Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th January 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clauses 2 to 9 stand part.

That the schedule be the Schedule to the Bill.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George, and to bring the Bill through Committee. I have been working on it for more than four years, so it is good to be at this stage with Government and cross-party support. This is a groundbreaking piece of legislation that will affect millions of young people over time. I am delighted to be at this stage.

I will deal with clauses 1 to 9 and the schedule together. The provisions end child marriage in England and Wales. They do so first by removing the ability of parents or a court to consent to 16 or 17-year-olds entering into a marriage or civil partnership. Secondly, they extend existing forced marriage legislation by making it a criminal offence to arrange the marriage of an under-18 even if violence, threats or another form of coercion are not used. Those provisions are targeted at unofficial, non-binding marriages that are beyond the reach of the change to the legal age of marriage. Together, the changes will end child marriage in this country.

The number of people marrying legally in England and Wales at 16 or 17 is small and continues to decline. Of nearly 235,000 marriages in 2018, only 134 involved one or both persons aged 16 or 17. Despite the low numbers, there remains undeniable concern that our law should not allow children to enter marriage under any circumstances. Research has shown that child marriage is often associated with leaving education early, limited career and vocational opportunities, serious physical and mental health problems, developmental difficulties for the children born to young mothers and an increased risk of domestic abuse.

On Second Reading, I set out some of the harrowing and inspiring stories of child marriage that have been shared with me since I began this project. In particular, the story of Payzee Mahmod, who was subject to child marriage in this country, is a powerful reminder that overall statistics are not the most important metric in this discussion. Every single child matters and ought to receive our protection. Protecting children is our obligation and our priority. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends that there be no legal way for anyone to marry before they turn 18, even with parental consent.

The fact that it is possible to marry at 16 sets the wrong example, both at home and abroad; having laws that enable child marriage weakens our voice in discussions with other countries and damages efforts to end child marriage globally. This is an area where we should lead by example, and the Bill will enable us to do that.

Setting the age of marriage at 16 was a decision made in 1929, when life was very, very different. Children often went to work at 14, as my mother did, and life expectancy was 20 years lower. Now, children in England must remain in education or training until they are 18, and couples are choosing to marry much later. We must celebrate the improvements we have made to quality of life and ensure that our laws align with that.

Increasing the minimum age of marriage to 18 is a necessary condition for ending child marriage in this country, but not a sufficient one. It will ensure that legal marriages cannot happen before the parties turn 18, but it can do nothing about those marriages enacted in traditional and some religious settings that are not recognised by the law of England and Wales, but are regarded just as much as a marriage by the parties, their families and their communities. Those marriages can have all the disadvantages for the children involved that legal ones do, and arguably more; not only can the parties be under the age of 16, but they fail to benefit from the legal protections inherent in marriage law.

In 2020, the Government’s Forced Marriage Unit provided advice and support in 113 cases involving the actual or potential marriage of a child aged 15 or under. The charities I work with have supported girls as young as seven who have been married in religious or cultural ceremonies in the UK. The Bill therefore extends the offence of forced marriage to cover all attempts to make a child under the age of 18 enter into a marriage, whether or not that marriage would be legally binding.

The offence as it stands covers cases where a parent or other third party uses violence, threats or another form of coercion to cause a child to enter into a marriage. It does not cover situations where a parent or other third party causes a child to enter into a marriage if coercion is not used. The Bill closes that loophole by making it an offence to cause an under-18 to enter into a marriage in any circumstances.

The distinction between the marriage of a child that involves coercion and one that does not is often false. Children may not realise that they have a choice as to their marriage partner. They may not realise that they can resist, or they may be too afraid to do so. In such cases, the parent would have no need to use coercion. This is not just a theoretical gap; we have heard from the Forced Marriage Unit, the police and charities of cases where marriages have been arranged for children who are in this position. Ultimately, children can be put in the impossible position of either “consenting” to a child marriage, or testifying against their parents. That is why it is so crucial that we automatically categorise any marriage involving a child as a forced marriage—to close this loophole and ensure that all children are protected from all forms of marriage.

