I thank the Minister for that detailed and comprehensive answer. I also thank my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, for her support.
This has been a useful discussion because this issue is important. I had a look at the guidance, which, as my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland pointed out, is comprehensive and impressive. Were it to be implemented in the way that is intended, it would be extremely effective. It is detailed and tells all public officials how they should deal with this issue and what they should say. The guidance is very impressive but implementation is the point. I also agreed with the noble Lord when he told the House that this is also about cultural change, changes in community and so on.
I might say to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that I come from a community in Bradford, have links across West Yorkshire and have spoken about this issue to many different groups of women in those areas. I have to say that the enthusiasm for criminalisation, which we will come on to talk about, is not by any means uniform among the groups, including, for example, a group of Somali women in Halifax with whom I had conversations only in the
past year. Criminalisation of breaches of the Forced Marriage Act is important, as I think everyone would agree. However, the discussion that we are going to come on to is slightly more nuanced.
I should be grateful if the Minister could answer the question mentioned by his noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece about free schools. He does not need to answer now; a letter would be sufficient. Do the rules relating to this issue apply also to the new free schools? I should like to read what the noble Lord has said about the Department for Education’s role in this and about the safeguarding issue. We may need to have discussions and return to it at a later stage. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.