Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend raises a very pertinent point, and I commend her for the work that she has done to try and prevent this hideous crime. She is right that the initial stages of grooming are now almost exclusively happening online. Today I was with the Minister for School Standards talking about that, because the Department for Education’s teaching around grooming still features someone going up to a child in a park with a bottle of alcohol and does not tackle social media. My hon. Friend is right to raise that and the online harms Bill must reflect it.

The inquiry took thousands of hours, costing millions of pounds and effectively reached the same recommendations that I and others have been raising in Parliament for years—and that relate to what survivors have been saying for decades. However, in that time, little has actually changed. CSE is still flourishing, and abusers still seem to flout the law with impunity. The Government must now take decisive action to empower local authorities and law enforcement to protect children from exploitation.

The report makes six key recommendations that provide clear actions for Government to take. I urge the Minister to act urgently to implement them in full to prevent further horrific abuse. First, the criminal justice system’s response to CSE by organised gangs must be strengthened. The law must recognise the particular nature of sexual offences where a child is exploited by two or more people. The Government must swiftly amend the Sentencing Act 2020 to provide a mandatory aggravating factor in the sentencing of such cases. Secondly, the Minister should publish an enhanced version of the child exploitation disruption toolkit as soon as possible. The Government recognised the need to do that in their tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse strategy over a year ago, but the updated toolkit is yet to be published.

The toolkit needs to make clear that the core element of the definition of child sexual exploitation is that a child was controlled, coerced, manipulated or deceived into sexual activity. Currently, English statutory guidance defines child sexual exploitation as requiring some sort of “exchange” between the perpetrator and the victim. Barnardo’s and the IICSA report agree that exploitation does not necessarily involve exchange, financial advantage or an increase in status, not least because it implies collaboration by that child. The toolkit must reflect the fact that, both to recognise the true nature of the crime and to shift from victim-blaming, the definition must be updated.

The Government must also give agencies clear guidance on building effective problem profiles for CSE that are separate from other forms of exploitation. Problem profiling draws information about child sexual exploitation from different agencies together in one place. That process should enable agencies to understand fully the nature and the extent of CSE, and to commission services, train staff and prioritise action.

Clearer guidance on the types of data that agencies should use, and on how frequently profiles should be updated, will lead to a more accurate picture of the full scale and nature of CSE. That would enable more effective action to be taken to prevent harm and to stop organisations from protecting their data rather than protecting the child.

The third recommendation is that the Department for Education should update its guidance on CSE. It needs to reflect accurately what constitutes exploitation, the significant online threats faced by children today and the prevalence of networks of offenders.

Fourthly, all updated national guidance must make it clear that signs that a child is being sexually exploited must never be treated as an indication that a child is only at risk of experiencing that harm. Local authorities must ensure that assessments of risk and harm clearly differentiate between potential harm and actual harm. Too often, victims are already being sexually exploited, but they are incorrectly categorised as merely being at risk so little action is taken to protect them.

Fifthly, police force and local authorities must collect data on all cases of known or suspected child sexual exploitation. Accurate data about CSE cases, including the sex, ethnicity and disability of both the victims and the perpetrators, will help to identify patterns of CSE offending, particularly where those offences are committed by organised networks. That data also helps police forces to take more offensive action to disrupt and investigate offenders.

Finally, the Department for Education must ban the placement in unregulated care homes of all children who have experienced or who are at heightened risk of experiencing sexual exploitation. The evidence before the inquiry identified grave concerns about the capacity of unregulated care homes to safeguard properly children placed in their care. Sixteen and 17-year-olds should never be left in B&Bs where perpetrators have 24-hour access to them. All children are inherently vulnerable and must be protected from abusers who seek to take advantage.

Although I am pleased that many of my recommendations were included in the final report, it is disappointing to see that some of the key ones were not included.

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

I declare my interest as recorded in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate the hon. Lady on all the work that she has done over so many years and I am sure that she shares with me a sense of déjà vu that a problem that we were talking about five years ago or 10 years ago persists. I remember launching the child sexual exploitation action plan back in 2011 and many of the things in that plan are things that she repeats now. Why does she think that despite the hugely enhanced awareness of CSE, which went on in the shadows before, and better training for and awareness among the police and other professionals, it is still going on, and that people still think they can get away with it and do get away with it?

[Sarah Champion]

I am blessed to be in a Chamber with people who have campaigned for decades on the issue and made changes; the hon. Gentleman is certainly one of them. To be quite blunt, I think the reason it still goes on is that it is too expensive to deal with, and too endemic, and people have just washed their hands of it. I cannot express how much it upsets me to say that, but it is the only conclusion that I can draw, namely that it is too expensive to look after these children properly.

I made recommendations that the inquiry did not take up. One was that local authorities must take urgent steps to improve the access to CSE support systems for children from ethnic minority communities. That requires the Government to mandate that institutions dealing with CSE incorporate an understanding of the range of cultural or ethnic backgrounds into the services they offer. It is deeply disappointing that the IICSA report made no recommendations on the specific issue of CSE among ethnic minority communities, despite that and the lack of cultural-specific services being a major and systemic problem.

