Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Baroness Anelay of St Johns Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 18th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Hodgson for sponsoring the Bill in this House. I endorse her comments about the hard work carried out by my honourable friend Tim Loughton in another place.

I support all the provisions in the Bill but, in the interests of time, given that two Private Members’ Bills are waiting in the wings, I will address my remarks only to the first part of the Bill, which enables the registration of the names of the mother of each party to a marriage or civil partnership. I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, who has worked hard, with good grace and patience, to bring forward this reform. Of course, he started by introducing his own, more narrowly focused, Registration of Marriage Bill last January. I spoke at its Second Reading in strong support of its objectives.

Since 1837, wedding certificates have featured simply the names and occupations of the spouses and the names and occupations of their fathers. Mothers’ contribution to family life has been erased from history. Being a witness was the only thing they could do, which is what happened in my case: both my mother and my mother-in-law were witnesses. Now we have the chance to ensure that the details of the couple’s mothers can be included on the online version. This would be the first major reform of how marriages are registered since 1837, early in Queen Victoria’s reign. This is a Bill to put right what most people would be astonished to find is still the case in 2019. For some years, there has been a cross-party campaign to achieve this move towards equality in the registration of details on marriage. I am very pleased to see that remain; I hope that this cross-party work continues throughout the passage of the Bill.

Previously, it was argued that changing the paper certificates would be too expensive because there are around 84,000 open marriage registers around the country in more than 30,000 churches and religious buildings—plus the ones in register offices—and because, in compliance with existing legislation, physically they feature spaces for only the fathers’ names. If the mothers’ names were to be added, it was argued that new hard copy registers would need to be provided, at an estimated cost of £3 million. The Bill removes the requirement for paper marriage register books to be held in so many places, creating a digital marriage schedule. That should enable the schedule to be designed in a format that makes it possible to include the names of both parents of the couple.

When my noble friend the Minister responded in Committee on the right reverend Prelate’s Bill to Amendment 12, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester—who I see in his place—she said:

“To clarify, by the names of the parents it will say ‘Mother/Father/Parent’ for both parents. That will apply to children of opposite-sex couples, same-sex couples and whatever we have to come”.—[Official Report, 29/6/18; col. 345.]


For the avoidance of doubt and for clarification about the provisions of the Bill, I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could confirm that Clause 1(1) and 1(4)(a) make it not only possible, but certain, that her commitment in this House will be fulfilled. Can she confirm that it is her firm expectation that the Secretary of State and the Registrar-General will exercise their powers in a way that ensures that the “Mother/Father/Parent” option appears on the schedule, and that it remains possible for people to leave the section blank if they wish?

In Committee, my noble friend the Minister also said that,

“the regulations are an early draft and further drafting is required … I will make further drafts of the regulations available in the Library in due course”.—[Official Report, 29/6/18; col. 341.]

I am grateful to the Library of this House for providing me with a copy of those draft regulations and to the Home Office for providing the Library with an updated version last night so that I could see the latest version. Speed-reading through the regulations on my iPhone last night was quite tricky but, at first sight, they do not appear to refer specifically to “Mother/Father/Parent”. Indeed, they seem simply to replicate the provisions of Clause 1(1) and (4), which gives permissive powers to the Secretary of State and the Registrar-General to prescribe the content of a marriage schedule. It is important that we have a government commitment on the record today that those powers will be used, as I am sure my noble friend the Minister will be able to say quite easily, to enable the entry of the mother’s name on the marriage record. I invite my noble friend to provide that assurance.

The road to this stage, where we have a Private Member’s Bill that stands a good chance of getting on to the statute book, has been long and winding. Even where there is cross-party support, Private Members’ Bills are the most fragile animals in Parliament. After Second Reading on 26 January last year, we made progress on the right reverend Prelate’s Bill; it made its way down the Corridor to the House of Commons in late July, just as we rose for the Summer Recess. At the same time, my right honourable friend Dame Caroline Spelman, the Second Church Estates Commissioner, had introduced the mirror-image Registration of Marriage (No. 2) Bill—this gets more complicated, I promise—to the House of Commons on 14 November 2017 and was waiting for its Second Reading.

I congratulate my right honourable friend Dame Caroline for working so assiduously on this matter for several years. She made it clear that she was ready to assist her honourable friend Tim Loughton with his more complex—but I still say welcome—Bill, which last year had been successful in getting a date for Second Reading in the Commons. His Bill successfully completed its Commons scrutiny and is before us today. Dame Caroline offered to ensure that Mr Loughton’s Bill contained provisions within it which achieved the same objective as that of her Bill and that of the right reverend Prelate. She was selfless in offering to put the reforms to the registration of marriage before her efforts on her own Bill.

As a result, in Committee on Mr Loughton’s Bill in the Commons on 18 July last—that is my wedding anniversary so it was a good day for me—the marker clause in his Bill was replaced with the text from Clauses 1 and 2 of the right reverend Prelate’s Bill—I promised noble Lords that this would be complicated—on 18 July at col. 6. Therefore, Clause 1 of the Bill before us today reflects the objective and most of the text of the Bill which was sent to the House of Commons last July. I am very grateful to the Government for their assistance in ensuring that the drafting of the right reverend Prelate’s Bill has been amended to take account of the reports of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and indeed some of the reservations expressed at Second Reading and in Committee on his Bill in this House.

Previous attempts to achieve this reform have failed at every hurdle along the way. This one has got over so many hurdles that it is my hope today that we can continue with cross-party support, leave the hurdles behind and get it into law by the end of this Session.