Having given that background, I turn to the clauses. Clause 1 increases the minimum age of marriage in England and Wales to 18. It amends the Marriage Act 1949 so that a marriage solemnised where one party is under the age of 18 is void. It also removes all provision for 16 to 17-year-olds to marry with parental or judicial consent. It applies both to civil ceremonies and religious ceremonies that take place in registered religious buildings such as churches and mosques. The clause does not make specific provisions relating to marriages that take place abroad. However, it is anticipated that, following the changes made by the Bill, the common law in England and Wales will not recognise marriages that take place abroad involving under-18s where either party is domiciled in England and Wales.

The Bill will not change the age of marriage in Scotland or Northern Ireland, as marriage is a devolved matter. Therefore, the age of marriage will remain 16 in Scotland, and 16 in Northern Ireland with parental or judicial consent, although I believe that Scotland is looking at moving the age to 18 and Northern Ireland is considering it by consulting.

Clause 2 expands existing forced marriage legislation to ensure that it is always illegal to arrange the marriage of a child, even where no force or coercion is used. Subsection (2) amends section 121 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, “Offence of forced marriage”, by inserting a proposed new subsection (2A) which would criminalise any conduct that is for the purpose of causing a child to enter into a marriage before their 18th birthday.

Clause 2(3) would amend section 121(3), under which, as it stands, it is an offence to deceive someone into leaving the UK so as to force them into marriage. The clause would expand the scope of that offence to encompass the new, non-coercive behaviour in proposed new subsection (2A). It would therefore be an offence to deceive a child into leaving the UK for the purpose of causing them to marry, even when no actual coercion was involved upon the child’s arrival in the foreign country.

Clause 2(4) would insert proposed new subsection (5A) into the 2014 Act to clarify that “child” means a person under the age of 18. Subsection (5) would extend section 121(6). Subsection (6) of that existing section provides that the offence of forced marriage is committed even if the perpetrator uses coercive behaviour against someone other than the person whom they intend to force into marriage. Clause 2 would provide that that applies equally to the new, non-coercive behaviour under proposed new subsection (2A).

Clause 2(7) would insert proposed new subsection (7A), which would exclude from the new offence conduct that causes 16 and 17-year-olds to enter into a marriage in Northern Ireland or Scotland. That reflects the fact that in Scotland it remains possible for 16 and 17-year-olds to marry in all circumstances, and in Northern Ireland if their parents or a court consent.

Aside from the Scotland and Northern Ireland exemption I have just set out, clause 2 would inherit the existing provisions of the forced marriage offence in terms of definition of marriage, territorial scope and sentencing. The offence therefore applies to any religious or civil ceremony of marriage, whether or not it is legally binding, and carries a maximum sentence of seven years.

Clauses 3 and 4 are both concerned with amendments to the Civil Partnership Act 2004.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on this important Bill. I welcome her to the club of someone who will have a private Member’s Act amending the Marriage Act 1949.

May I ask for two points of clarification? I am pleased that she has applied the measure to non-formal religious marriages. First, will she clarify whether the marriage of someone of 15 or 16 in Scotland or Northern Ireland who gets married without coercion, but with the approval of parents, will be recognised in England and Wales? Secondly, given this important legislation, does she now think that there are other areas of this whole grey area of what constitutes a child—16 or 17, up to 18 —that the Government need to look at as well?

[Mrs Latham]

The answer to the first question is yes, such a marriage would be recognised, because it took place in part of the United Kingdom, and the law is devolved. The answer to the second question is yes, I think that the Government need to look at everything to do with a child’s rights up to the age of 18. Perhaps the Minister will take that back to Government for them to look at all sorts of things that happen at all sorts of different ages, so that we know where children can and cannot do things. I think that would make it much simpler. I am sure that my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the measures affect the Civil Partnership Act 2004, too, so the effect on heterosexual marriages and civil partnerships will be equal, which is really important.

Clause 3 increases the minimum age of civil partnerships to 18 in England and Wales, and it amends the 2004 Act so that 16 and 17-year-olds are no longer eligible to enter a civil partnership. It also removes all provisions for 16 and 17-year-olds to enter a civil partnership with parental consent.

Clause 4 amends the Civil Partnership Act so that where two people register as civil partners in Scotland or Northern Ireland, the partnership will be void if at the time of registration either of the two people were domiciled in England and Wales and if either was under 18. The clause also provides that if two people convert their marriage into a civil partnership under Northern Irish regulations, it will be void if either of the two people were domiciled in England and Wales and if either was under 18 when the marriage was solemnised. I think I was unclear with my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. Two under-18s who live in Scotland can still be married, and the marriage would be recognised in this country, but if either of them is domiciled in England, the marriage would not be recognised.

