My Lords, this amendment, in my name and those of my noble friend Lady Smith and the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, seeks to test whether the Bill adequately covers the issue of capacity; in other words, the capacity of a vulnerable adult who may be forced into a marriage. Almost by
definition, they are very often not in a position to give free or full consent to a marriage, or otherwise. We are looking at Clause 108(1)(a) and (b). Paragraph (a) says,
“A person commits an offence … if he or she … uses violence, threats or any other form of coercion for the purpose of causing another person to enter into a marriage, and”,
paragraph (b) continues,
“believes, or ought reasonably to believe, that the conduct may cause the other person to enter into the marriage without free and full consent”.
Both those points assume that the person has capacity either to resist or to consent to a marriage. Of course, we know that a proportion of the cases dealt with by the Forced Marriage Unit concern people who have not given consent to a marriage. An article published in the Guardian in August which quoted the Forced Marriage Unit said that,
“The government dealt with 114 cases of forced marriage last year that involved mentally disabled people”.
However, the Forced Marriage Unit recognises and admits that that is probably only the tip of an iceberg and does not reflect the full scale of the abuse. I think that everybody would agree that we should be concerned that disabled or mentally disabled people are protected in this legislation and do not suffer forced marriage.
My second question, which is linked to but is not only about capacity, is: how can marriages be voided in these circumstances? When is a forced marriage voidable? How does it go forward and, in particular, if there is no capacity to agree to the marriage, how can it be ended? In recent times there was a judgment in which the courts decided not to end the forced marriage of somebody who they admitted lacked capacity. That has troubled many people who are concerned about this area. That is the issue we would like to probe, and I would like to know whether the Government have taken that into consideration. I beg to move.
3.15 pm