Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Lord Alli and Lord Bishop of Guildford

Monday 24th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alli]

My Lords, this amendment is about addressing an inequality in pensions in relation to survivor benefits that will affect a small number of people in a very unfair way.

Let me try to explain. The Equality Act allows occupational pension providers to ignore the service and contributions of gay employees prior to 2005 when it comes to paying out survivor benefits to civil partners. This stemmed from an original exemption in the Civil Partnership Act that I argued against at that time. This Bill would see the same thing happen to same-sex spouses.

I will say from the outset that the majority of occupational pension schemes have ignored this provision and pay out fully to survivors. They do this because they believe it to be fair and I recognise that and thank them for it. However, there are those that do not. Their reason is mostly cost. This is odd, as the Office for National Statistics calculates that it would cost only £18 million to the private sector.

In a past career, I was the publisher of a magazine with the snappy title of Pensions. In case your Lordships are interested, I also published Planned Savings, Insurance Age, The Savings Market and a statistical compendium called Rateguide. So I am pretty confident that no pension provider can accurately predict how many individuals within a pension scheme will be gay, how many will marry under this Bill when it becomes law or become civil partners and how many will outlive their partners, husbands or wives by a significant period. I am also pretty confident that for the one-third of schemes that do not pay out, the actuaries who run the numbers probably have already built in the additional costs associated with this amendment. Pensions actuaries—and I have met many of them—deal constantly in uncertainties around the length of life, the possibility of illness, the number of scheme members who are likely to marry and many more issues. Given that two-thirds of schemes already do, I do not understand why we cannot insist that the rest treat same-sex couples who marry in exactly the same way as heterosexual couples who marry. They have all paid in the same pension contributions.

I know from the other place that the Government think that this is a matter for the schemes themselves. However, in debating amendment after amendment we have discussed the rights of those who disagree with same-sex marriages to be able to do so, and we have resisted giving public servants the right to pick and choose what services they will give to whom based upon their deeply held beliefs. That is effectively what we would be doing here with employers and pension scheme trustees—we would be allowing pension fund trustees who genuinely believe same-sex marriage to be wrong to have the right to create two classes of spouses in their schemes. This legislation would permit it.

If we were not dealing with pensions, which are boring and complicated, but some other form of service, we would not allow this to happen. The cost to the Government is nothing. These changes were made for the public sector in 2004. I ask the Minister not to let the subject matter perpetuate an injustice into this Bill that is completely unnecessary. It is not a huge issue—£18 million does not set the world alight, but it is a kindness that we can give to a few people at the most difficult time in their life. I cannot demand that the noble Baroness do something about it; I can only ask, with the sincerity of those who have asked me to take up this issue, to take it away and see if we can do something about it. We should have solved this issue in 2004. The party opposite probably should have done so in 2010. People have waited far too long for the compassion that they deserve. I hope that we might find that in this Bill. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of Guildford]

My Lords, I speak with some sympathy for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alli. For once, these Benches are able to say that we put our money where our mouth is. With civil partnership arrangements, the Church of England pension scheme has done exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Alli, has suggested. I think that that is the right way forward and I hope that the Government might give this amendment consideration.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Lord Alli and Lord Bishop of Guildford

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Guildford]

Again, I support a probing amendment. I am concerned that marriages between people of the same sex should enshrine the same standard of fidelity as marriages of heterosexual couples. As it stands, the Bill does not quite deliver this. Indeed, the Bill enshrines a very important inequality in the way that the virtue of fidelity is manifested in relationships. Marriage between people of the opposite sex is partially defined by the fact that sexual infidelity—adultery—is a recognised and long-standing ground for divorce, as has been expounded very eloquently by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. This is not found in the Bill.

Faithfulness is intrinsic to the promises a married couple make to one another. I feel very strongly that, as we go forward in our scrutiny of the Bill, this House must find some way of including that faithfulness equally for all married couples, if we are looking to something that has been described as equal marriage. On the grounds of equality that is an omission and in terms of the social significance of faithfulness, which is central to marriage, this omission diminishes the status that couples of the same sex stand to receive from being married. As the Bill stands, such same-sex marriages could be accused of being of a lesser standard in terms of faithfulness than heterosexual marriage unless this point is attended to.

[Lord Alli]

I thank the noble and learned Baroness for bringing forward this amendment. I have listened to what she said most carefully and I can see the point she raises. Unfaithfulness is understandably a cause for which many people seek divorce but I do not think that anything in this Bill will prevent people divorcing their partners for unfaithfulness. In my view, marriage is a contract that varies in its nature, understanding and commitment from couple to couple. The issue and the importance of fidelity is one that, equally, varies from couple from couple, but it is fair to say that fidelity is a cornerstone of most religious marriages. I think the same should be said of civil marriage, too.

The definition of the sexual act that defines fidelity for heterosexuals is outdated and, in my view, very cumbersome. The noble and learned Baroness is very brave to bring the issue to this House. When one looks at penetration as part of that definition, or we try to import the definition of penetration from rape into this, it does not deal with lesbian couples, for example. So much of our sexual law is defined by the male and not by women that a complete class of marriage is ignored by what the noble and learned Baroness is trying to do. If we had had more and broader discussions on the Civil Partnership Act and over the Bill, we may find common ground, but simply importing the definition of penetration—anal, vaginal or oral—into this would leave lesbians at a complete disadvantage regarding fidelity. While I completely understand what is behind this, we come back to the definition of fidelity. I think the Government’s position has been not to disturb the current arrangements as far as possible, to avoid tampering with existing legislation. It is a much wider question, which I certainly welcome. There is no way anyone can accuse the noble and learned Baroness of being homophobic in her amendment.