Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 18th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness for introducing the Bill today and to Tim Loughton for having the determination to steer it through the Commons. He is building on the work done by others, and I am particularly pleased to see the Bishop of St Albans in his place today after everything he did last year.

The civil registration service is one of the hidden administrative gems in this country. Every year, around 1 million births, deaths and marriages are recorded throughout the country. It happens routinely, without drama, and provides the legal evidential base for our very existence, so its accuracy is key. Civil registration as we know it has remained largely unchanged since it was introduced in 1837. It is administered by registrars in local authorities as well as by the General Register Office in Southport. My noble friend Lady Featherstone asked how on earth we were at the point where women were not recorded on marriage certificates. The answer goes back to the fact that, when civil registration was introduced, it moved the system which was already in place for the recording of baptisms, marriages and burials. The prevailing thinking at the time was, frankly, that women did not matter all that much.

The keeping of church registers had been haphazard until 1538, when Thomas Cromwell ordered that every priest should keep a proper record of baptisms, marriages and burials. Later, they were required to be recorded on parchment and kept in secure parish chests. Copies were made regularly and sent to the bishop. The Rose’s Act of 1812 standardised all this information on pre-printed forms, which included only the father’s name and occupation on baptismal and marriage records. As I have said, civil registration imported that system. As to civil registration, copies of local events do not go to the bishop but go to superintendent registrars and then to the Registrar-General, who holds a repository.

This system is entirely paper-based. In an increasingly digital world, we have a totally paper system of civil registration. Each time these documents are copied, there is scope for error and the current arrangements are complex, as you can imagine, if you want to correct or change them for any reason. Basically, the system has served us well. However, it has not kept pace with technological and societal change. There is never any time for legislative change in civil registration—it never gets to the front of the queue—and yet it is where routine state administration touches some of our most personal experiences. It is therefore important.

I shall confine the remainder of my remarks to the registration of marriage. Noble Lords may have gathered that I am something of an enthusiast for this topic. This comes from my interest, which is shared by millions of people, in family history. As such, I tend to take a long view of these matters. One of the most vexing questions for serious researchers is the standard of proof to which you work. Therefore, adding details to the public record—and particularly the mother’s maiden name and occupation to a marriage certificate or baptismal record—would be important extra pieces of validation for future generations of family historians.

It has even more significance because, when you really get into family history, other people often say to you, “How far back can you go?” It is an inane question and not what it is about. You are interested in what your ancestors were like and what they did. Yet we have written women out of the record, which is both morally repugnant and difficult from a research point of view. Genealogy tends to drift towards the male line because the name does not change. Therefore, anything that can help in your research into the female line is useful. To be frank, it is the only line with which you can have biological certainty. There are currently an estimated 2 million single-parent families, of whom 90% are women, and they are absent from the marriage records of their children. Given that, what on earth will future generations make of our attitude to women?

The Government have been moving to digital systems for some time now, and civil registration should not be an exception. We should regard this now as the beginning of a sort of digital parish chest. I hope the Government will give some thought to how we can also deal with registration of births and deaths—not, I hasten to add, in this Bill, but in the future. The Minister in the Commons reflected that there are estimated savings of £33.8 million from the measures in this Bill, and I wonder whether any work has been done to quantify what might be saved from digitising birth and death records.

Not only does the Bill do good things in a range of ways which reflect new attitudes towards the formation of families and the recognition of life events such as a stillbirth, but it also helps us to modernise and future-proof civil registration so that later Parliaments can deal with, for example, how to recognise those with two female or two male parents or no legally recognised father. It is a useful Bill in its contribution to all of these matters. I emphasise the point made by one or two other noble Lords that we must be mindful of the temptation to put too much into this Bill because what is really important is that it passes.

Registration of Marriage Bill [HL]

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 26th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the right reverend Prelate for introducing this small but very important Bill. The Civil Registration Service is one of the hidden administrative gems of this country. Every year, up and down the land, around 1 million births, marriages and deaths are recorded. It happens routinely, usually without drama, but provides the legal, evidential base for our very existence and its accuracy is key. Civil registration was introduced in 1837 and is administered by registrars in 174 local authorities as well as the General Register Office up in Southport.

When civil registration was introduced, the system drew heavily on the framework that was already in use for the recording of baptisms, marriages and burials. The keeping of church registers had been pretty haphazard until 1538, when Thomas Cromwell ordered that each priest should keep a record of the baptisms, marriages and burials in the parish. Later, they were required to be kept on parchment, because it was more durable, and held in a secure parish chest. Copies were made regularly and sent to the bishop, and Rose’s Act of 1812 standardised this information on pre-printed forms which included only the father’s name and occupation. Civil registration drew on this experience.

In the case of marriages, copies from local events are sent to superintendent registrars and then to the Registrar-General, who holds the central repository. Mistakes are not commonplace but they do happen. Indeed, serious family historians faced with a discrepancy will go back to the local original in case an error has crept in. Each time an entry is manually copied there is more scope for error, and under the current arrangements these are very complex to correct. The system basically serves us well, but in various ways it simply has not kept pace either with social change and expectation or with technological development. The Bill deals very well with two examples of that, namely digitisation and a recognition that the role of women has changed somewhat since 1837.

Back in 2002, the Government published a White Paper called Civil Registration: Vital Change. It proposed widespread reform, mostly through the use of regulatory reform orders, but very little progress was ever made with these vital changes, despite extensive public consultation. A few changes were made under the 2016 Act, under which a pilot scheme now allows historical copies of certificates to be provided by PDF, which is very useful for family historians, and the Digital Economy Act 2017 will allow for electronic verification between public authorities and the GRO. However, that is pretty much it, so I really support the proposals contained in the Bill.

Every noble Lord has emphasised the sheer lunacy, almost, of excluding mothers from the marriage certificate, so I do not think I need do anything other than wholeheartedly agree with that. Noble Lords may have gathered that I am something of an enthusiast for this topic: this comes from my interest, shared with the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, in family history. As such, I tend to take a long view of these things. One of the most vexing questions for serious researchers is the standard of proof to which you work: adding more detail, particularly adding the mother’s name to a marriage certificate, is really important as a great piece of extra validation for future generations of family historians. However, it goes further than that, because when you get serious about family research it is not about the perennial question you are asked: “How far back can you go?”. What you are really interested in is how your ancestors lived and what they did. The details on civil records are really important in understanding that. Future generations will know that much more about their female ancestors. That is important because genealogy always defaults to the male line, simply because the surname remains constant. The writing out of the mother in marriage records just adds to this diminution of the female line, despite the fact that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, pointed out, it is the only line that comes with biological certainty.

Government has been moving to digital systems for some time now, and civil registration should not be an exception. The Bill deal with marriage records. If it is passed, the Government should consider how to progress with birth and death records, but for now we should welcome the beginning of a digital parish chest. The Bill will allow the updating of the marriage entry and the positive equality aspects we have talked about. We should be mindful that, beyond the provision of mothers’ names, the Bill allows us to future-proof civil registration so that later parliamentary decisions can be dealt with; for example, recognising those who have two female or two male parents, or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, pointed out, no legally recognised father.

What this is not is a Bill about marriage itself. While I and my party fully support humanist marriages, this Bill is not about that. I urge the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Desai, to be very careful about opening this up to a broader sphere. As the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, said, she might want to bring something in about sharia marriages, but there is a danger that the Bill would become unworkable and we would lose it. That would be a pity; debates here and in another place have demonstrated widespread support and we should give it a speedy passage.

Agriculture and Food Industry

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I join the thanks to my noble friend Lord Plumb for securing this afternoon’s debate. As chair of EU Sub-Committee D, which has agriculture within its remit, I appreciate enormously his long experience of both agriculture and Europe and really value his contribution to the work of the committee.

Many millions of people around the world are hungry. In some places it is because of natural conditions and in others it comes as the price paid by ordinary people for the ambitions and mismanagement of their leaders. Close to home, an estimated 5.6 million people are struggling to afford food. Many more people in this country have plenty to eat but are probably malnourished or on the verge of it because they are consuming food which is high in calories and low in nutrients.

It seems strange, given that food is essential to life, that we have no strategy for it. It is certainly true that the food sector is heavily regulated. It is not the Wild West out there. Everything from hygiene to labelling and packaging, from competition law to the Groceries Code Adjudicator, is regulating food, but there is no discernable strategic approach to food production and distribution which looks at our food from local, national, European and global perspectives into the future.

The assumption is that the free market will deliver for us because it is in its interests to ensure that we continue to have easy access to a range of cheap and plentiful food. Retailers have done a great job in providing this. The variety of food on offer has increased enormously in my lifetime, and as the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, noted, we spend significantly less on food than we used to. However, cheap food comes at quite a high price, and the price is often paid by growers in developing countries who are tied into unfair contracts and by exploited workers in sectors such as tea and coffee, cashew nuts and prawn fishing. The price is paid in rooted-up rainforest, soil depletion and other environmental degradation. In places, people are going hungry because their land is more profitable to fill our food and energy demands, not their needs.

This is a matter not for government to address through legislation and regulation, but for retailers and consumers to give much more thought to the impact of their purchasing decisions. I welcome the fact that the major retailers are really starting to focus in on the ethical and environmental consequences of our food consumption.

Our sub-committee recently carried out an inquiry into food waste. It became evident that much of the problem lies within the nature of the food chain. Farm to fork has become something of a cliché, but long food chains consisting of individual businesses, each of which is concerned with its own bottom line, can result in practices which are bad overall. In the case of food waste, we identified the relationship between supermarkets and growers as a major problem, particularly where cancelled orders and overzealous specification results in growers being left with surpluses of food which they have had to produce to avoid penalty, which has then not been used. Without a market for that food, it gets ploughed back or anaerobically digested.

Those lengthy food chains are also where safety and verification problems come in. The horsemeat scandal was a real wake-up call both to the public and industry because, as supply chains become longer and extend geographically, the enforcement of regulation becomes harder. Will the Minister update the House on Professor Elliott’s report into food supply networks?

The sub-committee thought that the Government could do a lot more to understand food chains better and to promote expertise and understanding. Witnesses told us that expertise in food chain management is in short supply, and this is partly why tackling food waste and other issues has become so difficult. It is not just retailers. Equally problematic are the large food service companies, which provide meals in our schools, hospitals and prisons, and the hospitality sector.

One of the issues identified by many witnesses in our food waste inquiry is that people understand food far less well than they used to. In the context of food waste, it means they do not know how to use leftovers, and they do not understand basic facts around the storage of food and particularly when it is safe to eat it. It goes far wider than food waste. Many people do not know how to cook any more, so they spend far more than they need to buying expensive prepared food and take-aways. Ironically, this is hitting the poorest hardest. A recent report from Kellogg’s showed that 45% of children said they do not learn about food at home or at school, although 79% said they would really like to. I would like the Government to give much more thought as to how people can learn about food. Most commentators now agree that, as the global population rises, food will become a much scarcer commodity. With basics such as land and water coming under pressure and the impact of climate change and agriculture making dramatic fluctuations more common, basic food security cannot be taken for granted. This is not in the distant future. Asda’s corporate affairs director recently told a conference that 96% of the fresh food that Asda buys is already at risk from changes to weather patterns.

We need to think long and hard about this. Are we right in our assumption that, somehow, we western countries will continue to take priority in global food markets and that we will have the same access to food? Can we just leave it to supermarkets to ensure plentiful food and, if we do, what is the price we are likely to pay financially, environmentally and socially? We need to consume more food produced closer to home. There are already growing signs of the impact of improving diets of people in China and India. Competition for food is becoming much more of an issue and it is already happening. Parts of the fishing industry in Asia are no longer prepared to supply EU markets because they can easily supply markets closer to home, where the ethical and safety demands are much less stringent.

For those of us who care about carbon footprints, how do we reduce them when less of our food is being grown close to home? The Government should give a high priority to research in agriculture, working with academia and industry to improve yield, reduce food losses and waste, and improve storage processing and packaging. There are a lot of very valuable partners in the EU, which can build with organisations such as the University of East Anglia, closer to home. I was delighted to see the Prime Minister’s announcement, earlier this week, of a new agricultural research fund and I believe that should focus on yield, food loss and waste and particularly, as the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, and others have described, the question of land stewardship. We need social research to try to understand how best to nudge consumers into making choices which are safe, affordable, healthy and sustainable. A number of noble Lords have talked about the future. The Kellogg’s survey showed that just 1% of the Kellogg’s children wanted to be farmers so where, I wonder, is the next Henry Plumb coming from?

Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Doocey on securing today’s debate and reflect on what a marvellous opportunity it has been to hear a cross-section of perspectives.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a reception at the Czech embassy at which the ambassador referred in his speech to the success of the London Games. Like many others, he made particular reference to the volunteers. He said:

“Never, in the field of human endeavour has so much been owed by so many to so few”.

He was right to use that phrase because those few, the volunteers, really kept the Games going and it is about the volunteers that I want to speak today. In doing so, I declare a non-pecuniary interest as the chair of the England Volunteering Development Council.

Much of what I want to say refers to specific volunteering programmes—the Games makers, London ambassadors and so on—but we should recognise that every athlete who participated in the London Games was at the apex of a vast pyramid of support, from the grass-roots clubs on to the highly specialised training, much of which, of course, is volunteer driven. It seems to me to be really important that we look at the success of the largest mobilisation of volunteers since World War II, look beyond the well deserved congratulations, and think about what lessons we can learn from it.

First, will my noble friend outline how the Games maker programme was evaluated, by whom, and when the results will be published? In particular, have the Government any specific plans to capitalise both on that body of volunteers and also those who have been inspired to volunteer in the future? On a specific point, has agreement been reached on what will happen to the LOCOG database of volunteers and those who applied, who were willing to help but for some reason were not used? At the moment, it all looks rather ad hoc.

About a month ago I attended a special event in my home county of Suffolk to recognise the Games makers. The organisers had no database of Games makers to work from, but just relied on personal contacts. It was a lovely event and a great way of saying thank you, but it was also a piece of legacy work. Literally, as it is turns out, because the Suffolk Records Office is creating a special Olympic archive, but it is more specifically a legacy because former Games makers are being contacted about other volunteering opportunities in the county, especially for large events such as festivals—Latitude, for example. Suffolk has had the foresight to create a bespoke 2012 legacy project for volunteering which aims to increase volunteering opportunities within sport and culture across the county. It makes absolute sense that, having invested in training the volunteers for the Olympics, those new skills can be put to further use if that is what the volunteers want. I know that the Westminster volunteer centre is doing similar work developing a group of volunteers to help with large events in London, but I am not aware of any more systematic way of doing this. We run the risk of not making the best of the summer’s success.

It seems to me that, on volunteering, there are a number of lessons that we can learn. First, there is the value of good, inspirational leadership, which we had in buckets, from my new noble friend Lord Deighton, from the noble Lord, Lord Coe, from the Mayor of London and from many others who are Members of this House. We saw the value of cross-party working and the value of working between public and private, but the really important thing was that volunteers were not added on at the end; they were an integral part of delivering the Olympics and Paralympics right from the beginning. That, I believe, is what really made the difference.

It is worth reflecting, however, on the amount of resource that went into this. In my view, one of the main things that made the volunteer programme successful was that enough investment was put in to make it work. It was not just cash. The private sector came in to offer HR support, recruitment, IT, training and even meals for volunteers. Local authorities stepped up and Transport for London ran a marvellous programme of volunteers at major stations. Many volunteers, of course, spent a lot of their own money on transport and accommodation and did so because it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I do not believe that we have any idea of the true value of the investment that went into making the volunteer contribution work. I mention that, and I believe it matters, because I think there is a general feeling in Government and beyond that volunteering is a free good. Well, it is not—the Olympic volunteering worked because money was put in to make sure that it did.