Next, the Government cannot accept that the court proceedings must, by their nature, further brutalise victims of abuse, by forcing them to relive their trauma in repeated interactions with the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and again in court. Of course, justice must be served, but how is justice served if victims and survivors are too afraid of the legal system to come forward or give evidence? I hope that the upcoming victims Bill will provide the desperately needed changes in those areas. I strongly encourage Ministers to continue to engage with me, MPs and organisations that work in the sector, to finally get this right.

Foreign Interference: Intelligence and Security

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point very powerfully; no question about that. He knows the work that I am trying to push forward, and the need to bring forward the legislation. We have had the consultation—we have to consult, clearly—and as I have said already, we are going to be bringing forward the legislation. We need the parliamentary time to do this, but we have a busy timetable—[Interruption.] No, we are absolutely working to do that.

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

I declare an interest as someone who has been banned, not bunged, by the Chinese Government. Mr Speaker, you boldly and rightly banned the Chinese ambassador from coming to the Palace of Westminster when seven parliamentarians and our families were sanctioned by China. Does the Home Secretary agree it will be right that anybody determined to be an agent of influence, or people close to them, have no place coming to this place or any Government Department, sharing our resources and having access to Ministers, parliamentarians and intelligence? Will she also ensure that there is a proper audit of the activities of the United Front Work Department and the harassment and intimidation it brings to members of the Chinese diaspora across the country?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend articulates very clearly the extent to which, across the board both here and in the diaspora, we have been experiencing intimidation and harassment. Having brought forward the scheme to secure British nationals overseas, I heard the most harrowing tales of the most appalling abuse of people from the BNO community who were subjected to all sorts of dreadful things. My hon. Friend is right, and I want to give assurance on a number of fronts. First, not just in relation to Parliament and this House but across Government, I make it clear that we are auditing individuals who could or may have had access to Government and Government Departments over a period of time, as well as auditing meetings that may have taken place not just with Ministers but with officials. These alerts will be shared with officials not just in Whitehall but across the country, including in local government, because we know that the footprint is much wider than just the heart of Government.

Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th January 2022 Public Bill Committees

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

The Bill will massively help vulnerable children and protect them, but there is a swathe of vulnerable adults with marginal capacity to consent to sex or marriage. We do not know if they are being protected sufficiently, or if we have limited their freedoms too much, in terms of the way the common law tests to marry or to have sex are operating. Once my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire has got the Bill over the line and on to the statute book, I hope hon. Members on this Committee would be keen to take the next steps to look properly at how the common law tests for marriage and for sex are working, and to see if we can do something to improve them.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is making some good points about this subject, about which he might like to introduce a private Member’s Bill. We are dealing only with the chronological definition of children, but there is a real problem. We know about the low rape convictions in this country—I apologise that I have to leave this Committee to go to the Home Affairs Committee, which is looking into this matter at the moment—but they are just the cases that come forward. Those who do not have capacity come forward to declare that they have been the victim of sexual offences even less often.

I have tried to allude to the definition of children, their rights and the responsibilities of adults towards them, but this whole area needs to be cleared up. Even if my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge is not lucky enough to be chosen in the private Members’ Bill ballot, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire and I have been in the past, I am sure the Home Office Minister here today will take away these important matters and come back with Government-backed legislation, in due course.

[Dr Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for that brilliant intervention. It was prescient, as I was about the say that there is an even bigger problem in the interaction between civil cases, about people who lack capacity to consent to sex, and criminal cases. That will be difficult to deal with, but we need to do that. There are different thresholds, and it is unclear how civil and criminal cases interact.

There is also the situation where one of the partners in a marriage loses capacity to consent to sex, but sexual relations continue. How do we, as a society, want to think about that? I am sure everyone has deeply held personal opinions on this, but I have heard what I think are awful stories—for example, a person in a couple developed dementia and lost the capacity to consent to sex, but the couple continued to have sexual relations. Social services got involved and it all got pretty horrible. These are big issues.

The last thing I want to do, however, is to hold up the Committee or prevent the Bill from making progress; that is why I declined proposing putting anything in the Bill, but I hope that the Minister has heard the points made, and that we can get something moving, using the Bill as a springboard to the next step in helping people in such situations.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Rosindell]

I think that refers to a different amendment, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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

On new clause 4, is it not the case for this very explicit group of people, who have given loyalty and service to this country in standing for freedom, liberty and the rule of law, that it would be deeply ironic and unjust if we were to leave them to the vagaries of a regime that has turned out to be entirely opposite freedom, liberty and the rule of law? That is why we owe them this duty of care, if they choose to take it up.

[Andrew Rosindell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and I agree wholeheartedly. This is about giving people who have loyally served the Crown and defended freedom and liberty in Hong Kong the option, if they so choose, to live in the United Kingdom and be treated as equals. That is surely something we should now accept. This measure is long overdue, and I hope that the Minister will respond accordingly.

