Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I apologise to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. British Rail prevented me from being here when he opened this debate. However, I have had the advantage of long discussion with him concerning his reasons for putting forward the amendment and I support it.

This is not an easy debate. I am sure that there are many in the House now who sway this way and that. The issues are highly complex and diverse and we have heard some outstanding speeches today. However, I disagree totally with one of the things that my noble friend Lord Fowler said when he put it to the House that if we passed this amendment it would add directly to homophobia in this country. If I was even a little in agreement with him on that, I would not be standing and speaking here. However difficult it is to assess the reactions of the great people of this country to matters such as this, far from increasing homophobia, Amendment 1 could ease the passage and consequences of this profoundly important measure for the millions of our decent, not prejudiced and not homophobic countrymen who currently believe that we may be foisting on them what they would call an untruth—they might call it dishonest or a public relations exercise.

Whether we like it or not, millions of our decent fellow-citizens will agree totally about same-sex couples having the same esteem, love and life-long commitment, and so on, but, as has been said many times, and so one need not elaborate on it, they believe that unions between same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples are different and that they have profoundly different potential consequences. To say that many opposite-sex couples are disabled, too old or disinclined to procreate is not an answer to the fundamental factual and real difference. That is where, I repeat, millions of our countrymen sit at this time. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, talked about an inferior status, but they do not want to create anything of the sort. Nobody is interested in belittling the commitments made by homosexuals; there are a few, but, I maintain, not many. However, what they do say is, “Why are we pretending that it is exactly the same when it is profoundly different in one particular?” Why not use the word “marriage”, since that is the important thing, and then have the qualification? It is not even as though the qualification is very novel: it is in the Title of the Bill as we sit here. I believe that in time—and I do not think that it will be a long time—people will concentrate on the word “marriage” and the bracketed bit, frankly, will fade into lesser and lesser significance as the public mind progresses.

One might ask, “Why have that wording?” I actually believe—this is the nub of it—that we will ease the passage of this important measure if we put Amendment 1 in the Bill. We will salve the present discontent that so many people feel about the Bill as it stands. That is why I shall vote for Amendment 1.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

Before the noble Lord sits down, does he not think that that has already been achieved by the lock? I am always interested when the right reverend Prelates join in the debate. The only other intervention I have made in these debates was to ask the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York whether, if the Bill goes through, the Church of England will marry gay couples. We know the answer to that. Those people who object already have a huge lock—I am not sure that I am happy about that in itself—and that holds enough.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

The noble Baroness raises an interesting point. The quadruple lock is important to people of religious faith. However, I am not talking just about people of religious faith. The current objection goes way beyond that category.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, in the mid-1990s I was the Naval Secretary with responsibility for naval personnel and the Special Investigation Branch. On taking up that post, I discovered the degrading treatment that was meted out to people suspected of being gay, who had anonymous phone calls made about them. It was still illegal to be gay in the services. I was shocked and appalled at how gay people were treated. I stopped that behaviour immediately and then pushed very hard to allow them to be accepted in the Armed Forces. Thank goodness, that happened because it worked brilliantly and it is a good thing to have done. We have a terrible baggage from how we have treated homosexuals and lesbians in this country, as was said by the noble Lords, Lord Deben and Lord Fowler, and others. I am afraid that this is a wrecking amendment. When I came into the Chamber, I did not know how I would vote on the amendment. However, having listened to the arguments put forward, I fear that this is a wrecking amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is absolutely right: every marriage is different. Will this demean my marriage? It will not do so at all. I believe that the people we are discussing should have the opportunity.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I have not made a speech in this debate, just two short interventions, and I wish to speak briefly now. Having talked to dozens of gay people recently and to my ordinary friends who wanted to discuss the Bill, it is clear that the only thing gay and lesbian people want is to be treated as ordinary people. They do not want to be (extraordinary) people. People who are on the receiving end of prejudice, particularly when they are practising Christians and live profoundly Christian lives, know what those brackets mean. They mean that you are different; you are not ordinary. Being ordinary means living in your community and bringing up children—maybe lots of children. It means going to church regularly and being accepted on the same basis as every other Christian in your community. It means sharing with your fellows on an equal basis. Gay and lesbian people do not want brackets as they make them different and will make them even more different as they travel across the world. I beg your Lordships, in common decency, to give gay people what they want: simply to be ordinary.

Baroness Thornton: My Lords, I ask your Lordships not to be seduced by the honeyed words and assurances of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, of whom we are all extremely fond and for whom we have the most enormous respect. However, assertions about consummation and children, for which there is really no evidence, are nothing to do with this Bill. The effects of these amendments are the same as those introduced in Committee at the beginning: that one form of marriage is different and therefore probably inferior to another. This completely flies in the face of the Bill’s purpose.

We are all much aware of the noble and learned Lord’s concern about family and children, because he has spoken about them many times in this Chamber. However, with respect, these are not the issues being discussed in this Bill. I agree with many noble Lords who said that this will probably be known as the “brackets” amendment. We do not want or need brackets in this Bill, because its very purpose is to provide for the state to recognise equally the relationships of couples who wish to make a loving and lifelong commitment to each other, regardless of whether they are members of the same sex or of the opposite sex.

I accept that this purpose moves the statutory concept of marriage beyond that which proponents of traditional marriage agree. This amendment is about creating two classes of marriage. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Anderson, who spoke of celebrating his special wedding anniversary, but I hope that I will live long enough to celebrate silver wedding anniversaries of same-sex marriages which will take place next summer. My noble friends Lord Alli and Lord Richard, and the noble Lords, Lord Fowler, Lord Deben, Lord Pannick and Lord Lester, put the case powerfully and well.

I am surprised by the opposition to equality of marriage from the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, given his work with children, for which he is famous in this House. If he had discussed this with young people, as I have, he may find that in most cases they really do not understand what the fuss is about or what the problem is here. I do not think that the problems faced by the types of young people the noble Earl helps and supports are a result of, for instance, the proposal for same-sex marriage. That cannot be the case.

I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, that I have not seen any hostility to the church during the course of these discussions. My noble friend Lady Royall and I have met both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church on several occasions throughout the course of this Bill. They were friendly exchanges and friendly discussion. We disagree with each other on some of this Bill, but I have not seen any unfriendliness, nor do I think that the dismal picture that the noble Lord paints will come to pass.

I do not think that the word “wife” will be abolished. As a wife, I certainly do not think so and I hope that nobody will put any ideas into my husband’s head. We wives are probably very safe with the passage of this Bill. My noble friend Lord Alli asked the question, “Why do same-sex couples have to have bracketed marriages?”. I agree with him that it is a bad idea. We should defeat this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Peston]

My Lords, I reluctantly totally oppose this amendment. Those who are totally opposed to same-sex marriage have day in and day out taken up an enormous amount of your Lordships’ time in making their case. This is the dying embers of their attempts to go on making their case. It has nothing to do with tolerance. No one is remotely asking those registrars who oppose same-sex marriage suddenly to say that they are now in favour of it, as happened under the old Stalinist rules. No one is remotely asking them to do that. They can say what they truly believe for as long as they like and where they like. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made the central point—I would have thought that was enough to end the debate—when he said that all we are asking them to do is the job they are paid to do. That is the beginning and end of the story. There is nothing more to be said. This has nothing to do with tolerance. When I think of some of the things I have had to tolerate with which I do not agree, I shudder, but one does one’s job. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, so excellently said, we are not asking these people to change their minds. They can keep their views but they must do the job they are paid for.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I apologise to the noble Lord for interrupting but I am anxious to ask a simple question. I have been a public servant for many years and have had to make difficult assessments and understand the nature of different staff and what they bring to the job. The arguments about generosity and inclusiveness are extremely attractive, but how does a manager decide who has a genuine conscientious objection and who has not? Unless you have criteria and people have previously said something about where they stand on the issue, it will be very difficult to make that decision. Unless there is absolute clarity about the matter, some people will choose not to perform a ceremony because they do not want to do it as opposed to having a conscientious objection to doing it. What about all the other conscientious objections that people may have? Should they not be able to object to marrying people who have a serious criminal history? What if they discover that one of the marriage partners has been a paedophile? Do they have the right to voice a conscientious objection to marrying them? This argument could get us into enormous difficulties if we carry it through.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Peston, is right in one respect: we are making a meal of a very small issue. At Second Reading, the House agreed to swallow a camel. We are now straining at a gnat, if I may use an image which the right reverend Prelate will understand. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, quoted the Ladele case at Strasbourg. That case proved that there are registrars with conscientious objections and that if the law is not amended they will lose their case and their job.

It also proves that if there was one registrar who was able to go all the way to Strasbourg, then there must be at least a few dozen others who were not able to afford it. It is that handful that we are talking about. If you doubt that it is a handful, then listen to the national panel, who assure us that there is none, which means there can be only very few. This amendment is concerned only with seeing that for the remaining part of their careers those people do not suffer for what, in their eyes and certainly in mine as well, is an unavoidable injustice.

If we are all to be as generous and big-hearted as we say we want to be and get closer together, can your Lordships not find it within yourselves to look at these few people? We are looking for justice, not vengeance. Surely we can find in ourselves the guarantee that these people will not lose their jobs and their pensions because they have a belief that was valid for their job when they took it on and the job then changed.