Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 10th February 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

169A: Clause 63, page 66, line 10, leave out from “their” to end of line 12 and insert “physical, psychological and social recovery or to prevent their re-trafficking in accordance with Article 12 of the Trafficking Convention.”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would define the objective of assistance and support in line with Article 12 of the European Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings 2005.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, I should declare an interest in that I presented the original anti-trafficking and anti-slavery Bill as a Private Member’s Bill to your Lordships, and your Lordships very kindly passed it in all its stages, thanks to the support of the whole House. I then sent it to the then Prime Minister, Theresa May, who made it a government Bill and made it comprehensive, with the support of many people in both Houses.

I wish to speak to the amendments in my name to Clauses 63 and 64, on support and leave to remain respectively. While I believe that issues of modern slavery should not be in an immigration Bill, we must nevertheless use the opportunity to improve the care provided to approximately 100,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK. These individuals deserve the opportunity to rebuild their lives. We have the potential to give them the support needed to ensure that each victim becomes a survivor.

Your Lordships will know that I have long argued, through my Private Member’s Bills, that support for victims in England and Wales during the so-called recovery period should be statutory, as it has been in Northern Ireland and Scotland since 2015. I very much welcome the Government addressing this matter at last in Clause 63. However, I have three concerns about Clause 63 which my Amendments 169A, 170 and 170A address. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Alton, Lord Paddick and Lord Coaker, for their support for these amendments.

First, in Clause 63, proposed new subsection (2) of the new clause restricts support only to that necessary to assist with recovery from the conduct that resulted in the “positive reasonable grounds” decision in question. This is more restrictive than in Northern Ireland and Scotland. How do the Government intend to identify the harm caused directly by exploitation? Why have they decided to restrict the support in this way?

Article 12 of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, known as ECAT, requires states to provide various support to assist victims in their physical, psychological and social recovery. ECAT does not restrict support and assistance to only those matters that relate to a person’s immediate exploitation. Amendment 169A would amend the wording so that it is in line with ECAT.

Secondly, Clause 63 is not clear on the scope of support, and Amendment 170A would define the types of assistance and support to be provided in line with ECAT obligations. The Government said in another place that a list of what support should be available is not needed, even though such a list does exist in Scotland and Northern Ireland. While individual victims will have different needs and requirements, there still needs to be a framework, which Amendment 170A would provide. The Joint Committee on Human Rights asked whether the support provided will cover all the elements required by Article 12. I look forward to hearing confirmation from the Minister that it will.

My third concern is the lack of support once a person is identified as a victim, something I have been campaigning on with the support of the Free for Good movement, a coalition of 27 organisations which believe that long-term support is essential to a victim’s recovery. Without it, already vulnerable individuals are at risk of homelessness, destitution or even re-trafficking, as has been mentioned.

I welcome the assurance given by the Government on Report in another place, and reiterated here at Second Reading, that 12 months’ support will be provided to confirmed victims in England and Wales. However, to date the Government have not brought forward an amendment to ensure that this support is on a statutory footing, nor set out any details of what that might involve, saying instead that the details will be in guidance. The support needs to be more than an extension of current arrangements under the Government’s recovery needs assessment.

Amendment 170 would put the Government’s commitment to 12 months’ support in the Bill. The cross-party support for this amendment is both indicative and representative of an understanding across the House that long-term statutory support is vital in order to assist victims of modern slavery in their recovery. The problem with it not being in the Bill is that it gives the Government what one could describe as wriggle room. We do not know when the guidance will be issued, nor what it will say; by the time we do, we will have missed a valuable opportunity to make a significant difference to victims.

Clause 63 already puts support during the recovery period on a statutory footing. Amendment 170 is a simple extension to Clause 63 to put in a support provision after a person has been confirmed as a victim of modern slavery. I urge your Lordships to support Amendment 170 to ensure recovery, prevent re-trafficking and enable victims to work with the police to restrain the perpetrators responsible for their abuse. I sincerely hope the Minister will be able to tell the House that he will be tabling an amendment on this matter on Report.

