Humanist Marriages

Debate between James Davies and Crispin Blunt

Thursday 27th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered humanist marriages in England and Wales.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate in response to my application just last week. I appreciate the Committee’s immediate response to the application, but inevitably, many of the supporters I named have been unable to rearrange their diaries to speak this afternoon. However, there is support on this issue from a broad section of the political spectrum, and I hope the quality of the debate will do justice to that support.

From my own party, we have support from my hon. Friends the Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), for Wycombe (Mr Baker) and for Shipley (Philip Davies), from my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies), who I see is in his place, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mark Eastwood).

Today, 53 members of both Houses have written to the Lord Chancellor urging immediate legal recognition of humanist marriages, in the light of the recent move to recognise outdoor civil and religious marriages, which, as I will explain, has removed the last vestige of the arguments put forward by the Government for not getting on with what would be a welcome reform for so many people in our country.

Humanist weddings are non-religious wedding ceremonies that are conducted by humanist celebrants. Humanists UK defines a humanist as a non-religious person who trusts

“the scientific method when it comes to understanding how the universe works”

and does not rely on

“the idea of the supernatural…makes their ethical decisions based on reason, empathy, and a concern for human beings and other sentient animals”

and

“believes that, in the absence of”

evidence for

“an afterlife and any discernible purpose to the universe, human beings can act to give their own lives meaning by seeking happiness in this life and helping others to do the same.”

Humanist ceremonies are a manifestation of what gives our lives meaning—the meaning we create for ourselves and the happiness we bring about in others. Ceremonies, then, are a reflection of what will be most meaningful to the participants. They are built around the idea that the best ceremonies are all about the participants—their beliefs, their values, their family, their friends and their wider place in the world—and they recognise the need to be inclusive of all those attending and their diverse religions and beliefs.

I chair the all-party parliamentary humanist group with the noble Baroness Bakewell, and the secretariat is provided by Humanists UK. Humanists UK trains and accredits celebrants, particularly in conducting weddings. Such celebrants are trained specifically in how to make ceremonies as meaningful as possible for the participants, and their expertise and experience contributes to making these important moments in our journey through life of the greatest relevance and meaning to those who choose them.

The process of creating a thoughtful, meaningful and personal wedding ceremony for a couple is extensive. It is not unusual for a humanist celebrant to spend 35 to 40 hours—often even more—working closely with the couple. That is quite a lot longer than the average for most people who preside over weddings, who, in many cases, may turn up only for the marriage itself. That is because the process the humanist celebrant is engaged in is lengthy and is focused on getting to know the couple well, finding out what matters to them collectively, and helping them explore what most matters to them about each other, so that the ceremony can be as meaningful, and have as strong and lasting an impact as possible. The impact of the ceremony is reinforced by the ceremony’s being in the location most meaningful to the couple. That often means the kinds of places that already get approved as premises for civil marriages; it could be the family’s back garden, or their local beach or park. I have even heard of couples choosing to have their wedding in the very spot they met or got engaged.

The consequence of this process is that humanist marriages are more likely to last. All parties recognise the public policy benefits of stable relationships, which ought to make the legal recognition of humanist marriages an uncontroversial public good. I understand that many couples, if not most, stay in touch with the humanist celebrant who conducted their wedding for years afterwards. They highly value the process in which they engaged in getting to the wedding day and the relationship that they built with the celebrant. I rather doubt that most participants in civil marriages are still in touch with the registrar who conducted their marriage or, frankly, can remember their name.

The training to become a humanist celebrant provided by Humanists UK is an extensive process, and those who embark on it do so with no guarantee of success. Humanists UK courses run for several months and include an induction day, residential training sessions, coursework and a mentor to support the training from the outset. Once accredited—many who start the programme are not—celebrants become part of a growing national network. They are quality assured and regulated by a code of conduct, and they have a transparent complaints procedure and mandatory ongoing professional development. A former Registrar General for England and Wales, Paul Pugh, has trained to be a humanist celebrant with Humanists UK in order to conduct funerals. He certainly believes that the training provided is rigorous enough to merit legal recognition for Humanists UK celebrants, as do the Northern Ireland Executive, who also deal with Humanists UK.

