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

Helen Whately Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who has been such an effective campaigner on this issue, and other colleagues who have made such brave speeches about their own experience of neonatal birth and stillbirth, and losing their loved ones. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on this brilliant Bill, which my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) rather ingeniously named “the Loved Ones Bill”, a nickname that brings all its elements together.

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of meeting Denise and Dale from Boughton Monchelsea, in my constituency. They came to the House to talk to me about civil partnerships. They desperately want to make a formal commitment to each other. They want to ensure that they would both be financially protected should something happen to one of them, but they do not want to get married. They want a civil partnership, but, unlike their friends in same-sex relationships, they do not have that option.

The introduction of same-sex civil partnerships was an important step towards greater equality, putting same-sex couples on a similar legal footing as married couples and officially recognising their love and commitment in law. In 2013 we rightly introduced gay marriage, recognising that marriage has a particular status in our society, and that same-sex couples who wanted to marry should be able to do so. Paradoxically, however, opposite-sex couples are now being effectively discriminated against, as they are not given that choice. If we believe in relationship equality and giving couples the same rights and freedoms whatever their sexuality, it makes no sense to deny civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples.

I am married myself; my parents are married, as were my grandparents; but I recognise that not everyone has such good experiences of marriage. Some people see it as a patriarchal institution that oppresses women. They clearly have not met my husband and me! [Laughter.] Not all people feel that marriage is right for them, and their choice should be respected.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. She mentioned discrimination. In 2016 a heterosexual couple presented a case to the High Court, claiming that the present law discriminated against them. The case was dismissed because the judge ruled that they were not subject to humiliation or derogatory treatment as a result of their status. Surely the point is that the system discriminates de facto, irrespective of whether people are actually abused.

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend has made a very good point in citing that case.

If, for whatever reason, a couple do not feel that marriage is right for them, but want to make a strong and formal commitment to each other—and given that we have developed a model for it with civil partnerships, even if that was not the original intention—I believe that we should allow them to do so.

Furthermore, we know that children benefit from growing up in a stable family, with a couple who have a stable relationship. Not every relationship works out, and not every child will be brought up by a couple in a stable relationship, but we owe it to children to help people to form, build and sustain stable relationships, and I believe that if a civil partnership is the way in which a couple want to formalise their commitment to each other, it is wrong to stand in their way.

Let me now turn to the registration of marriages. It is clearly wrong for mothers not to sign the registers, and it is also clearly outdated. The current system does not reflect modern Britain. When the child of a single mother gets married, only the father’s name is included on the certificate, even if the child was raised by its mother alone and barely knew its father. I made a point earlier about some people’s perception of marriage. The continuation of a system that does not allow mothers to sign the marriage register may add to the view of some people that marriage is rather old-fashioned and patriarchal. That is something that we could put right.

Finally, on the registration of stillborn babies, I cannot imagine the pain of losing a baby; I remember the misery of an early miscarriage, but I find it hard to imagine how I would have felt if one of my children had been stillborn, and I have so much respect for colleagues who have spoken so courageously about their experiences, particularly the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who has spoken today, and my hon. Friends the Members for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), for Colchester and for Crawley (Henry Smith), who mentioned his own experience earlier. I have enormous respect for what they are doing in their campaign on this, and I know it is appreciated by constituents of mine who have been through stillbirth. A constituent of mine who lost a baby—I will change the name—told me:

“Emma was my daughter, she wasn’t a statistic.”

My overriding view on this matter is that we have to do better in our health system at reducing the number of stillbirths. I spent time working in maternity units and found it shocking when looking at the data and asking questions that I got the impression that it was just accepted that every year there would be nine, 10 or 11 stillbirths; that was just how it was—that was just a fact. In the particular unit where I heard that, there did not seem to be a sense of inquiry about why, and whether each one of them could have been prevented. That simply should not be accepted.

I welcome the Government’s work and the ambition to halve the stillbirth rate; that is absolutely right, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester has said, there is a huge amount going on. A crucial part of achieving that ambition is understanding what has happened when there is a stillbirth—what went wrong—through proper investigations, perhaps by an independent body. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury said, coroners investigations might not always be the right way to do that, but sometimes they might, so I welcome the inclusion of that in the Bill.

We should learn from stillbirths—or late miscarriages, as they are officially known—whenever they happen, whether after 24 weeks or before. We have heard powerful points on the registration of babies before 24 weeks, and I am conscious of time so I am not going to contribute on that. Instead, I conclude by saying that I welcome the fact that the Government are clearly listening very hard and supporting the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michelle Donelan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. We do completely disagree on this topic. His accusation that 80% of that cohort do not want to convert into marriage because they see it as something unique is a wild one. I have many friends who have a civil partnership and they choose not to convert it because they already have something that is equal—my hon. Friend is therefore backing up my point that a civil partnership is just as good as, if not the same as, marriage; it is a duplication. That is why they do not seek to convert it.

A key thrust of the case for enabling opposite-sex civil partnerships is that it would encourage commitment, helping ensure that families stay together, which all the research shows is advantageous to children—I agree with that sentiment. However, the argument is tenuous. Some 2.9 million different-sex couples living together in the UK are not married. The Equal Civil Partnerships website, which backs this campaign, states that some of those people do not want to make a legal commitment, but civil partnerships are the same thing. It cites the “trappings of the institution” as another reason but, as has been discussed, civil partnerships will effectively morph into an institution. They are the same as a marriage.

Committed relationships tend to last for just that reason—they are committed. If we add another tier, that does not necessarily mean that different people will enter into that commitment. It might actually mean that all we do is split the same pool. I am passionate about enabling and facilitating commitment and helping families to stay together, but the answer is to further promote commitment, study why relationships and families break down, and invest in those areas.

[Helen Whately]

May I pick up on my hon. Friend’s point about splitting the same pool of people who might otherwise marry into those who get married and those who have a civil partnership? I have spoken to people who would like to form a civil partnership and do not feel that marriage is the right thing for them for all sorts of reasons that should be taken seriously. They will not get married instead, and the alternative is that they do not have any legal recognition of their relationship. Will my hon. Friend address the concerns of those people who do not feel that they can get married and would like their relationship to be formally recognised as a civil partnership?