I turn to my Amendments to Clause 64. The Government are putting the current discretionary leave-to-remain criteria on a statutory footing. In principle, that is welcome—except that, in doing so, they have made them narrower than the current guidance. We are taking one step forward but two steps back. I also want noble Lords to realise that very few victims who apply actually get that leave, so Clause 64 falls short of what victims really need. The Government have already recognised the need for confirmed victims of modern slavery to receive 12 months’ support. However, those individuals need leave to remain in order to access that vital support.

My Amendment 170B would ensure that anyone receiving support after being confirmed as a victim of modern slavery would be granted temporary leave to remain. My Amendment 171A would ensure that the leave would be for the length of time that support is being provided or for at least 12 months if granted under Clause 64. Without these amendments, long-term support is a mirage. It is something that confirmed victims who are non-UK nationals desperately need but, without immigration status, cannot access. They will also help the Government achieve their aim of increasing the prosecutions and convictions of perpetrators of modern slavery. Without clarity about their immigration status, victims are fearful, potentially subject to re-trafficking, and hesitant about engaging with the police. Amendments 170B and 171A would enable the Government to be firm on criminals who are profiteering off the exploitation and abuse of victims.

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For the reasons I have outlined, I ask the noble Lord at this stage to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for taking part in this debate. However, it is quite clear that we will have to have further lessons in Zulu to make sure that things are done. The Minister has raised lots of questions, which will be brought up on Report, where I am quite sure there will be a very lively discussion. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 169A withdrawn.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [HL]

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th March 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

1: Clause 1, page 1, leave out lines 6 to 15 and insert—
“(1) Subject to subsections (1) and (2), either or both parties to a marriage may apply to the court to initiate the process for an order (a “divorce order”).(2) In the case of an application by both parties to the marriage under subsection (1)— (a) the application must be accompanied by a statement by the applicants that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, and(b) the court must—(i) take the statement given under subsection (2)(a) to be conclusive evidence that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, and(ii) make a divorce order which will dissolve the marriage.(3) In the case of an application under subsection (1) that is to proceed as an application by one party to the marriage only—(a) an application must be accompanied by an initial statement by the applicant of their intention to seek a conditional order on the basis that the marriage may have broken down;(b) a confirmation by the applicant under subsection (5)(a) that they wish the application to continue must be accompanied by a statement that the marriage has broken down irretrievably; and(c) the court dealing with an application made by one party under this subsection and subsection (5)(a) must—(i) take the statement given under subsection (3)(b) to be conclusive evidence that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, and(ii) make a divorce order which will dissolve the marriage.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment sets out different steps in the divorce process, depending upon whether the application is a joint application by both parties to the marriage, or an application by only one party.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 1 is a redrafted form of the amendment that I brought before the House in Committee. I have returned to this issue because, as I read and reflected on the Committee debate, I was not at all assured that my concerns had been addressed. In coming back to this issue, I make it clear that I will not be dividing the House on this amendment, but I hope this debate will provide an opportunity for the Minister to address my concerns. I put on record my sincere thanks to him for the useful meeting that we had yesterday to discuss this and my other amendment.

I will begin by defining the problems that the amendment is designed to address and will then explain how it deals with them. I welcome that the Bill allows people to make joint applications for divorce for the first time. For these couples, the divorce will come as no surprise. However, the negative impact of the Bill on respondents where there is no fault is profound.

Under the current system, in the absence of fault, the couple must have lived apart for two to five years before proceeding to divorce. Clearly, on this basis no one would claim to be surprised at the divorce application. In the case of the two-year separation, the divorce application must be by mutual consent, and anyone who claims to be shocked at receiving divorce papers after five years’ separation is not credible. Under the Bill, however, all this will change for the respondent in this no-fault context. One day, they could be thinking that their marriage is all right, and the next day they could be faced with a declaration of irretrievable breakdown and the fact that they could be divorced within six months or even sooner if they are not notified at the start of the reflection period. I am particularly concerned about the greater insecurity that this will inevitably bring to many marriages, and the attendant psychological cost. In case anyone was to think that this might be a very small number, I remind the House that the circumstances I am describing —namely, the two to five-year separation period—are used in around two-fifths of divorce petitions each year. That is around 40,000 divorces: 40,000 respondents who today must receive some warning, but who under the Bill need receive no warning at all.

