Financial Provision on Divorce

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on securing this debate, and her excellent and compelling speech. She and the noble Baroness, Lady Shackleton, deserve great credit for their campaign and persistence in pressing for action on this matter.

The Law Commission report strongly supports the noble Baronesses’ arguments that the law on financial provisions on divorce requires change to ensure certainty and accessibility. I share the view that some form of judicial discretion is important but—dare I say?—rather like the debate over VAR in modern football, greater consistency will be welcome.

I have just a few questions for the Minister, which relate to the place and role of religious courts in relation to divorce proceedings and financial settlements. This House has been alert in previous debates to ensuring that religious courts and their procedures are not used as a means of undermining the rights of women or to disadvantage them. This is a serious matter in the case of some—thankfully, a small number —of Jewish religious divorces and in other cases.

First, I would be grateful if the Minister will confirm that, in whichever solution the Government alight on, they will ensure that consideration is given to the question of conduct. Frequently, the problems associated with denying a religious divorce can be a form of domestic abuse and especially a form of coercive control. Will the Minister undertake to consider addressing this in the Government’s proposal of how to go forward?

Secondly, we have seen terrible cases where, in the process of agreeing to a religious divorce, the religious courts, their officials and their processes have tied this outcome to varying the financial settlements and even child access arrangements, including those agreed through the courts. Will the Minister confirm that consideration will be given to including a specific exclusion to this practice?

Thirdly, will the Minister also consider reinforcing that courts of arbitration must not exceed their jurisdiction in such matters? Whilst the provisions of the Arbitration Act 1996 provide a regime which should deal with this, the obligation falls on the unfortunate victim to have to seek relief and very often in circumstances where they are under terrible pressures. Will the Minister take the opportunity to place this obligation on the courts of arbitration to ensure that they and their members are at fault if they exceed their jurisdiction in these matters?

Fourthly and finally, in relation to prenuptial agreements, will the Minister confirm that the Government will allow for PNAs to be enforced to deal with financial and other matters where financial pressures could be exerted, so that they can be forcefully upheld and varied only in exceptional circumstances?

Arbitration Bill [HL]

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Lords Special Public Bill Committee
Wednesday 27th March 2024 Other Business

Moved by

[Lord Mendelsohn]

2: After Clause 6, insert the following new Clause—
“Amendment to the Arbitration Act 1996 (General Principles)In Section 1 of the Arbitration Act 1996, after paragraph (c) insert—“(d) an arbitration tribunal must not purport to exceed its jurisdiction in accordance with the Act and, in particular, must not make decisions that impact, or purport to impact, on the legal rights or obligations of the parties, or of any persons connected to them.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to establish as an over-arching statutory principle that arbitral tribunals must confine themselves to resolving disputes that are proper subjects for arbitration and must not purport to make judgments or orders about other matters.

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to place this amendment before this Special Public Bill Committee. I am not highly experienced with such hybrid procedures and so, while I hope that your Lordships will guide me, you will be pleased to hear that I will also use brevity. I record my thanks and gratitude to the clerk and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for their help and guidance on this amendment.

This review of the Arbitration Act 1996 builds on its success. The UK has become a global centre of excellence and the proposed amendments to the existing arrangements are sensible and will help to strengthen this position. This amendment seeks to establish as an overarching statutory principle that the arbitral tribunals must confine themselves to resolving disputes that are proper subjects for arbitration and must not purport to make judgments or orders about other matters. It is enormously important that people who take an issue to arbitration do not find their rights affected by the system purporting to go outside the specific dispute between the parties and to resolve other legal rights or to interfere with the operation of statutes.

Even more importantly, arbitral tribunals must not purport to make orders that affect the rights of persons other than the parties to the dispute, such as family members. I will illustrate this point by means of an example. In certain parts of the Orthodox Jewish community there has developed a practice of parties to a divorce being encouraged, or even pressurised, by the religious court—or, as it is known, the Beth Din —handling the ritual side of the divorce to submit to the jurisdiction of the Beth Din by way of arbitration in relation to their financial affairs, and usually to vary a family court-agreed settlement. That in itself is questionable, as the Beth Din is not best placed to adjudicate on these matters, particularly because it has regularly been used as a way of allowing the delivery of the Jewish divorce, or “get”, as it is known, by the man to become a bargaining chip in the wider financial issues between the parties, and there is no provision in religious law for involvement in such issues during the ritual of divorce.

The process becomes particularly objectionable when issues such as access to children, which are not within the range of matters that an arbitral tribunal should be looking at in any event, are brought into consideration, leading to the parties asking the courts to agree to a consent order that risks allowing the children’s welfare, which should be the paramount consideration, being subordinated to the demands of the husband in relation to delivery of the get—in effect, allowing a recalcitrant husband to blackmail children out of their statutory protections.

This is just one example of ways in which religious or other arbitral tribunals may purport to exceed their jurisdiction. I hope the Minister will be able to confirm from the Dispatch Box today that it is a fundamental principle of the law of arbitration that arbitral tribunals should confine themselves strictly to the financial dispute between the parties and not make orders about, or allow themselves to be influenced by, other matters.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his amendment and his remarks. The Government are entirely clear that arbitration tribunals should confine themselves to their jurisdiction and to matters properly subject to that arbitration. That is clear from the Arbitration Act 1996 itself, which provides a regime for the court to control the exercise by the arbitration tribunal of its jurisdiction. I do not think I need to run through the various sections of the Act, but it is perfectly plain that it is a fundamental principle of the Arbitration Act that arbitral tribunals should not exceed their jurisdiction. The Government take that obligation extremely seriously.

I confirm at the Dispatch Box, as the noble Lord requested, that the Government’s view is that arbitration tribunals should confine themselves strictly to the matters subject to the arbitration. That is a most important and serious obligation that must be strictly observed. If there is evidence that that principle is not being observed, any such information should be drawn to public attention. I hope that, with those assurances, the noble Lord will not feel it necessary to press his amendment.

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that assurance and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

Anti-Semitism: University Campus Incidents

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, alarming levels of anti-Semitism on campus are not new. It has been a profound problem since the mid-1970s. When I was a student in the 1980s, Jewish societies were being banned, at the instigation of those who saw themselves as progressive and liberal. These things—and many of the same people—played a central role more recently when my own party, the Labour Party, went through its shameful period. The problem on campus is more pronounced and, as the report attests, illustrates that for too long too little has been done to tackle students being radicalised and recruited to extremist ideas and politics with anti-Semitism at their centre, and the increasing role that academics play in propagation and denial of the problem. We need a more profound focus on the roots of such extremism and a more comprehensive view on how we tackle it. Will the Minister, whom I welcome and whose maiden speech I look forward to, consider asking the Commission for Countering Extremism to look into this, with a view to developing effective tools and techniques to guarantee the safety of Jewish students and stop a new generation of anti-Semites graduating from our colleges and universities?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

I remind noble Lords that all Back-Bench speeches are limited to one minute.