Draft Registration of Marriages Regulations 2021

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 General Committees

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Not for the first time in my political career, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Miller. It is certainly a pleasure, following the Minister’s comments, to have a working mother in the Chair.

The Opposition welcome the modernising of the system that allows a couple’s mothers’ and fathers’ details to be documented, alongside the flexibility for changes when they are needed in future. Modernising, from a technological perspective and a value perspective—the changes mean a marked decrease in costs—is welcome, but when it comes to gender equality, we do not just welcome it; we are very happy to see it.

For me, I suppose that this means that I will appear, if my children ever get married, on their marriage certificates. I did not think that that mattered to me particularly until I was told that I would not be on them and that my husband would, especially when I think my job is better—I want it on their marriage certificates. The change is much welcomed.

On Monday, it was International Women’s Day, a day when, across the globe, we celebrate the progress made in the quest for gender equality, as well as remember how far we have to go.  The delegated legislation means that both parents’ names and occupations will be recorded as part of the marriage. That omission until now reminds me of a fundamental of policy and politics—that we only make a note of, a legal record of, or count the things that we care about.  I presume that the old marriage registration system did not require or make note of the name or job of the mother because, as a society, we saw it as not important, not worth acknowledging and not worth the paper it would have been written on.  I am sad to say that this fundamental still rings true in other areas. There are many examples where we do not count, record or make note of the lives and experiences of women adequately. I hope that today begins progress in other areas.

I also want to flag the length of time it has taken to respond to the pressure from the public to bring forward the reform. The online petition from 2014 attracted 70,000 signatures. The delay of seven years again reminds me of the slow progress in so many areas in the fight for gender equality and justice.  In December 2018, the World Economic Forum reported that it will take 202 years to close the gender pay gap, but of course we are not currently bothering to count that either.

The Opposition do not oppose this legislation. We welcome the digital modernisation and immigration alterations and of course the progress on making mothers’ lives and work matter. This Opposition mother just wishes that it did not always take so long for us working mothers to be noticed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

Absolutely not. There is nothing to stop that. As the hon. Member will know with baptism, which is not recorded in a secular sense by the GRO, certificates are issued by churches. I think the language on them usually says they are to be used “when the child is presented to the Bishop for confirmation.” That is true in the Anglican tradition and there is nothing to stop that. It will not be a legal document of the marriage, but electronic statuses and transactions are becoming increasingly common for most people, and this will be an easy-to-access digital status when needed—for example, to prove a marriage to a bank or someone else—rather than, necessarily, as the hon. Member says, something that someone might want to have on the wall as a record of their relationship.

[Jess Phillips]

Just to clarify and potentially answer one of the points, nowadays anything can happen, ceremonially, in a church, or even in a registry office, where I got married; churches can, if they want, still keep old books, make records and keep the history of that church. Nothing in the draft regulations bars that—is that correct?

[Kevin Foster]

That is correct. The only things churches should not use are the current marriage certificates issued under the Marriage Act 1949. That is the thing that changes. Parish registers, which some Church of England parishes have kept literally since medieval times, can continue to be kept. There is no reason why a church cannot give something to people to mark their marriage there. However, people who attend the wedding perhaps will not see that the form that is signed is then sent by the priest back to the registrar to be entered on to the digital record.

We discussed at some length with the Church of England how we can provide a practical solution. It has thousands of priests and marriage venues that have stood for centuries, where a computer solution cannot realistically be installed in any sense, or even a mobile one, so that details can be directly entered into a digital register. This was the solution that we came to. It seems both fair and reasonable, and to be clear, the Church is perfectly happy with it.