There is all the difference in the world between a divorce where both parties agree and seek it together, and a divorce initiated by one party only, perhaps with the other party not even knowing. The Bill, however, deals with the two largely as if they are the same. That does not seem just or fair. My amendment seeks to address this presenting problem by requiring that where a divorce application is not made jointly by mutual agreement, a different approach is adopted. I propose a change to the wording in new Clause 1(1), which currently says that the applicant is applying for a divorce on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown. I suggest instead that new Clause 1(1) refers only to the applicants initiating the divorce proceedings.

I then suggest a two-track scenario. Where there is a joint application, the initial application includes a statement saying that the marriage has broken down irretrievably. Where the application is by one party only, the applicant is required to make two statements. The first, on applying for a divorce, would state that the applicant’s intention was to apply for a conditional order, which they would have to do under subsection (5), on the basis that the marriage may have broken down. The statement of irretrievable breakdown would then accompany the application for a conditional order 20 weeks after the first application if the petitioner wished to proceed to the next stage.

There are two main rationales for my amendment. First, it means that someone who wants to end the marriage cannot suddenly drop a bombshell on his or her spouse that their marriage—which she or he may have thought was all right—has actually irretrievably broken down. The first move the petitioner can make is a declaration that he intends to apply for a conditional order on the basis that he thinks the marriage may have broken down, not that it has already broken down irretrievably. This has the effect of requiring him to treat his spouse with greater respect, in the sense that the statement he makes to her is not one that says emphatically “It is all over” such that there are no grounds upon which she can respond and seek to save the marriage.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord McColl of Dulwich and other noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. As my noble friend observed, the amendment would keep the existing ground of irretrievable breakdown at the start of the application only where the application was made by both spouses. Where the application was made by only one party, it would remove the ground of irretrievable breakdown, which has stood for 50 years, in favour of the novel concept of a ground that may or may not be the case.

I am aware that there has been a narrative of the divorce application coming as a shock to the respondent, but, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, observed in Committee, and repeated this afternoon,

“the evidence from the research is that the majority of people know perfectly well when a marriage has irretrievably broken down.”—[Official Report, 3/3/20; col. 532.]

They know when it has come to an end. The proposed amendment would hinder, not enhance, the process of divorce. Indeed, my noble and learned friend, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, observed in Committee that

“once you have applied, you have carried out the intent.”—[Official Report, 3/3/20; col. 535.]

That point was reflected in a number of observations made by the noble and learned Baroness this afternoon.

The Government remain firmly of the view that an application for divorce is precisely that: an application seeking the legal dissolution of the marriage by the court because it has broken down irretrievably. A divorce application cannot be a notice to the other party that there may be marital difficulties. That is not a proper use of the court process. The legal process of divorce is not a remedy for marital discord but a means to dissolve the legal ties at the end of a marriage. As I observed in response to the amendment to similar effect tabled by my noble friend Lord McColl in Committee, such an amendment would have the potentially perverse effect of encouraging speculative applications. These are not effects that the Government wish in any way to encourage.

The reality is that under the existing law, which allows only sole applications, the application is made on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of the marriage right at the start, and well before the court takes account of the evidence for fault or separation. There is no reason to change that. I accept that my noble friend Lord McColl wishes to allow for reconciliation where one spouse wishes to divorce and perhaps the other does not, but the Government’s conclusion is that to amend the law in this way would not achieve his purpose and would in fact send entirely the wrong signals to divorcing couples. It is in these circumstances that I invite my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate. I have great respect for all of them. I have enormous respect for the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—we have known each other for more than 70 years, so it is quite easy to. I thank everyone for taking part. I hear what the Minister said. I think that it will be taken up in another place with some enthusiasm. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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[Lord Farmer]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 16. I have brought back this amendment on the need for an annual report on the impact of the Bill because I disagree with the Minister’s reasons for rejecting it in Committee.

