Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Lord Vinson Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vinson]

My Lords, when the history of our times comes to be written, this debate will be a good example of the seismic shift in social customs that can happen over such a short period as a generation, albeit in this case accelerated by the European Convention on Human Rights.

Much has been said already, which I would not wish to repeat, but with gay marriage the coalition proposes to alter fundamentally the most important social structure ever known to mankind. The quest for fairness now moves on to demand uniformity. The ramifications of the Bill are endless. One can wholly sympathise with the homosexual wish for equivalence and fairness, but how can you make something equal that is inherently different? You cannot make something that is biologically different the same. It defies common sense. In practice, the redefinition of marriage will be one word with at least two meanings—one acceptable, and the other a muddle to others.

Many people say that this does not really matter, but equally many other people think that it does matter because it is confusing and, they believe, it weakens the whole nature of parenting and family, a point made to me time and again in the numerous letters that I have received. Not only will the word “marriage” be expected in future to cover numerous different sexual relations, but at the same time the terms “husband” and “wife” will lose their current meaning. They will become sexless words. We have already seen this used in this House; I refer to the marriage and civil partnerships debate of 15 December 2011. Even in Spain, the Government have changed the words “father” and “mother” to the words “progenitor A” and “progenitor B”. All official documents follow this. Under EU pressure, no doubt we will do the same.

All this is bound to have a destabilising and confusing effect on children and the existing concept of family. Marriage is not just a public expression of love between two people; it is also the joining together of two families through consanguinity or bloodline. By its nature, homosexual marriage can never do this. Consanguinity and procreation are the two deeply underlying structures that exist in marriage—the union between two families, two tribes, two dynasties, that are linked by their bloodline thereafter for mutual support and protection, to give security and succour to their members. Still today in India you will hear people say, “My grandchildren are my pension”.

When Beveridge introduced the welfare state, he foresaw that the national form of social security might well undermine the family. He was right. We increasingly see the state taking over family care, looking after grandfathers and grandmothers in their dotage, rather than it being the duty of the offspring. As our nation’s ability to fund the welfare state comes increasingly into question and above all shows itself up as a hideously expensive substitute for our fractured western families, it is surely inappropriate at this time to weaken the nature of marriage and the family, which have always been the bedrock of society.

Every bit of modern research emphasises that children with stable family backgrounds are naturally advantaged. This should be encouraged by the state in every possible way. Teachers report that they are having to cope with children who are confused and have no natural sense of right and wrong, and find this a growing problem. The familial framework must be supported. There will come a time when the state cannot cope, and that might come sooner than we think.

Fifty years ago, those who criticised Christ were persecuted; today, those who promote Christ are prosecuted. Whatever the outcome of today’s debate, we must look for stronger safeguards that implement the deeply held traditional views of those who cannot accept change. We need the sort of legal protection given to conscientious objectors in the last war, which was fought to allow the very freedoms of expression and thought that are under attack today.

The consequences of the Bill could be profoundly damaging. If you mix up values and edges are no longer defined, it is like mixing many paints together; the end result is a dull, amorphous and confusing moral mess. The wider concept of family and marriage must be protected and clearly defined. These timeless institutions, the structure of every civilisation to date, should be reinforced, and we must be very careful not to harm them. For that reason, I will vote for the amendment.

Health and Safety: Common Sense Common Safety

Lord Vinson Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vinson]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Young, on introducing this debate on Common Sense Common Safety. I so hope that his positive mind will soon be back at the centre of government.

The more society is regulated, the less room there is for common sense. Regulation becomes so all pervasive in the official mind that there is no room for natural morality. I should like particularly to draw your Lordships’ attention to the effects on society of the safety regulations that are being introduced by the Independent Safeguarding Authority and the Criminal Records Bureau.

Unintentionally, and yet insidiously, we are developing an unhealthy culture of suspicion that is the antithesis of the big society which the coalition, and indeed the country at large, would like to be developed. CRB vetting now includes 16 year-olds teaching younger kids to read, parents volunteering at school, and foster carers and friends running after-school clubs. All are subject to more stringent security tests for those activities than for selling explosives. Why not include postmen, milkmen and van delivery drivers? Where will it all end?

