Civil Partnership Act 2004 (Amendment) (Sibling Couples) Bill [HL]

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 20th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for her submission today because it summarises my own thoughts on this matter. I too begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for his incredibly hard work on behalf of the LGBT community, not only in this country but globally. I know he has fought against all kinds of discrimination, and he has led the charge over the criminalisation of homosexuality in Commonwealth countries. I consider him very much a friend, and we work together on these issues. On this matter, though, I fundamentally disagree with him. I think he and many noble Lords today have identified a problem. I hope the Minister will be able to address that problem but not through the solution offered up by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. Clearly there is a problem, particularly for siblings who have shared a home together and then suffer a detriment, partly because of rising property prices and partly because of the length of time that they may have been living together.

However, I come back to the point—the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, put this extremely well—that this cannot also be a mechanism for simply driving a coach and horses through tax legislation. If there is an issue to be addressed then, as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, said, it should be a matter for the Treasury to look into and come up with proper evidence-based solutions to an identified problem. That is what lawmaking should be about. I do not want to see a situation where—and perhaps I am taking his name in vain—the Duke of Westminster might enter into a civil partnership. For what purpose? Perhaps he would do so with a member of his family. After all, many members of the aristocracy live in their parents’ homes for many years, far longer than the 12 years that is identified in the Bill. When we have seen Britain’s heritage being under threat, we have looked at that in terms of how we protect it and address the laws of inheritance that way. We did not come up with a solution that talked about civil partnerships.

Many noble Lords have referenced songs, but what came to my mind when I was sitting here was Salt-N-Pepa: “Let’s talk about sex, baby”. For many years, my identity was—and it still is in many circumstances—invisible. There are still many places in this country where I cannot walk down the road hand in hand with my husband. Many heterosexual couples can, but we cannot because we will still suffer abuse. When the Civil Partnership Act was going through this House, my partner and I were planning a ceremony. The amendment that has been talked about today caused our ceremony to be delayed by a year. We could not get married on my 50th birthday; instead, 12 months later we got married on my 51st birthday. So I know that people have genuine concerns, but let us not pretend that the concerns about sibling partners were a genuine reason to delay the Civil Partnership Act in 2004. That Act was significant progress on the road towards equality for LGBT people. We finally got full equality with the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which again was something that we in this House worked together on across the parties. However, when that Bill was going through, many people in this House made arguments about why gay couples should not be able to get married. That is why I have got quite emotional today.

I want the problem of siblings whose homes they have built together to be properly addressed. I want the Minister to take that away and say, “Let’s properly gather the evidence”. I am sorry that Penny Mordaunt did not respond properly, because there is an issue there about taxation. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said, this is not about making marriage between brothers and sisters. That is not what people are really proposing, is it? Let me make it clear that civil partnership was on the road to equal marriage and equality; it was addressing the issue of identity and ensuring that I did not remain invisible as a loving couple—a romantic, loving couple—which many people still in this country deny us. I hope that this debate has ensured that we identify the problem, seek a solution, but do not undermine those hard fought-for rights that we have so proudly established in this House.