Marriage

Lord Bishop of Chester Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

To call attention to the role of marriage and marriage support in British society 12 years after the report The Funding of Marriage Support by Sir Graham Hart; and to move for Papers.

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, at the outset of this debate I should declare an interest in that I am married—or at least I was when I checked my e-mails first thing this morning.

In many ways, I see this debate as a natural sequel to the debate last Thursday, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, to which reference was made at Question Time. I pay tribute to the noble Lord for the way in which he has raised these issues over a number of years in your Lordships’ House.

It is a happy coincidence that the ballot has favoured this debate to take place in National Marriage Week. It was perhaps the most distinguished of 20th-century Archbishops of Canterbury, William Temple, who once said that, if you prayed hard, coincidences might happen.

I say at the outset that, in calling attention to the role of marriage and marriage support in British society, I do not intend any general criticism of those who choose not to marry or of those who, for any reason, are single parents. Nor do I wish to enter the debate over the precise relationship between marriage and civil partnerships or what wider legal protection ought also to exist for those in a variety of relationships outside marriage who have obligations to each other or to their children. These are very important questions but for another day.

Rather, my purpose is to focus upon marriage itself. It is possible to advocate the place and importance of marriage in society in its own right. There has been a tendency in recent years to express indifference over whether or not people marry, as though it is simply a private choice. At one level, of course, it is a private choice, but it is a private choice which the evidence overwhelmingly suggests has public consequences on which any Government cannot merely express indifference.

In recent years, we have often heard the expression “broken Britain”. Statistics never tell the whole story but perhaps I might refer to a few figures from an OECD report published last summer. We have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe and the highest proportion of children in single-parent households —no less than 23 per cent for those under the age of 14, with the percentage being even higher if all children are counted. Notwithstanding the higher rate of teenage pregnancies, the average age at which mothers in the UK have their first child is the highest in Europe, at 30, with all the attendant risks for both mothers and children.

It is in the family courts that the damage is often most visible, and I am pleased to see that some members of the judiciary are willing to sound the alarm bells. In 2009, Mr Justice Coleridge, from the Family Division of the High Court, said that,

“the breakdown of families in this country is on a scale, depth and breadth which few of us could have imagined even a decade ago ... almost all of society’s … ills can be traced directly to the collapse of the family life”.

He also said:

“It is a never ending carnival of human misery”.

Sir Paul Coleridge called for a return to marriage as the “gold standard”, which would mean the arresting of the trend of seeing marriage simply as one arrangement among others to be picked from the human supermarket shelf. In moving this Motion, it is my proposition that this can be done, although I accept that in a free society there will always be those who choose to—or indeed have to—organise their relationships and their children’s nurture in other ways, and who deserve the support of society.

There is now a good deal of research on the impact of relationships, and in particular the relationship of marriage, on the well-being and life satisfaction of those concerned. I am grateful to the Cambridge-based Relationships Foundation for collating the results of a wide range of research projects. The conclusion is clear: while almost any good relationship increases health and happiness, the benefits are disproportionately clear with marriage, with lower levels of psychological illness, greater longevity, better general health, greater wealth and income, lower suicide rates and so forth. Of course, the causality can be assessed in different ways but the overall societal benefit of marriage seems to me to be unarguable.

Equally, the outcomes for children are much better because, as the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, argued last week, young children flourish best when they feel safe, loved and valued. Marriage is especially conducive to promoting just this, because cohabitees with children are at least twice as likely to break up as married couples.

Certain biological and socioeconomic realities need to be acknowledged here. I understand that young elephants, as an example of a species with a similar lifespan to that of human beings, are able to be independent of their parents much sooner than is the case with human children. A key test for any society will be the quality of the nurture of its children and, for the human species, that puts a premium on encouraging stable, healthy and long relationships among parents. As many noble Lords will know from their personal experience, and indeed their personal cost, children in today’s complex and advanced societies are often dependent on their parents even longer than was the case in the past: the need for stable parenting relationships is even greater today.

It is possible to agree with most of what I have said so far and yet to press the question: why does all this point to marriage? Why could a society not evolve in which the benefits of the marriage bond were enjoyed by those who cohabit on the basis of equally strong private and personal commitments? The difference, it seems to me, lies precisely in the social context in which the vows and promises at the heart of a relationship are expressed. Perhaps I may make an analogy—not an exact analogy but, I think, a helpful one—with war: after all, we are told that all is fair in love and war. Going back to 1939, could the British Government have sent a note to Berlin declaring war but saying that they wanted to review things at Christmas? They could, of course, have reviewed how things were going at Christmas but not as a pre-condition of the declaration of war. You cannot really have a trial war; nor can you really have a trial marriage. I suggest that there is a certain contradiction in terms in both cases. The problem with the current fashion for cohabitation is that it tends to devalue the underlying currency of marriage. There is indeed a sense in which the social institution of marriage is the gold standard for all relationships.

Individual marriages have always failed or become unhealthy. I have no desire to promote an image of marriage as a potential millstone. I have always supported the possibility of divorce and, for that matter, the possibility of marriage in church after divorce. But, equally, giving a certain precedence to supporting the underlying social institution of marriage for the good of society as a whole needs a clearer acknowledgement than has sometimes been the case in recent years.

