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

Debate between James Cartlidge and Kevin Foster

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. In reading this real-life testimony and talking about the potential impact of the new structure, I can imagine that there would be those who say, “Well, hold on a minute. What about religious marriage? What about commitments through historical, established ways?” but the point is that the Bill is no threat. It just provides a different way for people who do not have those views. As my hon. Friend rightly says, a part of faith—particularly of the Christian faith and, I imagine, all other faiths—is that we tolerate people who take a different view. Indeed, the vile act overnight goes against all religions, precisely because it goes against the principle of religious tolerance.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that all true followers of a faith would absolutely abhor what happened last night. No religion calls for blood, slaughter and murder in that way.

Turning to the Bill, a comment was just made about the idea of marriage versus civil partnership, but many people who have a religious faith have a very different view of marriage from those who do not have faith and get married. It is not just the idea that people in a marriage have one set of views compared with those in civil partnerships. Those entering into marriage will have varied views. I view it as an act of union before God, whereas those getting married at a local register office may take a very different view. It is about what it means to the couple and the individuals concerned.

[James Cartlidge]

That needs no further comment—it was brilliantly put, as always, by my hon. Friend. I look forward to hearing from him today, as we so often do on private Members’ Bills.

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[Kevin Foster]

I agree, and as always my hon. Friend brings his expertise in that industry to the Chamber. Yes, this does create tenancy rights, and again I do not see any reason why extending this to mixed-sex civil partnerships would have any different impact on the landlord-tenant relationship from that which same-sex couples and civil partnerships have had.

This Lords amendment is very welcome, and I want to reflect briefly on one of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton): that this does not force a religious organisation to offer civil partnerships. If a Church decides it wishes only to offer marriage in a sacramental sense, it still has that choice. This is not about taking away anyone’s right or ability or forcing someone to offer something they do not wish to offer; it is about extending choice to those who currently do not have it.

I appreciate that not everyone wants to get married in church; that is not the right option for everyone—although for me it was. Not everyone necessarily wants to have the institution of marriage, given what some people foresee as its historical position. I personally profoundly disagree; I believe it is about a unique partnership that puts two people together for life, and that is very special.

My mother passed away in 2014, but my father would still see himself as married to my mother today, five years after her death. My grandparents were together for 57 years prior to my grandmother’s death. For them it was something that was unique and very special, and it signified what they meant to each other. I accept that for my family that was achieved through religious marriage in church, whereas for others it would be through the choice of a civil partnership which they feel better reflects their lifestyle or the choices they wish to make. I do not see why now in the 21st century the law should not allow them that opportunity. No one is not going to be able to get married because this has passed; it just gives people a choice.

[James Cartlidge]

We are used to this tradition of Friday speeches. The whole point is that we are giving a new right, not taking any away from people.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I could not have put it better myself. This is about new rights, new choices and new abilities for people, to reflect the different lifestyles and relationships of today.

The Bill will also help to deal with the idea of the common law spouse. Too many people think that they have some sort of status as a common law husband or wife, right up until the point when tragic circumstances occur and they suddenly discover that they have virtually no status at all. In fact, they have the same status as a mate they know down the pub. That is when things start to go wrong, but the Bill should help to reduce the number of such occurrences.

Rivers Authorities and Land Drainage Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Kevin Foster

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 8th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

rose—

[Kevin Foster]

I will not give way, because we are tight for time. I do not want to rob the Minister or the shadow Minister of their chance to speak.

I would also be interested to hear from the Minister how he will identify where there is local support for such measures. I am conscious of the time and of those on the Front Bench awaiting to speak. I look forward to this Bill getting its Second Reading very shortly.

Stalking Protection Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Kevin Foster

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 23rd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Although most of her constituents use public transport, things are slightly different in rural constituencies where there is more dependency on the car, which leads on to a point about police resources.

