Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill [HL]

I am grateful to noble Lords. We have had an interesting debate. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, is right to say that undertakings are incredibly useful because they do not ask people to admit to the allegations being made against them, but enable them to say, ““I will not do that””. I see that my noble friend Lady Uddin agrees. A point that has driven our discussions right the way through from the original consultation on the criminal offence, which was rejected, is that of recognising the importance of family in this. The family courts can hear things in private and handle the issues very sensitively. They can ask simply for an undertaking without requiring someone to admit to having done anything. It is an important tool that will help a family to stay together. Our ambition here is that young women and some young men become empowered. They should feel that they can make choices, but that they can also keep their families. If we can go some way towards achieving that in this legislation, we will have achieved a real success. Anything we can do to enable the sensitivity and flexibility of the courts to come into play is important. That is what an undertaking in this context would do. In answer to the points put by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, although an undertaking can achieve a great deal, if someone breaches it, they will have breached something that has been put to them by the court. At that point an undertaking can be enforced as if it was an order. If I give an undertaking to the court that I will not coerce another individual to do certain things without admitting that I have ever done so, the court will say that that is fine. If I go on to do so, I am in breach and the court may act. The noble Baroness asked me about remand. The remand period is eight days, unless the parties consent to it being longer or because some medical examination needs to take place. The provisions in the proposed new section are used in Section 46 of the Family Law Act, which deals with cases of domestic violence. We have approached this by replicating those provisions. The charge of contempt of court is available if the undertaking is not carried through. It carries a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment.