Marriage Registration Certificates

Debate between Baroness Chapman of Darlington and Lord Harrington of Watford

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I may be competing with the Division bell shortly, but I leave such matters to your judgment. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) on securing this debate, but I will get to the point. Many Members have raised good points, and everyone is right: the Prime Minister made a commitment in his speech to the Relationships Alliance summit. It is obvious to anyone that it is high time that the system was reformed, and reformed quickly. I do not think there is any dispute about that. The system was established the year that Queen Victoria came to power. It was also the year that Rowland Hill decided that we might be able to fold up paper and put letters inside and post them. It is now 2015 and it is absurd that the system has not changed.

The hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) made a point about there being no private Members’ Bills, apart from Government ones, that had become law in her time. Respectfully, there are good exceptions to that. One of the main ones came from my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), who is in his place behind me. His Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 was enacted in the last Parliament. Putting that to one side, there is a good precedent in this field with the Marriage Act 1994, which started as a private Member’s Bill. It allowed homes and hotels to be used for marriages.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am delighted to hear what the Minister is saying. It is news to me. Does he mean that we can assume that the Government will give a fair wind to any of the private Members’ Bills before the House on this topic? Will they give them Committee time and not use any of the techniques well known to the Minister to prevent the Bills from becoming Acts?

[Richard Harrington]

As the hon. Lady will know, I cannot speak for every private Member’s Bill. The 1994 Act was brought forward by Gyles Brandreth, then a very well known MP. I had better make progress.

There is no question but that the Government want to see the issue remedied. The question is whether the private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) can be, as many have suggested in this Chamber and elsewhere, the piece of legislation that is needed. I point out that many Members here seem to have children of marriageable age who are currently unmarried: I have two boys aged 24 and 21. I am pleased to say that the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) is a good personal friend of mine, and I think we should discuss the matter outwith the Chamber.

Getting back to the important point, can the private Member’s Bill be adapted? I would very much like to say yes. The Bill requires the Secretary of State to consult and then to make regulations setting out the marriage register entry, including the mother’s and father’s name, but it does not reform the whole registration process. It would simply require the replacement of tens of thousands of books at a cost of £3 million. The Bill does not take account of different family circumstances, where there may not be a mother and father. Members have mentioned many particular cases relating to that. It also does not give flexibility for the future. After we have amended the law, the matter may not be again for another 100 or 200 years, so we have to get things right.