I know that Mr Speaker himself shares my interest in resolving this long-standing issue. Prior to his elevation to the Chair, I worked on this issue with him for over a decade. I have worked with a number of Ministers—Home Secretaries and Ministers of State—including my friend James Brokenshire, the late Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup. We have worked together to try to resolve this matter and right this wrong that has been done to these servicemen, but I say with deep regret that, so far, no concrete steps have been taken by this or previous Governments to resolve this matter.

An appropriate solution must include a mechanism to grant every single one of these servicemen immediate settled status in the UK if and when they decide that they would like to take up that option. Furthermore, it should not create another group of left-behind servicemen by requiring an arbitrary period of service for people to be eligible for the right of settlement or by putting an age limit on the immediate family members they can bring to the United Kingdom. Only legislation that includes all those measures will be sufficient to finally correct the anomaly that has led to these fine servicemen being left behind. My new clause 4 would secure those objectives and finally give these servants of the Crown the right to be treated as fully British, which is no less than they deserve.

I ask the Government to support my new clause or to produce an appropriate and legally acceptable way to support these veterans and give them the status they are entitled to, dealing with this matter once and for all. With that in mind, I thank the Minister for reaching out to me about suggesting an alternative solution that may be possible. However, let me be clear: I require guarantees that will not be watered down. If the Minister does not feel able to support my new clause, I expect him to provide a fair and just solution that gives these brave and patriotic Hongkongers the outcome they deserve. I ask him to use this opportunity to provide the assurances I seek.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bambos Charalambous]

At the moment, there are no safe routes for children to come to the UK. That is why there has been an increase in crossings and more unaccompanied children crossing.

[Tim Loughton]

I have heard a lot of attacks on what the Government are trying to do, and a lot about social media; now we are hearing about children. I have some sympathy with the Dubs scheme—indeed, the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and I previously tabled amendments in support of it—but I have not seen, in any of the amendments tabled, or heard of, in any of our debates, a single practical measure that Labour would take to deter adults from paying the people traffickers and taking to boats for these dangerous journeys. What is Labour’s plan for real solutions to a serious problem? I have not heard a single solution yet.

[Bambos Charalambous]

If the hon. Member will allow me to continue, he may be interested in what I will say on new clause 49, which addresses his point. I will try to make some progress; I was told off in the last debate for taking too long because I allowed interventions.

Labour believes that it is time that the Government showed global leadership, instead of shirking their commitments enshrined in the refugee convention. We urge them to support new clause 48, which proposes the reintroduction of Dubs.

In new clause 49, the Opposition ask the Government to produce a negotiating mandate that sets out proposed reciprocal arrangements with the EU for safe returns and safe legal routes. Such arrangements were covered by the Dublin III agreement, which has now ended. It is ridiculous that the Government are resorting to dangerous tactics such as push-backs in the channel, when we used to have civilised reciprocal agreements with our geographical neighbours.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I rise to support this Bill, which contains some sensible measures, particularly on regularising the citizenship of certain mothers, fathers and members of the military, and prioritising the rapid removal of foreign criminals, who really should not be in this country. I also appreciate that it is a controversial Bill and it will need close scrutiny in Committee. But something desperately needs to be done, because our asylum and immigration system is broken. It is broken, first, because it is hugely bureaucratic. As the Windrush scandal showed, there are so many different criteria for being able to claim citizenship or right to residency in the UK. It is a hugely complicated and burdensome system. Secondly, it is very expensive, as we have heard. It is becoming a cash cow for the Home Office. For example, a leave to remain application typically costs £1,033, of which the cost to the Home Office is just £142—that represents a profit to the Home Office. Thirdly, for genuine refugees, especially children in potentially dangerous situations, the process takes far too long. There is a lack of urgency from immigration officials on the ground in the country of application or from the Home Office here. As constituency MPs, we know of countless cases of constituents who have waited months and years in limbo simply because their application is still being processed. Whether they are successful or they fail in their application, they deserve to be dealt with speedily and with respect so that they can get on with their lives in whatever form that will take after the application is assessed—that is just not happening. The queue is far too long and is taking too long to shift.

Fourthly, despite its shortcomings, the process is now being routinely bypassed by those who come across the channel illegally, usually because they can afford to pay people traffickers. For those of us representing south coast constituencies, that is causing a huge amount of chaos and great resentment. Without the proper dispersal system that the country desperately needs, Kent County Council bears the brunt of the children who must be taken into care. We also have all the fears about the beta variant coming in through the back door. This is not the way for people to come to the UK. Effectively, these people are queue jumping, taking up spaces that we are quite rightly prepared to offer to vulnerable families in refugee camps coming from those places of danger who have gone through the right procedures—genuinely vulnerable families whose lives are in peril.

