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Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill [Lords]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important and valid point. I will come on to that and describe in some detail some of the things that the Government will do once the Bill becomes law. He is quite right that this is something that we need to raise awareness of, not just among community groups, but within schools, so that the support of the school will be one of the protections that young people can have if they feel that they, or their brothers or sisters, are being forced into a marriage. The Bill will allow a teacher, as a third party, to respond appropriately. The other aspect of the Bill is deterrence. Each year, the forced marriage unit receives about 5,000 calls for general advice and it ends up handling some 300 cases. Last year, the Metropolitan police recorded 518 incidents related to forced marriage. That gives us the beginning of an indication of the scale of the problem. I believe—I suspect that other hon. Members will agree with me—that, like other forms of domestic violence, forced marriage is seriously under-reported. There are likely to be many more victims who have been suffering in silence. We hope that, as well as offering protection to those who are in danger of being forced into marriage, the Bill will act as a deterrent, sending out a clear message that forced marriage will simply not be tolerated in our democracy. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) raised the issue of whether we should require all British nationals who wish to marry abroad, or who may marry abroad, to register the marriage in this country before it takes place. I have considered that and I understand the point that he is making. He may wish to expand on it in this Third Reading debate. However, I repeat that such a provision may well send out the wrong message: that forced marriages only take place abroad and that the only authorities that can be trusted to recognise whether there is free and full consent are those in England and Wales. Clearly, that is not the case. As I said in Committee, as part of its review of immigration policy, the Home Office is working on issuing a public consultation paper about new arrangements for marriage visas entitled ““Marriage to partners from overseas””. One aspect of the consultation will focus on what steps can be taken as regards the requirements for sponsoring a marriage visa; for example, the minimum age could be raised to help those who are pressurised into sponsoring such a visa. That might be a more fruitful way to tackle the problem than requiring everyone who marries abroad to register their marriage in this country. I understand that the Border and Immigration Agency hopes to publish that consultation before the end of July, and to receive responses in the autumn. The forced marriage unit already works with UKvisas and the Border and Immigration Agency to stop visas being granted on the basis of a forced marriage. There were over 100 such cases involving Pakistan alone in 2006-07. My other concern about the proposal is that it might be disproportionate. It would affect all marriages entered into abroad, the vast majority of which are clearly legitimate and voluntary. In addition, it could catch two British citizens who are resident in the UK and who choose to marry overseas, as is quite popular nowadays. The proposal would have a significant effect on legitimate marriages, and it might make them invalid in the United Kingdom if a notice of intention to marry had not been registered. That would result in what is called limping marriages—marriages that are recognised in one country but not another. That could leave couples uncertain as to their legal rights. In the end, the measure might have a detrimental effect on legitimate marriage, rather than prevent forced marriages. For that reason, on the whole I do not think that the measure would be appropriate, although I understand what the hon. Member for Beaconsfield was trying to achieve. The forced marriage unit has had regard to the Bill in its presentations and has discussed its provisions on an ad hoc basis with a variety of audiences in the past six months. When the Bill reaches the statute book, the unit will of course formalise that arrangement, and it will become one of the Government’s foremost means of discussing the Bill with stakeholders across the country. The unit will also re-prioritise its outreach programme. As part of that, it will look to target the specific audiences on whom the Bill will have the greatest impact. The unit has great access to a wide network of black and minority ethnic media outlets, and it will explore the possibility of generating further media coverage in those specialist outlets when the Bill becomes law. In the past two years, the unit has produced guidelines on tackling forced marriage for the police, social services, and health and education professionals, and it is producing similar guidelines for registrars and legal professionals. The unit recently launched a survivors’ handbook, which offers information and practical support to survivors of forced marriage. Once the Bill is law, the unit will issue revised editions of its guidelines for all those organisations, in accordance with the statutory power that requires those people who exercise public functions to have due regard to relevant guidance. The new version will include advice on how professionals can use the Bill’s new provisions. In Committee, the issue of the Bill’s application to people other than named respondents was raised. New section 63B(2)(c) of the Family Law Act 1996, which is inserted by the Bill, provides that a forced marriage protection order can be directed at unnamed persons who are, or may become, involved ““in other respects””, such as members of the family. However, an order can be so directed only if the court believes it appropriate to make such an order for the purposes of protecting the individual concerned. That provision is necessary to reflect the real nature of forced marriage, which can come about following the involvement of a large group of people, possibly a whole family or even a community group. In many cases it simply is not feasible for the applicant to name all the potential respondents, especially if there is an urgency to the application, and it has been brought by a third party. The provision allows the court to make orders against people who appear to be involved in coercion, even if they cannot be readily identified. It was suggested in Committee that those categories of people should be captured by the order only if they knowingly acted in a way that might force a person into marriage, but that would be extremely difficult for any applicant to prove, and it might in effect make the provision unworkable. For the most part, being involved ““in other respects”” will generally require some kind of knowledge of what the lead respondent is doing; for example, counselling, encouraging or conspiring all presuppose some sort of knowledge. However, orders to protect the victim could still in theory be addressed to people who are not morally culpable in any way. An order could be addressed to any person prohibiting them from aiding, abetting or encouraging the victim to marry. To use the example mentioned in Committee, that would include the priest, if the court thought that the circumstances justified it. However, it is necessary to distinguish between making an order and enforcing it. The Bill does not change the current law of contempt. Before a person can be committed for contempt, the court must be satisfied that that person had sufficient knowledge of the order to know that his actions would frustrate its intention. To continue with the example of the priest, the order could not be enforced against him unless he had knowledge of the order, and intended to interfere with the administration of justice by frustrating it. I shall say a few words about the implementation of the Bill, because that issue is clearly of interest to the House. The first task will be to develop the necessary court rules, which will put in place the procedure for dealing with the kind of cases that we are talking about. We will take forward the drafting of the rules and the necessary court forms in conjunction with the family procedure rule committee. An early task for us is to discuss with the president of the family division the possibility of his issuing a practice direction to promote the effective handling of such cases in courts that have jurisdiction over such cases. A key element of such a practice direction is to set out what special measures are available to assist vulnerable witnesses in giving evidence. Committee members rightly identified the need for proper training and guidance, both on forced marriage and on the legislation, as key to ensuring that the Bill is implemented successfully, and to ensuring that we really tackle the problem of forced marriage. As my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General said on Second Reading, we have the great advantage of having experienced judges in the family division, who are already used to handling such cases under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. They will be key to ensuring the success and early implementation of the Act in the High Court and in those county courts where we expect such cases to arise. In addition, the experienced staff in the forced marriage unit will be a key resource in promoting knowledge of the Act among the public service professionals on whom we—and, more importantly, the victims of forced marriage—will rely to make the legislation a success. The expertise of the forced marriage unit will be essential when it comes to designing the initial process to identify and consult on which bodies might be designated relevant third parties under the legislation. I gave the example of a teacher, but that would be a one-off; there are obviously more established third parties, the forced marriage unit being one of them, which could be designated relevant third parties under the legislation. Such bodies will be enabled to bring actions on behalf of victims of forced marriage without first obtaining the leave of the court. We have had a thorough debate on the Bill, not just on the Floor of the House and in the other place, but also in Committee. The thoughtful contributions made by all concerned have ensured that the Bill is worthy of the House’s support, and I commend it to the House.