Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill [HL]

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, on her work in chairing the APPG on Population, Development and Reproductive Health. On receiving her Bill, I took the opportunity to read the APPG’s report on child marriage published in November 2012, and in line with her request in the introduction I did not just read the summary: I read the whole report. The evidence in that report and the personal testimonies were truly horrific. I strongly recommend that all noble Lords read through it. We have of course seen the shocking exploitation of not only women but young girls—some as young as 10, 11 and 12—being forced into marriage. As the noble Baroness said, it is not only a shocking infringement of human rights and the rights of the child. It has significant health and well-being consequences, which can be lifelong. Those can scar people all their lives.

One issue for me with the Bill is that I acknowledge, as the report does, the significant lead of the United Kingdom in challenging these norms, particularly by challenging violence against women but, more importantly, in terms of how we change things. The most important thing that we can do is to encourage all kinds of activity which empowers women. It is not about limiting ourselves simply to trying to change laws. One thing that would slightly worry me is if the focus were simply on a law that said, “Marriage will be barred below 18”. That would ignore the potential that often, in countries we are dealing with, laws are ignored anyway and the real change comes from the empowerment of women. That means education and job and income opportunities. Significant change happens, including in Bangladesh, when women are properly empowered. That covers all our activities.

As the noble Baroness said, in this country we have had the success of the Forced Marriage Unit, which has worked incredibly well. We also had the passing of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which made it an offence for someone to force a person into marriage.

Reading through the APPG’s report, I was looking for a little more evidence to back up the case on linking to the UN convention and saying that the Government should take the lead by increasing the minimum age for marriage. I was prepared to hear and see that case but, fundamentally, it comes down to my noble friend Lady Uddin’s point: it is about how we take the lead and strengthen the position through our global advocacy on the protection of the child. That may be what we need to do—I am open to the arguments here—but this is a domestic Bill relating to domestic law. What would its impact be on people throughout the United Kingdom?

Addressing the issue in the past, the relevant Minister in the coalition Government, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said that that Government did not,

“consider that it is necessary to amend the age at which people can enter into marriage”,

and that the,

“existing provisions that require parental consent for people under the age of 18 to marry provide adequate protection ”.—[Official Report, 15/10/13; col. WA 74.]

Do the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, and the Minister think that case remains?

Fundamental issues were raised in the 1967 House of Commons report on the age of majority. There are debates about the age of majority and the age of consent. I think that getting married at 30 is a bit too young. It is something that you need to take time to consider as it is not something that you should undertake lightly, but then nor is having sex. I do not think that the noble Baroness is suggesting that we increase the age of consent. There is an issue about choice here. I strongly believe that we have to address teenage pregnancy through better education and support, the principles that were raised in the noble Baroness’s original APPG report. All these things need to be undertaken. We need to think extremely carefully about the idea that someone aged 17 who has a baby could be legally barred from marrying, entering into a partnership that has legal protection, in order to bring up a child if they so wish.

The ONC report referred to in the Library briefing states that there has been a substantial drop in the number of people getting married under the age of 20 in the past 10 years but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, said we do not have any clear statistics on marriages involving people aged between 16 and 18. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what problem this Bill seeks to address. What are the numbers? I hope that we will have an opportunity in Committee to go through some of these issues in more detail, but we need to think hard about making statutory changes without being clear about the evidence. I totally support the policy advocacy of the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, challenging cultural norms and empowering women. As she said, the exploitation of women does not start or stop at 18 or 16. In many countries, it is ongoing. It has taken this country a long time to address those issues, and we have still not reached the end of the road. I certainly welcome the promotion of the APPG’s report and that we are debating these issues, but I would like the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, to address the evidence and the conclusions we might reach from it.