As I said, we could have moved to a divorce system that more closely resembled that of Scotland, which has much to recommend it, given that it sees so few fault applications. However, the Government have chosen to undertake an uncharted course, to a system described as enabling possibly the fastest divorce in the world, certainly for recipients of an application. Therefore, it seems irresponsible not to keep very careful track of any changes in our divorce, dissolution and separation patterns which ensue from this very significant change, especially given the existing high rates of family breakdown in this country.

I mentioned in Committee that research on which the Government have relied to justify removing fault points to how this degrades the commitment of marriage. Professor Wolfers says that its benefits are reduced; therefore cohabitation, which is widely agreed to be a less stable relationship form, becomes more common. So this will, very likely, have a knock-on effect on the number of children who experience the breakdown of their parents’ relationship.

I disagree with the Minister that the requirement to report annually on the number of divorce applications, including by gender, is unnecessary, given that the data is already publicly available and published in the Family Court Statistics Quarterly. The point of reporting is to be accountable for changes in that data and to draw Parliament’s attention to it. If the Government are not convinced that the Act will have a detrimental effect on any of these patterns, they should have no qualms about reporting on it.

I also disagree that it would be unduly onerous for the courts service to collect income data, or unduly intrusive for the applicants to supply it. The collection of income data is easily achieved by including this in standard demographic data income bands, the completion of which would of course be voluntary. We are constantly told that data collection is important to the Government, to help understand why people make choices, and to help make forecasts for the future. Understanding how different income brackets are affected by a policy is therefore not unusual or shocking. It makes no sense to me that in this area the Government are so coy about asking people to give them this information.

In conclusion, there is an inconsistency in the Government’s approach to informing themselves when it comes to tracking the effects of this Bill, despite the heavy social costs of relationship failure and the ramifications across the whole of government. I encourage the Minister to see the constructive point of this amendment in helping the future outworking of this law.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 17 in my name. It seeks to address some confusion that emerged during debate in Committee. I will not press this amendment to a vote but I hope that, as a result of this debate, we may gain greater clarity about the place for reconciliation during the divorce process.

We have heard very mixed messages from the Government on their commitment to reconciliation in the divorce process. On the one hand, there have been repeated statements of interest in promoting it. I have found no fewer than 30 occasions where the Government have said that promoting reconciliation during divorce is part of the policy intention behind these reforms.

I would like to highlight a few of these statements. The initial consultation document from September 2018 stated:

“The reformed law should have two objectives: to make sure that the decision to divorce continues to be a considered one, and that spouses have an opportunity to change course”.


The Government’s response to the consultation in April last year stated:

“Sometimes, a marriage will still be reparable at the point at which one spouse seeks the divorce … But the law can—and should—have a role in providing couples with an opportunity to reflect on that momentous decision and to pull back from the brink if they decide that reconciliation is achievable.”


At Second Reading of the Bill in the other place in June last year, the then Justice Minister stated:

“The Government believe that the need to confirm to the court that it may make the conditional order, and to apply to the court for the final order, means that a divorce or dissolution is never automatic and that the decision to divorce is a considered one, with opportunities for a change of heart right up to the last moment.”—[Official Report, Commons, 25/6/19; col. 580.]


This is consistent with the family impact test assessment, which suggests that one of the strengths of the new system is the increased scope that it will provide for reconciliation. It states:

“The current law works against reconciliation by incentivising (in order to get a divorce more quickly) a spouse to make allegations about the other spouse’s conduct which can create conflict … The current law also offers little opportunity for reflection and conciliation, as the initial decree of divorce can come only a matter of weeks after the divorce proceedings have started.”


It then says that the Government want to exploit the new opportunities for reconciliation under a no-fault system, saying:

“We want to create conditions for couples and parents to reconcile if they can”.


Yet despite these repeated statements in support of reconciliation, and the suggestion that the scope of reconciliation will be enhanced in the no-fault system, there is little or no evidence of a political will to exploit this. On the contrary, there have instead been contradictory statements that reconciliation is not possible once the divorce process has started. I was concerned that, in response to my amendment in Committee, the Minister replied:

“The noble Lord expressed concern, as did others, that the Government’s statistics give the impression that a significant number of divorce petitions never reach decree absolute. There is, however, no evidence that these represent cases of reconciliation.”—[Official Report, 3/3/20; col. 537.]


