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The consultation process demonstrated overwhelming support for the Bill and for many of the changes envisaged by the consultation. We published a summary of responses received, which I have placed in the Library of the House together with the initial consultation documents, which are also available on the Odysseus Trust website. We have also had discussions with those seeking to protect victims of forced marriages and with the victims themselves. I met staff of Karma Nirvana and survivors when I went to Derby to launch Jasvinder Sanghera’s book Shame, and the Minister and I recently visited Ashiana Network, an Asian women’s organisation and refuge in Leystonstone. I met councillors in Tower Hamlets, with the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, and I spoke to hundreds of women at a meeting convened by the Drug and Alcohol Action Programme in Southall. I have been greatly assisted by Khatun Sapnara in discussing with the government team the amendments now tabled on behalf of the Government. She is a leading member of the family law Bar, and about to become a recorder. She has great practical experience in representing victims in the High Court.
As noble Lords have heard, the Government have built on the basic principles of the Bill and improved their contents in important ways, already explained by the Minister. I will briefly single some out. First, the Bill would now be incorporated as new Part 4A of the Family Law Act 1996. That will ensure that the problem of forced marriage will be viewed within the wider legal framework around domestic violence, something which many women’s organisations and the EOC were keen to see. The amendments
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Secondly, while removing the explicit prohibition on forced marriage contained in Clause 1 of the original Bill, the amendments retain the force of the message. It is clear from new Sections 63A and 63B of new Part 4A that wide-ranging orders can be sought to deal with physical and mental coercion not only by immediate family members, but by any who aid, abet, counsel, procure, encourage or assist another person to force or attempt to force a person into marriage. Respondents to our consultations stressed the importance of covering third parties, extended families and family friends, who frequently play a role in forced marriage cases.
Thirdly, in line with the overwhelming support expressed in responses to our consultation, new Section 63Q puts the forced marriage guidance issued by the Forced Marriage Unit—to which I pay tribute—on a statutory footing. It does so in a less prescriptive and bureaucratic way than our own mock-up version of the redrafted Bill. Although she is not here today, that was in response to discussions with the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, on that subject. New Section 63Q also contains a powerful directive to those exercising public functions to have regard to the guidance. There was strong support for that approach in our consultation. Many respondents praised the guidance issued by the Forced Marriage Unit, but expressed concern that many agencies and professionals remain unaware of it. We hope that this amendment will ensure that the guidance published by the Forced Marriage Unit is disseminated more widely and taken more seriously by public authorities and others.
Fourthly, the amendments “signpost”—to use the Minister’s word—the available grounds for redress for loss and damage suffered by victims of forced marriage. My original Bill had sought to create a new right to damages as a secondary remedy where preventive relief had failed. We had a lot of discussion about this and I was initially wedded to my original design, but was persuaded that I was mistaken. New Section 63R pursues the preferable course of drawing attention to the existing remedies under the law of tort, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Children Act, and other parts of family law, including the law of marriage, among others. As the Minister has explained, that conforms to the general approach of family law, which does not award monetary compensation.
I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, is here, because of his leadership on the Forced Marriage Unit, which is supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Home Office, and the extraordinarily valuable work done by the high commissions in the sub-continent and elsewhere in giving consular protection and other help. As I am sure the noble Lord knows, there is real interest in the Bill in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which extends to Ministers and law-makers. That is important
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2.30 pm
Lord Plant of Highfield: I strongly supported this Bill at Second Reading. I had some worries about the meaning of “coercion” but they have now evaporated because there is a much tighter definition of it in the Bill. When I came in, I thought that I would not speak because I did not think that I had any questions to ask, but a couple of things occurred to me during the Minister’s exposition of the Government’s position. First, this may be in the Bill and I have not seen it, but what is the status of someone who is found to have been forced into a legal marriage, not just a religious one? Is there a change of status? Is he or she then rendered single again? What is the status of the marriage relationship after a finding that the person has been forced into marriage? Secondly, if the immigration status—for want of a better way of putting it—of the person who is found to have been forced into marriage is linked to the fact that they are married, where does that leave that person in relation to their legal rights in this country?
