Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill

Sajid Javid Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 25th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[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.