Finally, clause 4 also contains the only amendments in the Bill that extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it therefore forms part of the law of Scotland and Northern Ireland. It amends section 217 of the Civil Partnership Act so that where a person domiciled in England and Wales registers an overseas relationship, that relationship will not be treated as a civil partnership if either party was under 18.

Clause 5 gives effect to the schedule, which makes minor and consequential amendments to existing legislation. The amendments that are set out in the schedule are required as a result of the changes to the law made by clauses 1 to 4. The amendments, which affect the Marriage Act 1949, the Marriage (Registrar General’s Licence) Act 1970, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and the Civil Partnership Act 2004, repeal and amend provisions relating to marriage and civil partnership of under-18s, which are no longer necessary or appropriate.

Clause 5 also gives the Secretary of State a power, by regulation, to make further consequential amendments. Regulations made under the clause may include transitional or saving provisions, and may amend, repeal or revoke secondary and primary legislation, which, for these purposes, includes the legislation of the devolved Administrations. The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office believe it necessary to take such a power to avoid any implementation difficulties or legislative inconsistencies—beyond those addressed in the schedule—that may otherwise arise. Amendments to primary legislation in the exercise of that power will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Amendments to secondary legislation will be subject to the negative procedure.

Clause 6 sets out the territorial extent of the Bill. The Bill extends to England and Wales only except for clause 4(3) and clauses 5 to 9, which also extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland. The substantive changes made by clauses 1 to 4 relate to the legal age of marriage and civil partnership in England and Wales only. However, as I have mentioned, one amendment that extends to Scotland and Northern Ireland is required. It relates to the recognition of an overseas relationship where one of the parties was domiciled in England and Wales when the overseas relationship was registered.

Subsection 6(2) provides that clause 5 relating to the power to make consequential amendments, clause 6 itself, clause 7 on commencement, clause 8 on saving provision and clause 9 containing the short title all form part of the law of the United Kingdom.

The matters to which the provisions of the Bill relate are not within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly, and no legislative consent motion is being sought in relation to any provision of the Bill. If there are amendments relating to matters within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, or the Northern Ireland Assembly, the consent of the relevant devolved legislatures will be sought. Marriage law is not a devolved matter for the Welsh Parliament.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire has, as ever, eloquently set out her case in support of the Bill, an important change that she has championed, as has the hon. Member for Rotherham. I do not propose to detain the Committee for long, but I wanted to place on the record all the work that my hon. Friend has done in this space. With that, on behalf of the Government, I very much commend the clauses to the Committee.

[Mrs Latham]

Thank you for allowing me a few more words, Sir George.

I place on the record my thanks to everyone who has helped me get the Bill to this stage, including the charities that we have been working with, which the hon. Member for Rotherham mentioned: Karma Nirvana, which has been amazingly supportive; IKWRO; Girls Not Brides; and others. In particular, the story of inspirational Payzee Mahmod made me determined not to give up trying to get the Bill through, and to keep being a pain in the neck for Ministers and civil servants until I got to this stage. I thank those people in particular because they have worked so hard with me.

I also thank Committee members, who have given their time to support the Bill. Private Members’ Bills do not always have support from across the House, but this one does. I commend my colleagues on the International Development Committee, who have been so supportive, particularly our Chair. I really commend my office staff, who have worked tirelessly to support me, and did the research to get us to where we are today. I also thank the Clerks, and the staff who work for the Department and for Parliament. Without their support, we could not have got here.

I thank the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), who has been working tirelessly with the Minister to get us to this stage, and to make sure that we dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s. I thank the Minister for his support, because without it we could never have got to this point.

