Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [HL]

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, which I very much hope the Minister accepts. This amendment has two important virtues.

First, as has been noted, it creates an environment for the 20-week period during which there is a chance for genuine reconciliation. The divorces between 2003 to 2016 tell their own very important story. It must be right not to condemn the process to failure from the start by encouraging a statement of irretrievable breakdown without the need for any prior warning. Under the current law, the only way to move to irretrievable breakdown in the absence of unreasonable behaviour, such as adultery, is through a prolonged period of separation, such that a formal notice of divorce cannot come as a surprise. By contrast, under this Bill, being presented with a statement of irretrievable breakdown could be the first you know of a difficulty. How did such an extraordinary proposal get past the family test? I rather suspect that we are still waiting for the family test to take place.

The second virtue of this arrangement is that it treats the respondent with greater respect. One of the things that disturbs me most about this Bill is that it seems to have been fashioned with the interests of one party in mind—the petitioner—and demonstrates little or no regard for the respondent, or any children who might be caught up in the divorce process. It currently stands as a petitioner’s charter. The Bill gives the petitioner the power to suddenly announce that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, from which point there is absolutely nothing that the respondent can do to get any kind of fair hearing if they disagree. While this amendment does not completely reverse the shift in power from the respondent to the petitioner, it will at least give the respondent the opportunity to have a voice and express their perspective during the reflection period in the limited but important sense that the termination of the relationship is, for that time, not a foregone conclusion. The petitioner has made a statement that they think the relationship may have broken down but there is, in this statement, something of a question and an opportunity for the respondent to engage: they are not being presented with a fait accompli.

It may be that at the end of the 20-week period the response of the respondent has not resulted in the petitioner feeling that the marriage can continue. It may have brought them both to a place where they conclude that they need to make a statement of irretrievable breakdown but, crucially, the respondent will have been given a period of time during which they will be fully aware that the future of their marriage is in the balance and during which they can take steps, if they wish to do so, to see whether the relationship can be saved.

As our law, in providing the option of marriage, gives a couple the opportunity to make a lifelong commitment, something would be very wrong if that same law allowed one party to make without any prior warning a statement of irretrievable breakdown, from which point the other party would have no kind of credible voice to express a contrary view. This cannot be right, which is why I strongly support Amendment 1.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I was a family judge for 35 years and spent a great deal, if not most, of my time dealing with families who were divorcing. This is an excellent Bill and few of the amendments ought to go through, except for those of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, on the Henry VIII clauses, which require consideration.

The view that I take about this Bill is strongly supported by Exeter University and the Nuffield Foundation’s detailed research, led by Professor Liz Trinder at Exeter, and by Resolution, which has 6,500 family solicitor members who care deeply about looking after their clients, as I know as an honorary member. I am sorry to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and what has just been said, but the evidence from the research is that the majority of people know perfectly well when a marriage has irretrievably broken down. A respondent to whom such a matter comes as a complete surprise would be very much the exception.

The research shows that the current system, and any system that takes a long time, is likely to be adverse for the children. Children are extremely important and play an important part in the background to the Bill. One of its purposes is to get the divorce over so that children suffer less. There are various ways in which we could help the children more than we do, particularly through information. Parents who are deciding to divorce—the petitioner and the respondent—should be given an information pack which would explain the impact on the children of disagreements between the parents. Perhaps the most important thing I learned as a judge is that in almost every case the children love both parents, and if parents are seriously at odds with each other, they do not realise that the children love the other parent as much as they love them. Such an information pack would be extremely helpful.

The way in which the noble Lord, Lord McColl, wants to delay this is contrary to the current detailed research and earlier research in the 1980s and 1990s. All these amendments will not be helpful—other than, as I have said, the two amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti—and I hope your Lordships will think that the Bill should go through largely unopposed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I absolutely disagree that this is a petitioner’s charter. It is a way of bringing a failed marriage to an end. If noble Lords think about it, if one member of a couple says, “This marriage is at an end; in my view it has irretrievably broken down,” what on earth can you do about it? I am not sure whether noble Lords who have been speaking are expecting a couple who cannot get on to go on living together. If one side says that it is at an end, there is no longer a consensual marriage. Having been happily married for many, many years—

[Lord Framlingham]

Is the noble and learned Baroness actually saying that there is no possibility of that person changing their mind?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

Of course there are wonderful situations where reasonable couples talk it through and decide not to do it, whether for themselves or for their children. In some cases, that works and in some cases it does not. But there is no doubt that there are many, many people who seek to bring a marriage to an end because, from the point of view of that person, their marriage is no longer one that that they can endure. A lot of people leave. In the famous Owens divorce case that went to the Supreme Court, the couple are still married because five years is not up and there was no consent by the husband. The wife did not stay: she is not living with the husband who would not allow a divorce; she has moved out. There they are living separately, but not divorcing. Is that a happy situation?

