Debate contribution: Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr John O'Dowd on 20 April 2026.

MLA

Mr John O'Dowd

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

20 April 2026

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5493243

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

I am pleased to move the Second Stage debate on the Bill. The changes that it includes will be beneficial for our citizens and make important reforms to the current law on marriage and civil partnerships.

The first of those changes relates to the age at which a person can marry or form a civil partnership. Our law, as it stands, permits 16- and 17-year-olds to marry, subject to the relevant consent, usually parental, being in place. In the previous century — indeed, well into it — it was not that unusual to see marriages take place where one party, or sometimes both parties, were aged under 18, but times have changed. It is important that we reform our law, not only to reflect modern life but, even more importantly, to safeguard children. The first aim of the Bill will therefore be to raise the minimum age of marriage and civil partnership to 18. The second change proposed relates to non-religious belief marriage, more commonly referred to as "belief marriage". A belief marriage is a marriage ceremony for people who follow a particular non-religious philosophy, such as humanism. The Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill will amend the law to place belief marriage on an equal footing with religious marriage, giving statutory recognition to the temporary arrangements currently in place. In doing so, it delivers equality between religious and non-religious believers. I want to set out why I, along with the two previous Finance Ministers, Conor Murphy and Caoimhe Archibald, and my Executive colleagues believe that those changes are necessary. The current marriage law dates back to 2003, which is when it brought in several important innovations, notably the creation of a single preliminary process for civil and religious marriage. In my view, the 2003 marriage law has worked well. It has allowed couples much greater choice and freedom over how and where they can marry, but it is more than 20 years old, and, over that time, there have been changes in the way that we live. As I mentioned earlier, teenage marriage was common at a time when young people moved quickly into adult life. Today, the teenage years are more about preparation, education, training, work experience and personal development. We actively encourage 16- and 17-year-olds to stay in education or training or to enter work that develops their potential, and we support those who are not in work or learning. Allowing marriage or civil partnership at such an age now sits uneasily with that approach, particularly given the respected strong and evidence-based international opinion on permitting marriage under the age of 18. I will give one high-level example: the UN Committee responsible for the Convention on the Rights of the Child has long advocated that all jurisdictions set 18 as the minimum age for marriage. It has advised that 16- and 17-year-olds are children and that, if they are legally entitled to marry, that is child marriage. The UN also says that where under-18s are allowed to marry, there is a risk that they may be forced into marriage or become trapped in a marriage that they regret. Moreover, even if there is no direct coercion or regret — even if under-18s marry entirely of their own volition — a 16- or 17-year-old who marries may, by the very fact of being committed to an official, long-term relationship, miss out on opportunities, particularly in education and training, or they may simply miss out on the final years of childhood. Those missed opportunities can adversely affect the rest of a person's life. It is also the case that, where people under the age of 18 are permitted to marry, more girls than boys marry. That is certainly the case here. Every year, decade after decade, markedly more girls than boys marry. In 2024, for instance, 37 girls married here compared with just seven boys. That was in step with all the previous years. That is one of the reasons why the risk of potential adverse consequences of child marriage falls disproportionately on girls and why there is a greater equality aspect to the changes that we wish to make to the minimum age. When we consulted on reforming marriage law in 2021-22, it was interesting to see how much support there was for increasing the marriage age to 18 and how diverse that support was. Virtually everyone who responded to our consultation online wanted to see the minimum age raised. Most of the written responses were also supportive. Support came from faith groups, the Commissioner for Children and Young People and other children and young people's stakeholders, the Youth Assembly and legal specialists. Relatively few people here marry at the age of 16 or 17. To date, no civil partnerships have involved people of that age. Most marry in their thirties. Only a few dozen each year are aged under 18, but even a few dozen a year add up to hundreds over time, and, each year, we tolerate the risk that some young people may miss out on the opportunities that could shape the rest of their lives.