I feel very privileged to be here today, having just recovered from covid. It was touch and go on whether I would be able to make the Committee, so I am delighted to be here, fit and well. I hope that the Bill will travel through the House of Lords and come back very quickly, and that we get Royal Assent before Easter. If we do, this really important piece of legislation will have been passed relatively quickly. Thanks, everybody. I thank our Chairman, Sir George Howarth, very much for his chairmanship. I am delighted that we have got to this stage

[The Chair]

I congratulate the hon. Lady. Very few Members of Parliament get a piece of legislation through in their name. Quite aside from the importance of the issue that the Bill covers, her achievement in getting something on the statute book—as I am sure she will in due course—is rare, and she should be very pleased with it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 to 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill to be reported, without amendment.

Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 25th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before we get to proceedings, I remind Members of the difference between Report and Third Reading. The scope of the debate on Report is the amendments that I have selected; the scope of the Third Reading debate to follow will be the whole Bill as it stands after Report. Members may wish to consider those points and then decide at which stage or stages they want to try to catch my eye.

Clause 2

Offence of conduct relating to marriage of persons under 18

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment 1, page 1, line 11, leave out “(2)” and insert “(3)”

This amendment would insert the subsection which provides for the new offence of carrying out conduct for the purpose of causing a child to enter into a marriage after section 121(3) of the Anti-social Behaviour, Policing and Crime Act 2014 rather than after section 121(2) of that Act.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 2, page 1, line 15, leave out “threats or any other form or coercion” and insert “threats, any other form of coercion or deception, and whether or not it is carried out in England and Wales”.

This amendment would state expressly that for the new offence of carrying out conduct for the purpose of causing a child to enter into a marriage, the conduct may take place in England and Wales or elsewhere and may, but does not have to, involve deception.

Amendment 3, page 1, line 17, leave out subsection (3).

This amendment would remove the cross-reference to the new offence of carrying out conduct for the purpose of causing a child to enter into a marriage.

Amendment 4, page 2, line 3, leave out subsection (6) and insert—

‘(6) After subsection (7) insert—

“(7A) A person commits an offence under subsection (3A) only if—

(a) the conduct is for the purpose of causing the child to enter into a marriage in England or Wales,

(b) at the time of the conduct, the person or child is habitually resident in England and Wales, or

(c) at the time of the conduct, the child is a United Kingdom national who—

(i) has been habitually resident in England and Wales, and

(ii) is not habitually resident or domiciled in Scotland or Northern Ireland.”’

This amendment would mean that a person may commit the new offence of carrying out conduct for the purpose of causing a child to enter into a marriage only if the conduct is for the purpose of causing a child to enter into a marriage in England or Wales, or the person or the child has a specified connection to England and Wales.

Amendment 5, page 2, line 4s, leave out subsection (7).

This amendment would in respect of the new offence of carrying out conduct for the purpose of causing a child to enter into a marriage remove the exception for marriages of 16 and 17 year olds that take place in Scotland or Northern Ireland, so that conduct related to such marriages may amount to an offence.

[Mrs Latham]

I am pleased to speak to these amendments, which I am confident will make the Bill clearer and cleaner, and provide more effective, targeted and proportionate safeguarding. Before I come to the details of the amendments, I remind hon. Members of the purpose of clause 2, to which all five amendments relate.

Clause 2 will create a new part of the forced marriage offence within the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. Currently, it is only an offence to cause a child to marry if violence, threats or another form of coercion are used, or if the child lacks capacity to consent to marry under the Mental Health Capacity Act 2005. It is not an offence to cause a child to marry if coercion is not used and the child is not covered by that Act. As I set out on Second Reading in November, this is a real loophole. To ensure that all children are protected, the Bill needs to ensure that it is always an offence to cause a child under the age of 18 to enter into a marriage, whatever the methods used.

I propose to start by going through the first three broadly technical amendments, beginning with amendment 3. The existing offence of forced marriage contains a subsidiary offence of deceiving someone into going overseas with the aim of forcing them into marriage there. That is an important addition, because such behaviour is far from uncommon. As it stands, the Bill expressly extends that deception offence to encompass the behaviour entailed in the new offence. However, on reflection, Ministers and I feel that it is not necessary. The new offence that we are adding, of causing a child to marry, refers to

“any conduct for the purpose of causing a child to enter into a marriage before the child’s eighteenth birthday, whether or not the conduct amounts to violence, threats or another form of coercion.”

That would include deceiving a child into going overseas. That means that the provision in the original Bill is unnecessary duplication, and it makes the law less clear than it could and should be. Amendment 3 would remove the express extension of the deception offence to cover the conduct entailed in the new offence of causing a child to marry. I would like to put beyond doubt, on the record, that that new offence does include deceiving a child, be that into going overseas or otherwise.