The role of government here is limited, but nevertheless vital, and I briefly want to point to some practical things that Governments can, and should, do. The first would be to revive the recommendations of the report by Sir Graham Hart, which was commissioned by the then Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg. The noble and learned Lord accepted its recommendations. That report built upon the enabling Section 22 of the Family Law Act 1996, which was promoted by the then Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who expresses his regret that he cannot be present because of attending a funeral in Scotland.

Grants towards marriage support services were made, but seem to have disappeared into a more nebulous grant scheme which does not specifically target or even mention marriage support. The new Government have identified relationship support as a key area, with the Prime Minister, as recently as 10 December, pledging £7.5 million towards that. But the papers for funding applications fail to make any direct reference to marriage. The social institution of marriage will be recovered in our society only if we are bold enough to refer to it in public, and in public policy, as a unique and distinctive bedrock of society. We need to recover the perspective of marriage and relationship support, as set out in the Family Law Act.

I suggest that would support the Government's broader intention to foster a society which moves beyond the dialectic of state or government activity on the one hand to private choices and rights on the other. This requires a sustained recovery of the place of intermediate social institutions, between the state and the individual. Marriage, I submit, is just such a social institution in a way in which relationships could never be. It is a key social institution, arguably the key social institution, and needs to be named more clearly as such in public policy.

If noble Lords, or the Government, are not convinced by my arguments thus far, I would refer to the financial cost of the breakdown of marriage and indeed of cohabitation in today's society. I refer again to the research done by the Relationships Foundation, published in Counting the Cost of Family Failure. The extraordinary figure is offered of more than £40 billion a year. The purely economic case for marriage support services is overwhelming. Those services should include marriage preparation for those who are planning to marry, marriage enrichment for those who are married and marriage guidance counselling for those whose marriages are in difficulty.

I turn finally to a second area where the Government should act and where the Prime Minister, in his first Prime Minister's Questions after the election, stated his own convictions. He said:

“I am an unashamed supporter of families and marriage, and I simply do not understand why, when so many other European countries … recognise marriage in the tax system, we do not”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/6/10; col. 428.]

Apart from the UK, only 18 per cent of OECD citizens live in states that do not recognise marriage in their tax system. Most of that 18 per cent live in Mexico and Turkey. In 2008-09, a single-earner married couple with two children and on the average wage bore a tax burden which was a third greater than the OECD average. The comparative figures for 2009-10 will show a further deterioration. They will be the subject of a seminar I will host in Committee Room 4 on 9 March, at 1 pm. I pay tribute to the work of the charity CARE in sponsoring the associated research and to the wider role which it plays in support of marriage and human flourishing. I declare an interest as an active supporter.

The Conservative Party manifesto at the last election promised the introduction of a transferable allowance for one-earner couples, a promise which is in the coalition agreement. I hope that this can be introduced without delay and I look forward to the Minister's reassurance on this.

I do not believe that people should be offered financial inducements to marry against their will, but I think that public policy on taxation carries a social and moral message, as do all laws, concerning, in this case, the value which society puts on the institution of marriage. In unintended ways, public policy can contribute to a climate which subtly undermines marriage.

I look forward to this debate. I am delighted that so many noble Lords have entered the speakers list, especially the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, who is to make her maiden speech. I have avoided any reference to the religious or theological symbolism of marriage, to which the various religious traditions of our world would bear eloquent witness. Perhaps other Members of your Lordships' House will be bolder than the Bishops’ Bench in such matters. However, with the indulgence of the House, I will end by quoting one of my favourite verses from the Bible, from the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, in the King James version:

“It is not good that the man should be alone”.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. I am delighted that I was able to provide the perfect opportunity for the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, to make such a brilliant maiden speech.

I have closing comments on two areas. The first is that I was struck by the contributions from different religious and racial traditions, from the noble Lords, Lord Sacks, Lord Ahmed and Lord Parekh. One of the enduring contributions which immigration will prove to have made to our society is the recovery of some proper understanding of marriage and family life gained from those different traditions. That is not sufficiently recognised in our public discourse.

As an individual on these Benches, I would not begin to speak for the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, but I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, that there should be a completely level playing field for different religious and non-religious traditions in relation to marriage. The Minister did not respond to that point but I express my personal support for that.

The focus of our debate has been on marriage, and rightly so, but I end by emphasising that there must also be proper support for relationships other than marriage. In that sense, at least, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Patel, although I thought he still gave some evidence of the nervousness of using the “m” word, which possibly characterised the previous Government. I encourage the present Government to plunge headlong into studying this debate and all that has been said this afternoon.

I have a final comment on cohabitation. It suits men. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, drew attention to that. I have two daughters, one of whom is a successful lawyer here in London and one of whom is qualifying as a doctor. They both had complete equality of opportunity, but it has been on men's terms. They have had to conform to a male world, and our society needs to think deeply about what will genuinely support women in our society. That has been an underlying theme of our debate. On that note, I ask the indulgence of the House to beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.