Licences and Licensing

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Licensing Act 2003 (UEFA European Football Championship Licensing Hours) Order 2024, which was laid before this House on 8 May, be approved.

It is a genuine pleasure to speak about this motion. It is certainly a much greater pleasure than answering the urgent question earlier this afternoon, but admittedly the bar was set fairly low.

This summer the Euro 2024 football championships will take place in Germany. I am delighted that both the England and the Scotland men’s national teams have qualified to take part, although I am sure the House will share my sorrow that the Northern Irish and Welsh teams did not on this occasion. Hopefully, they will be joining England and Scotland in 2028. This draft contingent order seeks to extend licensing hours for venues across England and Wales in the—I hope, extremely likely—event that England or Scotland reaches the semi-final or the final of the upcoming tournament. I am extremely confident that one or even both of those teams will make it to that stage. In fact, I confidently predict that it will be an England v. Scotland final when it comes around. That is probably about the only thing that it is safe to predict at the moment, given the fevered and febrile speculation that is currently under way in these parts.

If England or Scotland, or indeed both teams, reach those stages, the order will extend licensing hours in England and Wales from 11 pm until 1 am on the days of the semi-finals, which are due to take place on 9 and 10 July, and the final, which is scheduled to take place on 14 July. I have no idea whether any other significant events may be taking place around that time as well. People will want to watch those games in the pub, and if there is extra time or there are penalties—or, indeed, any recounts—they will want to be able to enjoy a drink while the penalties or, indeed, the recounts take place. My own experience of a recount in 2010, when I lost a parliamentary constituency by 42 votes, was a painful one that I am not looking to repeat anytime soon.

I know that pubs in my constituency will appreciate being able to stay open a bit longer—pubs such as the Wattenden Arms, the Pembroke in Coulsdon, the Tudor Rose and the Fox. I was just talking to my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), who said that pubs in his constituency would like to stay open too—although apparently some of them sometimes show rugby as well as football. He is a great champion of pubs in North Cornwall, and I know that all of us in this House want to support pubs in our respective constituencies.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to see the motion before us today. I wonder whether the Minister shares my slight disappointment that the quarter-finals are not included in this order, given that the first quarter-finals are on Friday 5 July and there may be other things to celebrate on that day—possibly a new Government.

[Chris Philp]

Well, we have to strike the right balance. These types of orders can be used only for events of exceptional significance, and we have chosen to draw the line at the semi-finals and the final. As for other events of significance that may be occurring around then, I am afraid I am as much in the dark as the hon. Gentleman is, but I know that he will join me in wishing pubs in his constituency well. Hopefully, they will be able to enjoy the Euros in a spirit of conviviality as the tournament unfolds. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood), a former chair of the all-party parliamentary group on beer, sends his good wishes to pubs in his constituency, and to those up and down the land.

As the House will be aware, under section 172 of the Licensing Act 2003, the Secretary of State can make an order relaxing licensing hours to mark occasions of “exceptional national significance”, which is the very high threshold to which I referred a moment ago. The decision to lay this draft order stems from a consultation that the Home Office conducted earlier this year. Over 80% of respondents were in favour of extending licensing hours for the semi-finals and final if one of the home nation teams reach those stages. Respondents agreed with the proposed duration of a potential extension, which, as I have set out, would extend licensing hours until 1 am the following morning, and they agreed that the order should apply to both England and Wales. Respondents also agreed that it should apply only to sales of alcohol for consumption on the premises, rather than off it.

This order will ensure that premises will be allowed to remain open until 1 am without having to notify the licensing authority—typically the local authority—via a temporary event notice, benefiting both businesses and local authorities. Businesses will save time and money by not having to give temporary event notices, while licensing authorities will save time and money by not having to process them. Of course, temporary event notices can be applied for, but it is a somewhat bureaucratic process. Later closing times will be a welcome boost for pubs and bars at a busy time should either England or Scotland be involved in the semi-finals or final. As I have said already, I fervently hope that both England and Scotland make the final, given that I am a passionate Unionist.

