Civil Partnership (Opposite-sex Couples) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Scriven and Lord Lexden

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, it appears that on the issue of equality, we are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Like other noble Lords who have spoken, I do not want to hold back these regulations, because they are not just a step but a huge leap forward for opposite-sex couples’ equality. However, I despair a little that the Government have not been able at this point to bring about true equality.

I wear this lanyard, as others do, not because I am proud to be LGBT or an LGBT ally, but because I believe in fundamental equality before the law and in human rights. I have spoken in this House before about not being able to marry in a religious institution, which is a form of discrimination. I would not want somebody who is part of an opposite-sex couple to feel that sense of joy being deflated by not being able to convert their civil partnership into a marriage. There is no legal reason why that cannot happen but just a bureaucratic one, based on “some consultation is taking place”.

I know the Minister and her personal passion for equality, which is beyond doubt. However, she kept saying “short term”. How short is short term? The one thing she cannot give is any certainty. We are going into a general election, so short term may be longer than the noble Baroness feels. In addition, it may be short term to the Government, but for somebody who is in an opposite-sex civil partnership and wants to convert, it may take much longer than the short term, particularly if that person has a terminal illness. People make decisions because of life-changing events, so we may be denying somebody the equality that they want based on where they are in their life.

I therefore ask the Minister and the whole House, to ensure that, whoever is returned after the general election, short term must mean a matter of weeks or months. This cannot go on for years because of some bureaucratic government view about consultation.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened to important comments from the noble Lords, Lord Collins, Lord Cashman and Lord Scriven, with whom I agree so much on matters relating to civil partnerships and same-sex marriage. However, I would like to return briefly to a deep injustice which the extension of civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples has made even more glaring.

Civil partnerships were introduced for the express purpose of conferring legal rights on couples who were ineligible to marry. Through these regulations, civil partnerships will be extended to all couples who now possess the right to marry. They will be withheld from people who cannot marry—in defiance of the very principle on which they were established in the first place.

I have brought up on a number of occasions in this House the question of why the Government feel it is acceptable to continue to withhold from long-term cohabiting siblings who choose to live together for companionship and mutual support all the legal rights and fiscal safeguards they offer, through civil partnerships, to couples they presume to be in sexual relationships.

Do the Government think that two siblings who live together in mutually supportive and financially independent relationships are less in need of the legal protection and fiscal safeguards afforded by civil partnerships than sexual couples? If not, why do they continue to reject both the argument that they should extend civil partnerships to long-term cohabiting couples and the suggestion that they should address that discrimination through other means—for a start, by reforming the rules governing inheritance tax so that bereaved survivors of a sibling couple are at least spared losing the joint home to inheritance tax on the death of the first sibling? I am in touch with a large number of elderly siblings who have lived together, often all their lives, in committed and caring relationships. They simply cannot understand why the Government refuse to recognise them as a single legal unit or give them any help whatever by other means.

Take Beatrice and Mary, sisters whose mother was widowed in their teens and whom they looked after throughout their adult lives in their jointly owned home until her death at the age of 100. The sisters are now 91 and 87. When one of them dies, the survivor will face an inheritance tax bill so hefty on her sister’s share of the estate that there will be nothing left of their joint savings for her own care. If they were civil partners who had known each other for just a few weeks, they would be spared.

A responsible Conservative Government must recognise the value of arrangements such as that of Beatrice and Mary, bring an end to this injustice and finally put the family, in all its manifestations, back where it belongs: at the heart of Conservative social policy. The regulations advance the principle of equality in human affairs—although perhaps not as fully as many would wish—and that is very important, but Conservatives should be no less concerned with the welfare of families in all their forms.