Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

For many people I speak to, it is a shock for them to learn that child marriage is not illegal in this country already, and it happens far more often than one might think. In the last 12 months, the national charity Karma Nirvana has responded to 76 known cases of child marriage in England and Wales, with the youngest case concerning a seven-year-old girl. We know all too well the devastating impact that child marriage has on vulnerable children.

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend on the work that she has done over six years to bring this important Bill to the House, in collaboration with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid). The current marriage laws enable 16 and 17-year-olds to marry, with permission from their parents, but this can lead to children being coerced into marriage. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to prevent children from being victim to this?

[Mrs Latham]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. The whole point of the Bill is to stop young people being victims, because they are. Even if there is a prosecution, we should not expect them to be criminalised, because it is not their fault; they are the victims in these situations. We should be supporting these young children.

[Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

May I put on record my deep gratitude to my hon. Friend for her tireless work on this Bill? She and I worked together on it when I was in office. I am also grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid); my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) has stepped into the breach that he left.

The point that my hon. Friend has just made is the crux of all this. This legislation is part of the progressive moves that we have made over the years to stop treating the child as somehow responsible and to start understanding the child as victim. In particular, the mechanism of parental consent, which we all thought was a good safeguard, has sadly become a vehicle for abuse. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Mrs Latham]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for making that very fair point. These children have been coerced into marriage, as they are too young to make the decision themselves. The whole point of the Bill is to stop them having their parents make the decision on their behalf. The children are not old enough.

Let us consider the case of the inspirational child marriage survivor, the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation campaigner Payzee Mahmod, who I have been fortunate enough to work with throughout this whole campaign. Payzee was just 16 when she was coerced into marrying a man of 32—literally twice her age—who she did not know. That was in this country, not abroad. Payzee did not want to be married. She wanted to continue her education and go to university. As soon as the religious ceremony took place, Payzee was married in the eyes of her community, and expected to leave education and become a wife and mother.

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way; she is always very generous with her time. She is making strong points this morning, and I congratulate her on her hard work to bring this Bill before us.

My own mother married at 16. She was a kind and clever woman, but without formal education. Her gift to her daughters—my sisters—was to offer them access to education and not to marry them off young, but instead to encourage school and university before settling down. Marriage under 18 is child marriage and not something we would condone in any other situation. Does the hon. Lady agree that the experience of child marriage for millions is one of entrenching poverty and low education levels for women and girls?

[Mrs Latham]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, because young people who are married are often taken out not only of education, but of society, and hidden away. They do not take a full part in society. This Bill will give those young people—it is boys as well as girls—the opportunity to take full part in society from the age of 18, because it will be their choice.

Payzee’s sister, Banaz, was also the victim of child marriage. Earlier in the same year that Payzee was married, Banaz was married to an abusive husband. When she tried to leave him, her family told her she would be shaming them. She did leave, but then was murdered by men from her own family and community. This tragic case illustrates one of the dangers of child marriages and the responsibility we have in this House to intervene. There is a really good docudrama called “Honour”. If anyone doubts any of what we are saying today, they should watch that, because it is about Banaz and her story.

Banning child marriage is about safeguarding girls’ and young boys’ futures. It includes protecting boys and girls like Banaz from abusive and unwanted relationships, but it is also about ensuring that children like Payzee, who desire an education, are given the best chance in life.

Our current laws stem back to 1929, when the Age of Marriage Act banned marriages between under-16s. Twenty years later, the Marriage Act 1949 permitted children over the age of 16 to marry with parental consent, and the law has not been changed since. In 1949, society was very different. School leaving age under the Education Act 1944 was just 15, and the average age of marriage for women was under 23. In those days, the Queen was not even on the throne, contraception like the pill was not available and being gay was still illegal. Life has changed dramatically in the years since 1949. In fact, in those days, people could not even buy tights, because they had not been invented—they had to have stockings. Life is completely different now.