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I hope that the Minister will permit me to answer the noble Lord’s first question, if that is not inappropriate. I totally support the Bill and say, without any disrespect to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that it is greatly improved. I am absolutely delighted that the provision will be inserted after Part 4 of the Family Law Act, which is where it should be, and embedded in English law. That sends out a very valuable message.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Plant, that, as I understand it, the person who has been forcibly married remains married until a court decrees that that person is no longer married. Therefore, I expect that there would be a petition for nullity based on the lack of consent. I can say from my previous incarnation that those petitions are very sympathetically considered. I very much hope that it will be possible for such hearings to be held in private, which has certainly happened from time to time. As I understand it, this Bill will not deal with the annulling of a marriage, but of course its provisions would constitute a very strong movement in that direction. A person, particularly a girl, who says, “I should never have been married in the first place and I have an injunction from the county court”, has strong grounds for having her marriage annulled as soon as possible.
I hope that the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Lester, will forgive me if I have to leave to carry out other duties but I wanted to come today to support this amended Bill.
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Lord Ahmed: I have one question for the noble Baroness in relation to the religious side of the marriage. If a religious marriage had taken place as well as the legal marriage, what would happen as regards a religious divorce? Would the court have the power to instruct someone to enforce a religious divorce?
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: Oddly enough, I know a bit about this because I introduced another Private Member’s Bill, which someone else took over, which concerned the problem of Jewish religious marriages where, owing to an extremely narrow interpretation of the Book of Deuteronomy in the 12th century where Moses Maimonides adopted a liberal view but subsequently, unfortunately, Jewish sages adopted a narrower view, there was the problem of the chained wives. The problem was that if a Jewish man wanted to marry another woman and had had a religious marriage, he could have a civil divorce but not a religious divorce. Under Jewish traditional law, as under Muslim family law, the woman would remain married to him. If she remarries her children would be stigmatised as illegitimate and so on. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, was a particular supporter of that Bill.
It was pointed out that my Bill dealt only with Jewish marriages; it was discriminatory and needed to deal with, for example, Muslim marriages. A power is included in the Bill to allow the provision to be extended to Muslim marriages and to give power to the family judge to refuse to give a civil divorce to a man in such a position until he is given the religious divorce. I very much hope that that point will be taken up. It has not been yet. So the answer is that there is not much that a civil judge can do at the moment about the religious wedding and divorce in that context, but there is a power for the Lord Chancellor to extend the law. That is amazingly learned and boring, but I thought I should just mention it to answer the question.
Baroness Uddin: I support where we are today. It is a great honour and privilege to be here. I pay tribute to the way the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and the Minister have taken us onward in this journey. I also pay great tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, for the dedication with which she has pursued the matter over a long period.
I do not want to bore the Committee, but I want to take the opportunity to make a few points. I hope that noble Lords will bear with me. I welcome very much the framework within which we are approaching this issue. As noble Lords present at the discussion in January will remember, I think that I was the only one who cautiously welcomed this legislation. I have been reminded about that on more than one occasion by numerous colleagues and noble Lords. That note of caution was very important. It was based not on my personal opinions but on what I had heard, and on experiences of talking to women and women’s groups.
We have arrived at the very important process of looking at this fundamental human rights issue. We have arrived where my noble friend Lord Ahmed and
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I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, about new Section 64R in particular as it embraces everything I hope I have argued for. As has been acknowledged, forced marriage is a complicated issue. It is very important to give courts and professionals these wide-ranging powers and the ability to deal with the issue and to provide services and protection to women and individuals or families who are involved. Without it, the idea that we need to empower women in order for us to address some of these complicated issues would not be addressed. It would be remiss of me not to remind Members of the Committee once again that I welcome forced marriage being embraced within the mainstream law, but that a loss of status for women, especially if they have come here already married—forced or otherwise—needs to be addressed. It must be addressed within the main framework of the law.