The good news is that volunteer centres report more people coming forward to volunteer than ever before, but across the piece I hear that what holds back capacity is that organisations do not have enough paid staff to manage the volunteers. The noble Lord, Lord Haskell, made that point very well in relation to sports clubs. We need to invest in the capacity of the voluntary sector and particularly volunteer centres. They have an important role in brokering volunteering opportunities for people who want to come forward. But the figures from Volunteering England show that half of all volunteer centres have had funding cuts that have led to closures or a cutting back of their hours. Yet their brokerage role is absolutely key, especially if they are trying to work with hard-to-reach groups such as people with mental health problems or from certain minority ethnic backgrounds.

Volunteer centres tell me that there has been a huge increase in unemployed people looking for volunteering opportunities, which I suppose is to be expected. For many others, volunteering is an important way of maintaining self-esteem, getting out and about and meeting people. Investing in volunteering generally is just as important now as it was during the Olympic programmes, but in many ways is needed more because there is not a big one-off event that is capturing the imagination. If the Government want volunteering to flourish, to make community work an inherent part of the education system or a condition of benefits, they will have to grasp the nettle. Flashy websites and national publicity campaigns will not on their own do it unless the support is there at grassroots level.

There is something really special about volunteering that cannot readily be reduced to a financial transaction, but we must recognise that, it in the end, it does not come free. My noble friend Lady Doocey said that we needed to create a legacy worthy of the Games and I believe that this is just as important in volunteering as in every other part.

EU: Healthcare

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I wish to focus on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications directive, which provides the framework within which healthcare professionals move around within the EU.

I am entirely supportive of the notion of free movement across the Union and I have no doubts about the benefits that the mobility of healthcare professionals can bring to patients and to the medical profession. However, a number of high-profile cases have called the workings of the directive into question, and all UK regulators have expressed strong concerns that the current system forces them to admit individuals who do not meet the standards that would be required of UK or non-EU professionals.

Professional mobility should never be at the expense of patient safety. There is evidence that, as it currently stands, the directive is striking the wrong balance. The requirements as currently set out are not sufficient to ensure that qualifications and skills are adequate and up to date. We need a competence-based approach, rather than a one-off qualification, fixed at a particular point in time and hard to compare across jurisdictions. Knowing that an individual who has not practised for years has had to take steps to come up to date is essential.

Authorities in host member states must be able to access adequate information regarding the professional history of an individual and to seek answers to any queries they may have. Use of the Internal Market Information System is likely to represent a simpler and more cost-effective option than the proposed European professional card. There is currently no alert system to inform member states when a fitness-to-practise case is brought against an individual. If such a system were to be introduced in some member states, it would be hindered by the use of domestic data-protection legislation.

The ability to communicate effectively in the language of the host member state is critical to safe and effective practice and is the most obvious cause of concern to patients. The directive fails to ensure that professionals meet the necessary standards.

Women in Society

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I am sure that the House shares my sense of indebtedness to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for tabling this Motion. Not only has it given us the chance to debate an important topic, it has given rise to a series of amazingly powerful, informative, deeply moving and, at times, shocking speeches. I am sure that many noble Lords shared my physical reaction to the story of the stoning of a 13 year-old girl. That will stay with me for a very long time. The debate has also given us the opportunity to hear maiden speeches from seven colleagues; we have heard five and there are two to go. It is wonderful to see the diverse backgrounds of those joining your Lordships' House. We look forward to hearing from them often. I was particularly pleased to hear the speech of my noble friend Lady Parminter. It seems like only yesterday that I introduced her to the House—it was actually the day before yesterday. She is a great friend and supporter. Therefore, it was wonderful to support her in an official capacity earlier this week. It was also good to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who shares my commitment to, and love of, our home county of Suffolk. I look forward also to working with him.