To reinforce this, amendment 2 adds specific reference to “deception” as one of the types of conduct that it might encompass, as well as specifying that it does not matter whether or not the conduct was carried out in England and Wales. Finally, and purely consequentially, amendment 1 merely moves the new offence of causing a child to marry from before the deception offence to after it, where it more naturally fits.

Amendments 4 and 5 make substantive changes to the nature of the offence, in such a way, I believe, as to improve the Bill. They relate to the jurisdictional scope of the offence—the scenarios that can lead to prosecution, based on where the parties are, where they live, what their nationalities are, and where the marriage is to take place. Currently, the new offence of causing a child to marry essentially inherits the jurisdictional scope of the existing forced marriage offence. It also required a carve-out provision—clause 2(7) of the original Bill—which removed liability where marriages of 16 and 17-year-olds take place in Scotland or Northern Ireland. Hon. Members will be aware that that was necessary because marriage policy is devolved and the age of marriage is different in those countries.

On reflection with Ministers, that presented two problems. First, those wishing to carry out a child marriage in England or Wales would, in many cases, have been able to get around the offence simply by having the marriage take place in Scotland or Northern Ireland—I refer to that as the “Gretna Green” exception. Secondly, the law as drafted would inadvertently include UK nationals resident in Scotland, and Northern Ireland residents who, perfectly legally under their own law and under the law of another country, wished to marry at 16 or 17 in that third country. That could be seen as a lack of respect for the devolution settlement. It is evidently not appropriate for the law to reach that far, but on the other hand, we would like to close the Gretna Green loophole. I am therefore grateful to Ministers for their help and support in reaching a solution that both respects the devolution settlement and removes that dangerous loophole.

Amendment 5, which is the first part of the solution, removes the current exemption in clause 2(7) for marriages of 16 and 17-year-olds taking place in Scotland and Northern Ireland. That will remove the Gretna Green exception. However, the offence would then cover all UK nationals marrying overseas, which could include those living in or domiciled in Scotland or Northern Ireland, where child marriage is—unfortunately—still legal. Amendment 4 will therefore make the jurisdictional provisions more proportionate and targeted while still ensuring maximum safeguarding. That will provide that a person can be prosecuted in one of three situations.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend, like me, welcome the fact that Northern Ireland is consulting on raising the minimum age of marriage to 18? Will she join me in expressing a desire that the Scottish Government should reflect on that and do the same?

[Mrs Latham]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Northern Ireland is consulting, and I think that Scotland is about to do so. That is so important, because, if they do not change, they will not reflect the sustainable development goals that they have signed up to along with us. If they want to abide by those goals, they will have to move forward on that. I look forward to us being one nation all doing the same thing. I thank him for that point.

The first situation is if a marriage is to take place in England or Wales. It can never be right for us to allow the marriage of a child to happen within our borders. The second situation is if the perpetrator or victim is habitually resident—they ordinarily live—in England and Wales. That will ensure that we protect children who live in this country and that those people who live here obey our rules and norms. The final situation is if the child is a UK national who has been habitually resident in England or Wales and who is neither habitually resident nor domiciled in Scotland or Northern Ireland. Domiciled is a slightly different concept from habitual residence: it means the place that someone regards as their permanent home, even if they are actually living somewhere else. So, all UK nationals who have at some point lived in England or Wales, unless they live in or have their permanent home in Scotland or Northern Ireland, will be covered.

One of the effects of those changes is, as I indicated, to show respect for the devolution settlement in a more effective and meaningful way than the Bill does currently. The offence would no longer encompass situations where a parent arranges for their 16 or 17-year-old UK national child who lives in Scotland or Northern Ireland to marry outside the UK, so it would not stop such Scottish or Northern Irish children from exercising the rights under the laws of those countries.

We did consider removing the UK national criteria of the offence in its entirety, but that would mean that, when it came to marriages happening outside England and Wales, we would have had to rely solely on habitual residence, which is a fluid property that can be lost if a person has sufficiently severed their ties with England and Wales. The Girls Not Brides UK coalition, who are experts in this area, were concerned that that could cause perverse behaviour, namely that parents might keep their children overseas before causing them to marry until such time as they lost their habitual residence and, therefore, the protection of the law.