It is right that I acknowledge that the police have expressed some reservations about extending licensing hours—indeed, they say that they are not in favour of it—given the potential for increased crime and disorder. We have carefully considered those representations, and although police deployments and resourcing are operational matters for policing, we know that police forces will put in place plans that will minimise the risk, as they have done in the past. It is worth noting that there have been no significant large-scale disorder incidents linked to licensing extensions during previous tournaments, which is a testament to the fact that forces are well versed in managing these matters, and I am sure the House will join me in thanking police forces up and down the country for everything they do to maintain order and reduce the risk of crime.

I also emphasise that this is a limited two-hour extension to licensing hours, which is a proportionate approach marking these events, and that the contingent order we are considering only covers sales for consumption on the premises after 11 pm. It does not cover premises that sell alcohol only for consumption off the premises, such as off-licences and supermarkets.

Before I finish—normally the most popular words in any speech I give—I will make just two further points of clarification. The first is that if either England or Scotland is successful in reaching either the semi-final or the final, this extension will apply only to licensed venues in England and Wales. This is because licensing is a devolved matter, and it would be for the Scottish Government or the Northern Ireland Department of Justice to make arrangements for extending licensing hours in Scotland and Northern Ireland, which I would strongly encourage them to do. Hopefully they need very little encouragement to do that. Secondly, if neither England nor Scotland reaches the semi-final, normal licensing hours will apply on 9 and 10 July. If either or both teams reach the semi-final but neither team is in the final, normal licensing hours will apply on 14 July, the date of the final.

The House will be aware that the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) is sponsoring a private Member’s Bill—which I think had its Report and Third Reading stages just last Friday, and which the Government fully support—to make orders such as this subject to the negative resolution procedure in the future. This would, of course, rob the House of the opportunity it is currently enjoying to hear my words on this topic, which I am sure would come as a sore disappointment. But if that private Member’s Bill completes its passage through the other place, debates such as these will not happen because we will be using the negative resolution. Obviously that law is not in force now, so we are debating this today in the normal way.

However, if, as we hope and expect, this order currently before the House commands universal support—perhaps even enthusiastic universal support, and we will find out in just a moment when the shadow Security Minister stands up and we are able to determine his level of support and enthusiasm—it will give weight to the point that the hon. Member for South Shields and others have made that debating these orders is not necessarily the best use of precious parliamentary time, given that they are pretty uncontentious and generally matters of unanimous assent, and sometimes even enthusiastic unanimous assent.

In conclusion, we have brought forward this order in recognition of the huge interest there will be in the Euro 2024 tournament, and in particular, the huge interest in the fortunes of England and Scotland, which I know are dear to the hearts of many Members and members of the public up and down the country. Like all England fans, I am hopeful that this will be the year that football finally comes home again, and I am sure that many Members will want to join me in expressing encouragement and support to Gareth Southgate and his team, and also of course to the Scottish team, who I hope also do very well in the tournament. With that thought, I commend this order to the House.

Violence and Abuse towards the Retail Workforce

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a proud member of the USDAW trade union.

Everybody deserves to be treated with respect and fairness at work. Nobody should have to carry out their job in fear of receiving verbal or physical abuse, but sadly that is becoming the reality for many of our retail workers. Abuse of and attacks on shop workers have doubled since 2019. In an excellent opening speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) set out the statistics: two thirds of USDAW members working in retail suffer abuse from customers, there has been a 25% increase in shoplifting in the past year, and the British Retail Consortium reports that there are 850 incidents of violence or abuse against shop workers every single day. Those figures are shocking.

