Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Gerald Howarth

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I first put on record my appreciation of the Coalition for Marriage, which has done a fantastic job in informing not only Members of this House, but the wider public about the issue.

I oppose the Bill for five key reasons. First, I believe it is simply wrong in principle. To overturn centuries of established custom requires a proper explanation beyond mouthing the equality mantra. What shaft of wisdom has suddenly alighted on my right hon. Friends that was denied their distinguished forebears? How come they think that they know better than the established Church? For the Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary today to pray in aid the argument that marriage “has evolved over time” is simply disingenuous. As the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Jim Dobbin) has pointed out, nothing like this has been proposed in Parliament ever before—this is a massive change.

This Bill deeply affects the core fabric of our society through the challenge it poses to the whole institution of marriage. Reference has been made to Spain, which introduced similar legislation in 2005 and where the overall marriage rate has fallen by 20%. Since all research shows that children raised in married households with a mother and father tend to fare better than those who are not, the Government threaten to damage the life chances of the nation’s children.

Secondly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) and others have pointed out, neither the Prime Minister nor any other party leader has a mandate, because this was not in any party’s manifesto, let alone in the coalition agreement.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has insisted on sticking to the 0.7% target for overseas aid on the grounds that he gave a commitment in 2009, and I respect him for that. He has stuck to that commitment, but not to the commitment to introduce tax breaks for married couples, and he has now invented a policy that he specifically ruled out at the last general election.

[Mr Chope]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we should have had, at the very least, a draft Bill and pre-legislative scrutiny?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Absolutely. This goes to the heart of the point that, as Conservatives, we are traditionally cautious about constitutional change, but that is not true of this Administration—sweeping Lords reform, a major change in the law of succession, and now this Bill are all to be rushed through on a timetable motion, subject to a three-line Whip. This is no way to treat Parliament or colleagues who have strong convictions either way on what is a very sensitive and important issue to all of us and our constituents.

Thirdly, if there is no mandate, where is the demand for this change? A poll in yesterday’s Daily Mail—okay, it was the Daily Mail, but still—found that only one in 14, or 7%, of those questioned thought that this should be a priority. Another poll found that more than 60% of the black and minority ethnic communities—the very people that the Conservative party is apparently out to woo—are hostile to it.

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[Mr Chope]

I cannot answer for my hon. Friend’s constituents but I know that my constituency has the highest proportion of elderly constituents in the country and I put that on the record.

These proposals were not in our manifesto, they are not in the coalition agreement, and the Prime Minister expressly ruled them out three days before the general election. In 2004 I was a member of the Civil Partnership Bill Committee and I led 89 Divisions in that Committee. I argued then, as I argue now, that we should give a status to civil partnerships that is the same for men and women.

During the debate, a number of hon. Members from across the House have said that civil partnerships should be extended to heterosexuals as well as homosexuals. I raised that with the Prime Minister at a meeting the best part of two years ago and he told me that he is against—he put it like this—“all marriage-lite arrangements”. If that remains his view, it is not reflected in the Bill before the House. The logic of that view is that we should exclude civil partnerships, and that the Bill should be amended to delete them in the future, while obviously allowing existing civil partnerships to continue. The alternative is to allow civil partnerships for relationships between men and women. If we allow civil partnerships for everybody, the Bill is not so likely to be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights. If civil partnerships are available only to same-sex couples, yet at the same time those couples are given access to marriage, we will not be able to argue a case in the European Court of Human Rights against that proposition.

We should be discussing the Bill in detail in Committee and submitting it to pre-legislative scrutiny. That is why I shall vote against the timetable motion and the carry-over motion. It is an obscenity that the Government persuaded the House to introduce carry-over motions as a standard form of the Standing Orders on the basis that we would be able to carry over Bills that had been first introduced in draft form, subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, and then brought forward as a proper Bill. Having made no mention of this Bill in their manifesto, and without a draft Bill or even pre-legislative scrutiny, the Government are trying to push this Bill through quickly because they see it as embarrassing.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Does my hon. Friend also think it is outrageous that the Committee stage is not being taken on the Floor of the House? Any measure of this controversy and sensitivity should be discussed on the Floor of the House.

[Mr Chope]

Absolutely, and we should have had two days for the Second Reading debate. I am at odds with the Prime Minister on this issue, but there is no reason why we should be at odds on issues of procedure and process. If the Prime Minister is interested in the primacy of this Chamber and does not want all our legislation to go in piecemeal form to the other place, why will he not agree to a longer discussion on this Bill?

The Bill could be introduced as a fresh Bill at the beginning of the next Session, and the time between now and then could be spent on proper scrutiny. For example, we have not heard from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which gave important advice to those who debated the Civil Partnerships Act 2004, or from other Select Committees, because the Bill is being rushed through. I hope the consequence is that the other place gives the Bill a pretty bloody nose.