Given all this, it can hardly be a surprise that humanist marriages have taken off in jurisdictions where they have been legally recognised. In Scotland, they gained recognition as long ago as 2005. In 2019, they made up some 23% of all marriages—a truly impressive figure that I understand even includes some Members of this House. In 2012, such marriages gained recognition in the Republic of Ireland, where they now account for 10% of all marriages. Since 2018, they have gained legal recognition in Northern Ireland, Jersey and Guernsey. It is early days, but I understand that the number of humanist marriages in Northern Ireland—regardless of one’s impression of religious adherence and people’s enthusiasm for it in the Province—is following precisely the same trajectory as in Scotland and Ireland.

That brings me to England and Wales, where, at present, there is no legal recognition of humanist marriages. That means that couples who have a humanist wedding—around 1,400 do so with Humanists UK every year—must also have a civil marriage separately in order to gain legal recognition. That can be a big financial burden; if the couple wish to have their wedding and marriage at the weekend, many local authorities will charge upwards of £500 for a civil marriage. That is a burden that religious couples do not face.

In addition, many local authorities are making it increasingly difficult for people to access a cheaper ceremony. There is a statutory option of around £50 that local authorities must offer, but many have taken such options off their websites. Some restrict marriages to just one registry office—for example, North Yorkshire, which is the biggest authority in the country, restricts them to just Harrogate—and many severely limit what such ceremonies can entail. Humanists UK tells of local authorities restricting attendance to the couple and their two adult witnesses, meaning that if they have children, they cannot attend. Some have banned having flowers or even exchanging rings.

Either way, such couples face distressing questions from their loved ones about which is their real marriage or when their wedding anniversary is. It is very sad that the wedding that they wish to see as their real act of commitment is not the one that the state enables—and for what purpose? Why do we not have legal recognition here? I think there are two ways of answering that question. One is to reflect on what has happened over the last decade and the justifications that the Government have given at each point in time for their behaviour, and the other is to think about what might have been going through the Government’s mind but has not been made a matter of record.

The Government gained the power to extend legal recognition of humanist marriages all the way back in 2013. The power was given to them by Parliament through the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, and it was clear at the time that there was a majority in both Houses in favour of using that power. Indeed, what the Government said at the time suggested that they intended to do so. All that stood in the way was that the relevant part of the 2013 Act mandated that the Government must consult on the matter first. Indeed, it was proper that the Government did so to determine how best to use that order-making power. The Government duly consulted in 2014, and the consultation found over 95% of people in favour of a change in the law.

What happened next was where things went off script for people who were anticipating the opportunity to have their marriage and wedding in the way that they wanted. Instead of proceeding to draft the required statutory instrument, the Minister responsible for marriage at the time, Simon Hughes, decided to refer the matter to the Law Commission for further investigation. The Government’s response to the consultation gave the following justification for that decision:

“One key difficulty concerns where belief marriages would take place… allowing belief marriages to take place at unrestricted locations would create a further difference in treatment in our marriage law”

and

“would create an inequality for the majority of religious groups and couples who are restricted to their registered place of worship. Registration services report a growing demand for outdoor marriages, and the Government is aware that allowing belief marriages in unrestricted locations may also be seen as unfair by couples who are neither religious nor humanist but who also may want a greater choice of marriage venues.”

Marriage law at that time allowed for marriages to happen outdoors if they were conducted by Quakers, Jewish groups, the Church of England or the Church in Wales. Forms of marriage other than deathbed marriages were restricted to either registered places of worship in the case of religious marriages, or register offices and other indoor approved premises in the case of civil marriages. Relatedly, it was said that the kind of piecemeal legislation being sought, and the added complexity that it would bring, was undesirable given the apparent inconsistency in existing marriage law.

The inconsistency in marriage law is clearly problematic, but I hope that colleagues will see from what I have said why outdoor weddings are particularly important in the humanist tradition. At any rate, the inconsistency does not seem to me a good justification for blocking recognition of humanist marriages as a whole. None the less, that key difficulty was used as justification to refer the whole question to the Law Commission to examine further. The Government stated:

“We wish to avoid any negative consequences that may result from undertaking further piecemeal legislation… The Government will therefore ask the Law Commission if it will begin as soon as possible a broader review of the law concerning marriage ceremonies.”

