Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

Very briefly, I shall build on the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. We are often obsessed with a view of what is normal, as if in every classroom in the land all children come from a traditional, normal background. I know from the children whom I come across daily in schools that they know from their own experience that their friends come from single-parent families, whether through bereavement, divorce, separation, kinship carers, foster parents and, yes, children of civil partnerships. Some children know that they were born by IVF and have more than two parents. The father of one child I know married the woman who had first been his mother-in-law, and later she became his step-sister-in-law before becoming his wife. That is something to do with family values in the 21st century.

The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about the value of a stable relationship is absolutely key—and that is what the research should be looking at. The research quoted from Cambridge already demonstrates that there is really strong evidence in that sort of same-sex relationship.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I am building again on the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. There is no need to attach this amendment to this Bill. The Secretary of State is already bound to provide guidance to teachers under all circumstances, and will do so with regard to this Bill in the right and appropriate manner. This is not the way to do it. The amendment is not appropriate, as noble Lords can see if they read it themselves that the research is commissioned in this Bill.

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[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, perhaps I may deal briefly with this in bullet form. The point that has just been made about parenting is totally irrelevant to what this Bill seeks to achieve, and it is certainly irrelevant in terms of the amendment before us, to which the noble Lord, Lord Singh, did not really speak. When he does, I think we would be interested to hear why, under subsection (9), on those who would vote in the referendum, he would exclude Members of your Lordships’ House.

We keep hearing about public opinion as if somehow it is divided—no, it is not. Every poll that has put the question in a neutral way has produced a very clear result. What is remarkable about opinion is not that it is divided but how consistent it has been. As Lewis Baston has written in the latest issue of Total Politics:

“A typical result for a neutrally worded question is support somewhere in the low- to mid-50 per cent range and opposition in the mid-30 per cent range”,

before concluding:

“While there may be some legislative twists and turns in the House of Lords, the battle for public opinion has been won by supporters of SSM”.

With that consistency, there is really no need to consult. The position is quite clear.

In terms of holding a referendum anyway, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, pointed out, at the end of the previous Parliament the Constitution Committee produced a very thorough report on referendums, weighing the arguments for and against, and concluded that if they were going to be held, they should be not only on constitutional issues but fundamental constitutional issues. Not only is this not really a constitutional issue; it certainly does not qualify as a fundamental constitutional matter.

It is essentially a matter of social policy. Parliament has legislated on significant social policy before. This would be on a par with abortion and divorce, which, as I recall, were not manifesto commitments and not issues on which anybody was really suggesting that there should be referendums. So if we are going to start saying that we should have referendums on social issues, there are wider implications. We would need to consider it very thoroughly before we went down that route. There is absolutely no merit in the amendment before us and I hope that we do not pursue it.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, you have to hand it to the people who do not like this Bill. They really do not like this Bill and they are fighting it right to the very end, and that is what this is about. They are perfectly within their rights to do that, and I particularly enjoyed the heartfelt plea of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, in this debate.

I am not going to repeat all the arguments that have been made. I simply refer your Lordships to the noble Lords, Lord Fowler, Lord Pannick and Lord Norton, my noble friend Lord Alli and my other noble friends who have spoken in this debate. They are absolutely right.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Martin, that actually the votes were free votes. This was not a question of the Government and the Labour Opposition. They were free votes. There were Members on all sides—

[Baroness O'Loan]

I would just like to ask the noble Baroness whether the Labour Party votes on Monday were all free votes. There was an understanding that some of them were whipped.

[Baroness Thornton]

The noble Baroness knows very well the answer to that question. All the votes about the principle of this Bill were free votes in both Houses. We in the Labour Party made it completely clear that we would whip on two issues only, which were issues of public policy to do with teachers and registrars, and that is what we did. We have been completely clear, open and honest about what we were going to do.

As the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said, the fundamental issue here and particularly in the Commons—the democratic House—is that all those MPs have to go back and face their constituents about this issue. They will have to face them every week about this issue. So they would not have voted on a free vote for this Bill had they not felt it was the right thing to do. That is exactly what they should do.

Frankly, the idea that noble Lords in this House are somehow pushovers or sheep to be led through the Division Lobbies is completely absurd, as this debate shows. If I might repeat what I said in Committee, this amendment is a nonsense and the House needs to reject it.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, Amendments 96 and 134 seek to provide in the Bill for a referendum on marriage of same-sex couples, to be held on or after 24 October 2013. I recognise that the date has been brought forward somewhat from the amendment that we discussed in Committee; otherwise, it is very nearly identical to that amendment, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, supported by my noble friend Lord Cormack and the noble Lord, Lord Singh.