Frankly, this is happening because the French Government have consistently failed to close off this route. They could prevent more of those boats getting into the water in the first place; goodness knows we have given them enough resources and security co-operation. They could intercept them and take them back to French shores. They could allow Border Force to take those who have been intercepted in British waters back to French shores. The Home Affairs Committee has been reviewing this issue, and we have taken advice from international maritime lawyers who confirm that the French would be in their rights to do that. They refuse to do so.

That is why there are people coming to Calais, causing chaos on the French coast—because they think there is a chance to get across the channel to come to the UK, whether or not they have any claim to be here. If the French were to cut off that route so that the chances were that anyone trying to get into the water would be returned safely to French territory, having paid a lot of money to people traffickers, people might just think again and the French coast, particularly Calais, would no longer be a magnet for them.

It would be in the interests of the French to do that. Why on earth are they not doing it? There would be a mutual benefit. I understand fully the Home Secretary’s frustration and why further measures need to be taken unilaterally. The French have failed to play ball and are trying to make their problem our problem.

I have a few specific queries. First, I have had a query from the Shoreham lifeboat crew about potential liabilities on lifeboats rescuing some of these migrants trying to get into the UK illegally, and whether they are at risk under the terms of the Bill. Some reassurance would be good.

Many times, I have called for and supported amendments to introduce a proper replacement for the Dublin family reunion scheme—one that is not less generous than what we had pre-Brexit—and for an equivalent of the Dubs scheme, which did a great deal in rescuing genuinely vulnerable children.

I pay tribute to the We Belong charity, led by the excellent Tashi Tahir, which has been standing up for some 330,000 children and young people in a precarious state, having come legally with their families to this country. They are mostly Commonwealth citizens who are bright and want to contribute, but they have to wait 10 years to regularise their status, at a cost of some £12,771, through applications for leave to remain every 30 months. If they fail to pay, their status becomes illegal, and if they then want to start again, they have to start all over again. That is not fair. There should be at least a five-year route to permanent status. I welcome the fact that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), has been having discussions with the charity. I hope that he will be sympathetic and we will get some changes to the Bill.

There are many other things that I would mention, but in six minutes I have not had time. Above all, the Bill must get the balance right. We need to be tough on those people who come through the wrong routes but ensure that there are safe and legal routes for those to whom we genuinely owe a debt of safety, to give them proper refuge in this country.

EU Settlement Scheme

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

The promise of absolute clarity is exactly what the EUSS is there to deliver: the absolute clarity that a person will be able to prove, demonstrate and have recorded their rights in this country not just for the next couple of years but for decades to come. That is why we are delighted that we have had so many applications and have already managed to give that certainty to millions of our fellow residents here in the UK.

On the work that has been done with the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, we are keen to reach out to all who could be eligible to apply, hence the letters sent to those for whom there was no record of an EUSS application. Further work will be done after the deadline to encourage those identified in that way to make an application. As has been said before, anyone who is already a British citizen or has indefinite leave to remain under systems that predated free movement does not need to apply—although those with ILR under previous systems may choose to upgrade, for free, to status under the EUSS.

In my opening response I touched on the work we are doing not only to advertise the scheme but via the grant-funded organisations based throughout our United Kingdom that have been working with many of the most vulnerable to ensure that they can apply. More than 300,000 applications have been directly supported by that network, which works with, for example, those with chaotic lifestyles or those who may have been rough sleeping.

On children in care, I am not sure whether I heard the hon. Gentleman say that he thought Government figures showed that only a third of them had applied. In fact, the most recent survey of local authorities, which went to the end of April, showed that 67% of such applications had been made where settlement had already been granted. We continue to work with local authorities and are grateful for the support shown not just for children in care but for adults in care who may need support.

On the position in other countries, I gently make the point that by the day that France opened its system for UK nationals living in France, the EUSS had already received 4 million applications and literally millions of statuses had been granted. We need to have that in mind when we make comparisons.

We have already seen 147,000 people convert from pre-settled to settled status, even though they did not need to do that immediately—they qualified by hitting the five-year period. Again, there will be support and reminders, and there will be reasonable grounds for a late application to go from pre-settled to settled status in a similar vein as for those who miss the deadline tomorrow.

Significant support is available, and if there are compelling or compassionate circumstances after the deadline, we will work with agencies, particularly those that deal with the most vulnerable, to look at expediting applications through the process where needed. My core message today is very simple: if you are eligible, apply now and secure the status that you deserve.

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

The Government are to be congratulated on the remarkable success of the scheme—there have been 5.6 million applicants, against an estimate of just 3 million qualifying people in this country—but I share the Minister’s concern about the lack of energy and urgency in respect of reciprocal arrangements for British citizens in EU countries. Does he have an estimate of how many British citizens have so far applied and how many cases are outstanding?

