Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Lord Alli and Lord Eden of Winton

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alli]

My Lords, I am not a humanist; I am afraid I am a closet believer in God. But I wanted to add my support to the legislation for humanist marriage and the inclusion of this amendment in the Bill. The Bill is about equal marriage, and allowing fellow citizens to conduct their own legally recognised weddings within their own framework of humanist beliefs seems to me to be a proposal that we should support.

I also believe that there is popular support for this proposal. I suspect the other place was minded to move forward with this but the Attorney-General’s advice at the last minute that the amendments as drafted would breach the European convention and put the quadruple lock at risk meant that there was insufficient time to deal with this. As with so many other issues, the ball is now in our court. I understand that these amendments have been changed to address the issues raised by the Attorney-General and I have seen and even read the advice from Matrix Chambers to support that case. There is huge support for this in my own party, in the Liberal Democrats and on the Cross Benches. I think that this House is minded to pass this and would like the Government to find a way to make this happen. The Government should put their best minds together to see whether we can get these amendments through. On behalf of those who have worked in this area for many years, waiting for a Bill to come along that will allow this to happen, I ask the Minister to look carefully at this.

[Lord Eden of Winton]

My Lords, before the Minister replies to the debate, I would like to follow up the observations made by my noble friend Lord Lester. This touches on the “slipstream” argument brought forward by my noble friend Lord Garel-Jones. I must admit that I am having difficulty enough coming to terms with the Bill as it is and is likely to become, without any further amendments to it of any kind, as I made clear at Second Reading. I believe that what is proposed in the Bill will lead in due course to a fundamental alteration of the concept of marriage in the Church of England such as I have been brought up to know it and indeed as has been the case for many years.

This is clearly not the Bill for an amendment of this kind. None the less, when this matter was considered in the other place in March this year, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities—I am indebted to the Library for a briefing note on this subject—talking about the inability to hold legally valid humanist marriages in England and Wales, said that the Government would,

“consider amendments to marriage law when an appropriate legislative opportunity arises”.

The Minister felt that this Bill was “not the right vehicle” for the proposed change, and that it,

“must not be thrown off its path by attempts to make wider changes to fundamental marriage law in England and Wales”.—[Official Report, Commons, Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill Committee, 12/3/13; col. 475-76.]

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Lord Alli and Lord Eden of Winton

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, there are a couple of things which have not been mentioned that we need to bear in mind before this is resolved. The first relates to classroom teaching. I must congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, on giving a perfect example of proper and professional conduct, and some perfect examples of how extremely awkward children can be. However, noble Lords have not actually grasped the fact that many teachers are required by their heads to teach to a particular programme which has been produced by a publisher, by some think tank in a comprehensive, or whatever. It will take an attitude to this which to some teachers will appear as though it is promoting a particular interpretation. Teachers need to be able not to have that forced on them.

The other thing is that, of course, a lot of a teacher’s life is spent in the staff room. No doubt they hold to the view that they are highly professional and will do exactly what the teacher the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, told us about did under all circumstances, yet in the staff room may express views contrary to those that we are now going to be told are mandatory. If they express an objection to same-sex marriage which, as the noble Lord, Lord Dear, has said, is interpreted as being tantamount to homophobia, and that sort of conversation is held in the staff room, particularly of a large school, there will be those on the staff who will regard it as making them unfit to teach. Those teachers will find themselves under undesirable pressure. No doubt the Minister will take this away and think about it, and indeed all these exchanges will prove to be useful.

[Lord Eden of Winton]

My Lords, I believe that it was the noble Lord, Lord Dear, who said that this is something of knife-edge issue, and I sympathise with that observation. I hope that I will not embarrass her, but I find myself in considerable agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, and I certainly have a lot of sympathy for her whole approach to this subject. However, I have one deeply held anxiety which I would like to express very briefly in the hope that it will be allayed by the response of my noble friend the Minister.

It is not the objectivity of teaching that worries me. It is not the way that teachers will interpret or rehearse the law before their pupils or their classes that is my concern. On the whole, I have enormous respect for the teaching profession, having been associated with it for some time, and I think that teachers will do their job admirably. That is not my worry. My worry lies in what I think the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, said, and certainly others have mentioned; namely, the difference between what I would call the objective teaching or factual teaching, as the noble Lord, Lord Alli, said, and promotion. That is the knife edge. It is done so easily. It is done by emphasis and by inference. We know through our respective interests how easy it is, almost subliminally, to encourage a viewpoint that is held firmly by the particular promoter of that view. It is done carefully and sometimes not quite so carefully. This is my worry and I hope my noble friend will be able to reply.

I have seen, as other noble Lords have doubtless also seen—there is nothing peculiar about me, there is no reason why I alone should have seen this—material in the public domain which is promotional material advertising the good things about same-sex relationships. I have heard it said—I give no particular credence to this; it is hearsay—that teachers sometimes encourage pupils in their class to experiment, to find out in terms of sexual relationships, “what makes you happy”. This is what worries me. There is an undercurrent there of crusading on behalf of same-sex relationships which I think has no place in a school. I accept teaching factually; I do not accept promotion or promotional material.

[Lord Alli]

In the spirit of tolerance that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, asked for, will the noble Lord accept that, for many of us, the use of the word “promotion” and the language that the noble Lord has just used is particularly emotive because of Section 28? Will he therefore accept, in the spirit of tolerance, that where the amendments are crafted in such a way that that phraseology is embedded in them, that is the reason for the perceived reaction that the noble Lord may get? Will the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, also accept that where there is a mischief we genuinely want to solve it, but if the language is inflammatory, if the arguments put forward are inserted into the Bill, it is very hard, in the air of tolerance, for us to have a proper and constructive discussion?

[Lord Eden of Winton]

I am very sorry to hear the noble Lord say that because I certainly do not want to offend him or anybody else of that persuasion. However, he is right to say that I am emotional about the issue, because I feel very strongly about it. I hope he will accept that there are strong feelings on the side that I represent, as strongly as he represents the feelings on his side. I cannot help that. I feel I have to express these views, because we are talking about legislation, which is likely to become the law of the land, in which case my views will be sublimated and the law takes over. Now is the time for me to express these views, and I hope I convey the feelings which I believe represent the views of others beyond this House. I hope that I will get a response from them.

We talk about teachers being required to teach the law correctly. What is the position of teachers in Church of England schools? They will also be required to do this. This is one of the areas of difficulty which I find being developed by the proposals in this Bill, which I hope will be satisfied, if not by the existing protections, at least by the amendment of my noble friend Lord Dear.