[Kevin Foster]

I am very much enjoying my hon. Friend’s detailed remarks and his usual analysis of the Bill. Does he agree that involving the British Transport police—or, for example, the Metropolitan police—means that either/or, or even both could apply to the court? That is the approach they should adopt, rather than waiting to agree or thinking that the other force will act. Each force has the ability to apply once the evidence is there. Will my hon. Friend join me in encouraging information sharing between the forces so that we do not have half the evidence required with the British Transport police, and half with the Metropolitan police, without the two being put together?

[James Cartlidge]

That is a good point, and the fact that I am unable strictly to comment on it underlines why politicians should probably not have a role in frontline policing matters. We do, however, have responsibility for making the law and resourcing the police, and I want to focus on that point. My right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) made a good point about public transport. We have public transport in South Suffolk—indeed, many of my constituents wish we had more buses and so on, and there is one train station—but in rural constituencies people overwhelmingly rely on cars. This is an issue of police resources. On many occasions I have been happy to defend the Government’s position of enabling police and crime commissioners to decide whether to raise the precept to fund the police, but if we pass laws that may result in more being asked of the police, we must ensure that they have the resources to carry out those tasks.

Putting aside the money coming from the precept, we feel concerned that the funding formula penalises Suffolk. Norfolk is a very similar county in many ways—of course, it is not quite as good in some respects—and it receives about £1 million more per year than Suffolk for no obvious reason, and significantly more per head, which is even more indefensible. I very much welcome the funding to deal with violence against women, but will it be distributed to forces under the current formula, and how will that be determined? Stalking is a terrible crime that we all oppose—that is why we are here to support the Bill. If it is that serious a crime, and if the police are to be given more resource to deal with it, how will that resource be distributed and where will it come from?

I support the amendment but I have a caveat about resourcing. As the Minister will be aware—perhaps the note from the officials is on this point; I hope it is—on funding we must take rurality into account, and not just in terms of reliance on the car. I submitted a written question to the Home Office to ask whether it has considered the difference in cost between rural and urban policing, and it responded that no such study has been undertaken.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Kevin Foster

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Normally I thank Opposition Members for their interventions, but that really was quite churlish. My point was that when people transfer their money from an ordinary savings account to an ISA they do not pay tax on the income from their savings, so guess what? They avoid a level of income tax. That is something we all think is right. It is how we incentivise saving and how many millions of people in this country save. So yes, tax is avoided but perfectly legitimately. That is not the point I am making, as the hon. Lady full well knows.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is spot on: an ISA is technically a form of tax avoidance. The point, however, is that what irks our constituents is when international companies and others take advantage of avoidance schemes that may be lawful at the time, but which no normal citizen could in any way take advantage of—unlike an ISA, which is commonly available.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which gets to the point of the debate. Tax avoidance is when people create a very complex legal structure, for example having something offshore and routing it through a shell company. That is what we are targeting. People will look to minimise their tax liability; that is natural. I am talking about when it is clear that fictional legal companies are being created that do pointless activity or pretend to do something that is not being done, or when a value transaction is actually nothing more than just a wooden dollars transaction made with the intention of avoiding stamp duty or a liability. That is the point being made. We could go through the record of the Opposition before 2010 if we really wanted to, but we should focus on the issue itself. Tax havens did not just appear the day David Cameron walked into Downing Street—far from it.

The PAC looked at Google’s affairs. Before I sat on the PAC, I thought that a double Irish might be a drink and that a Dutch sandwich might be something involving Edam cheese. Actually, they were both ways in which corporations sought to avoid tax and route their profits into tax haven jurisdictions where the level of tax paid versus GDP was rather suspicious, or into islands, particularly Bermuda, where the amount being declared versus what the real economic activity was likely to be was rather suspicious. I will talk more about intangible property areas in a minute. The Dutch sandwich was an idea created by the Dutch Government to try to get IT firms to invest in the Netherlands. That was perfectly reasonable as something that they would look to do, but courtesy of some loopholes, people were allowed to transfer profits through from activity elsewhere. The result was not investment and jobs in the Netherlands, but significant levels of tax avoidance.