On the specific issue of children in care, I am glad to hear that the number of applications has now been raised to two thirds, but is his estimate still that some 10,000 children in care would qualify? That would mean that something like 3,500 very vulnerable children have still not been registered and, if they are not, could be the subject of a future Windrush-type scandal.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I shall start with his last point first. We are working hard with local authorities. The figure I gave was from the end of April. We are now coming to the end of June, and we know that a significant number of applications have been lodged in support of children in care. I have often given this example, but if, for the sake of argument, a child in care aged five today discovers in 13 years’ time, when they become an adult, that their application had not been made on their behalf—when, for example, they get their first job—we will consider that reasonable grounds for a late application.

In terms of the schemes in Europe, we encourage EU member states to look at the progress we have made in the UK with the EUSS and at how their systems could replicate it by being free and relatively simple, with plenty of support available. Similarly, we encourage all UK nationals in the EU to check their status and ensure that they submit their application in in good time.

Safe Streets for All

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before I call Yvette Cooper, I ought to say that the time limit for Back-Bench speeches will be reduced after the right hon. Lady’s speech to four minutes in an attempt to—

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

Aw!

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Yes, I realise that will be some disappointment to the whole House in respect of the speech we were anticipating from the hon. Gentleman. [Laughter.] I call Yvette Cooper.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I would like to say that it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), but if he had been a television programme, it would have been followed by a public information notice saying, “If you have been affected by any of the issues in this programme, here is a helpline to ring.”

How on earth to address the dazzling cornucopia of welcome legislation in the Queen’s Speech in just four minutes? Let me just flag up some of the measures I particularly welcome. I welcome the measure on the best start in life, thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) and the exceedingly valuable work that has been put in, which the Government will now take up.

I will not repeat, but endorse the concerns about the planning legislation that virtually every Conservative Member has mentioned. We do not level up by levelling and concreting over the diminishing open spaces, particularly in the south-east of England.

I welcome the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill. The ban on animal trophies and provisions on pet theft, kept animals, cat micro-chipping and fur imports show that we do not need the European Union to promote some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world, as we do and will continue to do in this country.

I welcome the draft online safety Bill. We need social media platforms to get serious about preventing abusive, extremist and bullying content. However, we also need to address economic harms and exposure to fraud and I ask the Government to look at ways of including that in the legislation.

I want to focus on one aspect of the Home Office measures: the much needed overhaul of the immigration and asylum system. I very much welcome the Home Secretary’s recent new plan for immigration. I have spoken about this before, because all we need, above all, is an immigration system that is fair, fast, flexible, family friendly and beneficial to the UK and to the many people escaping danger and persecution overseas. We have a proud record of helping and encouraging those who want to make a big contribution to the UK, but too often our immigration system is bureaucratic and complicated, as the Windrush situation showed. It takes too long and people’s lives are left in limbo; it does not treat people as individuals; and there are too many taking advantage of our openness and jumping the queue ahead of those with a genuine claim to come to the UK.

I have always supported tougher measures against those who have the money to fuel organised crime gangs facilitating dangerous passages across the channel or people smuggling through other routes. There need to be implications. I welcome the Home Secretary’s comment that if someone comes by an illegal route they are not treated on a par with someone who has applied legitimately and through legal means such as refugee agencies and refugee camps. It is just not fair otherwise. In return, we need an immigration system that is streamlined, affordable —not a revenue generator for the Home Office—and works quickly to get people to a place of safety sustainably and deals with those who do not have a future in the UK. We urgently need safe and legal routes and family reunification schemes to replace Dublin. I think this is a trade-off that gains the support of the public.

I specifically ask the Home Secretary to look at the plight of a group of young migrants who have come to Britain, represented by the excellent We Belong organisation, who find themselves in limbo: no fewer than 332,000 children and young people growing up legally in the UK without any formal immigration status who migrated here as children predominantly from Commonwealth countries and know only the UK as their home. We heard articulate witnesses before the Home Affairs Committee. They came here with their families and their immigration status has not been settled, which becomes a problem when they reach adulthood and want to go to university or get a job. They have to spend £2,593 in legal fees to apply for leave to remain and then to renew their status every 30 months over a 10-year period. These people are British. They want to be British. They are contributing and want to do so in a formalised way. We therefore need to do better by them. I welcome the fact that the Under- Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), met them recently. I hope that in the immigration legislation coming forward we can give them the settlement and surety that they deserve.

New Plan for Immigration

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady will absolutely know that in terms of the contingency accommodation that we have had to use because of the pandemic we have looked at all sorts of options. On accommodation going forward, we use dispersed accommodation, and I come back to the point about working with local authorities, which will be part of our discussions and consultations going forward. It is vital that we grow that footprint and I would be more than happy for the hon. Lady to work with us in coming up with alternative proposals on accommodation.

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

I warmly welcome the proposals announced today, as will, I know, my constituents and those of the other south- coast constituencies in particular. I especially welcome the distinction between those people who are wealthy enough to pay to be illegally smuggled into this country and those genuine refugees who go through the right processes.

On safe and legal routes, will my right hon. Friend assure me that the successor to Dublin will be at least as generous as Dublin in respect of the relatives it covers, and that the process will be much more speedy in getting people who are deemed to have a place in the UK here as soon as possible? Will she also consider a Dubs II scheme? The Dubs scheme was so successful in rescuing genuine endangered children from danger spots around the world—it worked so well.

