Registration of Marriage Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 29th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, I should inform the Committee that, if this amendment is agreed to, I am unable to call Amendment 2 by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on being so specific and particular. In fact, he has been exemplary in the way he has sought to limit delegated powers. He has given a lesson to us all, on which he should be most warmly congratulated.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am afraid I was unable to speak at Second Reading. My noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market is unable to be here. She takes a keen interest in matters genealogical and in registration. I am glad to have had the opportunity of the prompt to look at this. I congratulate the right reverend Prelate, as others have done.

The point I will raise is not to carp, but because I do not want to find that there has been a problem later on. I evidence that by saying that, when I came into this House I was asked, as we all are, by various directories to provide biographical details and I was asked for my father’s details, I said, “You can publish my father’s details if you publish my mother’s as well. It’s both or neither”.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for his continued support in bringing forward changes to the way in which marriages are registered. Under present legislation, the marriage register entry provides space for the name of the father of each of the couple to be recorded but not that of the mother, and that has been the case since 1837.

This situation is outdated and it is widely accepted that changes are required to address this inequality. There has been growing pressure both from within Parliament and from the public for reform. For example, an online petition attracted in excess of 70,000 signatures. However, it should be noted that when deciding how the marriage entry should be updated we will need to ensure that we allow for all the different family circumstances in society today—for example, same-sex parents.

The most efficient and economical way to introduce these changes is to reform the way in which marriages are registered in England and Wales by moving to a “schedule”- based system similar to that in place for marriages and civil partnerships in Scotland and Northern Ireland and for civil partnerships in England and Wales.

The basis of a schedule system is that the couple sign a marriage schedule instead of the marriage register book. Couples will still be able to have that all-important traditional photo taken after the ceremony with their witnesses, but instead of signing the marriage register they will sign the marriage schedule with their witnesses. The schedule will contain all the information to be entered into the electronic marriage register maintained by the Registrar-General.

Those marrying in the Church of England or Church in Wales will still be able to marry by ecclesiastical preliminaries—for example, the publishing of banns or the issue of a common licence. Where ecclesiastical preliminaries are used, the member of the clergy will issue a “marriage document” similar to the schedule issued by the superintendent registrar, which will be returned to—

[Lord Cormack]

Why cannot we use the traditional word, “register”? Why do we have to go in for “schedule”?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I think that it is because we are dealing here with the legality rather than the tradition. I understand my noble friend’s point, but I would hope that such a small but important matter did not derail this important Bill. I am not for a moment suggesting that that is my noble friend’s intention; I understand his point.

Moving from a paper-based system to registration in an electronic register will facilitate the updating of the marriage entry to include both parents of each of the couple without having to replace all register books and it would introduce savings of £33.8 million over 10 years. The changes which the right reverend Prelate seeks are not controversial and have received a lot of cross-party support, hence the support in the Chamber today.

As the Bill contains delegated powers. I advised at Second Reading that the Home Office would produce and publish illustrative regulations prior to Committee to demonstrate to noble Lords how the powers in Clause 1 would be used. I can confirm that the draft regulations were made available in the Library of the House on 17 April.

I must emphasise that the regulations are an early draft and further drafting is required. We would welcome any comments from noble Lords on the content. It is our aim to be transparent during the process of amending the Marriage Act 1949 as we move towards the introduction of the schedule system.

We will continue to work with all key stakeholders, including the Church of England, in developing the policy. I will make further drafts of the regulations available in the Library in due course. I assure noble Lords that the changes to the Marriage Act will be made using the affirmative resolution procedure, ensuring they are debated in both Houses of Parliament and providing parliamentary oversight.

My noble friend Lord Blencathra expressed concern at Second Reading about the use of delegated powers in the Bill. To address those concerns, I can confirm that Home Office officials have been working with the right reverend Prelate to make technical amendments to Clauses 1 and 2 to limit the use of delegated powers to introduce these changes and to provide noble Lords with some reassurance as to how the powers are intended to be used.

The scope of the enabling language in Clause 1 will be narrowed to reflect the policy intent of the Bill to replace the current paper-based system with an electronic schedule-based system. Amendments required to primary legislation will be limited to the Marriage Act 1949. The broad power in Clause 1(2), which gives the Secretary of State the power to amend, repeal or revoke provisions in other Acts of Parliament, will be removed. As the right reverend Prelate has already explained, it is also proposed to include a sunset clause in the Bill limiting the power for the Secretary of State to make regulations which amend primary legislation to a period of three years beginning on the day on which the regulations are first made.

Concern has been raised that the powers in Clause 2 may delegate matters currently provided for in primary legislation. