Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Baroness Cumberlege and Baroness O'Loan

Monday 24th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cumberlege]

My Lords, the reason is that without this amendment, the Bill changes those particular elements in those Acts. That is the advice that I have been given. I am very anxious that we ensure that these schools that have a religious designation are protected. I am not convinced that that is the case in the Bill as it stands, for the reasons that I have put before your Lordships.

I do not think that a Minister’s words in the House, however well meaning, stand the good test. They evaporate. We know that they are open to challenge, whereas amendments carried in the Bill, when it becomes an Act, are much less open to challenge. I urge my noble friend to have the welcomed assurances that she has given incorporated into the Bill.

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, I support this amendment, to which I have put my name.

It has already been said that the purpose of this clause is very simple and narrow: to amend Section 403 of the Education Act in order to provide statutory protection for schools of religious character by creating an obligation that any guidance issued under the Act must provide for such schools to deliver education about marriage, its importance for family life and the bringing up of children, in accordance with the tenets of the relevant religion or religious denomination. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, asked why we could not just read the legislation in the context of the existing jurisprudence of the European court and be satisfied that everything was protected. The reality is that the jurisprudence of the European court in this context is quite complicated and there are a number of senior QCs who have provided advice to various organisations in connection with this legislation who do not share in totality the noble Lord’s views.

The reason that this amendment is necessary is that Section 403 imposes on schools a twofold duty. Pupils must,

“learn the nature of marriage”

and they must learn,

“its importance for family life and the bringing up of children”.

That is the law as it stands at the present time. Teachers in all schools must do what the law says. They must ensure that the children for whom they are responsible learn about the nature of marriage. That includes both the legal and the relational definition of marriage; that it is the union of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of all others. In this situation, teachers will be teaching classes composed of children who, by virtue of circumstances, will sometimes have no experience of marriage or not of marriage in its traditional sense, but of other stable relationships or sometimes of relationships that are totally unstable. All those children must be sensitively provided for.