Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill (First sitting)

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

Q But in terms of that direction and that messaging, if you are no longer the applicant, although you are the one applying, that changes the whole sense of who is fighting for this, because the financial arrangement side is still often a fight.

David Hodson: It does not—forgive me. You would often have a petitioner for a divorce who may actually be the respondent to the financial claims. It gets awfully confusing, but you would often have the petitioner, who actually seeks the divorce under our present law, and it may be the respondent—maybe the wife—who then makes the application in form A, because she needs the financial provision, and she would be called the applicant in the financial claims. Because they are financial proceedings, they are separate to the divorce and they have a separate court hearing. She is the applicant and she would actually be the one who would control the entire timetable. She would be the one who made the opening speeches if they were at a hearing. She is the one who would actually be the applicant. The divorce is literally divorced from the financial process apart from two or three dates, and completely divorced from domestic violence and children proceedings—and rightly so.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Q To be clear, the Law Society would like us not to take out clause 6. I have yet to see what the views of the others are. Is that because you are against Henry VIII clauses generally, or do you think one is particularly inappropriate in this Bill? This is being put forward as an uncontentious Bill, but that is rather undermined by the desire to get it through simply and quickly without amendment. There is an attempt to have your cake and eat it by leaving in the ability to amend it completely in future.

David Hodson: Clause 6 must stay in; there has to be the power for Government—for the Ministry of Justice—to bring in statutory instruments. We are saying that if the Ministry of Justice has in mind any changes, and if there are certain elements within the structure of the process of divorce that are in question, let us debate and understand them now, have a discussion, and bring them in there. That is certainly not to suggest that there should be a much longer process and much longer clause 1. If some of these items—not a lot; just a few of them—that we have put in the Law Society briefing paper are going to be considered, they should be brought forward and discussed now.

Nigel Shepherd: Resolution is relaxed about the current structure of the Bill. We feel that we can proceed with this as this is, and we can deal with some of these details in secondary legislation. Again—I am banging the same drum—our primary focus is on removing fault from this process, and that is what we want to get over the line.

[Andy Slaughter]

Q You want to get that through quickly before we mangle it. Then you are happy to trust Government to do whatever they like in the future in this area of law. Is that your view?

Nigel Shepherd: We cannot ignore the current political uncertainty and the priorities elsewhere. We are delighted that time has been found for this, and we do not want to lose it.

[Andy Slaughter]

Q It is just slightly suspicious. The same thing happened with the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. There was a desperate rush to get it through without bolting anything on. Then we had to have a series of short Acts, some of them private Member’s Bills, dealing with issues of relationships. There were lots of other things we could have dealt with in the Act, such as cohabitation and humanist marriage, and we dealt with equal civil partnerships in other ways. You just want to get this through and done.

Nigel Shepherd: Yes, exactly. Are there other things that we would like to do? Yes. We would like to get legal aid back, at least for early advice, to help couples and steer them towards mediation and in the right direction. Yes, we would like to reform the law for cohabitants, to give protection to the vulnerable. It is just that this is not the Bill to do that. When I say that we are relaxed at Resolution about the secondary legislation point, it is not that we think that the primary legislation is flawed, but are just ignoring that to get it through. We think it is fine, but there are details that clearly can be dealt with in secondary legislation, and we are comfortable with that.

David Hodson: Would it be helpful if I explained one of the primary concerns of the Law Society? It relates to the respondent—forgive me for using that language; the person receiving a sole petition. When does the 26-week period run? At the moment, under this legislation, it runs when the petitioner—again, forgive me for using the old-fashioned language—sends the petition to the court. When it is served, it is served through a period of notice, and there are service provisions. The legislation intends for the 26 weeks to run from that date, but the respondent may get it weeks—sometimes many weeks—later, because there are delays at the court; I do not make any further points on that, but it may take weeks, sometimes longer, for it to be issued. If somebody is abroad, the period of service may be longer. There may be a need to find the person.

In our opinion, we have fairly arbitrary, unfair, discriminatory provisions for the respondent spouse, who, we must remember, may not know this is coming. There may not have been a letter before action. They may be surprised to know how seriously the other spouse was thinking of ending the marriage—“Oh, I didn’t realise it was such a bad state that they would issue a divorce petition.” Perhaps they are not living together and the person has to be found.

It is wrong and, we believe, quite unfair for some spouses to have 24 or 20 weeks, and others to have 15 weeks, if it takes longer to serve. One of the fundamental elements of what the Law Society wants is to make it clear that the 26 weeks—if that is what Parliament deems is the right and appropriate period—run not only for the petitioner who issues the petition, but for all respondents, from the date they receive it.

The Ministry of Justice consultation period ums and ahs—my words, not theirs—as to whether the period should run from the date of the start of proceedings or the date of service, and in the end has eventually come down on the date of the start of proceedings, but they admit there is good reason for it to be from the date of service. It has to be from the date of service; otherwise, it is grossly unfair, and we are creating a law where some respondents have 24 or 23 weeks. That cannot possibly be right. If Parliament decrees that we should have a divorce after 26 weeks’ notice, that should not be the notice given by one spouse; it should be the notice received by the other. When we talk about whether to have clause 6, that is one of the fundamental elements that we say should be debated and discussed in this forum, and more publicly, to see how we feel about respondents having far less than 26 weeks.

[The Chair]

I am conscious of the time, and I want to bring the Minister in shortly. Does anyone else have a simple, straightforward question they have not had a chance to put yet? I guess it is over to you, Minister.