I wish to address my remarks solely to the representation of women in Parliament, particularly in the other place. Many Members of this House will be aware of the statistic that at the current rate of progress it will take another two centuries before equal numbers of men and women are in the House of Commons. The notion that our granddaughters’ granddaughters’ granddaughters will still be having that debate is profoundly depressing. There has been some progress in the past decade. Certainly, measures such as all-women shortlists had the effect of bringing in a new crop of women to the House of Commons. However, it is sad that so many of those women subsequently stood down, which suggests that while there may well be a place for measures such as all-women shortlists, they are not in themselves the final answer.

Certainly in my party, we have had many debates—very many hotly debated sessions—where we have talked about whether we need some special measures to bring women into Parliament. There is an interesting fault-line between those who see it as patronising to women to introduce such measures, and those who see that this is the only way to make progress—and the fault-line is not gender; it is age. The younger women in particular are very hostile to the notion of special measures, which they see as patronising, whereas older members of the party are frankly tired of waiting for a difference to be made.

The approach we have taken in my party is to encourage people forward through mentoring. We had a certain amount of success in terms of getting women selected in “safe seats”, but sadly it was the choice of the electorate not to elect them. It is a particular issue for my party that we do not have the luxury of safe seats in order to bring in things like all-women shortlists with any confidence of improving the situation. Finding a sustainable solution requires us to think not about treating the symptoms, but to tackle the underlying causes instead. Research in my own party suggests that the lack of female representation in the Commons is to do not with discrimination, but with a combination of an insufficient number of women coming forward and a high rate of attrition among female parliamentary candidates. Put bluntly, not enough women want to do the job. Worse still, many count themselves out once they take a closer look.

The yah-boo culture of the House of Commons is off-putting to a lot of people, not just to women. It certainly put me off ever wanting to be an MP, and it is a pity that the media do not concentrate more on the other aspects of the job—constituency work, Select Committees and so on—that are not so confrontational and that I think would appeal to a broader spectrum of people, women particularly.

The way the House of Commons works in particular is also very difficult to reconcile with caring responsibilities. Even nowadays, in most families women have the brunt of caring responsibilities, whether it is caring for children or for the elderly. The general work-life juggle is inherently stacked against women for that reason. I notice very much in my party that the women coming forward for selection to Parliament are either quite young—in their early 20s—or in their late 40s and early 50s, and we are in effect counting out women over a period of perhaps two decades, at the sort of age where they feel that their responsibilities for children simply preclude them.

A Centre for Policy Studies report last year found that the vast majority of mothers with children at home would like to work. However, only 12 per cent of them want to work full-time. Westminster, with its full-time-plus—all the anti-social hours and everything else that goes with them—is effectively writing off a large section of the female population. We have always been very reluctant to reform parliamentary practices, which is something that I hope will be addressed as the Speaker’s report kicks in. I am also concerned that some of the changes that have been brought about to the expenses regime—particularly the way IPSA is running things—will actually make it more difficult for people with families to become MPs and run their lives in the way they need to.

The good news is that we do not have to reinvent the wheel—what we have to do is to look outside Westminster. Over the last decade, the right to request flexible working has quietly revolutionised the way many businesses work. Enlightened employers have embraced the benefits of retaining talented women who might otherwise have thrown in the towel. That flexibility has empowered women—and men—to be able to construct their own solutions to the career and family dilemma. It strikes me as ironic that while we have legislated to mandate flexible working in other people’s workplaces, we have failed to do it in our own.

I noted with interest the sharp intake of breath when my noble friend Lady Parminter mentioned job-sharing MPs. Well, why not? We have job-sharing chief executives, job-sharing city lawyers, job-sharing head teachers and even job-sharing high commissioners. Why could we not job-share as MPs? We have to get away from the notion that somehow we in Parliament are so different from the rest of the world that these solutions cannot be considered. It is not just about fairness, as important as fairness is; it is actually about good governance. Having a huge number of potential MPs precluded because they cannot manage these sorts of responsibilities—precluding women in that way—is bad governance. I hope that in the other place and in all our deliberations we do what we can to change that.