Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Lords Chamber

I am of the view that the proposal before us in this Bill mitigates against any opportunity for reconciliation. Therefore, I have put before your Lordships an alternative that opens up the room for dialogue between partners to a marriage. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, which I very much hope the Minister accepts. This amendment has two important virtues.

First, as has been noted, it creates an environment for the 20-week period during which there is a chance for genuine reconciliation. The divorces between 2003 to 2016 tell their own very important story. It must be right not to condemn the process to failure from the start by encouraging a statement of irretrievable breakdown without the need for any prior warning. Under the current law, the only way to move to irretrievable breakdown in the absence of unreasonable behaviour, such as adultery, is through a prolonged period of separation, such that a formal notice of divorce cannot come as a surprise. By contrast, under this Bill, being presented with a statement of irretrievable breakdown could be the first you know of a difficulty. How did such an extraordinary proposal get past the family test? I rather suspect that we are still waiting for the family test to take place.

The second virtue of this arrangement is that it treats the respondent with greater respect. One of the things that disturbs me most about this Bill is that it seems to have been fashioned with the interests of one party in mind—the petitioner—and demonstrates little or no regard for the respondent, or any children who might be caught up in the divorce process. It currently stands as a petitioner’s charter. The Bill gives the petitioner the power to suddenly announce that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, from which point there is absolutely nothing that the respondent can do to get any kind of fair hearing if they disagree. While this amendment does not completely reverse the shift in power from the respondent to the petitioner, it will at least give the respondent the opportunity to have a voice and express their perspective during the reflection period in the limited but important sense that the termination of the relationship is, for that time, not a foregone conclusion. The petitioner has made a statement that they think the relationship may have broken down but there is, in this statement, something of a question and an opportunity for the respondent to engage: they are not being presented with a fait accompli.

It may be that at the end of the 20-week period the response of the respondent has not resulted in the petitioner feeling that the marriage can continue. It may have brought them both to a place where they conclude that they need to make a statement of irretrievable breakdown but, crucially, the respondent will have been given a period of time during which they will be fully aware that the future of their marriage is in the balance and during which they can take steps, if they wish to do so, to see whether the relationship can be saved.

As our law, in providing the option of marriage, gives a couple the opportunity to make a lifelong commitment, something would be very wrong if that same law allowed one party to make without any prior warning a statement of irretrievable breakdown, from which point the other party would have no kind of credible voice to express a contrary view. This cannot be right, which is why I strongly support Amendment 1.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I was a family judge for 35 years and spent a great deal, if not most, of my time dealing with families who were divorcing. This is an excellent Bill and few of the amendments ought to go through, except for those of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, on the Henry VIII clauses, which require consideration.

The view that I take about this Bill is strongly supported by Exeter University and the Nuffield Foundation’s detailed research, led by Professor Liz Trinder at Exeter, and by Resolution, which has 6,500 family solicitor members who care deeply about looking after their clients, as I know as an honorary member. I am sorry to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and what has just been said, but the evidence from the research is that the majority of people know perfectly well when a marriage has irretrievably broken down. A respondent to whom such a matter comes as a complete surprise would be very much the exception.

The research shows that the current system, and any system that takes a long time, is likely to be adverse for the children. Children are extremely important and play an important part in the background to the Bill. One of its purposes is to get the divorce over so that children suffer less. There are various ways in which we could help the children more than we do, particularly through information. Parents who are deciding to divorce—the petitioner and the respondent—should be given an information pack which would explain the impact on the children of disagreements between the parents. Perhaps the most important thing I learned as a judge is that in almost every case the children love both parents, and if parents are seriously at odds with each other, they do not realise that the children love the other parent as much as they love them. Such an information pack would be extremely helpful.

The way in which the noble Lord, Lord McColl, wants to delay this is contrary to the current detailed research and earlier research in the 1980s and 1990s. All these amendments will not be helpful—other than, as I have said, the two amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti—and I hope your Lordships will think that the Bill should go through largely unopposed.