It will come as no surprise to the House that the Government are unable to accept these amendments. We do not believe it is a sensible course of action, nor is it required. I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Singh, said in moving his amendment, and I recognise his strength of feeling on this issue. As he knows, he and I do not agree on the principle of the Bill. Nevertheless, I profoundly respect not only his view but the depth of feeling with which he holds it.

There are one or two points that I wish to take up on this matter. There was one practical matter to start with. The noble Lord almost suggested that it was a conspiracy that the Government could put my noble friend Lady Stowell’s letter into the Library, but somehow his could not be. That is just the way the House operates. However, what I can say is that the Government can place documents in the House Library and if the noble Lord would like me to, I am happy to place a copy of his reply to my noble friend Lady Stowell in the Library, and would be pleased to do so if he feels it would be helpful to the debate.

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[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, Amendment 123A replaces government Amendment 123, which, as I explained to the House on Monday, the Government were considering withdrawing and have just done so.

To give a little background, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee reported on this Bill in its fourth report of the Session. We are most grateful to the committee for its comments and recommendations, to which we responded in a series of amendments that the House debated on Monday. One of the recommendations of the committee was that regulations made under Clause 9, which deals with the conversion of civil partnerships, should be made by the Secretary of State rather than the Registrar-General and should be subject to the affirmative procedure on first use because it was not clear that all such provisions would be purely administrative in nature.

We were happy to accede to this recommendation but were also conscious that, in the future, the Registrar-General may need to update her administrative procedures. To require regulations to be made by the Secretary of State regarding such matters would be overly bureaucratic and break with the convention that the Registrar-General makes regulations relating to her functions that are purely administrative. For example, the Registrar-General already makes regulations, without any parliamentary procedure, prescribing the detail of marriage and civil partnership registration, the duties of those responsible for registration and the forms to be used.

We therefore proposed through Amendment 123, which has now been withdrawn, that the Secretary of State or the Lord Chancellor could make enabling provision for the Registrar-General to make regulations relating to administrative matters. We continue to believe that such sub-delegation is the appropriate way of dealing with these administrative details. However, as the chairman of the committee, my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester, helpfully highlighted to us before Monday’s debate, the amendment had been drafted in a way that would allow the Secretary of State or the Lord Chancellor to sub-delegate in respect of any of their order-making or regulation-making powers in the Bill.

While it was never the Government’s intention to use the proposed power in such a far-reaching way, and the use of the power was limited in any event only to where it was in connection with administrative matters relating to functions of the Registrar-General, superintendent registrars or registrars, we accept that it would not have been appropriate to move the amendment with such concerns outstanding. That is why we have tabled Amendment 123A, which is more restrictive as to the circumstances in which the Secretary of State may sub-delegate regulation-making powers to the Registrar-General. Its effect is that there are just two provisions where the Secretary of State can now exercise such a power.

The amendment states explicitly that sub-delegation may occur only where the Secretary of State considers that it is necessary in connection with the administrative functions of the Registrar-General, superintendent registrars and registrars under Clause 9, concerning conversion of civil partnerships to marriages, and Amendment 90, concerning marriage by belief organisations—if the Government in future decide to allow such marriage. We consider that the sub-delegation of regulation-making powers to the Registrar-General is necessary and appropriate in these two contexts, but it must be subject to clear restrictions. In particular, there is no power for the Secretary of State to sub-delegate provision as to fees.

Amendment 123A also makes it clear that the default position is that any delegated regulations made by the Registrar-General would attract the negative procedure, unless varied by the Secretary of State in the event that she felt that this was justified because of the nature of the particular regulations. I can assure noble Lords that any regulations of the Secretary of State’s sub-delegating powers to the Registrar-General will be put before Parliament for scrutiny.

The chairman of the committee has written today to confirm that the committee is content with the revised amendment; I am pleased about that. I hope that noble Lords will agree that this amendment is a measured and appropriate response to the committee’s concerns, which delivers our policy intention while ensuring that there can be no inappropriate use of the powers. It is extremely nice to end Report on what I hope is a constructive and consensual basis; I note that many noble Lords left the Chamber as I started. I commend Amendment 123A to the House.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that very clear exposition of this very sensible amendment. I am pleased to say that we will, of course, support it.

Amendment 123A agreed.