Before the Minister replies, perhaps I could say a word about Amendment 87B, which, as the noble Baroness has just explained, applies to Scotland. I am sure that it is very well intentioned and I hope that I will not alarm the noble Baroness too much when I say that there is an error in the way that these two amendments are presented. They assume that the law of Scotland is the same as the law of England. It is not.
The law of Scotland—which may alarm the noble Baroness—is that anyone over the age of 16 is free to marry, and parental consent is not required. That was common law for generations and is written into Section 1 of the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977. It is actually one of the reasons why Gretna Green attracted attention. People could elope over the border to Gretna Green, establish residence in Scotland and marry without parental consent, provided they were over 16 and there was no other impediment to marriage.
That is a bit of history; the point is that the amendment as worded does not really fit in with Scots law. If the amendment were to attract Minister’s sympathy, I respectfully suggest that it would have to be altered. Proposed new subsection (2A)(b) would have to say that a person commits an offence if he or she,
“gives consent for that child to enter into marriage”,
that requires parental consent,
“unless the written consent of both parties to the marriage has been obtained”.
It is perfectly possible that two people living in Scotland want to contract a marriage somewhere else where parental consent is needed. In that situation, indeed, if the amendment is reworded it would have some force. But as it is put, it would seem to completely revolutionise the law of Scotland as a whole. That is not really appropriate because of the existing statutory position in Scotland. An amendment as radical as that would need the consent of the Scottish Parliament, which I do not think has been obtained. If the wording was changed, as I suggest, to remove the words,
“before the age of 18”,
and to add, “which requires parental consent”, it would fit exactly with what the noble Baroness intends.