To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans her Department has to introduce pre-certification for marriage applications for foreign under 21-year-olds. (251640)

We raised the minimum age at which someone can sponsor a spouse to come to the UK or be sponsored as a spouse from 18 to 21 on 27 November 2008.

We are continuing to look at what more can be done to strengthen the marriage route against abuse, and ensure that it assists a spouse's integration into the UK at an early stage. This includes work to develop our proposal, as set out in the document ‘Marriage Visas: The Way Forward’ published July 2008, to make it a requirement for sponsors to register their intention to sponsor a spouse to come to the UK and if needed attend a compulsory interview.