That is where the issue got firmly stuck in the long grass. In 2015, the Law Commission produced its report. It did not conduct the broader review it had been tasked with; instead, it simply concluded that, although the fact that humanist marriages were not legally recognised was unfair, the inconsistency around outdoor marriages and concerns about piecemeal reform justified its asking to do a second and even more thorough review of marriage law as a whole.

Now, the Government did not appear to have an immediate appetite for that, as they did not respond to the Law Commission proposals for some two years. When they did finally respond, in 2017, they said no to taking things further. That was the end of the road until 2018, when a humanist couple threatened litigation over the failure to extend legal recognition to humanist marriages. It is a pretty sad state of affairs that a stated Government intention to move in this area in 2013 had, by 2018, resulted in the human rights courts having to be engaged in trying to establish this right for humanists in England and Wales. Shortly after that, the Government announced they would, after all, be commissioning the larger Law Commission review. There was then a further year’s delay while the Government and the Law Commission worked to agree the terms of reference for that review.

Perhaps, if my hon. Friend the Minister is familiar with “Yes Minister”—I appreciate that that was my generation’s early-evening television rather than his—he will see that there is a certain pattern emerging. The review was meant to conclude last year, but it has been delayed further by the pandemic, and it is now expected to conclude in July.

[Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He is making some excellent points. I am here having met my constituent Dawn Davies, who is a celebrant; I know that she has been frustrated by the timescales that my hon. Friend has just outlined. Assuming that the Law Commission report does come forward in July this year, when does he anticipate that there might be legislation forthcoming for England and Wales?

[Crispin Blunt]

Well, here, of course, we are in the hands of the Minister and his colleagues in Government. I am afraid that I have lost count of the number of Ministers—Ministers of State, Under-Secretaries of State and Justice Secretaries—I have engaged with on this issue over the last few years, but it is really quite a lot. I hope that I can convince the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), that he is going to be the one to finally get this done.

The case that I seek to make is that delay is no longer tolerable, fair or reasonable. In the end, the law will take its course in the courts if people are forced to go to the European Court of Human Rights to achieve their convention rights, when it is so evident what is happening in the rest of the country. I am absolutely confident that the Minister and the Justice Secretary will clearly understand the arguments and the situation, and will finally get on and deliver this long-overdue reform.

Not all the delays are the fault of the present Government, which came to power only after the second Law Commission review got under way. One can speculate as to why the previous two Governments did not bring about legal recognition. Prime Minister David Cameron acted bravely in grasping the nettle and bringing in same-sex marriages long before many other similar jurisdictions did. However, there may have been some feeling about religious groups’ displeasure with that measure, and that may have had some influence on the appetite within Government to bring about further reforms of marriage law. Of course, those reactions are now quite unjustifiable.

That is ironic, because the Second Church Estates Commissioner, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), said in his reply to me at oral questions this morning that the Church of England is not aware of any religious groups that oppose legal recognition of humanist marriages, and that in principle the Church of England is in favour of humanists having this power. It would have been better if my hon. Friend’s answer had been clearer and less equivocal—he referred back to all the practical difficulties for the Government that have been observed over the years since 2013—but it was useful to get it on the record that the Church of England is, in principle, in favour.

This Government are a strong champion of freedom, for both individuals and in terms of freedom of choice. As long as nothing moves on this issue, Her Majesty’s Government are continuing to obstruct this freedom for humanists, and for a growing share of the population who belong to no religion. Her Majesty’s Government have at the forefront of their agenda the need to level up different regions of the United Kingdom to provide equal opportunities for all. This situation is a plain example of where England and Wales need levelling up so that their citizens can enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities already enjoyed by the citizens of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Finally, I turn my attention to what has happened under this Government, which inherited a court case from the previous Administration. Six couples were taking the matter before the High Court. They claimed discrimination, given that religious couples can have legally recognised marriages in line with their beliefs. The judge in that case agreed, ruling that

“the present law gives rise to…discrimination.”

She wrote that

“the discrimination suffered by the Claimants is real: the difference of treatment they experience in seeking to manifest their humanist beliefs through the ceremony of marriage is a matter of substance, not merely one of form.”

