Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill [Lords]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. The Bill has now been carefully debated both here and in the other place, and I think that we can safely say that it is a shining example of cross-party co-operation to tackle the dreadful problem of people who are forced to marry. I therefore want to put on record again my thanks both to the Opposition for providing time for the Bill to be debated in the House and to the Liberal Democrats—in particular, Lord Lester—for introducing the Bill in the other place and working so hard to secure its passage there. With the noble lord’s help the Government substantially redrafted the Bill, and when it came here, we adopted it as our own. In this House, we have secured support on both sides for a Bill that will provide much-needed help for the young women—and indeed some men—who find themselves forced to marry. The Bill will go a long way towards tackling that pernicious practice. The cross-party support for the Bill has been critical in ensuring that progress. On Second Reading and in Committee, there were great debates on some of the most important issues raised by the Bill. It was sensible and proper that those aspects were discussed further. I will comment on one or two of the issues. There was concern that there was not sufficient consultation with stakeholders. The Government, through the forced marriage unit, have been engaged with key stakeholders since the unit was established in 2005 and we also consulted on forced marriage—including whether it should be made a criminal offence—in 2005. A wide-ranging and varied group of stakeholders responded to that consultation. Lord Lester, who sponsored the Bill in another place, consulted on making changes to his original Bill in February this year. Again, those who responded were wide-ranging and included experts in the field, non-governmental organisations, charities dealing with forced marriage casework, faith groups and other interested individuals. Lord Lester himself has worked with the Southall Black Sisters, which is a well-established, well-known and influential women’s group working in London, as well as organisations such as Karma Nirvana in Derby and the Newham Asian Women’s Project, both of which have been closely involved with the work of the forced marriage unit and have been consulted regularly. We also took it upon ourselves to consult a number of the family division judges, who regularly hear such cases, in order to ensure that the drafting of the legislation was appropriate. They made some helpful suggestions to improve the Bill’s flexibility and I want to record my thanks to them for their contribution. In the run-up to the Lords Grand Committee, Baroness Ashton met a number of stakeholders, including Southall Black Sisters, Imkaan, Karma Nirvana, and Himat—a support group that meets the particular needs of south Asian gay and bisexual men. She also met Khatun Sapnara, a family law lawyer, who worked closely with Lord Lester in drafting the original Bill. I wholeheartedly agree with the points that have been made about strong community relations being key to the future success of the legislation once passed and, for that reason, I wanted to set out how important it was that we had met the different groups that have an interest in this area. In that respect, the work of the forced marriage unit, and other NGOs and charities, is critical and invaluable in raising awareness of the issue and highlighting access to support and assistance. The forced marriage unit, as I said in Committee, undertakes a great deal of publicity, outreach and awareness-raising work. Speeches are made at about 75 events every year. The unit runs a national publicity campaign involving radio, TV and the national and local press. As part of its two-year strategy, it will explore ways of making the outreach programme more targeted and focused on the hard-to-reach community groups and on older generations in communities that are affected by forced marriage. It is also focusing on building links with devolved Governments in the UK and with other Governments across Europe through participation in the EU Daphne-funded project, ““Active Against Forced Marriage””. The FMU contributes to the Foreign Office’s overall work with overseas Governments to improve human rights, including tackling forced marriage and other forms of violence against women. The Bill is just one part of a much wider programme of work already under way to raise awareness of the problem of forced marriage and to protect women’s rights in this area. It might be appropriate at this stage if I remind hon. Members that the Bill has been extended to Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Executive Committee considered the inclusion of Northern Ireland in the Bill on 24 May and agreed that it was content that Westminster should legislate on devolved matters on this occasion. Likewise the Northern Ireland Assembly debated and agreed a legislative consent motion on Monday 4 June. There was some concern during the debates about whether there should be criminal remedies for forced marriage. The Bill offers civil remedies. As I said on Second Reading, we consulted in 2005 on whether we should introduce criminal offences for forced marriage. The majority response from stakeholders and voluntary groups with great experience in the area was that going down the route of criminalisation might be seen to target and stigmatise certain ethnic and religious communities and would simply drive the practice underground, making the situation even worse for victims. Victims of forced marriage are often unwilling to take action against their parents, and many respondents felt that the legislation would simply not be used. So, we decided against criminalisation. I want to make it clear, however, that clause 63R of the Bill signposts the existing protection that is available under criminal law as well as under other civil legislation. That includes the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Family Law Act 1996, a civil claim for damages, and an application under the Children Act 1989. The clause also makes it clear that the Bill will not prevent a person from seeking a remedy provided in other areas of law. So, when a crime is committed as part of a strategy designed to force someone to marry, it should be reported to the police and can be prosecuted in the normal way. The primary purpose of the Bill, however, is preventive. It is aimed at protecting the victim from being forced into marriage. Nevertheless, there are some cases in which the victim may wish to seek additional remedies, such as making a civil claim for damages—in cases where she could do so anyway. The clause makes it clear that nothing in the Bill prevents such an application.