In the Public Accounts Committee, we used to be very keen on hearing more details about and having more of a focus in HMRC on where genuine tax evasion had taken place—where people had lied and hidden assets in offshore jurisdictions and not declared them. That is not about people using some clever trick; they had just lied to evade tax. It was vital that penalties followed on from that once it was discovered. If people constantly avoided prosecution, it almost sent a message that if someone is caught, they can just pay up. However, I am conscious that we are not discussing that area of the law today.

It was interesting to go through the House of Commons Library report on today’s debate and particularly to look at some statistics on where the tax gap comes from. The report mentions that in 2016-17, small businesses were part of the tax gap. However, there were also large businesses, and criminals were in third place—depriving us of billions of pounds of taxation revenue—which is why I welcome some of the measures that the Government are looking to bring in as part of the Bill.

For me, the big one is the provisions on intangible property. Clause 15 looks really simple—it is two lines—but schedule 3, which is the meat of the proposal, really starts to get into some of the detail. How the provision is enforced and how it works will be interesting, but I welcome the fact that we are moving to bring it in. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) said, it is worth making a point about what intangible properties we are talking about. We are certainly talking about things such as adverts on Facebook and adverts on a search engine being pushed to the top, when someone searches for a particular brand or product. In the debate on the previous of group on amendments, there was an example where someone looking for help with gambling found that—guess what?—“How to help you gamble” was boosted to the top of a search engine’s results, because a particular company had paid for that to happen. That is the type of intangible asset that we will look to target.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge]

I was waiting patiently for my hon. Friend to get back to what he thought intangible property was. Is he aware that proposed new section 608H(1) in schedule 3 to the Bill states:

“In this Chapter ‘intangible property’ means any property except…tangible property”?

[Kevin Foster]

Yes, it is an interesting one. I suspect that if I dealt with that intervention fully, I would be like the vicar in the church who has 10 minutes to unpack the Holy Trinity in an easy and understandable way—[Interruption.] I appreciate my hon. Friends’ confidence in my abilities.

Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age)

Debate between James Cartlidge and Kevin Foster

1st reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 5th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

To be clear, I do not propose to divide the House on this matter, but I thought that it would be right to offer my observations and concerns about the motion.

I recognise that getting married at 16 is not the right life choice for many people, particularly if there is any form of coercion, which there should never be in marriage. Marriage should be something that is unique and special, entered into by two loving people of their own free will and free choice. It should not be the case that either side feels a particular obligation to get married. However, the proposal to bring forward this Bill raised quite a number of questions in my mind. The obvious starting point is whether making the age for marriage 18 would mean that we should also make the age of sexual consent 18. Now, that could be a separate debate. Within the last 20 years—in the time of some Members sat in the Chamber this afternoon—there have been quite impassioned debates in this House about the equalisation of the age of consent at 16. Some of the arguments used against that seem rather odd now, even only 20 years later. This Bill raises the question: are we going to reopen the issue of whether the age of consent should be set at 18 or 16?

What would the implications be for those who are currently married? I presume that such a Bill would exempt those who had freely married at 16 or 17. It would be quite onerous suddenly to have a situation where someone who was 16 had legally married after the data law was introduced, yet someone aged 17 now had to wait until their 18th birthday.

I accept the points made, and it is obvious that there is a strong point around the idea that people cannot get married at 16 or 17 without an element of consent, but this is a very long-standing legal age. For me, there are all sorts of arguments about what should be allowed at 16 and what should be allowed at 18. We have just talked about the benefits of the widowed parent’s allowance and the impact of being married or not being married as parents. Under this proposal, someone who decided at 16—legally, if we did not change the age of consent—to make the life-changing decision to have children could not get married until they were 18. That would be a bit of an oddity in our law.