Contrast that with 2021, where being in educational training is compulsory until the age of 18 in England, and the average age of marriage is over 30. The provision for marriage at 16 is therefore entirely outdated and prevents children from completing their compulsory educational training before entering into a commitment as huge as marriage.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I add my own words of congratulation to my hon. Friend on bringing this important Bill forward and congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), who has also put a lot of work into this area. It is very clear that there is a real grasp of the facts and statistics and some of the patterns behind this. Is there another pattern to do with communities or particular traditions where this practice takes place?

[Mrs Latham]

We are not targeting any community in particular, but there are obviously some areas where people are more likely to have child marriages. There is a point that I will come to later in my speech about international treaties that we have signed up to but not gone through with.

Clearly, we need to stop marriages at 16, but there is a further element to the problem. The laws apply only to registered ceremonies of marriage. Unregistered religious ceremonies in this country are not registered by age at all. In fact, the only requirement on religious marriages is that they are not forced marriages. While the Government’s legislation on forced marriages, inspired by the campaign of my friend and long-time campaigner, Jasvinder Sanghera, is hugely important, it does not work for children. To prove a forced marriage, the courts must find that there is coercion or undue pressure on the child to enter the marriage. In practice, this means that the child needs either to give evidence that will condemn their parents or state that they consented to the child marriage. Very few children of 16 have the strength to go against their parents, because they are totally under their care—I do not want to use the word “control”. Children need to be looked after and brought up by their parents; they cannot act independently at 16.

Karma Nirvana has supported children who do not recognise their child marriage as a forced marriage. They have been conditioned to normalise marriage under the age of 16 and as such, the evidence of coercion or duress is absent. It is frankly unbelievable that, in this country, our legal system allows children, sometimes as young as 7, to consent to unregistered religious child marriages. As long as they are not forced to a standard beyond all reasonable doubt, it is not against the law. My Bill aims to change that. No child should be able to consent to a marriage, whether or not they are under pressure from their parents.

A very small number of children registered their marriage legally in 2019—only 125 legal marriages involving a person under the age of 18 were registered under the parental consent exception. The number of religious child marriages is undocumented in official statistics, however, so it is likely to be higher by a huge factor. Of the cases involving child marriage reported to the Home Office-commissioned national honour- based abuse line in the year to September 2021, only four related to civil marriages. Almost 20 times as many cases involved only a religious ceremony.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

It is striking that, this week, the Foreign Secretary announced £18 million to tackle child marriage. It is interesting that our foreign policy seems to be ahead of our domestic policy. My hon. Friend is talking about enforcement. How does she think that the enforcement mechanism would work in the Home Office or relevant Department to ensure that we can crack down on child marriage and get the relevant data to help as many people as possible?

[Mrs Latham]

It does seem that certain parts of Government are way ahead. One problem, which I will come on to, is that we are asking other countries to stop child marriage, but they can easily turn around and say, “Why should we, because you do it?”.

As I said, almost 20 times as many cases—more than 95% of all cases—involved only a religious ceremony. It is crucial to understand that, as in Payzee’s case, the religious element is a fundamental part of the marriage in the eyes of the child’s entire community. Just because the law does not recognise unregistered marriage, that does not mean that it does not exist or that it causes any less harm. Having listened to the lived experience of child bride survivors, it is without question that such marriages cause lifelong harms and threaten the futures of all those who are entered into them. That is the problem that my Bill tries to solve.

I will turn to the specifics of how the Bill will try to achieve those aims. It sets a blanket minimum age of marriage in this country of 18, irrespective of whether the marriage is registered. There are two aspects to that. First, it removes the parental consent exception that allows children to marry at 16 or 17 in a civil ceremony with the signature of their parents or a judge. That means that children who wish to marry will have to wait until their 18th birthday.

Fewer than 150 children each year currently use the parental consent exception to get married. A handful of those may be young people marrying without coercion, who will be affected by the Bill, but only to the extent that they will have to wait until they are 18 to carry out their marriage.

Many people marrying under that exception are encouraged, persuaded or conditioned by their parents or families to think that it is a good thing. Such families do not necessarily want to break the law. Karma Nirvana, run by my friend Natasha Rattu, received evidence from some children that their parents would not have arranged their marriages at 16 or 17 except for the fact that it was lawful. Those are the people we are targeting with the change: giving children the protection of the law until they are 18, when they are more able to protest or act independently if they are encouraged to enter a marriage they do not want. Any child by the time they have got to 18 is far more mature to be able to decide their own future than they are at 16, so this change to the law of registration of civil marriages will have an important impact. It will send a very clear message to everyone that marriage under the age of 18 is illegal and not recognised in this country.

Secondly, my Bill will not just remove the parental consent exception, but cover unregistered religious marriages. This is absolutely crucial, and it is complementary to the first ambition. Karma Nirvana’s helpline has worked alongside South Yorkshire police to safeguard two girls who were both married in religious or traditional ceremonies at 15, after they were reported missing by their school when they did not return after the school holidays. Following a police investigation, it was discovered that the two girls had been married in a religious ceremony, and following this had been taken out of school and relocated out of the family home in Sheffield to live in the south-east of England with their in-laws.

Despite the girls only being 15 years old, the police were limited in their ability to safeguard them. There was no offence committed as the marriage was a religious ceremony only and never legally registered. South Yorkshire police did try to pursue forced marriage charges, but it was unable to find any evidence of duress or coercion as both children had consented to the marriages. This highlights a flaw in the forced marriage legislation.

Forced marriage requires evidence of coercion or undue pressure, and in most cases that inevitably means children giving evidence against their parents and families. This hinder prosecutions for forced marriages. My Bill will offer an alternative solution: making arrangements for any marriage, religious or civil, involving a person under the age of 18 will automatically be categorised as a forced marriage, irrespective of any alleged consent, and therefore those who encourage or facilitate child marriage will commit an offence and can face criminal charges.

I will now turn to the penalties and consequences of the Bill. It is worth noting, before I go into more detail, that of course none of the penalties or criminalisation is in any way aimed at the child. We must constantly remember that the child is a victim in these cases and needs our protection, not our judgment or our criticism.

First, changing the law in this way is intended to be a preventive measure in itself. We are sending a very clear message that across England and Wales, irrespective of the type of marriage undertaken, it is against the law for a marriage to include a child. As I have set out, this is powerful in itself and will help to reduce the number of child marriages in families that are not lawbreakers.

A second stage, which already exists under forced marriage legislation, is that where there is a concern for a particular child, the courts can impose a forced marriage protection order. This is an extra safeguarding tool in the powers of the police and social services to prevent child marriages.

Finally, in cases where the deterrent or the preventive action has failed, the Bill will penalise those whose conduct caused a child to enter into a marriage, whether or not the marriage is legally binding and whether or not the marriage has yet taken place. This conduct is punishable by a prison sentence of up to seven years, a fine or both. As such, this scale of penalties is proportionate and aims to safeguard the child at all stages, culminating in criminal sanctions for anyone actually causing a child to enter such a marriage.

One final point about the contents of the Bill is extremely important, and I would like to mention it before moving on to talk about how this Bill satisfies significant policy objectives. This is the extraterritoriality element of the Bill. Very often, child marriages actually take place outside the United Kingdom. A girl from Birmingham was referred to the national honour-based abuse hotline in 2020, after being taken to Pakistan at the age of 18 to get married. She told her teachers about the plans, and they spoke to her parents, who denied them. The child was raped in Pakistan until she became pregnant, and only then was she allowed to return to the United Kingdom. What a tragic and horrifying story. Under normal circumstances, it would be outside the reach of UK law to punish the parents, unless the child was willing to testify against them for having forced her into the marriage, which is highly unlikely and would be asking a huge amount of a child who is in the UK, a victim of child marriage and rape, and unable to act independently. My Bill would ensure that any marriage involving a child who lives in England and Wales, or who is a UK national, is covered, whether or not the actual conduct or marriage takes place in this country. Having talked about the scale of the problem and the contents of my Bill, I will now turn to how it would achieve both its direct aims, and significant policy aims in the future.

[Anthony Mangnall]

It is striking that my hon. Friend is talking about violence against women—next week we have the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women—and the need for us to do more to and to bring perpetrators to justice. We have to shatter the cultural impunity, the idea that people can get away with these crimes. Will she encourage the Minister, and other elements of Government, to go further and ensure that there is a mechanism to document such crimes and lead prosecutions? So often there are no court cases that bring people to justice.

[Mrs Latham]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. We have seen that in the case of FGM, where we have had only one case. That was where a child had to testify against a family member who had conducted the FGM procedure. In this case, however, the child will not have to do that, and it is much better that the child is seen always as the victim, as they should also be in the case of FGM—perhaps that law needs to be tweaked to make it more appropriate. In this case we are not talking about women; we are talking about girls and under-18s. Of course we want violence against any woman or girl to be abolished, and we must do all we can to document that and make sure it never happens.

The Bill’s first objective is to safeguard young people, and in particular to safeguard their futures. This is about breaking a harmful practice legacy that is often handed down from generation to generation. We know that children who are subject to child marriages have significantly poorer opportunities and life chances. Those include a lack of education and job opportunities, the removal of independence, serious physical and mental health problems, developmental difficulties for children born to young mothers, and an increased risk of domestic abuse and divorce. There are many organisations in society with a duty to safeguard children, including social services, the police, and medical professionals. It is telling that when it comes to child marriage, those organisations are turning for support to the voluntary sector, including Karma Nirvana, the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, and other charities, rather than being able to rely on the force of the law. The Bill will therefore be an incredibly important tool in safeguarding young people and giving them the best chance for their futures.

I came into politics from a background of education, so giving children the best chance in life has always been at the heart of my political motivations. The Bill will support those young people, and help to ensure that they remain in education or training until they are 18, at which point they are far more able to make informed decisions about their futures.

The second area where the Bill achieves its key policy objectives is in covering both civil and unregistered religious ceremonies. I have been working on this issue for over four years, so I understand that crucial importance of covering religious ceremonies in the legislation. If we were only to regulate civil marriages, we would solve fewer than 5% of the child marriage cases with which the national honour-based abuse helpline deals each year. It is common sense to recognise that the responsibilities and life-changing elements of a marriage flow not from the legal procedure, but rather from the traditional or ceremonial wedding. For so many cases dealt with by the charities I work with, and the forced marriage unit in the Home Office, the religious marriage is the important aspect, and the civil marriage is either non-existent or an afterthought. That is why the Bill will be able to achieve its primary aim of safeguarding young people.

The final point that I would like to make in support of the Bill relates to the UK’s international obligations. The UK is committed to achieving the UN sustainable development goals by 2030. Target 5.3 in the SDGs is to

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

by 2030. That specifically applies to both religious and non-religious child marriages. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child also recommends that there should be no legal way for anyone to marry under the age of 18, even with parental consent.

By supporting the Bill, we are also helping the UK to set an example to the rest of the world on prioritising children’s futures. It will enable us to further our aims to promote girls’ education around the world, which the Prime Minister has always championed, because, as I have said, dropping out of education is one of the main effects of child marriage.

A practical example is the case of Karma Nirvana ambassador Farhana Raval, who was taken to Bangladesh at 16, under the pretence of visiting a sick relative, in order that she should marry a second cousin. Ironically, and tragically, that marriage was allowed in Bangladesh only because of the UK’s rules. At the time, girls in Bangladesh had to be 18 to be married, but because Farhana was British and the rules were different, the marriage was allowed. Since then, in 2017 Bangladesh implemented a new legal provision allowing younger girls to marry in special circumstances. Human Rights Watch confirmed that Bangladeshi officials repeatedly cited the fact that child marriage is legal in the UK as a justification for that change.

The UK’s position in criticising child marriage around the world and championing children’s future is incompatible with our allowing child marriage at home. To uphold our international obligations under the sustainable development goals and persuade other countries of the importance of banning child marriage, we must first lead by example and ban it ourselves.

