Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the amendment. An important part of what we sought to do within the Bill is to make it easier for those threatened with forced marriage to get the protection they need within the civil courts system. The possibility of extending jurisdiction is an important part of that. The key reason for the magistrates’ courts being included within the legislation, and the power to extend, is that we are increasingly moving towards the concept of a single family court, as noble Lords will know, enabling issues and cases to be dealt with by the appropriate judge and making movement between the courts easier. We have published our strategy to create a single family court where magistrates and district judges will become the first tier of the new court. To ensure that we do not leave ourselves with a difficulty in primary legislation should that come to fruition, the power is in the Bill to ensure that we can move to single family courts effectively. The magistrates’ courts and the High Court do not have the same powers, which I think is the answer the noble Baroness was keen to hear. We will not extend beyond the county courts until we are confident that we can do so. There have been discussions with the Magistrates’ Association, and some magistrates would be keen to be involved. That may well be appropriate in the future, perhaps through a ticketing system, but we are nowhere near there yet. At this point, it is important to ensure that we can get the right training and experience into the judiciary at the county court level to ensure that these complex cases—which need careful handling, not least with community sensitivity and understanding of what is meant by a ““forced marriage””, and so on—are dealt with properly and appropriately. Magistrates have the powers to remand as set out in the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, which would apply. Power of contempt for magistrates would also apply, which I think is Section 63 of the Magistrates’ Courts Act. The purpose of taking this within the legislation, however, is to allow for single family courts and to ensure that, if and when it were appropriate, we could involve magistrates without having to return to primary legislation, but could do so through secondary legislation.