Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill [Lords]

How right the hon. Lady is. I am grateful to her for that intervention. There are those who, despite the good local structures and contact points, still feel alone and frightened. It is up to us to try to help them as much as we can. On the Bill itself, little has been made of whether it is proper to approach the problem from the point of view of the civil law or the criminal law. In my judgment—I declare an interest as a part-time district judge, practising lawyer, Crown court recorder and so on—what the Government have done is right. We should probably approach the problem from the point of view of civil sanctions. To bring the criminal law into it at the moment would not be appropriate. Apart from anything else, we legislate far too much in terms of the criminal law, and it could up the ante a little too much and cause more problems than it would solve. However, as hon. Members have said, forced marriages quite often—in fact, almost always—involve an element of crime, whether it is rape, kidnapping or violence. Many of those serious crimes are deeply connected with forced marriages and should be treated accordingly. The Bill is right to look at the problem from a civil point of view. I have another point to put to the Solicitor-General. The Bill provides that the procedures for a remedy will go through the family courts, by which I take it to mean the county court, the High Court and so on. Will she dwell a little on the prospect of extending the jurisdiction to the family side of the magistrates courts? They are more in number. An awful lot of places that do not have a county court have a magistrates court. They also have the advantage of speed and cheapness. I want to raise another issue, which has been touched on. The issues connected with religion and culture, which are quite sensitive, will come before county court and High Court judges. I cannot stress enough the need for relevant training for the judiciary when they are handling such cases. That training was mentioned in an intervention. It could and should be extended to many other people in this general field, if one likes to put it that way, who would benefit from the proper training necessary to equip them adequately to deal with the cultural and religious issues involved. The hon. and learned Lady will know, and will be able to tell me, that the judiciary are obliged to go on regular refresher courses for training purposes and so on, but to add at some stage something specifically on the issue of forced marriages might be a sensible way forward. I want to touch on some other aspects, which can be examined carefully in Committee. The Bill mentions a forced marriage protection order. First, what is in it and against whom can it be made? Under proposed new section 63B, the contents of the order can be absolutely anything:"““A forced marriage protection order may contain…such other terms””" as the court thinks appropriate. Against whom can it be made? That is very widely drafted, because such an order can be made against other persons"““who are, or who may become, involved in other respects””." I am not sure whether the hon. and learned Lady will be able to narrow that down a bit either at this stage or in Committee. At the moment, the order can say anything and can in effect be made against anybody. In proposed new section 63B(2), the word ““knowingly”” does not come before the word ““involved””. One wonders whether in fact orders can be made against people who are, in truth, not culpable and not aware of what we might describe as culpable or guilty participation. My next question is who will be able to apply for a forced marriage protection order? I appreciate that many Bills nowadays do not tell us the full story. That is generally left for regulation to do later. The Bill tells us that an application can be made by"““the person who is to be protected… or… a relevant third party.”” " That is fine as far as it goes, but who is a relevant third party? According to the Bill, it is"““a person specified, or falling within a description of persons specified, by order of the Lord Chancellor.””" Who on earth will that be? It might be helpful if we could be told tonight; otherwise it seems likely that anyone with a tenuous or not tenuous, or close or not close, link with the family concerned will be able to make an application. Surely the Government do not want the definition to be as wide as that.