Later in the proceedings, he said:

“I understand the desire of noble Lords to see that the marriage relationship can be supported, but it has to be supported at the right time. That is not at the point of an application for divorce on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown, which is why we do not consider that the Bill is the right vehicle for tackling the wider issues that lead to relationship breakdown.”—[Official Report, 3/3/20; col. 565.]


There seems to be some conflict between these two sets of statements, so I am probing the Government’s intention. If one believes that reconciliation, once divorce begins, is so unlikely that it makes no sense to prioritise it, then the statements in the consultation, consultation response, press releases, family impact assessment and at previous readings of this Bill all seem misplaced.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [HL]

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out from “court” to end of line 15 and insert “to initiate the process for an order (a “divorce order”) which will dissolve the marriage on the ground that the marriage has broken down irretrievably.
(2) The divorce process under subsection (1) consists of three stages and must be accompanied by—(a) for the first stage, a statement by the applicant or applicants, if a joint application, on the filing of the application for a divorce order that they think that the marriage may have broken down irretrievably,(b) for the second stage, a statement by the applicant or applicants on applying for a conditional order asserting that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, and(c) for the third stage, an application for the final divorce.(3) The court dealing with an application under subsection (2)(c) must—(a) take the statement given under subsection (2)(b) to be conclusive evidence that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, and(b) make a final divorce order.”

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to speak to Amendment 1 in my name. The Government have said there should be a minimum timeframe between petition and conditional order

“to give couples sufficient time to consider the implications of the decision to divorce and to agree practical arrangements for the future.”

They acknowledged that this is especially important because the digitisation of the divorce process could result in some parties rushing to divorce before the prospect of reconciliation has been fully explored. Importantly, they argue that the minimum timeframe provides

“opportunities for couples to change course.”

There are 27 references to reconciliation in the Government’s document, which includes the statement:

“But the law can—and should—have a role in providing couples with an opportunity to reflect on that momentous decision and to pull back from the brink if they decide that reconciliation is achievable.”


All of the Government’s sentiments about the proposed reforms sound well intentioned. However, proposed new Section 1(2) provides that a respondent who receives notice at the start of the divorce proceedings will do so with a statement from their spouse that

“the marriage has broken down irretrievably.”

The law is thereby designed to begin the divorce process with a statement that makes it inevitable. I cannot see how a respondent would feel that such a statement does indeed provide opportunities to change course. They will feel that the hammer has already fallen.

I do not believe that the wording of proposed new Section 1(2) is in any way consistent with the hopes for reconciliation expressed by the Government’s Reducing Family Conflict paper. A statement of irretrievable breakdown must clearly come at the end of the process, immediately prior to divorce, but designing the law in a way that asks one party to a marriage to make this very strong assertion right at the start of the divorce process is counterproductive.

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[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

My Lords, just as he did at Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, has expressed his desire to ensure that those intent on divorce should have the opportunity to consider reconciliation. Of course, we agree with that, which is one reason we are building in a statutory pause: the new 20-week period between application and conditional order. It is also why we are retaining the two-stage order, as well as the bar on divorce applications in the first year of the marriage.

The noble Lord expressed concern, as did others, that the Government’s statistics give the impression that a significant number of divorce petitions never reach decree absolute. There is, however, no evidence that these represent cases of reconciliation. Indeed, analysis of court data by the Nuffield Foundation, referred to by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, shows that the majority of non-completions are due to the technical difficulties of the legal process for unrepresented parties, the obstruction of respondents and, in some cases, protracted negotiations over finances. Indeed, a sample of 300 undefended cases were analysed, in which 51 were found not to have completed. Only one of those cases was identified as having ended in an attempted reconciliation. It is not only the recent Nuffield research that indicates this. Research undertaken by the University of Newcastle, following the Family Law Act 1996, also found that the decision to divorce was not taken lightly or impetuously; it was typically a protracted one based on months, if not years, of painful and difficult consideration.

