Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Lord Geddes and Lord Elton

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, I have gleaned a little popularity that way. I hope that I will now get a good reception for Amendment 24C.

The background to the amendment is that the whole purpose of the Bill is to accord a higher status to those people who at the moment have been limited for permanent unions to resorting to a civil contract. It seems rather absurd that to convert that to a marriage, which is supposed to be a leg-up, as it were, should be left to regulations made not even by the Secretary of State—which I would have dealt with by the earlier amendments in my name—but by the Registrar General, and that there was to be no mention of any sort of formality or ceremonial required of the process. Some form of swearing of an oath of continuity should form a part of anything that calls itself a marriage.

I have set out an Aunt Sally that requires the regulations—made by the Secretary of State or the Registrar General, as the case may be—which specify the terms of that oath in the marriage contract, to make a requirement that both parties to such a marriage shall swear lifetime fidelity,

“to undertake, before witnesses and by oath or by solemn affirmation, to honour the contract and the other party to it for as long as both of them are alive”.

I put a requirement that it should be made before witnesses as that is the barest bones for a ceremony of some sort which incorporates one of the essential elements of a marriage. After all, if they do not want a lifetime union, what is the point of having a marriage? This is a reasonable thing to do, and I do it to enhance the status of what noble Lords opposite are trying to achieve. I hope that it will at least give your Lordships something to think about between now and Report. With those few words I commend this amendment to your Lordships’ House.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I assume that the noble Lord would like to move his amendment.

[Lord Elton]

I thought commendation amounted to movement. However, I beg leave to move the amendment.