Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill [HL]

I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for her amendment. She has rightly cited the need for proper training and guidance as a critical issue if we are going to tackle the problem of forced marriage and ensure that the Bill is implemented successfully. The Bill provides a power for the Secretary of State to issue guidance on the Bill and also on the issue of forced marriage generally. That will enable us, first, to put the guidance already issued by the Forced Marriage Unit—to which I have paid tribute many times before, but I shall continue to do so as long as I possibly can—on a statutory footing. It might be helpful if I say a little on the work that is already carried out by the Forced Marriage Unit on issuing guidance. In the past year, the Forced Marriage Unit has issued guidance to health professionals, and it has undertaken an awareness-raising campaign for registrars. Guidance was issued to social workers in 2004, followed by guidance for police and teachers in 2005. Revised guidelines for social workers are due to be out before the end of the year, and will be in two volumes: one for social workers for dealing with children and young people; and one for social workers dealing with vulnerable adults. The guidelines are disseminated at outreach events, conferences and workshops organised by the Forced Marriage Unit, and are also available for downloading from its website. In practice, the power to issue guidance is likely to mean re-publishing existing guidance to place it on a statutory footing, for the reasons that your Lordships have already given. The costs associated with re-publication should be small, but we will keep that under review. Fresh guidance published by the Forced Marriage Unit once the new Bill comes into force will usually be issued under this new power. We will also keep under review any additional costs associated with guidance specific to the Bill, which will be a matter for my department in consultation with the Home Office, the Foreign Office, the Forced Marriage Unit and other relevant departments, including the Department for Education and Skills. The DfES has supported the Bill, and we will in the usual course of events discuss with it its work in issuing guidance to schools. Training, particularly judicial training, which the noble and learned Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Lester, mentioned, will be built into our wider plans for implementing the provisions that extend jurisdiction to the county courts. As noble Lords will know from our discussions in Committee, it is important to provide for county courts to have the jurisdiction to hear forced marriage cases to make it easier for victims to get the protection that they need. At the same time, it is extremely important that we ensure that cases heard in the county courts receive expert and sensitive treatment; the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, alluded to this when she spoke to her amendments. Officials in the department are already considering how we might undertake a phased roll-out of the jurisdiction to the county courts. The aim of such an approach is to enable us to focus initially on a limited number of courts in different regions across the country, building up expertise in these areas. The number of cases that are brought will be a determining factor in deciding how many courts we will eventually need to handle all the cases efficiently and effectively. The approach taken in implementing the provisions that enable civil partnerships to be dissolved is an example of this type of approach. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, referred to that legislation. In this case, my department agreed with the president of the Family Division that initially 10 centres across England and Wales would be able to deal with dissolution. We shall similarly consult the president on the number and location of county courts initially able to hear forced marriage cases, ensuring that we have a spread of county courts across the country and in urban areas where the demand is likely to be higher. We anticipate that the Judicial Studies Board, which is responsible for judicial training, will undertake the necessary training for judges in these courts. My officials will discuss with the board the cost of training and the provision of funding. I will ask the JSB to consider, in the light of its other training plans, how it could incorporate within its existing provisions the training that it considers to be necessary. After initial training, it is likely that forced marriage training will be included in the usual refresher courses. The board publishes an annual report that sets out how much has been spent on judicial training. This will ensure that the cost of judicial training associated with the Bill is transparent, as the noble Baroness would wish. In addition to formal JSB training, the judges whom we have consulted on the Bill have suggested that forced marriage cases might be a good candidate for a practice direction, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has suggested. Such a direction would provide guidance on the best practice for hearing these cases. As the noble and learned Baroness has said, this will be a matter for the president of the Family Division. Training for court staff will be a matter for my department and Her Majesty’s Courts Service, as is standard practice for the implementation of new legislation that affects the courts. This will include the drafting of staff training materials, the delivery of training to court staff, and the development of information leaflets, court forms and web information for the public and court users. We will work closely with the Forced Marriage Unit to ensure that this guidance is consistent with its guidelines on forced marriages. The noble Baroness also asked about training for community and voluntary organisations. The Forced Marriage Unit already provides training on forced marriages to statutory agencies and voluntary organisations as part of its awareness-raising remit. My department will liaise with the unit on how the provisions in the Bill should be communicated, as part of both the implementation programme for the Bill and the unit’s existing awareness-raising programme. The noble Baroness also asked about the police. As she will know, domestic violence crime and hate crimes are generally handled by police community safety units, and we anticipate that forced marriages will be dealt with in the same way. She also asked me whether the guidance would be mandatory for police forces. Training on forced marriages is already delivered to police forces across the UK. Therefore, it already is in existence across the system. Finally, because this might be the last time on which I speak, I want to pay tribute to all those—