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

May I commend my hon. Friend for bringing this vital piece of legislation to the House? I know that this is something she has championed for many years, and I think all Members are pleased to see the Bill before the House today. Does she agree that this is an opportunity for this House to show unambiguously—to make it crystal clear—that child marriage is child abuse and that it will never be tolerated in our country?

[Mrs Latham]

I thank the Secretary of State for his intervention. When he got the opportunity to present a private Member’s Bill, he took this Bill on and wanted to take it through, but the quirk of fate that meant he got promoted meant that I was able to take it through. I congratulate him on his new job—well, it is not so new now—and I am delighted that I was able to step into the breach. It is important that we show the world and the whole of this country that we will not tolerate child marriage, because, as he says, it is child abuse.

[Robin Millar]

We have heard a grim account of some of the problems, and we have properly considered them and looked at the legal implications and the penalties attached. Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that marriage is a noble institution, that it is a thing to be desired, promoted and encouraged, and indeed that it is a building block of our society?

[Mrs Latham]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. As I mentioned to him earlier, I have been married a very, very long time, so obviously I agree. [Interruption.] Fifty-three years, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

I just want to say that the hon. Lady is not the only one who has been married for so long. I have been married for longer than her, though only by a few months.

[Mrs Latham]

So obviously, the institution of marriage is a good thing. I do not ever want to stop people getting married. It is outdated to talk about people having children out of wedlock being a sin. If a girl becomes pregnant on her 16th birthday, she will not have the baby until she is almost 17—16 years and nine months—and she has to wait for only another year and three months until she can get married. In that time, she and the person that she has become pregnant by—whether that is by design or not—will, between them, be able to judge whether that is the right choice for them. Clearly, children being brought up in a loving household is obviously the best thing for everybody. Eighteen is the age at which marriage should happen, not before.

I have been long aware of and engaged in this issue through my association for more than a decade with Jasvinder Sanghera, who grew up in Derby and originally founded Karma Nirvana there. As I said, it is now run by Natasha Rattu in Leeds. I have been campaigning on this issue in Parliament for several years and proposed a private Member’s Bill in the 2019 Parliament, which fell at Dissolution twice. I am therefore delighted to be able to introduce this Bill today, and I hope that it will pass this stage of the parliamentary process and proceed towards changing the lives of young boys and girls who would otherwise have been subject to child marriage, whether in the UK or around the world.

I must acknowledge the help and support that I have had in bringing the Bill forward. The charities that form the partnership Girls Not Brides UK, which include Karma Nirvana, IKWRO—the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation—FORWARD—the Foundation of Women’s Health Research and Development—and the Independent Yemen Group, have been instrumental in providing me with data, campaign support and a never-ending source of inspiration to keep on pushing for change in this area.

Thanks must also go to those Members who supported me throughout the process, from the Bill’s birth as a ten-minute rule Bill to finally reaching Second Reading today. Like many of the best achievements in this House, it is a truly cross-party effort, and I pay tribute to the hard work and support of colleagues, including the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), my hon. Friends the Members for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) and for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma), my hon. Friends the Members for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), for Crawley (Henry Smith) and for Shipley (Philip Davies), my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) and, not least, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). In particular, thanks must also go to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), who was drawn out of the private Members’ Bill ballot and kindly gave his support to the Bill, allowing me to take it forward in his place when he was appointed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

I also place on record my thanks to the Minister for the help and support that he has shown in getting the Bill to this stage. I look forward to working with him if the Bill passes Second Reading today. I have also had productive discussions with and support from the Minister responsible for safeguarding—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean)—and her predecessor in that role, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins). I thank them both and the officials in their Departments for their hard work on getting this important piece of legislation right.

In conclusion, I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to support my Bill, for three connected reasons. First, 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 everyone that child marriage is unacceptable. Secondly, the Bill criminalises anyone who causes a child to enter a marriage, whether or not it is in a legally binding ceremony. The data tells us that many of the cases of child marriage involve only a religious ceremony, so this is an absolutely crucial aspect of the Bill.