We have therefore kept the UK national criteria, but only for a child who has been habitually resident in England and Wales at some point in their life, to ensure intervention in matters overseas only if there is a reasonable connection to England and Wales. Out of respect for the devolution settlement, the offence would apply only if the child were not at that time habitually resident or domiciled in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

The amendments will create a more rounded and focused regime. As such, I commend them to the House.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)]

I am delighted to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham), both for her continued steerage of this vital Bill and for tabling these important amendments. It will not be me who responds to the final stage of the Bill, so, if I may, I will put on record my appreciation, and that of the entire House and I think the whole country, for the work she has done over her whole parliamentary career.

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[Mrs Latham]

May I begin by thanking the Public Bill Committee, which met on 12 January to consider the Bill in detail? The Committee submitted the Bill to detailed scrutiny, and I am confident that the cross-party spirit that has run throughout this process has made it a much better piece of legislation.

After Second Reading in this House on 19 November last year, I was inundated with media and interview requests to talk about child marriage. Many of the issues and specific cases that hon. and right hon. Members from across the House raised were ones that there is not enough awareness of. Indeed, I am absolutely delighted that two of the incredibly brave survivors of child marriage whose stories I told in November, Payzee Mahmod and Farhana Raval, are here today in the Gallery to witness this historic moment, when the House of Commons will vote to end child marriage in this country.

Child marriage exists as both a legal and a social phenomenon. We in this House can, and I hope that we will, change the legal position by criminalising those who arrange child marriages and refusing to recognise unions involving children. However, the social aspect—raising awareness of child marriage among children, parents, educators, social care professionals and community leaders—is equally important. We must send a message that child marriage is illegal and is unacceptable under any circumstances.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)]

May I take this opportunity to commend my hon. Friend for her tireless campaigning on this most important of issues? She has shown hon. Members and the public exactly why child marriage is child abuse and why it is absolutely right that we put an end to it.

[Mrs Latham]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that, and he is absolutely right. I know that he, too, has been passionate about raising awareness about this issue. If it were not for his now being Health Secretary, I would not be doing this today, because he had the private Member’s Bill, which I never got, and he generously gave it over to me. He did that because he knew that I had been working with the charities represented in the Public Gallery for many years. So I thank him for the help he has given in my being able to do this.

It is undeniable that changing this law and making it unequivocally clear that it will be illegal to arrange any child marriage, whether for a boy or a girl, in England and Wales, irrespective of alleged consent, coercion or persuasion, is a huge step in the right direction, because many children are brought up to believe that this is the norm, but it is not the norm in this country to be married as a child. This legislation will send a huge message out and that is the purpose of the Bill. Let me briefly mention the effect of each of its key provisions. First, the Bill will remove the exception that currently allows 16 and 17-year-olds to get married and to enter into a civil partnership with parental or judicial consent in England and Wales. People who are too young to consent for themselves are too young to be married. Getting married is a huge decision, no matter at what age someone decides to marry. The existing law has been in place for more than 70 years and reflects social values from a different time, one in which a school leaving age was 14 and the average age for marriage was just 23. Many girls like my mother left school at 14 and went to work. In that context, a marriage at 16 was not unreasonable. Of course, there were many shotgun weddings before the age of 18 where a pregnancy was involved, because in the eyes of many being pregnant without being married was a sin. This was before contraception and life is completely different now.

Now, the Government have legislated to ensure that all children must be in education or training until 18, providing greater opportunities for academic and professional development for all children. Furthermore, the average age for marriage is now over 30. There are substantially fewer than 200 children utilising this exception every year, which is evidence that as a society we are moving away from this practice. So there is a real need to remove that exception. When I have tried to bring this before the House previously, I have been told by previous Ministers, not the excellent Ministers we have in place today, that it was not relevant, because there were so few cases and it did not really matter.

[Mr Holden]

My hon. Friend says that it is the children using this exemption, but in Committee, where I supported her, she made the point powerfully that it is not children using the exemption, but their family members, who are seeking to pressurise them into marriage. That entirely shows the point of this piece of legislation.

