparation course.”

Not only would that help remove one of the financial barriers to marriage, but it would encourage the uptake of marriage preparation courses. Those courses could be kitemarked, such as the marriage preparation course for engaged couples produced by Holy Trinity Brompton. We have showcased that course, along with a number of other resources, through the all-party parliamentary group for strengthening couple relationships and reducing interparental conflict. They really are excellent materials for people who want to embark on married life with a greater understanding of what it involves. Indeed, after going through some of those courses, some people decide that they are not going to get married. Is that not success, too? Is that not helping to protect them from the heartache and disappointment that marriages can entail if they do not work out?

One of my parliamentary staff members, Sophia, attended the marriage preparation course when she was engaged; she is now married. She says that it was

“very helpful and laid a strong foundation for going into marriage”,

and she would recommend it. If a couple are busy, Marriage Care offers a “marriage preparation in a day” course, and there are resources on the web such as marriagebydesign.org.uk, which is made available by Care for the Family. That organisation has a host of other resources—I actually went on one of its marriage preparation courses 29 years ago, so it must work. Harry Benson has written a tiny relationship tip booklet, “Let’s stick together”, which he says contains

“simple guidelines to keep your love alive and keep you together.”

Can I recommend that the Minister considers the whole manifesto, and in particular policy No. 11, this week?

The structure of the house we live in when we start off in married life—I know that it is a struggle for some young people to find a home of their own—cannot be stable without strong foundations. No one would expect a house to stay up for long if it was not built on strong foundations; it would collapse. So, too, with marriage, which is too big an issue to leave to chance. A little help from us as policy makers, including by raising the marriage age, could go a long way to helping facilitate lifelong fulfilment for many people, as well as a more flourishing society.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Paul Maynard)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) for giving me such a fascinating first outing as the Minister responsible for family justice. I had never given the subject a moment’s thought until Saturday morning when I learned it was on the agenda. I have had a fascinating few days thinking about it. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) for their interesting comments. I also thank the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), my parliamentary next-door neighbour—not geographically, although we share an interest in tidal barrages, but in terms of where our offices are on the parliamentary estate.

The debate has been fascinating. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire has a compelling track record on this issue. I pay genuine tribute to her for the knowledge, advocacy and expertise that she brings to the issue. I have listened carefully and thought deeply about the points she has made, which should be the start of a dialogue. As the Minister, I have to take an administrative approach predicated upon the evidence presented to me. The Government understand the concerns about any possible link between marriages involving parties aged 16 and 17 and forced marriage more generally. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton pointed out—in this, national Marriage Week—marriage will always be one of our most important institutions, but only where consenting parties enter of their own free will and free choice. There can be no doubt that it is a serious violation to be deprived of marital autonomy, and the potential cost for victims of any age, gender or background is abundantly clear.

As the hon. Member for Swansea East pointed out, we announced the launch of a forced marriage public consultation, which sought views on issues such as a possible mandatory reporting duty, requiring certain professionals to report cases of forced marriage and how Government guidance should be updated. In answer to a question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire, the Prime Minister said that we will look specifically at whether there is any link between parents giving consent to marry and instances of forced marriage. When we analyse the consultation responses, we will look specifically for that connection. The consultation is now closed. The responses are being sifted as we speak, and we will take a close interest in the analysis that emerges.

It may be helpful to tell all Members present what they already know and to clarify the position on the age of marriage. All UK jurisdictions require that marriage or civil partnership is entered into freely. In England and Wales, the age of majority is 18, but the law provides for marriage or civil partnership at 16 or 17 if the requirement for consents, including judicial consent when parental consent is unavailable, has been met. That requirement is a longstanding one and operates alongside the work of registration officers, who are trained to spot signs of forced marriage and take notice of the intention to marry without the other party, parents or relatives present.

That goes back to the important point made by the hon. Member for Swansea East about the different ages of maturity that emerge. She rightly pointed out the growing debate about whether we should have votes at 16. At the other end, I believe that someone cannot operate a tarmac roller until they are 21. There is still a spectrum of what we consider, as wider society, to be the point at which we reach adulthood and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet pointed out, there is a range of options across Europe and the wider developed world regarding when marriage can occur.

Some US states allow marriage at 18 as of right, and at 16 if some conditions are met. Other countries have taken other approaches. Spain, for example, raised the minimum age to 16, with consents for under-18s, in response to specific concerns about child marriage and forced marriage. Sweden raised the minimum age of marriage in 2014, removing the ability of under-18s to marry with consents. Those differences demonstrate that there is no clear consensus yet in the developed world regarding the minimum age. However, we should continually monitor the impact of changes and their effectiveness, particularly in what goes on around the world more widely.

