Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill

Debate between Nigel Evans and Virendra Sharma

Report stage
Friday 25th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak on such an important Bill. I feel proud and privileged to be speaking here this morning and supporting the Bill.

I thank the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) for her tireless work in taking this Bill through Parliament. Her passion was evident in her powerful speech this morning. She has been tireless in her fight and deserves praise from all of us. I also want to register my thanks to the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), who is no longer in his place, who began this journey for us before his return to the Cabinet. Indeed, I thank all fellow sponsors of this Bill, and all Members here supporting this important legislation.

Child marriage is not a thing of the past, but it should be. It is something that harms everyone—boys and girls, parents and children. It makes young girls into a commodity to be bought and sold. They are made to be women long before they are anything but children.

Marriage at 16 is a hangover from a different age, and it is right that we now step forward to close this loophole. We do so because it is the right thing to do. We do so because not to act risks consigning thousands more girls to abuse and controlling marriages, and because to act will empower thousands each year to seek education and employment for their own and indeed everyone’s good. The single biggest step that we could take today to invigorate the economy around the world is the economic empowerment of women.

Child marriage is outlawed in many countries around the world. It shames us that we lend some tacit approval to its continuation by allowing marriage at 16 here. We can lead by example, and live up to what we say abroad. We can slap down charges of hypocrisy by acting for ourselves and reaffirming our commitment to childhood.

Child marriage is often just another form of coercive control and abuse. Sadly, too often it is perpetrated by parents and siblings to force young women and girls into outdated behaviour owing to a misplaced and frankly heinous sense of so-called honour. The horrific murder of Banaz Mahmod in 2006, and the testimony of those who actually cared about her, including her sister Payzee Mahmod, show that honour and love have nothing to do with so-called honour killings and child marriage.

As a member of Ealing Council, I was proud to support the organisation Southall Black Sisters by providing their first official funding, because the work that they do matters. Sadly, that work is as necessary now as it was then. Not all child marriage is about abuse, and I know that some end in happy marriage, but that choice should be made by an adult for themselves, not forced on a child.

I must now share my personal family experience. My own mother, the late Ram Piary Sharma, married young, at only 14, and had her first child shortly after her 17th birthday. She had already brought one life into the world, and she was still a girl—a child. She was bright, intelligent, interested and driven, but poorly educated. Education was something that she insisted on delivering for her own daughters when life had denied it to her. She took the extraordinary step of starting a small school for girls in our village. While there had for many years been opportunities for boys to study, there was nowhere in my village, Mandhali, for a girl to learn. My mother secured a small room, hired a teacher from the next village to come and teach girls, and Bimla, my sister, was the first pupil. It was a great success, and soon many of our friends and neighbours were sending their girls too. My sister was the first to matriculate, and eventually went into further education, followed by my other three sisters. My mother put such value on learning and education, and it changed so many lives. Bimla trained to become a teacher and came back to Mandhali to teach another generation of girls, to change lives and make a difference, all because of the opportunities that not marrying young gave her.

My other three sisters also went into professional jobs, and none married young—they all married after the age of 22. My mother ensured that they knew the value of their learning and their responsibility to live the best life they could. That is the opportunity banning child marriage offers: the ability to shape lives for the better. Banning child marriage is not a ban on love and it is not state control; it protects the right to childhood, the right to a decent education and the right to a brighter future.

I feel honoured to participate in this debate.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Very moving.

0.7% Official Development Assistance Target

Debate between Nigel Evans and Virendra Sharma

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab) [V]]

I hope to be brief.

Looking around the world, we see so many problems that need our help—[Inaudible.] It has been a discourtesy to this House and to millions of people up and down the country who voted in 2019 for 0.7%, that this Government tried to cut that without any discussion or debate. I was heartened by the Prime Minister dispatching ventilators and oxygen converters to India, but Nepal is still waiting. India leads the world in vaccine research and production, whereas Nepal has no facilities to produce vaccines. Millions of vulnerable people in Nepal need vaccines, especially second doses. Those are not coming, but we have 500 million doses for 70 million people.

I have visited amazing programmes and met people whose lives were changed and saved by British aid. No one who has seen that work would condone a cut. The cut is barbaric at this time . When I meet people abroad, and online now, I am nothing but proud of our record as a donor to good works, But that work on gender equality, clean water and sanitation, 12 good years of education, ending human trafficking and modern slavery—[Inaudible]. We cannot let this Government waste that work without a fight. We must end this debate and support the return of 0.7% as our commitment to the nation and to the world.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you very much. Sorry about those communications problems, but we got the vast majority of it, Mr Sharma.

A Plan for the NHS and Social Care

Debate between Nigel Evans and Virendra Sharma

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab) [V]]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this vital debate on the NHS and social care.

I want to speak about social care, which is in the midst of a severe crisis. Tragically, 40,000 older people have died in care homes since the beginning of the pandemic. In response to this tragedy, only one sentence of the Queen’s Speech last week was afforded to fixing the care system. In the memory of those people, the Government must put in place a proper social care system that will prevent such an injustice from ever taking place again. Instead, another year goes by where the Prime Minister has nothing to say to the hundreds of thousands of older people neglected by a broken system that still denies them the care that they so desperately need. This Government have been in power for 11 years and have done nothing to act on the matter.

Over the past 20 years, there have been at least 12 Government reviews, royal commissions, consultations, and Green and White Papers, yet still we have no change. During this time, Germany, Austria, France and Japan have all solved the issue. Even the Scottish Government, under a Labour Administration, were able to institute free personal care. This Government have dodged the issue for 11 years to the detriment of the 400,000 older people who go without the care they need. This is a failure of leadership, but it is also a collective failure of our political class to solve one of the defining issues of our time by ensuring that the older generation, after a long life of hard work and contribution to our society, are afforded the dignity that they deserve in older age.

It cannot be right that more than 10% of older people spend virtually all of their life savings on care. When the Prime Minister came to office, he committed to

“fix the crisis in social care once and for all.”

Now, nearly two years on, he needs to do something to fix this problem once and for all.

When it comes to who needs access to care, it is often smokers, so we need to commit to support reduced-risk products as the best way to help people move off cigarettes. We cannot let those in deprived areas continue to suffer from further smoking-led health inequalities. We must establish two distinct categories of regulation to differentiate between the most harmful tobacco products, and the reduced risk products such as vapes and “heat not burn” cigarettes. I am deeply concerned that public health advice is not getting to my constituents. Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities must have access to the right information and advice to quit cigarettes or to move to less harmful alternatives—that could prove to be a distinct success.

As a result of these pressures, we see more and more care homes close every year, with fewer people able to find the beds they need. I urge the Secretary of State on behalf of the thousands who need help today to take two parallel courses of action. First, I urge the Government to immediately commence cross-party discussions in good faith to create consensus, not over the problems, but to find solutions. Over the past half century, at every turn, politicisation has disturbed what window of opportunity we have had available, and the adversarial nature of our politics has not solved this vital problem.

Secondly, the Government must have faith in local government, and give councils the tools and resources to build and then run a cohesive system of social care. Local authorities have performed admirably during covid-19, and have shown that they are truly capable of running such a system. We should take the lessons learned over the past 14 months and put them into action. Local government knows how to run programmes; the Government should give them the resources to do it. Acting now is not a political white flag. It is not compromise; it is showing decisive leadership. It is weak to leave this issue unaddressed. Strength is acting to save lives, and the dignity of everyone forced into the arms of social care. The Prime Minister is—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am sorry, Virendra; you have just run out of time. I do apologise. No offence is intended.

I call Robin Millar to make his maiden speech.