I appreciate the intention behind the amendment; the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, spoke of the profound importance of marriage to society and I could not possibly disagree with that. However, we believe that this amendment would have the potentially perverse effect of encouraging speculative applications. Someone facing marital difficulties might file an application saying, “I think my marriage may be over, though I’m not sure. I can always make my mind up after 20 weeks, or after as long as it takes.” As the noble Baronesses, Lady Burt and Lady Shackleton, observed, that is not the process that parties go through in reality. Indeed, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, observed, it is inconsistent with the idea that you are applying on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown.

Applying for divorce should, of course, always be a last resort; certainly, we have seen no evidence that it is anything else. In the vast majority of cases, the applicant reaches the decision after considerable soul-searching and, indeed, after attempts have been made to mend difficulties in the marriage. It should never be seen as a warning shot. Divorce is not a remedy for marital difficulties; it is a remedy for a marriage that is no longer functioning because it has irretrievably broken down. It is right, we suggest, to continue to demand irretrievable breakdown at the point of the initial application as the grounds on which decree could then proceed. Of course, divorce should never be automatic, but again neither this Bill nor any other is going to make divorce easier for those affected by it.

We consider that the existing ground for divorce, namely irretrievable breakdown, should remain, and I urge the noble Lord to withdraw this amendment.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

My Lords, I am very grateful for all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I have been practising medicine for more years than I care to remember, and I have, almost every day, had to break bad news. I took a great deal of time to get over to medical students that this had to be done gently and with respect. Although my amendment does not seem to have much support, I hope that there is some way in which a person who wants a divorce can indicate to his partner what is in his mind long before he puts down an official request. Breaking bad news does not cost too much money. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [HL]

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Lords Chamber

We have gone backwards rather than forwards in this regard. The family stability indicator has been discarded in favour of measures that look at the quality of parents’ relationships. Of course, these are also important, but parental relationship breakdown is the forgotten adverse childhood experience. Even—and, perhaps, especially—when there is no conflict, it is very difficult for children to come to terms with their parents’ separation. In fact, when there is no conflict, it is harder to understand, so they blame themselves, and that is where much of the mental health harm comes from. There might be different data between different parts of the United Kingdom, perhaps between London and the new Conservative seats in the Midlands and the north-east of England. That could be instructive. It is important that the impact of this radical new divorce Bill is assessed and laid before Parliament. I beg to move.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 19A is in my name. One of the headline Conservative Government commitments in the relatively recent past was abolishing the couple penalty. The couple penalty, noble Lords will recall, was the unintended fiscal incentive for a couple with children on low to modest incomes not to live together or marry because of the benefits that would be lost. Abolishing this was a headline Conservative manifesto commitment in the 2010 general election. At that time the Government’s primary concern with respect to marriage was the removal of obstacles to marriage, whereas today, their focus in this Bill seems to be on removing obstacles to divorce.

In this context, I have tabled this amendment for two reasons. First, I think that as the Government engage with this new task, it would be wise to pause to reflect on the progress made in relation to the earlier task of abolishing the couple penalty. Given both the importance of removing the couple penalty to help couples commit, and the potential for easier divorce to inflame the commitment problem in the presence of an ongoing couple penalty problem, it would be premature to prioritise making divorce any easier until we have dealt with the couple penalty problem.

Secondly, we must understand the impact of the couple penalty on divorce itself. If a couple on low or modest income manage to marry despite the couple penalty, they will none the less feel the negative impact on their marriage in that, if they were to terminate it, they would experience some fiscal benefits. For this reason, it is very important that we understand the impact of the couple penalty on divorce rates.

The main mechanism identified by the Government for addressing the couple penalty was the marriage allowance. A fully transferable marriage allowance was proposed by the Centre for Social Justice, commissioned by the Conservative Party and chaired by the right honourable Iain Duncan Smith MP in 2007, and adopted by the then Conservative Party leader, David Cameron.