[Priti Patel]

I would be more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that further. We need to get this right in terms of safeguarding children, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Not only that, but we need to learn the lessons of previous schemes and look at how we can strengthen some of the aspects around resettlement, for example, that may not have been strong enough. I would be more than happy to have a conversation with my hon. Friend about it.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 1
Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

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

This is a substantial and impressive Bill. Many of the policies in it predate the 2019 general election and some featured in the September 2020 White Paper, so they are certainly not measures that are being rushed through. It is difficult, in the space of three minutes, to do justice to the 296 pages, 176 clauses and 20 schedules, so let me just name check a few of the parts I particularly support.

I support putting the police covenant into law at last and the increase in penalties for assaults on emergency workers. It is incredible that we are having to contemplate that. I support the allowance for police officers faced with dangerous high-speed car chases in pursuit of dangerous criminals who are done themselves for dangerous driving; they are just doing their job. I am pleased we are toughening provisions on criminal damage to memorials, especially military memorials. I support tougher penalties for causing serious injury by careless or inconsiderate driving and tougher sentencing of child murderers. I support scrapping the early release of terrorist offenders, innovation in probation with the use of curfews and community sentencing, and clamping down on sex tourism.

There are lots of sensible, practical and much-awaited measures in this Bill that the vast majority of our law-abiding constituents will certainly welcome, but of course Labour is voting against all of these tonight. It has not even bothered to table a reasoned amendment to let the Bill proceed and then scrutinise it in Committee. Apparently, it is just a blanket vote against the whole of the Bill and all the measures in it. Labour Members may try to claim that they have objections to the new public demonstration conditions proposed for preventing serious disruption to the life of the community or recklessly causing public nuisance, and they may claim that in some way it suppresses free speech, but if they really do have such concerns, they should support the Bill and argue for improvements in Committee. However, people gluing themselves to tubes to disrupt the whole London underground system, clambering on to planes to shut down airports, preventing an ambulance reaching an emergency department through protesters, preventing the distribution of a free press, or assaulting police officers to get to, violate and vandalise war memorials does nothing to further free speech, free association or any democratic process. Ordinary law-abiding people should not have to put up with it, and there are many thresholds and conditions in this Bill.

I specifically welcome measures to extend the definitions in relation to those who abuse positions of trust by engaging in sexual activity with minors. The Bill specifically references sports coaches and faith leaders. However, private tutors, including music teachers, are exempt from many of the safeguarding checks that we rightly expect of mainstream employed teachers. Can we consider including them, as I tried to do many years ago as Children’s Minister?

I warmly welcome the measures to criminalise trespass when it results in unauthorised encampments, causing damage in order to access private and community property, trashes the cricket pitch or village green when it happens, and prevents local people using the amenities that they pay for. To add insult to injury, these unauthorised encampments eventually leave the site scarred with fly-tipping, everything from building waste to human waste, and then they come back and repeat it all over again in a few years’ time. It is not acceptable. This Bill will clamp down on it at last, and I support it.

Draft Registration of Marriages Regulations 2021

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to be here on the latest stage of the journey that started with my private Member’s Bill, which reached the ballot in 2017, and I am grateful to the Minister for namechecking it. I was slightly disappointed not to be told about the Committee, let alone not to be put on it. It is only through the courtesy of one of the civil servants who dealt with my Bill that I found out it was happening today, which is odd.

I will make some general points and then specific queries about the regulations. The first question, which was also raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, is: why has this taken so long? The four main elements of the Bill came together in 2017, but there has long been a campaign to change marriage registration for the first time since 1837 in England to enable both parents to be included on a marriage register. That is not radical; most people asked, “Doesn’t that happen already?” The trouble is that most people do not find out until the parents, usually with some nice music playing in the background, are invited by the presiding vicar to go to wherever the register is being signed. Then the mother is—in some cases, physically—restrained from adding her signature to the marriage document and is told, “Sorry, you’re not allowed.” Fortunately, when I got married, we were forewarned, but there was a double insult: my father’s signature appeared twice on my marriage certificate because he was also the presiding vicar. That doubled the insult to mothers and mothers-in-law.

The position needed changing and we all agreed that it was an anachronism. However, the Bill became an Act in February 2019 and law after Royal Assent last May. The position should have changed soon after that. Indeed, the Act includes a sunset clause, which provided that if the changes were not made in just over a year, the legislation would fall and we would have to start all over again. Why, therefore, has this taken so long? The legislation is not new and has been round the houses, helped by the former Member for Meriden, our colleague Dame Caroline Spelman, the Bishop of St Albans, who had a parallel Bill in the House of Lords, and others.

There are four main sections of the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc.) Act 2019. The regulations deal with only two and put them into law.