The Bill is not a petitioner’s charter; it is an opportunity taken by the Government—and I congratulate them—to deal with the very important research that shows that unhappy marriages are not good for children. I do not understand how, if a couple do not get on, or if it is a case of domestic abuse—and we know how serious domestic abuse is—and the victim of the abuse wants to bring it to an end, they should not be allowed to do so. I cannot believe what is happening to the children while she—it is usually a she, but not always—remains in the house with the children and the domestic abuser. There is a great deal of evidence about that.

Fortunately, most parents, when they bring their marriage to an end, are civilised about it and about the children. The important thing about this Bill is that it is dealing with the issue of divorce and leaving the two extremely important issues—the most important issues of all—of what happens to the children and the financial outcome to be dealt with, I hope, in further legislation. The issue of children does not have to be dealt with in further legislation; the various Children Acts have dealt with that, whether they are the children of those who are married or of those who are not. Finance desperately needs changing—I suspect that the noble Baroness, Lady Shackleton, will say more about that today. It absolutely needs to be looked at, and I hope that the Government will go for a consultation paper on how we can improve legislation that dates back to as long ago as 1973, and which certainly needs an update. However, that is not a reason not to have the Bill.

[Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia]

This is not about the finances. When the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, brought in the Children Act, it took away the stigma of custody. That Act as been a godsend to all of us, as we do not have to identify which party has care and control—custody. It has been the most enormous success, for which everybody who practises in this field is eternally grateful. I suspect that it was considered very novel at the time.

People forget that most responsible solicitors, when somebody who wants a divorce comes to see them, go through with their clients the possibility of not getting a divorce. I believe passionately in marriage—I am a patron of the Marriage Foundation, which supports the Bill—but by the time somebody wants out, they want out. I cannot tell your Lordships how many people are shocked when I say to them, “Are you sure you really want this? It’s not necessarily greener on the other side.” They say, “Do you really think I saved up the courage to come and see you to be told to go back and try a bit harder?” Once the game is up and the marriage is over—once it is dead—clinging on to it is not in the children’s interest at all. People need to move on. You cannot make somebody who is unhappy happy. It takes one person to make the marriage unhappy and two people to make it happy. The Bill goes some way towards addressing that problem.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I will just finish with the two further points I wanted to make.

On the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, with which, as noble Lords may have gathered, I do not agree, I cannot see how a court can adequately assess whether the children will be better off if the parents, one of whom wants a divorce, are still together or separated. There will be a difficult balancing act for the judge, and it will take a long time, because the family courts are seriously overburdened. How on earth will you find time to do this, and between a couple who will not be represented? As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, there is no legal aid for couples who divorce, so the judge will have two people at odds with each other, with one or perhaps both determined to be divorced, and the children in the middle. The children ought to be informed of what is going on, but very often they are not. They need help at that time from parents who do not realise that they need help, and they particularly need information. But how on earth is the judge—or the magistrates, but in particular the judge—to say to the couple, “What is going to happen if you’re together or if you’re parted? How on earth am I to find out which way the children would want it to be?”? Particularly in cases where there is domestic abuse, the sooner that couple is parted, the better. So I am very concerned about this proposal.

Of course, we should be very careful about what we do regarding the welfare of children. However, research from the University of Exeter and the Nuffield Foundation found that where the parents cannot agree, very often the children would be better off by having them separate, and what their future ought to be can then be dealt with under the Children Acts.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull]

My Lords, I can see the sentiment behind considering the interests of the children in this matter. We will all have been moved by the testimony of the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, about the terrible experience that she and her children underwent, but this amendment would hand the court the impossible task of deciding what is in the children’s interests without the mechanisms to do so, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, just said.

How would you implement a judgment forcing parents to stay together in the children’s interests? You cannot force a couple to stay together any more than you can order warring parents to create a loving environment. I hope that we are past the stage where parents stay together for the sake of the children—unless it is a mutual voluntary agreement—because, on the whole, that has been shown to do more harm than good. Children may fare better from having two loving parents who live in different places, often with different families of all kinds. Love and the secure knowledge that they are loved are what matters, no matter who makes up their family. Research has shown that parents are usually the best judge of what is in their children’s interests. Where this is not feasible, the family courts are there to help.

I am afraid that we will not support the amendment from these Benches.