Some upper- and middle-class people scoffed at this proposal, stating sarcastically that they got married for love. The idea that anyone would fall in love for fiscal reasons was plainly nonsense, and the suggestion that the purpose of the couple penalty was to assist in this regard only helped demonstrate just how out of touch with reality the wealthy scoffers were.

The point was simply that, when a couple fall in love and decide that they want to be together, they have a choice about what form their relationship should take. If formalising their commitment through a “till death us do part” marriage commitment would cause them to lose benefits, they would be more likely to formalise their relationship in some other, less stable way.

The point of dealing with the couple penalty was that, if the tax and benefit design had the unintended consequence of making it harder for couples on low to modest incomes to formalise their commitment through marriage, with all its benefits for adult and child well-being, the couple penalty was a bad thing and should be removed. However, at the beginning of the 2010 general election campaign, Mr Cameron explained that a fully transferable allowance could not be afforded immediately and that we would start with a provision allowing a non-earning spouse to transfer 11.6% of his or her allowance to an earner spouse. He added that he wanted the allowance to be increased and that he was sure that in the course of the Parliament it could be.

The marriage allowance was not actually introduced until the very end of the Parliament, in 2015, and then only as an even more meagre 10% allowance. It has continued to be just 10% ever since. At 10%, the marriage allowance is so small that it barely makes any impression on the couple penalty, which remains very considerable. In this context, we must assume that the couple penalty continues to act both as an obstacle to entering marriage and as a pressure for divorce.

As the Government have moved on to prioritising helping people to leave marriages with greater ease, there is now an urgent need for them to address the couple penalty problem in order both to remove an obstacle to marriage and to remove a strain on marriages that we must assume provides a fiscal incentive for divorce. If the Government want to get this Bill through, they would be well advised to use the Budget to significantly increase the marriage allowance in order to be seen to balance their efforts to help people to leave marriages more quickly with efforts to strengthen marriage.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, I put my name to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Farmer with the view that, if it is easy to produce those results, it might be quite wise to do so.

So far as the amendment of my noble friend Lord McColl of Dulwich is concerned, I noticed that he said that the Bill was intended to remove an obstacle to divorce, but I do not really think that that is a fair way to describe it. As far as I am concerned, the Bill deals principally with an unnecessary irritant to the relationship between divorcing parties. It does no good: it does not establish fault or anything of the kind; it just creates the possibility of renewed ill feeling as a result of a rehearsal of what one party to the marriage thinks about the other party. That is often not particularly flattering and certainly not particularly comforting, and removing it does not seem to remove an obstacle to divorce at all.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [HL]

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Wednesday 5th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, I very much congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hunt of Bethnal Green, on her maiden speech; she is most welcome.

I suggest that one cannot alter the terms for undoing a marriage without engaging with how the law understands marriage and the norms associated with it. This is actually a very important matter for the Government, because the social science evidence is so clear that marriage has such far-reaching positive public policy consequences for both adult and child well-being, irrespective of income. The evidence is far too extensive to cite at any length now, but by way of merely providing a sample I draw attention to the following claims from recent research. The size of the health gain from marriage might be as large as the benefit from giving up smoking. Marital status is a predictor of survival in patients with lung cancer, leading researchers to suggest that if marriage were a drug it would be hailed as a miracle cure. Studies consistently indicate that marriage reduces heavy drinking and overall alcohol consumption. Those who are married have the lowest risk of suicide—a difference that has persisted for over the last 25 years.

For children, meanwhile, recent studies show, among other things, that strong relationships exist between their mother’s marital status at the time of birth and birth weight. The prevalence of mental health issues among children of cohabiting parents is over 75% higher than among those of married parents. Growing up with married parents is associated with better physical health in adulthood and increased longevity. Children from broken homes are nine times more likely to become young offenders, accounting for 70% of all young offenders.

I am aware of course that at this point someone might seek to argue that the stability and attendant benefits have nothing to do with marriage and everything to do with the income of the couple in question. However, this does not stand up to scrutiny. That marriage is an independent benefit is seen in the fact that the poorest 20% of married couples are more stable than all but the richest 20% of cohabiting couples.