Although this may not be the time to ask the question, it needs raising: once a woman has left the home, where does she go? What does she do and who will provide the support and services for her? Those of us who have been more sceptical see a fundamental difference. Questions have been raised about domestic violence, child protection, family breakdown and a number of other issues. I therefore hope that guidance and instructions to local authorities and institutions will be explicit, providing a statutory obligation to support women. I welcome the amendment on which I had intended to make only a few comments—and I hope that they were only few.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: I have been looking at the proposed new section on guidance and the provision that persons exercising public functions will have a duty. I remember that when I was principal of Somerville College and I visited schools, there came a time in the mid-1980s when I no longer found Muslim girls in sixth forms. I was told that it was because they were being withdrawn from school at 13 and were often then taken back to their villages where a marriage took place. I used to say that that seemed to be breaking the law because those girls had a right to education and we have a duty to provide it. If that, among other things, could be enforced, it is much easier for people to cease to do something bad if there is a perfectly respectable reason not to do it, which has nothing to do with marriage or anything else. If it could be known in the community that girls could not be withdrawn legally until they were 16, that might begin to start a measure of protection for the peculiarly unprotected very young.
Baroness Uddin: I would like to comment on that. There is a widely advertised case of an 11 year-old girl who was taken out of school and has been rescued. I
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Lord Lester of Herne Hill: On the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Park, when I went to Derby to visit Karma Nirvana, I was convinced that the guidance needed to be statutory. In particular, I learnt that some schools were not willing to put up information about a helpline or anything else because the local education authority in a particular area felt that it would be undesirable to do so. Although this is a sensitive matter, it is obviously important that guidance is given and had regard to—without the cumbersome business of litigation if you do not have regard, although I am not suggesting anything of that kind—to ensure that public authorities like education bodies provide such basic information.
I turn to the other point about immigration raised by the noble Lord, Lord Plant—and I am glad that I am not the Minister having to deal with it. The issue is complicated. Certainly my wife, who is an immigration and asylum judge, has told me about the difficult problems she has in cases where it may be that there is some evidence of coercion for immigration purposes, or even for asylum, and having to try to establish the truth from the victim who is party to the proceedings. The Home Office also does its best, but this is a difficult matter. One way in which the Government have responded to this—I am not sure that I altogether agree with it because it may suffer from the very vice of broad generalisation referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin—is to raise the age at which someone may come into the country to marry to 21. I do not know whether that is necessarily the correct approach. The immigration implications are not dealt with either by my Bill or by the government amendments, but they will need to be addressed as a matter of immigration policy.
2.45 pm
Lord Ahmed: I had no intention of speaking this afternoon because I came in just to support all that the Minister is going to say, but I rise again because of the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Park, in relation to young boys or girls who are taken away from school. It would be difficult to monitor young people going to visit their relatives, attending funerals or weddings, or going on holiday. To issue guidance just for people of a different colour or from a different culture would be wrong.
On the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in Derby, I can assure the noble Lord that my noble friend Lady Uddin and I, along with the noble Lord,
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Lord Sheikh: I should like to make a few general comments. First, I was in the Chamber when the noble Lord, Lord Lester, presented his Bill and I congratulate him on his presentation of it. I have looked through the amendments and I think that they are excellent. To that end, I commend the Minister, her advisers and her civil servants who prepared them.
We must recognise that the problem of forced marriages does not restrict itself to people from the sub-continent; it is one that affects many different communities. I have heard it talked about in relation to Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and so on. It must be appreciated that it applies to all the communities. Therefore, I welcome the fact that the amendments extend the Family Law Act rather than the provisions standing alone. I congratulate the Minister and her advisers, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lester, for his participation in making this a power under family law. There are issues concerning domestic violence, which may be the result of forced marriages.