I am delighted that the extension of civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples became a thing on 31 December 2019. Fifteen months on—I gather on 4 May—the second element of the Act will come into law. There are two outstanding elements and I wonder if the Minister can comment on that.

There is a commitment to amend the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 so that stillbirths can be investigated by a coroner. There is widespread support for that. It is a cross-departmental function, but despite our constantly badgering the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health and Social Care, there is still no sign of that coming forward. Yet the case of babies dying in questionable circumstances in hospitals has become more urgent. That is why, with a lot of support, coroners will, I hope, be given that power to investigate. Perhaps we can have a progress report on that.

The fourth element of the legislation was a baby loss review, which the Department of Health and Social Care commissioned. I sat on the working party with the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) and many professionals. That Committee has not sat for two years and the report has never been published. We considered whether we could register children who were stillborn before the arbitrary and artificial existing 24-week threshold. Anybody who is born before 24 weeks just does not count. If the Minister can tell me about progress on that, I will be grateful.

The Minister rightly said that at last we can have mothers on the marriage certificate. Where do the regulations state that? I have been through the heavy-duty documents—and I am no expert—but which regulations actually give authority for wedding registers to contain the names of mothers and for hard copies to be signed by mothers of the happy couple?

Let me deal with the detail of the regulations. In part 3, regulation 5(3)(1) states that

“the superintendent registrar to whom notice of marriage is given must display in some conspicuous place in their office, for 28 successive days beginning with the day after the day on which the notice was recorded in the marriage register… the notice of marriage,…the particulars given in the notice, in an approved electronic form”.

I do not quite understand that. We are making the register electronic, so where does a hard-copy notice still have to be displayed? Why cannot it all be done electronically, given that we are moving into the 21st century with some of our procedures? There seems to be a paradox there.

The regulations refer to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Scotland does not have to pass such regulations because such details have sensibly been recorded there for the last couple of centuries. For some reason, England and Wales have been out of kilter with the rest of the United Kingdom. Do the regulations bring us completely in line with the existing procedures in Scotland and Northern Ireland? Is there some difference or nuance? How would it apply? There are some fairly opaque details in the regulations about how they apply to somebody from Scotland marrying somebody from England. If the couple gets married in Scotland as opposed to England, are there potential anomalies? Could we find that a Scottish mother-in-law at a wedding in York of an English son-in-law will be told, “Sorry, you’re Scottish so it doesn’t count”? I am sure that that is not the case, but after all the effort and such a long campaign, I want to make sure that no anomalies involving certain parts of the United Kingdom will crop up at a crucial moment during a wedding ceremony.

In regulation 7, new section 53B of the 1949 Act—I am sure it is at the Minister’s fingertips—states:

“Before the marriage document is signed, the clergyman by whom the marriage is to be or has been solemnized”—

Will the Minister give a definition of “clergyman”? Again, I could not find it in the regulations. Who exactly is a “clergyman”, or a clergywoman—we have many of those these days, even in the Church of England? We need a definition of exactly who is covered by that definition.

New section 53C contains the first of many references to

“according to the usages of the Jews”.

I am sure it is my inexperience, but can the Minister explain that term? Does it apply to all traditional Jewish ceremonies or only some? I assume it is regularly used for proceedings in synagogues, but can we have some clarification, because it is not clear?

New section 53D covers how the procedure now happens physically. I think that was one of the sticking points with the Church of England. According to my understanding, in a wedding service in a Church of England church, when the wedding party moves to the signing ceremony, there will still be a hard-copy register, which lots of people can now sign. That is great. A certificate will be produced and it still has to be delivered to a registrar. An electronic record is made in parallel. Loosely, I think that that is now what happens. However, there was some dispute about the document still having to be delivered to the registrar or superintendent within a short time. I think, initially, a space of eight days was contemplated.

In normal circumstances, a bride and bridegroom might have better things to do in the first eight days of their marriage. Indeed, they may well be on honeymoon elsewhere. I hope that the position has now been rectified and that a couple are not expected to delay or cut short their honeymoon to deliver a piece of paper, which is still required even though we have moved to an electronic system. I think—again, it has not been explained to me, which would have been nice—that somebody can be nominated to deliver that piece of paper. Perhaps the Minister will clarify how someone can be nominated and the timescale for completing that process. Subsection (10)(a) uses the phrase

“as soon as reasonably practicable”,

but subsection (8)(b) says “within 8 days”. Again, some clarification would be helpful.

In terms of obligations on the church, place or body performing the solemnisation of the marriage, new section 53E(3) refers to the “relevant church official” on whom there are obligations to ensure that registration is made and notified. Who is the relevant church official? In most cases, people who are involved in churches other than the vicar are volunteers. Does the provision refer to a churchwarden? Does the relevant church official have to have a certain status? How are they nominated? What happens if they mess up? Who is responsible? Again, I could not find that in the explanatory memorandum.

