King’s Speech

Viscount Bridgeman Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak on a subject that has received some attention in your Lordships’ House: the problems facing Muslim women when involved in a divorce. The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has done a lot of work on this, and I have assisted her in a small way.

I will briefly summarise. The issue is that, in the breakdown of a marriage originally effected under sharia law in England and Wales—known as “nikah”—there are stark differences between the treatment of husbands and of wives. Take the husband first: in marriages conducted under sharia law, a husband can use the talaq procedure, which is not court-based and does not require an additional ceremony. Provided the husband says “I divorce you” three times, for him the marriage has ended. By contrast, divorced women are faced with a different and more complicated and intrusive procedure, involving a further application to a sharia court—it could be the one in which she was married—that is totally dominated by males. These sharia courts are part of the Muslim structure of religious authority and can enable nikah courts to be set up with little formality. The rights of women in divorces where the original marriage was sharia only are not recognised by civil courts in England and Wales.

The women I am talking about here frequently come from poor backgrounds, have limited education and, in many cases, have only a rudimentary command of English. They can expect to be ostracised by their families or communities, who regard the break-up of any marriage as a slur on their standing. These women, probably deeply anxious already, discover—for the first time, in many cases—that they do not have the full protection of the courts, particularly where property is involved.

My noble friend Lady Newlove started the day well by getting my printer to work, but her account of victims was truly inspiring. Of course, that is what I am talking about as well. I suggest that there is a simple solution to this problem. The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has introduced a two-clause Private Member’s Bill that would introduce an amendment to the Marriage Act 1949 and would seek to create an offence of purporting to solemnize a marriage that has not been, and will not be, legally registered. This would cover all marriages in England and Wales, but, significantly, it would require the parties in a sharia-only wedding to register the proposed marriage with the appropriate authority, giving the women the security that in many cases they presently lack. This Bill was introduced in July 2017 and has had no fewer than 10 introductions in your Lordships’ House. Of these, only one has made it to a First Reading in another place. It was prevented from advancing further only by a busy parliamentary schedule.

The Law Commission in July 2022 published a report called Celebrating Marriage: A New Weddings Law, which included a recommendation very similar to the Bill proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. This is an anomaly that really does need to be put right. The Bill proposed by the noble Baroness, by a very simple procedure, would have that effect. It is in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills in the coming Session, which will be conducted tomorrow. If it is successful, fine—but, if it is not, I remind your Lordships that this issue will not go away.