I appreciate the position with regard to the message that this might send internationally, but most countries have similar provisions to the United Kingdom on the age of consent. At the moment, the minimum age of 16 is shared between ourselves and Scotland. If the age in England and Wales were 18, what would be the position if there were a run to Gretna, as was very popular in previous generations when the laws of marriage in Scotland were different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom? What would be the position in terms of recognising marriage certificates? Likewise, Northern Ireland has a separate jurisdiction but is still part of the United Kingdom. How would we recognise that? [Interruption.] I know that it is disappointing for the Scottish National party that Scotland is still part of the United Kingdom, but we would miss the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) too much if it were not. It would a significant moment for me in the UK if there were different ages at which people could get married in the UK. Particularly at a time when some are arguing very powerfully in this Chamber that the situation in Northern Ireland, where those of the same sex cannot get married, should be brought to an end and that equal marriage should be spread across the UK, it would be strange to have a different age threshold for doing that.

Those concerns brought me on to whether it is right that this proposal is in a private Member’s Bill. I accept that private Members’ Bills can be good vehicles for looking at faults in the law, looking at changing things, and looking at areas that may not necessarily be significant but where there is a need to bring in a piece of primary legislation. I passed my own private Member’s Bill about small-scale digital radio through this House. I see one or two Members who participated in those debates sitting in the Chamber. The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who is in her place, has brought up the issue of upskirting—a fault in the law that needed to be resolved to give the law its actual intention.

However, this is a much more significant change. If we were to do it, it should follow a more significant consultation process, and it should be debated in Government time, where we would have the time available to make proper and informed observations. As a regular attender on Fridays, I see this all too often, particularly at this stage of the Session. A ten-minute rule Bill would almost certainly not get any debate on Second Reading or on Report, given the number of remaining stages already listed for the remaining two Fridays of this Session. This Bill would make a significant change to our law and it could have wider implications, so it would be odd to go down that route.

There is clearly an argument around the ages at which we can do things. It is odd, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) said, that such a life-changing commitment can be made at 16, yet someone cannot drive a truck or a steam-powered road roller until they are 21. Certain products can be bought only at 18. Someone can drive a car at 17. There is a whole area to look at. That tempts me towards the view that this is something that should be looked at following a proper review of our law, perhaps through a Government Bill or a Law Commission examination of the knock-on effects if we decided to make such a significant change.

I do not disagree with some of the thrust of the arguments that have been advanced. I see the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who is a very diligent listener, in his place. I am sure that he will look at how we make sure that provisions around parental consent are meaningful, in a way that they perhaps would have been in the past, but today may not be. In fact, the parents may be the source of the pressure rather than, as the law sees them, a safeguard. That provision is based on an old patriarchal view of society—it would not be the parents; it would be, in effect, the male head of the household who would give consent for the daughter to get married. That is clearly a view from the past that we would not look to codify into law today.

How can we make that more meaningful? Yes, we should look to target forced marriage. However, making such a significant change to a very long-standing provision of law that has a knock-on effect for many other aspects of our legislation should not be done via a ten-minute rule Bill that will potentially receive next to no debate when, in reality, these matters should be more properly considered. That could be done, first, via the Government looking into it—I am sure there will be constructive engagement—and secondly, via consultation. Following that, we could have a Bill via a process that would give us the time for appropriate discussion on the Floor of the House, with the ability to examine in more depth and to have, to be blunt, more than two speakers. Sadly, given the procedures under which we have debated private Members’ Bills for a long time, these are likely to be the only two speeches on this Bill and this issue in the current Session.