We tolerate the risk that some people will be coerced into relationships that they do not want. We tolerate the risk that some people will end up in a relationship that they soon regret. By raising the minimum age to 18, we immediately reduce those risks. Those are the principled reasons behind clause 5, which raises the minimum age for marriage to 18, and clause 7, which does the same for civil partnerships. I draw Members' attention to clause 6, which amends the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (NI) 2015 by extending the forced marriage offence to make it a criminal offence for a person to cause a child — someone under the age of 18 — to enter into a marriage here. Many jurisdictions have already raised the minimum age to 18. In the South, the minimum age for marriage was raised from 16 to 18 in 2019. In England and Wales, that was done via legislation in 2022. Scotland is consulting on the issue. With this Bill, we are bringing our law up to date. In the past five years, most of the 16- and 17-year-olds who got married here came from outside the jurisdiction. The majority of them came from jurisdictions on these islands that had already increased their marriage age. It is likely that they came here to get the marriage that they could not get closer to home. I am not comfortable that people from jurisdictions that have ended child marriage can come here and marry because we have not ended child marriage. The Bill will close that loophole. In doing so, it will affect the plans of only a few young people who live here. The way in which it will affect them is that they will have to put off their marriage plans for about 12 months on average. That is a small inconvenience, given the wider and long-term benefits of increasing the minimum age. I turn now to the second change that the Bill will introduce. As I said earlier, my view is that the marriage legislation from 2003 has been operating well in the two decades since it became law. Its principal drawback and the only aspect of it that motivated a successful legal challenge is that it permits two forms of legally binding marriage: civil marriage and religious marriage. The statutory framework has not catered for belief marriage. That has meant that humanists and others who have deeply held but non-religious beliefs could not have marriage ceremonies that reflected their beliefs until the courts intervened a few years ago. The 1991 census was the first to enable people in this jurisdiction to state that they had no religious belief. In 1991, there were about 60,000 people or around 3% of the population with no formal religious beliefs. In the most recent census, in 2021, that total had increased more than fivefold to more than 330,000 or 17% of the population. In other words, there is a large and growing community of people who have no religious beliefs. The current marriage law does not take proper account of that community and does not give it the same opportunity that it gives to religious believers. The opportunity to have a marriage ceremony reflects their particular and sincerely held outlook on life. While not all of the 330,000-plus people in the 2021 census who stated that they had no religious beliefs will want a non-religious marriage, it is likely that some of them will. Given that, it seems reasonable and proportionate that the law be amended to give them that option. Nearly 10 years ago, the inequality in our marriage law was brought home to us. In 2017, a humanist couple successfully challenged it in the courts. They wanted a humanist wedding ceremony: a ceremony that reflected their humanist views and that was presided over by a humanist celebrant. They claimed that, because humanist ceremonies were not permitted as a result of the 2003 marriage law, which recognised only civil and religious marriage ceremonies, their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights had been breached. The courts took the view that a humanist celebrant should be able to conduct the marriage, paving the way for further belief marriages. Since 2017, we have therefore been permitting belief marriages but always on a temporary basis. That was the only way in which we could address the issue raised by the courts until we were in a position to legislate. Temporary arrangements were put in place on the clear understanding that legislation would follow to create a more permanent and satisfactory solution. The Bill does just that. There have been more than 5,000 belief marriages since the temporary arrangements were put in place. The 5,000th was in October 2025, which means that more than 5,000 couples have been able to have the type of ceremony that they wanted — a type of ceremony that was not available prior to 2017. It is clear from those numbers that a sizeable share of the population wants that type of marriage. Additionally, in my view, and despite concerns raised by NI Humanists, the main humanist body in the North, about other smaller groups, our temporary arrangements have been running smoothly. The ongoing temporary inclusion of belief marriage has not disrupted the functioning of marriage law; in fact, belief marriage has slotted into it easily. With the Bill we are now making formal and official the temporary arrangements that have operated successfully for several years. That is what clauses 1 to 4 of the Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill set out to do. One change that, some said, they would like to see is a stricter system of approving belief groups to perform marriage ceremonies. It was suggested that a group should, among other things, have a minimum number of members or have been inexistence for a specific number of years before it can be allowed to conduct marriage ceremonies. If we did that, we would have to apply it to belief and religious groups. That would be major change to a system that has been working well for more than 20 years. That is one reason why I am not currently minded to introduce it. I recognise that NI Humanists, the largest of the local humanist groups, has articulated concerns about how the system is likely to operate. I believe, therefore, that it is prudent that our statutory framework can reflect an agile manner if the evidence shows that practices are getting out of hand. The Bill, in several relevant places, allows my Department to bring forward regulations to set qualifying requirements that would apply to both religious and belief groups. My officials are already undertaking early preparatory work, engaging with colleagues in the General Register Office (GRO) and taking note of current consultation on the issue in Scotland. I will reflect on that work as the Bill proceeds. I want to touch on the issue of independent celebrants, which was consulted on during the process. Independent celebrants provide marriage ceremonies that are not legally binding for people who, for whatever reason, want a ceremony. They are typically profit-making sole-trader businesses that provide ceremonies for a fee and, sometimes, offer in addition a wedding planning service. During the consultation, some stakeholders suggested that we legislate to enable independent celebrants to provide legally binding ceremonies. To do so would require a lengthy consideration of the current arrangements, in particular the part of the 2003 legislation that prohibits marriage with the sole aim of making a profit. The question of independent celebrants and the implications of any change to current law that might benefit them are things that we will keep in view. However, I do not wish to delay progress of the current changes, and, among other things, the impact on civil marriage and the role of registrars would need to be considered carefully. In conclusion, I commend the two main changes that the Bill will make. Amending the law to put non-religious belief marriages on the same legislative footing as religious marriage is essential for equality. The courts have pointed to that, and a clear majority of the organisations and people we consulted agreed that it was a necessary change. As for minimum age, international opinion is that, as long as we allow people aged 16 and 17 to marry or form a civil partnership, there is a risk of forced marriage, of coercion within marriage and of young people losing out on key opportunities in areas such as education. Once again, a clear majority — close to 100% — of a diverse group of stakeholders agreed. There is clear and diverse public support for the changes, a legal imperative that we make the change in respect of belief marriage and a strong ethical case for making the change in respect of minimum age. I ask, therefore, that you support the Bill, and I commend it to the Assembly.

She deserves a medal.

2,355 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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