Registration of Marriage Bill [HL]

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 26th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to make a brief contribution in support of this small but highly significant Private Member’s Bill on the registration of marriage. I pay tribute to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Alban’s for introducing the Bill into your Lordships’ House and to my right honourable friend Dame Caroline Spelman for tabling it another place. They are to be congratulated on their wonderful collaboration in ensuring that this Bill secures a Second Reading as soon as possible.

Just over a year ago my daughter was married, so from recent personal experience, I know that from being at the heart of all the wedding preparations, decision-making and stress, when it came to the document that gave legal status to the marriage, my name and my son-in-law’s mother’s name were airbrushed out of the picture, as is the case for all other mothers. It is time that this anomaly was put right, and moving from a paper-based system to an electronic one will allow this to happen.

My thinking, and chatting to my daughter and friends—my daughter was appalled; she had not realised my name was not on her wedding certificate—raised a question to which I do not know the answer. As my mother taught me that if you are unsure you should always ask the question, even if it seems glaringly obvious, here goes: under the present law, what happens if someone does not know who their father is? Is there simply a gap, or does the certificate say, “Father unknown”? At least by adding the mother’s name to the register, in the vast majority of cases one relative would be named on the marriage certificate.

I realise that when something seems simple, it is not always easy to rectify. There can be unintended consequences and costs, but the way the Bill seeks to overcome that is to be congratulated. The means by which this is to happen—the signing of a certificate that is then handed to the registrars for input on to the electoral register—has another benefit, in that it will still allow for those lovely photographs of signing the register, which are often some of the most special in a wedding album.

I do not know whether your Lordships are watching the BBC documentary “A Vicar’s Life”, which follows three vicars in Hereford and south Shropshire. If not, I suggest that you get it on catch-up. One of the vicars, Nicholas Lowton, has important documents stolen when thieves break into his church and take an old box. They later discard the documents, which are found in a field and returned to the church damp. I now know from watching that episode that to stop mildew growing on important papers that have got wet, you simply cover them up and put them in the freezer—an important life skill that we should all be aware of. But it made me realise that, lovely as they are, paper-based records are vulnerable, so there is another benefit to the electronic register as well as certificates, which could be stolen.

Finally, I pay tribute to the country’s registrars. They were enormously helpful when my daughter was married and I wish them well in accommodating the changes the Bill will bring when, as I sincerely hope it will, it reaches the statute book. I give it my wholehearted support.