[Mrs Latham]

My hon. Friend is right: this is about coercion, persuasion and accepting that this is the norm in a family. It is not the norm, and should not be, in this country. If a child is unable to sign that piece of paper to say that they are getting married, they are too young to have somebody else do it for them, and to persuade them and make them get married at that stage. So this Bill is very, very important. The impact on those children who wish to take advantage of the exception will be minimal. They will only have to wait a maximum of two years to marry; if they are 16 and a half, it will be only 18 months. So we are talking about only a very short time, although I do accept that when someone is 16, two years seems a very long time—in reality, as all know in this Chamber, that is not true. The impact on victims of child marriage around the world of England and Wales setting its legal aid of marriage unambiguously at 18 will be enormous.



The second key provision will make it a crime to organise any unregistered marriage involving a child in England and Wales. This is a huge part of the problem we are trying to solve. As I set out on Second Reading, the cases of child marriage in the UK that cause the most concern often do not show up in the statistics. Of the cases involving potential child marriage reported to the Home Office-commissioned national honour- based abuse helpline, delivered by Karma Nirvana—representatives of which are in the Gallery today—in the year to September 2021, only four related to civil marriages. There are almost 20 times as many cases that involve only a religious ceremony—more than 95% of all cases—and those are the people who go to Karma Nirvana for help, so Members can imagine how many do not do that and are persuaded to be married.

We know from the experiences of Payzee—who is also in the Gallery—among many others that the religious ceremony is the most important part of the marriage in the eyes of the family and the community of the child. They do not need the registered part: they are not interested in that. It is the unregistered part that makes the difference for them, and currently, there is no age limit on an unregistered marriage. The only requirement is that it is not forced, and we know that under the current law, proving a forced marriage where it involves children is extremely difficult. The Girls Not Brides UK coalition, which has done so much in the campaign to end child marriage, has been involved in shocking cases where the child being married was under 10 years old.

Therefore, my second key provision updates forced marriage legislation to create a new offence of arranging the marriage of a child. This offence will be triggered by any conduct that causes a child under 18 to enter into such a marriage, whether civil or religious. Crucially, unlike with forced marriage, there is no need to prove coercion or control. This takes the onus away from the child to show that their marriage was forced, and will make prosecutions easier and the deterrent that much stronger. I should make it absolutely clear that this criminal offence is not about criminalising the child. The child is the victim in every single case; the criminals are the adults who organised these marriages.

A key provision that I would like to highlight is the provision of extraterritoriality. The Girls Not Brides UK coalition, as well as the Government’s forced marriage unit, have seen plenty of evidence to suggest that very often children who live in the United Kingdom are being taken abroad, often to a country where extended family live, in order to be married. Sometimes, they are taken abroad for just a few weeks, but sometimes they are taken abroad for many months or years—as in the case of Farhana, who is also in the Gallery today. It is crucial that the offence captures that conduct, because it is just as damaging to the future prospects and life chances of the victims as a marriage that takes place in the United Kingdom. If a child is out of education for months or even years, they will find it much harder to enter the workplace and become economically productive, if they ever do so.

I have been working very hard with the Government since the Committee stage to ensure that the Bill is comprehensive and covers as many situations as possible. My thanks go to the Ministers and the teams of officials who have worked so hard to get it right, resulting in the amendments on Report. I did not want to come back next year or the year after with more amendments; I wanted the Bill to be right from the start, because loopholes need to be closed. Therefore, I am delighted that this Bill will cover not just marriages taking place in England and Wales, but marriages anywhere in the world involving a child or a person who lives in England or Wales, as well as those involving UK national children who have at any point lived in England or Wales. That offers a huge amount of protection to all children growing up in this country, and removes any incentive for parents to leave the UK in order to avoid our marriage law.

Having considered the Bill’s key provisions, I shall briefly reflect on its importance. Primarily, the Bill is important because it will offer protection from marriage to every single child who grows up in England and Wales, forever. At a stroke, it will stop both registered and unregistered marriages under the age of 18 and ensure that this protection cannot be avoided simply by someone temporarily leaving the country. I often talk about safeguarding futures, because that is what we are doing: safeguarding children’s futures so that they can have decent lives.

