Marriage Act 1949 (Remedial) Order 2006

My Lords, we are quite content with this order. As the noble Baroness has pointed out to your Lordships, the order is the consequence of the case of B and L v United Kingdom, in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The individuals concerned were, by virtue of marriage, father-in-law and daughter-in-law. Subsequently, both divorced and decided to get married to each other. This, they discovered, was prohibited by the Marriage Act 1949, unless both their former spouses were deceased. The Court held that this provision of the 1949 Act was incompatible with Article 12 of the convention. Although it was no part of the judgment, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, as the noble Baroness has indicated, concluded that the Government were entitled to conclude that the age restriction of 21 in the 1949 Act between parents-in-law and children-in-law was also incompatible with Article 12. Although it is almost inconceivable that any of the very few couples who are likely to fall within this order will be under 21, they will perforce have been marriedbefore, and in our view the age restriction serves no purpose.