Of course, no parent wishes to see their children damaged by the action of paedophiles, but, in overall national terms, the level of aggressive paedophilia is minute and the incidents are vastly overblown by the press. A parent might think that the work of the Criminal Records Bureau safeguards their children, but that is in fact a total delusion. The Criminal Records Bureau can record only those who have had a criminal record, not those who have tendency to criminality; such people still get the job. The fact remains that most cases of paedophilia are caused by near neighbours, close relations or online operators, none of whom comes under the vetting procedures. The whole vetting exercise gives an illusion of probity without actually achieving the serious ends that it purports to achieve.

While some may welcome this illusion as being better than nothing, we are building up a society of mistrust, which even discourages adults from stepping in to help children in trouble for fear of being considered potential molesters and being reported to the police. Increasingly, we live in a society where adults distrust each other, and children are taught to regard everyone with suspicion. Paradoxically, vetting schemes further undermine the concept that the best protection for children is the vigilance of other adults.

Millions of people now face checks—many of them volunteers who particularly resent being told that they have to register with the ISA before continuing to offer the service that they have been providing for years. Such vetting assumes that people are guilty until proven innocent, and is gravely undermining the voluntary sector just at the point where we need it more. The bureaucracy to which volunteers are subjected is completely out of proportion to the informal and low-key nature of their activities. Checks cover flower arranging in a cathedral, working on a local newsletter, visiting elderly people to chat and do crosswords, or listening to children read in a school.

Child protection rules mean that volunteers are treated with suspicion and are subjected to humiliating and invasive procedures such as being accompanied to the toilet in schools, being asked to wear ID badges including their CRB number, and even being asked to list all their places of residence for the past 10 years. It is no wonder that volunteers feel totally disrespected or find the procedures insulting. They do not want to reveal personal information or have someone rummaging through their personal details. They resent paying £64 to the registering authority when they are giving their time for free. No wonder the CRB checks are killing voluntarism; indeed, they are a dagger at its heart.

As things stand, imagine a school trip being cancelled when a vetted mother, who was to accompany the children, falls ill and another requisite character cannot be found. Well, the simple way around all this is, of course, for all adults to be registered, and that is precisely what will happen. The logic is that the majority of the adult population will sooner or later find themselves on the vetting database. That cannot make sense. The whole procedure is doing far more harm than good and destroys the very roots of a caring society. Indeed, it is more likely to put our children in greater jeopardy, because instead of relying, as we used to, on references or word-of-mouth recommendations and common-sense observation, we rely on the vetting and barring scheme which, by its very nature, is far from infallible. All the bits of paper in the world cannot predict what someone is going to do.

It is good that the Government are considering scaling back the whole procedure to common-sense levels. However, therein lies a problem. These schemes are doing immense harm to our whole way of life, our national psyche and trust between individuals. The Government should have the courage to scrap these schemes or society will destroy itself. However, if, in an effort to change, the Government have to take the route to abolition step by step, they could at least first exclude all volunteers from any vetting or barring scheme. A mother should not be required to register on a vetting database before she goes to her child’s school. The process of CRB-checking volunteers is a common policy of councils, voluntary organisations and sports bodies, which is enforced by official bodies such as Ofsted and the Child Protection in Sport Unit. The process leads to more than 700,000 CRB checks every year and probably achieves next to nothing. Councils should be told that this is unnecessary, harmful and wrong.

The Government must roll back the child protection bureaucracy from at least voluntary activity, which is currently obstructed by many over-the-top child protection rules. These are as off-putting and as damaging as CRB checks themselves; and therein lies the problem of excessive precaution and over-interpretation—a point well made by the noble Lord, Lord Young, in his introduction.

In conclusion, I recommend a book that puts this far better than I can: Licensed to Hug by Professor Frank Furedi, published by Civitas. Its very title explains the damage that we are doing to our society, which between us we must try to prevent. The harmful futility of the work done by the Criminal Records Bureau, albeit with the best intentions, is another example of the damaging effects and the unintended consequences of overregulation. Sadly, it is only one example of the many hundreds of bad regulations that are not only destroying sensible and good human relationships but doing incalculable harm to our economy through the inefficiencies that they incur and the mistrust that they engender. We in this House all hope that the debate secured by my noble friend Lord Young will see a return to proportion and common sense in the regulatory world.