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Moved by

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 12, at end insert “first consider whether a divorce order is in the interests of any child of the family and, if the court is satisfied that it is, then”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the courts to take the wellbeing of any children in the family into account before granting a divorce order to end a marriage.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I shall also speak to my Amendment 14 to Clause 3.

At Second Reading, I expressed concerns about how the proposals in this Bill would bring a profound shift in power from the respondent to the petitioner, because they propose that the petitioner should be able to initiate the divorce with no notice and that the respondent should have no right to contest.

Rather than exhibiting a balanced concern for both parties to the marriage, this Bill is, to a greater a degree than is wise, a petitioner’s charter. In its fervour to create a good outcome for the petitioner and the busy court system, however, this Bill demonstrates not only a lack of regard for the respondent but a complete lack of credible regard for any children involved.

We must not forget that this momentous life event we are debating in this Bill is not merely a life event for children but is officially classified as an ACE—an adverse childhood experience. Adverse childhood experiences greatly increase the likelihood of children facing damaging impacts on health and other social outcomes, such as alcoholism, misuse of prescription drugs, depression, heart disease and intimate partner violence.

My concern in tabling my amendment is that we must have the best interests of the children at the forefront of our thinking, not the objective of delivering the petitioner his divorce as quickly as possible. I am, of course, very aware that some have sought to argue that the proposals in this Bill—in removing fault—are motivated by a desire to minimise acrimony and to make the divorce process as amicable as possible, precisely because this will help any children involved. As I will demonstrate, however, this assertion, which at first glance seems to make sense, is in fact deeply problematic.

First, we need to understand that the vast majority of marriages that end at the moment are already low in conflict. Data from the survey Understanding Society shows that high-conflict warring couples are a rarity among married couples who split in the UK, comprising only 9% of those who split up. In contrast, 60% of married couples who split up were low-conflict and had reported a degree of happiness. Notwithstanding this fact, however, Judith Wallerstein, who conducted a 25-year study on the impact of divorce on children concluded:

“Findings from this study challenge the central assumption of our court policy: namely, that if parents refrain from conflict, issues around custody, contact, and economic support will be settled expeditiously, both parents will resume their parenting roles, and the child will resume her normal developmental progress. But it is manifestly misguided to expect that muting conflict between divorced parents by itself will reinstate the course of parenting observed in intact families.”

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[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

I entirely support the amendment of the noble Baroness. Does she agree that while we talk about the reasons for the mental health of young people, austerity, local councils and educational support, we rarely talk about family? We never talk about parents and we never talk about absent fathers. Does she agree that as a country we are in grave danger of completely ignoring the huge distress and permanent damage done to children every year?

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

I entirely and completely agree with the noble Lord.

[Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia]

Some of the damage could be avoided by proper education before people have children, to avoid the distress of having children with the wrong person. There is very little education in school to support that.

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We have all the flexibility that we require. We have the means by which the court can have regard to the best interests of the children—whether arising before, during or after divorce—and there is no call to contaminate the divorce process with the interests of the children process, which is already addressed very fully and, as some noble Lords have observed, very effectively, by the legislation introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, when he was Lord Chancellor. It is in these circumstances that I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, which has been extremely interesting and wide-ranging. Despite what has been said, the role of children and the effect on them of divorce proceedings would not have had anything like the prominence that it has had but for this amendment. I did not realise that the family test assessment is available; I was going to suggest having a meeting before Report with that as a central feature. Maybe noble Lords on all sides of the argument could come together. Clearly, we need to discuss all this on Report. All noble Lords who have taken part, with their very strong feelings and differing views, must be glad that children are a central part of all the proceedings. With that in mind, unless the Minister would like meetings for further discussion before Report, I will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am perfectly happy to have meetings on this or any other issues that may arise before Report, and to have the relevant officials present. I hope I have expressed clearly our position regarding the distinction between the divorce process and the interests of children, but I am perfectly content to have a meeting.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

It would be desirable to have some meetings. Under the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.