Having to deal with violence and abuse at work has a far-reaching impact beyond the incident itself: there is the stress, anxiety and potential for injury, but there are also mental health issues down the line. I have been a supporter of USDAW’s Respect for Shopworkers Week and the Freedom from Fear campaign that it has run for many years. I congratulate USDAW on those campaigns. Like my hon. Friend, I visited a number of stores as part of the Respect for Shopworkers Week a couple of weeks ago.

I have been engaging on this issue for a number of years. I remember having a meeting a few years ago with retailers in Didsbury, in my constituency, to talk about the problem of gangs going from store to store shoplifting and how difficult that was to address. They set up WhatsApp groups and communication between the various stores and tried to contact the police, but the problem is difficult to resolve without some kind of offence that makes it easier to take action against the people perpetrating the crimes.

That was a problem in Didsbury, and I met trade unions, shop people and the police some time ago. It has eased off a little there, but in my constituency, as in many constituencies, there is a problem across the retail sector. A couple of years ago, I noticed that the shop assistants in my local Co-op, in Withington, were wearing headsets. I asked one of the staff what that was about, and he said, “We’ve had so much abuse and so many people giving us a hard time that we have to be able to communicate with one another and talk to the manager in the back.” The Co-op has done that in Withington and in a number of other stores. I spoke to staff in Tesco last week, I think, and it is doing a similar thing, improving its communications and the support it gives its staff. That is commendable—it is a good thing—but it should not be necessary.

Stores are doing what they can, but retailers often say the problem is that, when they report shoplifting, nothing happens. That is partly to do with the reduced numbers of PCSOs and police staff on the streets and in our district centres in recent years, with town centre patrols being cut. Perpetrators are also rarely sent to court, as charge numbers have plummeted. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon said, fixed penalty notices for shop thefts of under £200 have led to fewer crimes being investigated and prosecuted. A significant proportion of retail crime is thought to be linked to drug addiction, but—as my hon. Friend also pointed out—drug treatment services have been cut.

Seeing fewer uniformed officers patrolling shopping centres and other areas gives criminals more confidence, which I think is a key factor in the increase in retail crime. It is really disappointing that Conservative MPs have repeatedly voted down a protection of workers law—one already exists in Scotland—and that there was nothing in the King’s Speech to tackle the epidemic of abuse against retail workers.

In the run-up to Christmas, the pressure on shop workers is likely to ramp up even more. It is a busy and stressful time, and it is essential that customers treat these valued retail staff with respect. However, more than that, we need legislation and proper police resourcing. Labour’s community policing guarantee will put the police back in our town centres and neighbourhoods, making high streets safe again, with increased patrols and 13,000 more neighbourhood police and PCSOs on the streets. Labour would introduce a new protection of workers law, making violence, threats and abuse against retail workers a specific offence, with tougher sentences. That would make it simpler for the police to take action. It would also send a clear message from Parliament to the police and the public that this issue is being taken seriously and that we will not tolerate the abuse of retail workers.

That measure is backed by USDAW, of course. It is also backed by the Co-op, Tesco, the British Retail Consortium and lots of small convenience stores. There have been numerous opportunities to back the measure in Parliament, but time after time it has been voted down. I just make this request to the Minister and Government Members: I really hope that, in the face of the overwhelming evidence and testimony from retail workers and the retail sector, the Government will think again and introduce a specific offence of abuse and threats against shop workers, because if this Government will not, the next Labour Government will.

Metropolitan Police: Operational Independence

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I am afraid that communications between other Members of the Government are not a matter for me. I am responsible for policing, delivering record police numbers and falling crime. That is my job and I am doing it.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree with the Home Secretary that

“senior police officers play favourites when it comes to protesters”?

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

10. What recent progress her Department has made on reducing the use of hotels as contingency asylum accommodation.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

15. What recent progress her Department has made on reducing the use of hotels as contingency asylum accommodation.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

The Home Office seeks to end the use of hotels and to move asylum seekers to less expensive, more suitable accommodation. To support that, we are bringing into use large, disused military sites and vessels, which will provide adequate, safe, secure, non-detained accommodation for asylum seekers and also reduce the pull factor to the United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

The policy that we have adopted is one of maximising the capacity of the hotels that we have for as long as we have them. That is saving the taxpayer at least a quarter of a billion pounds and reducing reliance on hotels elsewhere in the country. I do appreciate that there are pressures on the hon. Lady’s local authority, and I also appreciate that some Labour local authorities, such as Westminster City Council, say that asylum seekers must be housed in individual, ensuite bedrooms. We do not agree with that: it is a gross waste of taxpayers’ money that would make the UK a soft touch.

[Jeff Smith]

In my constituency, I have had the same experience as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton), but the question I want to ask is about unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The Home Office still has not explained how it is going to find the children missing from asylum accommodation, so will it set out the plans to do that and find these vulnerable people?

[Robert Jenrick]

We have been very clear that we and the police take extremely seriously any young person who goes missing from a hotel or any other form of accommodation. Local police forces and Home Office personnel treat that exactly as they would any other child going missing and they conduct a full missing person inquiry. However, the only sustainable answer to young people living in hotels is to stop the boats in the first place. Doing nothing is not an option. Doing nothing will lead to more young people living in those hotels and being exposed to human traffickers.

Student Visas

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

If the hon. Lady is referring to pressure on school places, that would be a good argument for reducing the number of dependants coming to the UK, because the children of the students will be using primary schools in her constituency.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

The Minister still has not said what economic impact assessment the Government have carried out on this policy. Will he publish one?

[Robert Jenrick]

I said that we take a pragmatic approach to this issue. We are balancing our strong desire to bring down net migration with the needs of the economy. That is why we have taken the approach of standing behind the 600,000 target for international students, but making this important tweak to ensure that it is not abused.

Antisocial Behaviour Action Plan

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that Derbyshire is also a pilot force for hotspot patrolling and immediate justice. When it comes to hotspot policing, which we know works in many parts of the country, that will mean that the police will be expected to identify places and times where antisocial behaviour is prevalent, and they will be able to use this extra funding to lay on additional policing, greater visibility and a more robust response.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

All the experts, including those on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, say that banning nitrous oxide will cause more harm than good. The Home Secretary has just said that her policy is evidence led. Can she point to the evidence that suggests her policy on nitrous oxide is right?

Security Threat to UK-Based Journalists

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Gentleman will understand that I answer for the Home Office, not the Foreign Office, so I will not give an assessment of Iran other than to say that that brutal regime has murdered LGBTQ communities. It has murdered Jews. It has murdered Muslims. It has murdered Christians. It has murdered Baha’is. It has murdered, frankly, pretty much anybody it can get its hands on. Tragically, it has conducted a regime of terror against women who refuse to be told what to wear. It is a regime that has violated so many principles not just of international law, as I said, but of Persian culture. It is an absolute abomination and this Government stand in full solidarity with those who are defending their human rights and we absolutely stand for freedom of religion and belief.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

The Minister referred to the Charity Commission’s inquiry into the Islamic Centre of England and its links with the Iranian regime, but he will also be aware of wider concerns about other cultural centres across the UK, including in Manchester, allegedly having links to the regime and allegedly controlled by Khamenei. Would the Government consider a wider investigation of those outposts—those cultural centres—so that we can get to the bottom of this and get to the truth?

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Member will understand that I am not going to list all those that are linked to the Khamenei authority, but he can be assured that the Islamic Centre of England is not the only one that I am aware of.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is well aware of my views, so I do not need to add much more on that. This absolutely is a priority, on the basis of the new plan for immigration and making sure that is delivered, along with the legislation on reforming the national referral mechanism and the many other approaches we have spoken about.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

T7. Can the Minister confirm how many fewer police officers there are in England and Wales today compared with 2010, and how long it will take for those police officer numbers to be restored, given that we lost over 20,000 officers under the Tories after 2010?

[Tom Pursglove]

The bottom line—I know the hon. Gentleman does not like it very much—is that we have recruited over 13,500 new police officers as part of the uplift, and the fact is that his party has not been supportive of those efforts. We are putting more police officers out on the beat, catching criminals and deterring crime.

Ukraine Refugee Visas

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I am very happy to do so if the hon. Lady gives me the details after this session.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

The cases of the constituents in Manchester who contact me generally follow the same pattern, which is that they do the hard work of locating and liaising with the family in Ukraine, they submit the complicated application form, they get a receipt and then they hear nothing. That is the frustration. People are being left in limbo either in Poland or under shelling in Ukraine. One of my constituents phrased it very well. He said: “All I want to do is to make sure there is nothing we haven’t done which may be holding up the application process.” If the Government will not sort out a simple emergency visa scheme, can they at least sort out the communication so that people know what is going on?

[Kevin Foster]

That is a fair point about updating people. Certainly people would be contacted if there was something that was needed from them, rather than us conducting the checks he would expect us to conduct from a safeguarding and security perspective. But a fair point has been made by colleagues across the House about the communication that needs to be sent out to those who have made applications, and we are certainly happy to take that forward.

Humanist Marriages

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Dr Huq; it is really good to see you in the Chair. I apologise for my late arrival—I had another commitment —and thank you for your indulgence in allowing me to speak. I congratulate the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) on securing the debate, and I am sorry that I missed most of his speech.

[Rachel Hopkins]

It was very good.

[Jeff Smith]

I do not doubt it.

I declare an interest as a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary humanist group and a member of Humanists UK.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Dr Ahmed Shaheed, recently conducted a survey of marriage laws around the world. He found that, broadly speaking, there are four approaches. The first, which is the most common, is for the state to legally recognise only civil marriages, or perhaps to not even recognise any ceremony at all and simply have the state involved in signing the paperwork entirely separately from any ceremonial aspects. That is seen in most European countries, including—most famously—France but also Germany; across much of Asia, with China, Korea and Japan taking the non-ceremonial approach; in most of Latin America; and across much of Africa.

The second approach is to recognise only religious marriages. That is the case across much of the middle east, north Africa, Iran, Indonesia and Malaysia. In Dr Shaheed’s view, that is not human rights-compliant because it denies couples the chance to have a marriage at all unless it is religious, and in some cases only of a certain religion. The third approach is for the state to recognise religious and civil marriages but not humanist marriages. As we have heard, that is the approach in England and Wales. It is easy to assume that, because that is the situation here, it is quite typical of the situation everywhere else, but that is not the case. In fact, it is seen only in a few European countries, with the nearest to us probably being Denmark, and—possibly due to the colonial inheritance—in a number of Commonwealth countries in Africa, the Caribbean and in parts of Canada.

Finally, the fourth approach is to also legally recognise humanist marriages. That is now the situation in the large majority of our neighbours, namely Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands, Norway and Iceland, and also the US, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of Canada. Common to all the countries in the latter section is that they started off recognising only religious and civil marriages but moved to recognising humanist marriages either because of political will and political pressure or following court cases, as was the situation in Northern Ireland and parts of the US. That demonstrates that we are perhaps more isolated than we might realise.

It is also worth knowing what Dr Shaheed thinks of each approach, in terms of human rights. Recognising only civil marriages may not be as flexible in giving people what they want. Famously, in France, it is common for Catholic churches to be situated opposite town halls, so that a wedding party can easily transition from the civil marriage to the religious ceremony. None the less, that is seen by Dr Shaheed as lawful, because it treats everyone equally, regardless of their religion or belief; he does not believe that approach violates international human rights treaties. As already mentioned, recognising only religious ceremonies is wrong, compelling people to take part in religious acts or denying them the right to marry at all.