Child marriage is so harmful to the future prospects of the victims and almost always results in their leaving education, thereby reducing their career prospects and overall life chances. Before I came to this place, my political background was in education, which I firmly believe is the most powerful tool we have to create opportunities for young people. It is an enormous disadvantage if young people are deprived of education—an education that we in this House have determined to provide up until the age of 18—because of child marriage.

It is not an understatement to say that the Bill will protect and affect the lives of literally millions of young boys and girls in this country. It will protect them from child marriage and enable them to have the best chance in life, because they will be able to continue in education until the age of 18. It will also strengthen their ability to say to their parents, “I want to go to university” or get an apprenticeship or a job. It will be much easier, because at 16 a young person is totally dependent on their parents and cannot live independently.

The legislation’s implications will be felt not just in the UK. The UK is committed to achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals, target 5.3 of which is to

“eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilations”

before 2030. This applies specifically both to religious and to non-religious child marriages. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends that there should be no legal way for anyone to marry under the age of 18. The Bill will therefore also help the UK to set an example to the rest of the world by prioritising children’s futures. The UK will finally be in a position to take a lead on child marriage around the world and on championing children’s futures. To be able to persuade other countries of the importance of banning child marriage, we must first ban it ourselves. When we have said to countries, “You need to raise the age of marriage,” they have come back to us and said, “Why should we? You don’t—you allow children to marry.”

I have set out the main provisions of my Bill and the enormous impact it will have on children in this country and around the world. Before I conclude, I wish to make an appeal to the Government. I thank the Minister, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Corby, and his colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch, who has also worked closely with us on the Bill, for their patience and shared determination that the Bill should be as comprehensive and effective as possible. I am sure, though, that it will come as no surprise to the Minister that I have three final asks of the Government.

First, I impress on the Minister the importance of the Bill’s swift commencement. Clause 7 confirms that the Bill will come into force on the day appointed by the Secretary of State. However, every day before commencement is another day on which child marriage remains possible in this country. Will the Minister please do everything in his power to arrange for commencement to take place as swiftly as possible? In particular, will the Minister give his view on whether, should the Bill make good progress through the other place and pass into law, a commencement before the summer holidays is possible? So many children are taken abroad in the summer and I fear we will be failing in our duties in this place if we do not offer them the protection this summer that we in this House believe is necessary.

Secondly, as I mentioned at the start of my speech, changing the law is only one part of the solution. Changing attitudes and societal norms is the second stage, and I have already raised that with the Department for Education. Will the Minister please confirm that he will work closely with the Department to ensure that both children and teachers are informed about the change in the law in advance of the summer holidays, so that children who are at risk can be spotted? Not only schools will need updated guidance. Will the Minister also please confirm that updated guidance for the police and for the Crown Prosecution Service will be swiftly produced to help in the investigation and prosecution of crimes under this legislation?

Finally, but no less importantly, I would like to note one final point, which is one I regret. Unfortunately, due to marriage policy being devolved, the protections in this Bill extend only to children in England and Wales, or to children with a specific connection to England and Wales. At the moment, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive do not have equivalent legislation, so children there will not be safeguarded. They also prevent the UK from completing its international obligations to end child marriage.

However, there are signs of change. The Northern Ireland Executive have launched a consultation on changing their marriage laws, and I hope that the Scottish Government will do the same. Will the Minister join me in a determined lobbying campaign to ensure that our colleagues in the devolved Administrations do the right thing and ban child marriage in their jurisdictions, too? I would be absolutely delighted if, in two years’ time, we were once again debating child marriage in this House to celebrate Scotland and Northern Ireland implementing similar pieces of legislation, so that all UK children would be covered and we would then be able to take out those provisions in this Bill.

In conclusion, I urge all hon. and right hon. Members to support my Bill. It will safeguard young people by establishing 18 as the legal age of marriage in this country, with no exceptions, giving a clear message to all that child marriage is totally unacceptable. Secondly, it criminalises anyone who causes a child to enter a marriage, offering protection from child marriage to all children growing up in England and Wales—a protection that applies both in this country and around the world.

Finally, the Bill helps the UK on its way to living up to its international obligations by banning child marriage in all its forms, and encourages the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to follow suit. The Bill has the potential to impact millions of young people, and to prevent untold numbers entering into miserable child marriages. For the sake of children growing up now and yet to come, I commend the Bill to the House.