Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL]

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for persevering in bringing this important matter before your Lordships’ House on such a regular basis. I hope that this time the Government will hear what the House is saying loud and clear.

I put my name down to speak in this debate very late yesterday, which is why I was unable to attend the several briefing sessions on the Bill that the noble Baroness held. The reason I put my name down so late was that I had not intended to speak in this debate. I thought that the work I had done in this area until about a decade ago had worn me down sufficiently that I no longer wanted to examine multiculturalism and theology, particularly Islam. However, I looked at the speakers’ list and appreciated that, of the dozen or more Muslim Peers in this House, not a single one had put their head above the parapet. As a liberal, I am afraid I frequently put my head above the parapet, so here I stand.

I turn to what the Bill is not. Many in the Muslim community say that the Bill seeks to target the Muslim community. However, I rebut that claim. This is not an anti-Muslim Bill. It could be argued that it is an anti-Muslim man Bill in that the power which might be restricted if the Bill were to pass would potentially impact on a certain category of Muslim men who are self-selecting in giving themselves powers as religious experts and theologians. Many in this House may not know that there is little religious hierarchy in Sunni Islam since its emphasis as a religion is on individual accountability and a huge amount of consensus in decision-making. That is why I refer to several of these people who sit on sharia councils as self-selecting. I argue that the Bill sets out to help not just Muslim women but all women who face discrimination through theological edicts and culture.

I did some research on this issue in 2008, when a well-respected publication wanted me to write a cover story about the impact of sharia in the United Kingdom. This followed research that had come from the think tank Policy Exchange, which found that significant numbers of Muslims in the UK wanted to be governed by sharia while living here. So I visited mosques which ran sharia councils and read a lot of literature but, most importantly, I spoke to men and women about why they undertook to marry or settle disputes under sharia in any event when other remedies were available. The reason most frequently given to me was that it was an expression of identity, particularly for young women. That was frequently accompanied by another reason—namely, that Jewish people have their own court, so why not us? It has been implied in the House today that there is an assumption that it is mainly newly arrived people who turn to sharia councils to settle their marital disputes. However, I found that this practice was becoming a trend among second, third and fourth-generation women, who were using identity politics as an excuse to define themselves.

A further and more difficult reason was that the young women were coerced by family to undertake this kind of marriage. As we heard when the forced marriage legislation was going through this House, it is very hard for a young person, in a culture which venerates family and community, to go against the perceived wisdom. To say to parents—and indeed to extended family members, as you may well be marrying a cousin—that you are doing so to seek legal protection in the union puts you in the position of effectively saying that you do not trust the other side, and you expect to need legal protection. In other words, you are challenging the bona fides of the other side. How many 17, 18 or 19 year-olds in these communities would be able to do that?

I turn to another aspect under Clause 2, which deals with inheritance. It is true that the treatment of the division of an estate is discriminatory and that this inequality is seldom challenged. My own experience was very different on the demise of my mother. She was highly educated and would have been described as a feminist. She was so troubled by the idea of treating her daughters unequally in Pakistan that she discovered, unusually, that even in that country—a Muslim country— if she made a will setting out a different allocation of assets than that prescribed under sharia, it would be legal. The key was that she had to make a will. She did this, and my late brother, a great liberal and champion of equality, did not demur, even though he was the great loser under that settlement.

The problem here is that if you do not have the strength to challenge the system, which is your family and community, you are unable to seek legal protection. The presumption within the community that the man has greater rights is so entrenched that it is very difficult to assert otherwise. That is why the mere existence of the law on the statute books would make a profound difference to the lives of many women in this country. We should support the Bill on that basis.