Bradford NHS hospital trust has recruited a nurse to support families where parents are close relatives, in an area where up to half of Pakistani married couples are cousins. The Telegraph has more.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust advertised the position for a “close relative marriage neonatal nurse/midwife”.

The job description said the successful candidate would “provide comprehensive care and support to families who have recently had a baby and are close relatives, cousins, uncles, aunts, or other closely related family members”.

While it is illegal to marry your brother or sister in the UK, weddings between cousins are allowed.

Ministers have faced mounting calls to ban cousin marriage in recent years because of potential health problems for the children of blood relatives.

Richard Holden, the Shadow Transport Secretary, introduced proposals to outlaw the practice in 2024 when he was a backbench MP.

He said the children of first cousins were at greater risk of birth defects and the practice should be banned on public health grounds.

Downing Street said at the time that it had no plans to outlaw the practice.

The MP said of the advert: “The impact of first cousin marriage is highly damaging for health, individual freedom, and most importantly for the cohesion of our country.

“Rather than wasting taxpayers’ money dealing with the consequences of first cousin marriage, the Government should back my bill and bring an end to this practice for good.”

The Bradford nurse is tasked with ensuring the “wellbeing of neonates, particularly in the context of genetic risks and health challenges that may arise from consanguinity”.

Consanguinity is defined as being descended from the same ancestor.

The trust noted that there were “very few” close relative marriage nurses in the UK.

While the proportion of marriages between white British cousins is about 1%, the BBC has reported, the practice remains relatively common among some South Asian minorities.

In three inner-city Bradford wards, almost half (46%) of mothers from the Pakistani community were married to a first or second cousin, according to Born in Bradford data published three years ago.

Another sign of the losing battle against normalising harmful foreign customs.

Read More: Bradford NHS Recruits Nurse to Help Cousin-Marriage Families