While we should always keep in mind the huge public policy benefits of marriage, it does not change the fact that, sadly, some marriages do not last. In this case, we need to ensure that the legislation in place governing the process by which marriage is ended works as smoothly as possible. The argument for the Bill is that the current law is needlessly conflictual. Under the current divorce law, the right to be released from the serious marriage commitment necessitates that something equally serious must have happened, be it adultery or unreasonable behaviour, both of which have to be acknowledged. The Bill removes that requirement and instead enables one person to initiate divorce proceedings simply because they want to leave the marriage, without any need to acknowledge or verify the serious development. If one person wants out, all they would need to do under the Bill is assert that the relationship has broken down, irrespective of whether it has, beyond the fact that he or she has asserted the statement and started divorce proceedings.

In this context, I will make two suggestions. The first relates to the length of the divorce process and the second to how the process is utilised. First, on the length of the divorce process, it seems that there are two elements in the current law that seek to reflect the serious nature of the marriage commitment. The first is the fact that this serious commitment cannot be swept away without an equally serious development that merits it, the raising of which necessitates the attribution of fault.

The second is that, having made this commitment, one cannot simply walk away. The serious nature of the commitment is reflected in the fact that terminating the marriage commitment takes time. The Bill, as currently construed, conflates these two things. Removal of fault is linked to a much faster divorce process, but it does not need to be. One option would be to remove fault but require significantly longer than the 26 weeks between initiating a divorce and potentially being divorced, as has been mentioned by others.

How will it seem if we propose that people have a general right to expect that they can exit a lifelong commitment in 26 weeks, when we are tied to our mobile phone contracts for 12 months? No doubt I could get out of my mobile phone contract if I paid, but we need to think very carefully about the message that we would be sending if we endorsed the Bill in its current form. If we can exit a lifelong commitment in less than a year, we are crossing a line and making what has been a lifelong commitment a much weaker, indefinite commitment.

I have no doubt that, in response, some will say, “But I know of a situation where it would just be better to terminate the relationship as quickly as possible.” I have no objection to allowing this in specific circumstances—if there are personal safety concerns—but we must not allow hard cases to define our norms. It is not possible to study the social science evidence on the benefits of a lifelong marriage commitment without feeling deeply concerned about the consequences of opening the door to its termination at such speed.

Secondly, how should we use the divorce process? The other benefit of having a longer divorce process is that it will provide more time to offer help to couples who have started the divorce process. In this regard I was rather troubled when, in another place on 25 June 2019, the Member of Parliament for Mid Dorset and North Poole, intervened on the then Lord Chancellor, David Gauke, and asked what the Government were doing to help prevent marriages breaking down.

Mr Gauke responded:

“Once the point of a divorce is reached, it is likely—the evidence suggests this—that it is too late.”


On that basis, he told the House that there was no basis for reaching out to help marriages once the divorce process had begun. Indeed, his response suggested that seeking to do anything on this once the divorce process had begun would be a mistake. To be precise, what he said was,

“but where someone is going through the divorce process, making that process more difficult and confrontational is counter- productive.”—[Official Report, Commons, 25/6/19; col. 578.]

This is simply not supported by the facts. Ministry of Justice family court statistics show that between 2003 and 2016, an average of 9.5% of divorce petitions that were started did not reach decree absolute. That is an astonishing 12,709 couples each year who did not complete the divorce process. So the idea that once the divorce process has begun it is too late does not stand up to scrutiny; 12, 709 marriages per annum is a lot of marriages.

Our objective should be, through good public policy interventions, to increase that 12,709 figure, mindful of the benefit of doing so both for the adults concerned and their children. Moreover, we must be aware that, as an increasing number of divorce petitions are filed online, the number culminating in divorce seems to be decreasing. Provisional results from a freedom of information request by the International Family Law Group last year found that online divorces were less likely to proceed to a final decree than paper divorces. That makes the need for maximising counselling options during the process of a divorce that much more important. We must provide couples who have commenced the divorce process with the opportunity to reconcile where possible, not put them on a conveyor belt towards certain divorce.