The amendments are quite comprehensive. They refer to protection orders, undertakings and power of arrest under warrants. I agree with the interpretation and I notice that marriages are covered whether or not they are legally binding, because some of them are not. I am a Muslim whose marriage is not recognised by law unless we have a civil ceremony. I spoke to the Minister earlier about problems occurring overseas. I am pleased about the Forced Marriage Unit’s involvement, because I have heard one or two horror stories from overseas. The unit does an excellent job overseas and there must be guidance as well as legislation. We need to look into those issues. Certainly, the amendments have my support. I will do all that I can to make sure that the legislation is not only enacted but also that its principles are put into practice.
Baroness Verma: I thank the Minister for her introduction to this amendment. This Bill has had an interesting passage so far. It has undergone its metamorphosis from a Private Member’s Bill to government legislation in the blink of an eye. We on these Benches congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, on persuading the Government not only to bring forward these new amendments but to support what will be a new government Bill in the proper way with a fully equipped Bill team.
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My noble friend Lady Anelay regrets that she is unable to be here. I thank the Minister for arranging for us to meet before the debate. I should also like to thank the Bill team, which has provided prompt and ready assistance and has liaised most effectively with my office. I pay particular tribute to the work that it has managed to do in such a short timeframe. I regret only that a rather rushed procedure has categorised this Bill in recent weeks. It is a shame that due to its previous status as a Private Member’s Bill without government support, the supporting framework is, through being understandably under-resourced, deficient in public Bill standards. It would have been more appropriate to have been able to have had sight of the individual responses to the consultation, as is the case when requested with government consultation. While the Government have consulted on this issue with regards to introducing a criminal offence, as this is civil law that consultation does not have direct relevance.
While I emphasise again that I am most grateful to the Bill team for its hard work in organising an initial regulatory impact assessment, I note that this was produced only on request by myself and colleagues, and that it is only in its initial stages. Taken together, it is my concern that this lack of formal preparation could impair the scrutiny of the Bill in your Lordships’ House. I hope that this may be improved on before consideration in another place. I should be grateful if the Minister would clarify whether she believes that the handling of this Bill, including the extension of the Long Title under Amendment No. 14, will set a precedent for Private Members’ Bills.
We on these Benches very much welcome the form that the Bill will take following the Government’s amendments. We believe that it is right that it will mirror Part 4 of the Family Law Act 1996 and that, by and large, the penalties for breach of orders are appropriate. In order to ensure that the Bill is subject to appropriate scrutiny before reaching another place, we have tabled amendments to probe the future implementation of orders, the potential future effect of the Bill on the communities it targets, the appropriateness of the Secretary of State’s powers and the substance of the orders themselves. I will have further questions to put to the Minister following the invaluable advice that I have been grateful to receive in the past few days.
I am sure that noble Lords will appreciate that the time for consultation on the amendments, although it has been extended, has been somewhat limited. It is right in principle and right in practice to try to prevent forced marriages from taking place. At Second Reading of the previous version of the Bill, my noble friend Lady Anelay noted that to be in a position where one is forced to make an application for nullity after having been forced into a marriage is invidious. I support that statement, and I follow it with a few questions to the Minister.
The Bill will allow action to be taken on an attempt, rather than waiting for a marriage to occur and then applying for an annulment. I note that government Amendment No. 14 will allow for forced marriage orders to apply after a marriage has been
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- “criminal law already provides protection from and punishment for the crimes that may be committed when forcing someone into a marriage, whether in this country or abroad”.
On civil law, he states that forced marriage will also expose the perpetrators to civil remedies for such torts as trespass to the person and false imprisonment. I reiterate that I support the legislation, and I raise these matters to elicit a response from the Minister that will detail how this legislation will add to the panoply of existing law.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: While I welcome everything that was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, there were bits of what she said that were a bit grumpy. I would like to say something about the grumpy bits.
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