I realise that I have given the Minister quite a few questions to cope with, so this is probably the final question. What happens to the existing hard-copy registers? We discussed the practical problems of moving to such a radical system of electronic records and mothers being able to sign a marriage certificate with clergy and others. Many churches—certainly old churches—have marriage register books that are sometimes centuries old. They are historical documents. I presume that they can still be used and will still be part of those churches’ fabric. I gather that in some cases, while we were waiting on these regulations, some vicars in the Church of England were forward looking and a nod was given from Lambeth Palace that mothers could sign the hard copy of the certificates and the register in church, even though there was no place for them. I think that practice has been going on in some cases, even though the regulations do not come into force until 4 May.

Is there any facility for this registration to be retrospective, at least going back to when the Bill itself became law, for those mothers who have signed a register, but, I presume, will not now be part of the new electronic record? That might be particularly poignant and touching—the Minister referred to his own case—where the mother is no longer with us. Can there be some sympathetic and pragmatic retrospective approach to enabling mothers to sign the register, at least to the time when the legislation went through, after which there was a good expectation that the Government would get on with producing the regulations, which are not that hard?

What will happen going forward to those registers? Churches can still use their hard-copy register, but it now has to be backed up with a specific certificate, it has to be presented to the superintendent and it goes on the electronic register in parallel.

There are many other questions I could raise, but in the interests of not detaining the Committee for too long—I am only too aware I have given the Minister quite a plateful—I will leave it there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

That is correct. The only things churches should not use are the current marriage certificates issued under the Marriage Act 1949. That is the thing that changes. Parish registers, which some Church of England parishes have kept literally since medieval times, can continue to be kept. There is no reason why a church cannot give something to people to mark their marriage there. However, people who attend the wedding perhaps will not see that the form that is signed is then sent by the priest back to the registrar to be entered on to the digital record.

We discussed at some length with the Church of England how we can provide a practical solution. It has thousands of priests and marriage venues that have stood for centuries, where a computer solution cannot realistically be installed in any sense, or even a mobile one, so that details can be directly entered into a digital register. This was the solution that we came to. It seems both fair and reasonable, and to be clear, the Church is perfectly happy with it.

[Tim Loughton]

On a practical point, many churches have a whole supply of marriage certificates, which may be part of a marriage register book. The Minister quite rightly says that they will effectively have no status post 4 May, because there will be the electronic record, but can they not still be used in place of the voluntary thing to give to the happy couple to frame? They will not have a legal status, but it would be a waste to have to throw them all away, would it not?

[Kevin Foster]

Once we get beyond 4 May, the paper registers will close. Effectively, certificate books will then need to be returned to the GRO to register the final weddings that have taken place under the previous registration system. It would not be appropriate to issue documentation that once had legal status beyond the point at which it has legal status. The current certificate books that people sign will be required to be returned and to cease being used.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

First, one of the most common ways of creating identities at the moment is to forge outdated paper certificates, hence why we are keen to move away from paper certificates, which are easily forged and used for nefarious purposes. Clearly, therefore, we want to move to a digital register.

As the Committee may have picked up, another private Member’s Bill is before the House on Friday, relating to birth and death registration where, similarly, we want to move away from the paper certificate process towards a more secure online register as the final arbiter. That is of course out of the scope of the Committee, but it shows the general thrust of the Government’s plans to modernise a pretty outdated system of registration, emphasised not only by the fact that mothers’ details are on marriage certificates but by the process still being heavily rooted in the past.

The position on access to the register will be the same as it is today. I accept that it is slightly different when someone is checking on a computer, rather than walking down to Somerset House, although a lot of that can be done online already, via records already digitised.

To come to some of the other points, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham stated that he cannot see a mention of mothers’ names on marriage certificates. As he will be aware from our long discussions of his private Member’s Bill that is now an Act, a lot of the purpose was to remove much of the specification in primary legislation that we would not put there today. The actual content will be prescribed in regulations made by the Registrar General, with the approval of the Secretary of State. However, the draft regulations to amend primary legislation will remove the more outdated requirements and then allow the new certificate to include mothers’ names and occupations. To be clear, that is where that will be specified finally, but allowing this to go forward will be the core part.

In a couple of other questions, my hon. Friend asked why a Bill that became an Act in late 2019 is being acted upon in 2021. Originally, we were hoping to launch the new system last year. I hope that the Committee will understand why the middle of a global pandemic, when registrars were urgently having to adapt their birth and death registration systems to cope, was widely viewed as not the appropriate time to introduce a brand new system of marriage registration. We would very much have liked to move forward with it last year, but we wholly accepted the points made by the registration system, that the middle of a pandemic was not an appropriate moment. However, with a lot of weddings delayed to this summer due to the impact of the social distancing regulations last year, now is the time to take the new system forward.

[Tim Loughton]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kevin Foster]

I will not now, but I will cover in writing the points about the baby loss review and about coroners and stillbirth—that is perhaps a more appropriate way to update my hon. Friend.

With that, I commend the draft regulations, which will finally bring our marriage law into the 21st century.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Cttee has considered the draft Registration of Marriages Regulations 2021.