As I said, I do not intend to divide the House. I appreciate many of the sentiments that have been expressed. I have written articles myself about the debate about 16 and 17-year-olds and the law with regard to people much older than themselves who are relations. I take the view that once someone is 18 they are an adult and it is up to them who their partner should be, what sex they should be, and any other factors. The only determinant should be that it is a loving and consenting relationship. While it is right that this issue has been brought to the Floor of the House today, my concern is about doing this via a ten-minute rule Bill. Although I will not divide the House, I think it is right that some concerns were expressed about the motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Mrs Pauline Latham, Priti Patel, Stephen Twigg, Jeremy Lefroy, Chris Philp, Sarah Champion, James Duddridge, Sir Graham Brady, Mr Virendra Sharma, Henry Smith, Philip Davies and Sir Roger Gale present the Bill.

Mrs Pauline Latham accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 26 October and to be printed (Bill 261).

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance and clarification on the business ahead of us today. We have two very important Bills—the Tenant Fees Bill and the Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill. Will motion 6, which proposes that my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) be discharged from the Selection Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) be added, still be reached even if we go past the moment of interruption?

Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Kevin Foster

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 11th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend is right that a reasonable employer will behave differently from the type of person at whom the legislation is aimed. To be blunt, the legislation will target the sort of person who adopts the employment practices of Scrooge and Marley—an admittedly small number of employers—but I do not want the Bill to offer a get-out for people who may want to act inappropriately. We must ensure that Parliament’s intention is clear in the legislation that we pass.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. As for whether employers will act reasonably, this is not necessarily just about the Scrooge-like employers who are literally uncaring. We potentially need to be more prescriptive for certain corporate environments, particularly those with high turnover or significant distance between the management and employees due to the number of people. In a smaller company, where the bond between the employees and an employer who values them is strong, the employer will go out of their way to help anyway.

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend is right. In a small or micro-business with four or five employees, the relationship may feel more like a partnership, instead of a situation involving the boss and then four members of staff. I accept that we may need to be slightly more prescriptive for larger employers, but I do not want the legislation to become so prescriptive that it provides a way for someone who wants to get every last penny out of their employee to avoid the regulations. However, we need to be a bit more prescriptive to deal with some of the examples that have been cited.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

Obviously my hon. Friend is right to say that a balance needs to be struck. On issues such as how much leave there should be, who this applies to and how it applies, we need to strike a balance against cost, particularly to small businesses. It is worth pointing out, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) rightly mentioned, that many small businesses are likely to be the most reasonable with their employees in any case.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton is a great champion of small businesses in this Chamber. Sometimes we rightly talk about not wishing to impose this cost or that cost, but a lot of the time we find that some of the worst examples of poorer employment practice are in one or two larger employers, where a rigid rule is applied fiercely to try to squeeze the last pound out, whereas smaller businesses work more as a team. If we walked into the room and were asked to guess who the owner of a small business was, we would not be able to do so, as the business works as a collective. I can think of hotels in Torbay where the owner of a hotel that is worth millions can be found serving the spuds, as the hotel does silver service—they do literally every job in the hotel, as well as being the owner and manager. However, I accept that there is a balance to be struck.

[James Cartlidge]

rose—

[Kevin Foster]

Given that I referred to my hon. Friend, I had best let him intervene.

[James Cartlidge]

Surely the key point is the difference between rigidity and clarity. The fact that management and staff will know where they stand, as opposed to there being a general reliance on reasonableness, is surely a huge benefit that works to the advantage of both sides.

[Kevin Foster]

We are introducing the Bill to set out in law more clarity on what Parliament expects. We have touched on the fact that we should not create a set of rules that is too rigid, particularly on this 18th birthday issue. We do not want to end up with a bizarre situation in which a doctor putting on the death certificate “five minutes past midnight” means that the Bill will not apply, whereas it would apply had they put “two minutes to midnight”. I understand that we need to be specific, rather than relying on reasonableness, and we that we have to give some guidance. What each of us thinks of as a reasonable expectation in a particular moment will differ, as we are all individuals, with different views and in different circumstances. Some of our constituents rightly take the view that it is not unreasonable to wait a day or two for a reply to their email, whereas others who email at 11 pm will ask why they have not received a reply by 9 o’clock the next morning.