She also ruled that the Secretary of State for Justice could not

“simply sit on his hands”

and do nothing. However, given the ongoing Law Commission review, she also said that the Government’s refusal to act immediately could be justified at this time. She did so because she considered that the desire of the defendant—the Justice Secretary—

“to consider any reform on a wholesale, rather than piecemeal, basis”

was a legitimate aim. She wrote:

“In the present case, the Government has identified concerns as to the potential consequences of addressing one area of unequal treatment without doing so as part of a more general reform. Specifically, in relation to the treatment of humanist and other non-religious belief marriages, particular issues were identified relating to the location where the ceremony might take place…these were matters seen to potentially give rise to new species of discrimination if reform was only undertaken on a piecemeal basis.”

From that, she concluded:

“Although I may deprecate the delay that has occurred since 2015, I cannot ignore the fact that there is currently an on-going review of the law of marriage in this country”.

That brings us to what then happened last year. In June, the Government extended legal recognition to outdoor civil marriages on an interim basis. In December, they launched a consultation on making that move permanent, making the same move for religious marriages. Both can be done by statutory instrument. The moves limit marriages to outdoor parts of approved premises, but I understand that such a limitation is something that humanist celebrants would be happy with, on an initial basis, as a way to get things going for them.

These moves by the Government tear up the objection to piecemeal reform in general terms that the Government and their predecessors have given for not wanting to enact legal recognition of humanist marriages before the Law Commission completes its review this July. They can only maintain an objection to piecemeal reform if they do not undertake such piecemeal reform. These moves are the very piecemeal reform that the Government said was the reason why they could not enact legal recognition of humanist marriages.

Now that outdoor marriages are under way for others, what possible reason is left not to lay the statutory instrument bringing about recognition for marriages conducted by Humanists UK celebrants? Such a reform need only be interim. The law could be drafted explicitly with the intention that it is superseded by whatever follows the Law Commission review, if anything does. Legal recognition must follow that review, as I have explained. That is what the High Court ruled in 2020.

Making that change would remove an unnecessary burden for the 1,400 couples a year who have a humanist wedding at present, despite the fact that they have to have a double ceremony, with a civil marriage administered separately. For those couples, it would be particularly welcome.

During the pandemic—we do not know where the rules on that will take us; we are on a positive trend at the minute, but we have had some disagreeable surprises over the last two years—we have seen the whole problem for the wedding industry play out. Giving couples the opportunity to make their marriages really meaningful, by committing their resources to a ceremony that really means something for them, would be of obvious economic benefit for an important part of our hospitality sector. That change would greatly enhance the freedom of choice for the hundreds—if not thousands—of other couples who want a humanist wedding but decide that they simply cannot afford one because of the lack of legal recognition. Evidence from Scotland points to the legal recognition of humanist marriages coinciding with the end of the long-term decline in marriage numbers. Surely, more people getting married is something that this Government should strongly support. Indeed, I would imagine that every political party would want to support that. We ought to be trying to get that done now, as soon as possible, given the delays we have suffered.

Legal recognition would also help to deal with the current backlog and demand for civil registrars caused by the pandemic delaying many marriages. There simply are not enough registrars to go around, so many couples are reporting difficulties in being able to get married when they want. Expanding the range of people who can conduct legally recognised marriages would definitely assist in that.

All of that, as I have said before, will be a welcome boost to the wider wedding industry: the venues, the florists, the caterers, the photographers, the cake-makers, and so on—the cake-makers are very much at the forefront of our minds at the moment. Many of those are small, local businesses. Having more marriages is good for the economy and for families, and is clearly a matter of public policy when the public benefit is clear in every sense.

A possible statutory instrument to enact legal recognition has already been drafted. A previous Lord Chancellor suggested that I arrange for that to happen, so it was prepared in consultation with the counsel for domestic legislation. We have done it. The Government do not even need to it themselves; they just have to check our work.

The measure is modelled on the existing provisions for the Society of Friends. It applies specifically to Humanists UK, as the only organisation providing humanist weddings in England and Wales, and one that undoubtedly has the processes in place, and the good repute, to guarantee that ceremonies will be solemn and dignified, with no risk of sham weddings. That is not to say, however, that if another organisation was to emerge, with the sufficient standing and good repute to also merit it, it could not also gain legal recognition through another order—nor that a different system might come into place after the Law Commission review.

There is no good reason for further delays. The Government’s own actions have now removed whatever vestige of the thinnest of arguments that remained standing in the way of this reform, which would mean so much to so many who get married in the future. To what purpose are we adding to the now nine years’ worth of couples who have not enjoyed that freedom since Parliament gave the Government the power to deliver it?