Sajid Javid 'confident' in bid to end under-18 marriages

A Conservative MP has said he is "confident" ministers will back his bid to ban under-18s marrying in England and Wales.

Sajid Javid has drafted a bill to end a rule that allows 16 and 17-year-olds to marry with their parents' permission.

He said research showed most of these unions were "coerced or forced for cultural and religious reasons".

The government says it supports raising the legal minimum age to protect vulnerable children.

However, it has not confirmed specifically whether it will back Mr Javid's proposed law, which he introduced to the Commons on Wednesday.

The legislation will be debated in November, but will need government support to stand a chance of being passed.

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Currently, 16 and 17-year-olds in England, Wales and Northern Ireland can marry with parental consent. In Scotland the legal age to marry is 16.

Parents who force their children to marry can be punished by up to seven years in prison under legislation passed in 2014.

But campaigners say parental consent often amounts to coercion, and teenage girls are regularly married off to older men they have never met.

Latest figures from the ONS show 43 teenage boys and 140 teenage girls were married with parental consent in 2017, a number that has generally declined in recent years.

However, it is thought this recorded data does not reflect those marrying in non-legal religious and customary ceremonies.

Mr Javid said raising the legal age to marry remained "one glaring thing that stands out" in the battle to stop forced marriages.

He argues that under-18s who marry were more likely to suffer domestic or sexual violence, be socially isolated, and drop out of education, even when marriages are not forced.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "In our legal system, it already is very clear: you are not an adult until the age of 18.

"Why is that? Because the law protects children from making decisions that they may not understand the gravity of," he added.

"Child marriage is child abuse, it really is as simple as that."

Sajid Javid was Boris Johnson's chancellor until February 2020, when he quit amid a row over his advisers

Mr Javid added: "The good news is that the Justice Secretary Robert Buckland shares my determination to end child marriage.

"He's working very constructively with me on this, so I'm confident we can get it done."

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "The government supports raising the legal age for marriage to protect vulnerable children and will outline its next steps in due course."

Mr Javid, a former chancellor and home secretary, is introducing his bill under a Commons rule that allows a certain number of backbenchers to propose new laws.

Like all such bills, it will need the support of ministers - who control the parliamentary timetable - to stand a chance of being passed.

Two previous bills to increase the minimum age, one from a different Tory MP and another from a former Lib Dem peer, have failed to become law.

When the second of these was debated in 2016, a minister said then that the requirement for parental consent "continues to provide adequate protection".