We have discussed the numbers of people affected in the UK. As the hon. Member for Swansea East pointed out, in 2016, the last year for which we have figures, only 179 people aged 16 or 17 entered an opposite-sex marriage—down from 424 in 2006. Clearly, it is a declining feature of our marriage system. None the less, I strongly take the point that, whether the number of people affected is 400, 100, 10 or one, we should still have the issue at the forefront of our mind.

The British social attitudes report identifies a dramatic shift in British society’s opinions on marriage, and changing norms about formal and informal unions. Men and women have increasingly been marrying at a later age because of their education, employment and economic opportunities, without any prompt by legislative change. I would be fascinated to see any research on the reasons of those 179 under-18s for marriage. I am sure that a charity, think-tank or group out there will take up that challenge, so we will not have to speculate about who those 179 people are. That might help us to identify the extent to which forced marriage is a component.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire made it clear that the fact that consents are needed shows that people might not be mature enough to make those decisions themselves. I understand that, but it is worth pointing out that consents are not a loophole; the law derives from the concept of the age of majority. When the age of majority for getting married was 21, consents were required for anyone under that age. A long-standing provision exists not to make an exception for people to marry at certain ages, but to respect what Parliament has previously determined to be the age of majority.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet introduced the important point that consequential changes would follow were the proposed change enacted. Where would it leave the age of consent? That is a whole new debate that would open up. There would also be consequential changes on other pieces of legislation that involve marriage, dating well back in our statute book. I realise how deeply felt the implications might be, and any change requires careful thought and engagement. Wider policies are brought in, in terms of what happens in Northern Ireland and Scotland, when we, yet again, have different regimes and disparities are introduced. We need to take into account the legal, moral and societal repercussions of any change such as the one proposed. The Government have a duty to explore that carefully in my view.

Perhaps most pertinently, we have to consider whether any such change would affect the incidence of forced marriage in the UK. Raising the domestic marriage age would not by itself prevent people from marrying informally, such as in a religious ceremony that was not legally binding, or from marrying abroad. Amending the minimum age of marriage would not necessarily deter perpetrators from coercing children into marriage through another route, or make the crime of forced marriage any more visible than it is currently. It is also unclear whether a change in the law would necessarily change the attitudes of families and communities who want to exert control over a young person’s decision to marry.

As I said at the beginning, I will look carefully at the consultation responses to try to identify themes that might emerge and that might help to buttress the case, or perhaps diminish it—who knows? However, there is clearly an important international dimension to the debate, as many Members have set out in much more depth than I could. I will not repeat ad nauseam the points made about the work that we have been doing as a Government with the forced marriage unit. I am immensely grateful for all its efforts. The fact that, of more than 1,900 applications since it came into being, more than 1,800 have been granted demonstrates that there is an issue that we need to deal with and that, so far, our actions are having the desired effect. We are sending a clear message that the abhorrent practice of forced marriage is unacceptable and the UK will not tolerate it, domestically or overseas.

Although the number of 16 and 17-year-olds marrying in England and Wales continues to decline, worldwide one in four women are married under 18, and one in 12, incredibly, is married under 15. There is a broad range of contributors to the problem in less developed countries, including community and cultural pressures, a lack of education or employment opportunities, and stigma around illegitimacy. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet, whose name I saw pop up on the all-party parliamentary group’s 2012 report, which looked into this issue and brought it to the forefront of public debate.

I agree that the international dimension is crucial, and we must continue to have it at the forefront of our mind. I reassure Members that the debate will not end today. I will continue to show an interest, but there are many strands that have to be pulled together. I am open to ongoing dialogue with Members, but I am conscious of the limitations that might be found in merely enacting the proposed change. I thank everyone for their contributions and look forward to seeing Members more frequently, I suspect, in Westminster Hall discussing many similar issues.

[Mrs Latham]

It has been a really interesting debate, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) for taking part. I know that many others wanted to contribute but were unable to attend. I hear what everybody has had to say.

I urge the Minister to work with the Ministry of Justice and the Department for International Development to see if we can agree to look at the issue firmly. I know that the Justice Minister who has oversight of this matter is keen to bring it in—

[Paul Maynard]

The Home Office.

[Mrs Latham]

Sorry—the Home Office. I am confusing my Departments again. Furthermore, those in DFID look rather foolish if they are telling other countries to raise the age of marriage to 18, so I think they will also be keen to take this matter on.