A Brighter Future for the Next Generation

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I welcome the Queen’s Speech. I am delighted that the Prime Minister has yet again said that he will back 12 years of quality education for girls, which will affect millions of girls around the world. It is a very important and ambitious pledge, and I would love to think that it will all be achieved. Sadly, because developing countries have faced such savage cuts by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to the official development assistance budget, it is unlikely to happen. The cut from 0.7% to 0.5% has been a double whammy as our economy has gone down.

The same ambition is very important in this country, too, but unless marrying under the age of 18 is banned, it is highly unlikely to be achieved. The law by which children can marry at the age of 16 or 17 with their parents’ consent dates back to 1929, and I think that should stop. The law was appropriate for a time when marriages could be as much about family dynasties as about being in love, but today it is responsible for the misery of hundreds of girls across the UK every year who are coerced into child marriage by their parents. The Bill that I tried to introduce in the last Session would have removed that exception, but, sadly, it fell.

The scale of the problem is very difficult to estimate, because many such marriages are clandestine. While fewer than 100 marriages involving children aged 16 and 17 are recorded in official statistics, the volume of calls received by charities such as Karma Nirvana and the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, which support victims of honour-based abuse and forced marriage, suggests that the true number is much greater. The majority of these girls do not consent to the marriage into which they are being pressured, but they cannot articulate that to their parents or access help. I have been informed that the problem has been exacerbated by the coronavirus, because the closure of schools has meant that teachers and trusted people cannot be, or have not been, accessed.

The harms of child marriage are significant. Victims of child marriage can expect to suffer from rape, domestic abuse, and controlling and coercive behaviour. They are frequently taken out of education early and isolated from their wider community. Those who are extricated from this situation experience considerable difficulty in improving their employment and earning prospects because of the lack of education. By contrast, the only cost of the proposition to stop this from happening would be to ask a small number of young lovebirds to wait a year or two before they commit the rest of their lives to each other. Compared with preventing years of exploitation and abuse of the most vulnerable girls, this is not a weighty consideration.

The benefits of our criminalising marriage under the age of 18 will be felt internationally. The UK is a leading country in women’s rights issues, and I welcome the Prime Minister’s very strong personal commitment to ensuring 12 years of quality education for girls across the world. In that global context, the exemption that allows girls aged 16 and 17 to marry with their parents’ consent appears curious. Following the first Girl summit in 2014, the Department for International Development allocated up to £39 million to support global efforts to prevent child marriages. The UK also signed two international human rights conventions, which demand that signatories end child marriage in their jurisdictions, yet we in the UK permit child marriage, and that undermines those international efforts. Furthermore, proposals to stop that happening would strengthen the Government’s existing provisions on honour-based abuse and domestic violence.

Forced marriage was criminalised in 2014 and the Forced Marriage Unit established to protect those at risk. However, I have become aware through conversations with charities that the Forced Marriage Unit often feels unable to act in cases involving children, because the victims have been groomed to appear to be willing. A clear statement in law that children aged 16 and 17 can never consent to marriage would strengthen the hand of the Forced Marriage Unit and lead to the vulnerable being protected and criminals being punished.

Removing the child marriage exception in UK law would send a clear message to other countries, including Bangladesh, which look to our leadership on child marriage and the fact that it should not be tolerated. With the international aid budget cut, it would also be an efficient way for the UK to show global leadership on children’s rights and girls’ education. I am very disappointed that that opportunity was missed in the Queen’s Speech, but there is a chance to do this with a Bill that is going into Committee, and I will be tabling amendments to it. If that fails, I shall table amendments on Report. I feel passionately that girls in this day and age need to be given the opportunity of education, of living a life and of getting married when they can choose at the age of 18 or later.

Although there are some very good things in the Queen’s Speech and I look forward to supporting them through the House of Commons, I do believe that this is a wasted opportunity. I hope that the Government will look at a way to incorporate my embryonic Bill into another Bill so that it becomes law without any further delay.