Finally, the Bill will help the UK to live up to its international obligations by banning child marriage in all its forms, and allow us to take that message to the rest of the world. We support the UN’s call to end child marriage, but we can do that only if we ban it in this country. Let us finally give our children time to mature and see what life can offer after their 18th birthday. There is so much on offer for everyone to enjoy. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sure there was not somebody clapping then.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We are, of course, considering measures that relate to England and Wales. That sends out a very clear message about what our intentions are in this House and, as has been mentioned several times today, the point about the international example that we want to send out is an important one, too. I want the United Kingdom to live up to the rhetoric towards which we ask others to work. That is made more challenging when our law in this country does not reflect what we are asking others to do.

[Mrs Latham]

Was my hon. Friend aware that Northern Ireland is consulting on changing the law there? Obviously, he will be aware that Scotland has the same obligations as us to follow the United Nations sustainable development goals. They may end up being complete outliers and not following through, but they may also end up being dragged through with this, which has to be a good thing for children in the whole of the United Kingdom.

[Tom Pursglove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. Of course, devolution and the devolution settlement is very sensitive, and it is right that directly elected politicians in Northern Ireland and in Scotland reach the decisions that are appropriate for the communities that they serve. However, what we are dealing with here is a very serious matter that relates to the welfare and wellbeing of young people. I would like to think that the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly will want to level up their provisions in the way that we are doing today with this Bill, so that, as one United Kingdom, we have a consistent position. None the less, I am proud of the fact that, across this House, we are coming together to send out a clear message of our intentions in this area. This is a long-overdue reform and I hope that we will see the other nations of the United Kingdom coming together to follow suit. It is welcome, too, that Northern Ireland is about to embark on a consultation on this issue.

The Bill plays an important role in the Government’s ambitions to end crimes that disproportionately involve violence against women and girls—in this case girls. Indeed, in our tackling violence against women and girls strategy published in July, we committed to ending child marriage as soon as a legislative vehicle became available, which it now has.

The UN sustainable development goals require all countries to

“eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilations by 2030”.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has recommended that there should be no legal way for anyone to marry before they turn 18, even if there is parental consent. The fact that it is currently possible to marry at 16 is setting 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 be leading by example, and this Bill will enable us to do that.

This may be a slightly technical point, but it is an important one to make. The Bill will act as a further obstacle to those seeking to take children abroad to marry. That is not covered in the Bill itself, as it relates to the common law, but we anticipate that, following the changes made by the Bill, the common law in England and Wales will not recognise marriages taking place abroad involving under-18s where either party is domiciled in England and Wales. “Domiciled” is a legal term, which, in its simplest form, means the place where a person’s permanent home is. To give an example of this in practice: if a 16-year-old girl, whose permanent home is in England, is taken abroad by her parents over her school holidays to enter into a marriage that is legally recognised in that country, that marriage will no longer be legally recognised 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 in Scotland will remain at 16 and in Northern Ireland it will be 16 with parental or judicial consent. Someone who arranges for a 16 or 17-year-old to get married in Scotland or Northern Ireland cannot be prosecuted for forced marriage under the law of England and Wales, unless they had used coercion to do so. That applies even if they, or the party to the marriage, lived in England and Wales. However, as explained above, if a couple travels to Scotland or Northern Ireland to marry, and either of them is 16 or 17 and has their permanent home in England or Wales, that marriage will not be legally recognised in England and Wales. It will also not be legally possible for that couple to marry in Scotland, due to existing Scottish law. This will add an extra layer of protection for children, and will provide clarity to teachers and social workers, enabling them to report all concerns about children being forced to marry—having a marriage arranged for them here or being taken abroad to marry—to the police.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Latham]

I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate today, because it is a life-changing event. It will change the lives and life chances of millions of girls and young boys over time. It will make us a country that can lift its head up high and say, “We did change the law.” I also thank the Clerks of the House, the Department, which has made it possible to get to this stage, and the Minister, but especially the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who came in specifically to speak in this debate, and the former Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Robert Buckland). This is a cross-party initiative, and I am delighted that people on the Opposition Benches have been so supportive of the Bill. I look forward to the Bill going into Committee, if it goes through today, because it will fundamentally change the life chances of so many people.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).