However, in Dr Shaheed’s view, recognising only civil and religious marriages also represents discrimination on the basis of religion or belief. It treats religious people more favourably than humanists, offering the former a privilege that is denied to the latter. That privilege does not have to be offered to any religious or humanist group, but where it is, it should be offered to all. That is the case in the US and Ireland. It can also be seen in the universal periodic review of the UK conducted by Dr Shaheed’s predecessor Asma Jahangir as long ago as 2008. In that review, she wrote that

“humanists made the criticism that in practice there are institutional and legal examples of discrimination against non-religious believers…while humanist weddings are legal in Scotland since June 2005, marriages conducted by humanist celebrants are not recognized in the law of England and Wales.”

That was in 2005—17 years ago—and nothing has changed since.

The correctness of Dr Shaheed’s assessment can be seen in the judgment of the High Court in the 2008 case, R (Harrison and others) v. Secretary of State for Justice, in which the judge found that

“there is a continuing discriminatory impact upon those who seek to manifest their humanist beliefs through marriage…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…I have found that—subject only to the question of justification—the present law gives rise to article 14 discrimination in the Claimants enjoyment of their article 9 rights.”

She rules that the Secretary of State for Justice cannot

“simply sit on his hands”

and do nothing. The judge also said that she had given the Government the benefit of the doubt that they would reform marriage law after the Law Commission review. She wrote:

“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 will necessarily engage with the wider concerns that have been raised.”

She found that,

“the Defendant’s stated desire to consider any reform on a wholesale, rather than piecemeal, basis”

was a legitimate aim, because,

“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.”

That was the Government’s defence, but they have undermined that legitimate aim through their action on outdoor civil and religious marriages. That is not to say that I do not welcome the reforms to enable outdoor marriages—I do—but merely to say that it leaves the Government with no excuse to not also legally recognise humanist marriages.

What I find most difficult to understand about the Government’s position is that the judgment in that case is legally binding case law that the Government must follow. Even before the outdoor marriage reforms, it was the case that the Government must extend legal recognition to humanist marriages after the Law Commission review is over. Yet the Government’s repeated position, in response to all letters, parliamentary questions and other approaches since the 2020 judgment, has been to simply say:

“The Government will decide on provision for non-religious belief marriage in light of the Law Commission's recommendations.”

Even in the light of the judgment, the Government have not committed to acting at the end of the review, only saying that they will decide whether to act once the review is over. How can that position possibly be tenable, given the very clear judgment from the High Court?

I have three questions for the Minister. Will the Government today commit to legally recognising humanist marriages at the earliest opportunity? Failing that, will they commit to doing so after the current review? If so, how soon do they intend to bring that legislation into force? These are really important questions about ending discrimination in this country, to give everybody a fair chance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

It is fair to say that the Government certainly support the institution and the principle of marriage. I wanted to reflect my own personal sentiments in that regard, and to pick up on the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), about there being a perception in some quarters that the issue of humanist marriage is a fringe issue. I want to provide my hon. Friend with reassurance that, as the Minister responsible for marriage, I do not see this issue through that lens—that would not be right. There are many people in this country who feel very passionately about this and who want to see reform. It is fair to say that I am mindful of their views and of the strength of feeling with which they express them. I will set out in further remarks what the Government’s intentions are.

We must consider very carefully the implications of any changes to the law in this area. Currently, couples can marry in England and Wales through a civil ceremony conducted by a superintendent registrar or a registrar, or through a religious ceremony conducted by authorised members of that religion. Humanists have asked for provision that would not be available to all groups. It would allow them to marry in a place meaningful to them, without restriction on the location of the ceremony. Other groups would not have the same choice, as the law on marriage solemnization is generally based largely on the building in which the relevant marriage takes place. We therefore need to consider the implications very carefully.

[Jeff Smith]

The Minister makes the point about approved premises. What if we only have approved premises, but humanist marriages were allowed in those premises? That is something that Humanists UK is prepared to accept. Surely that would be a solution?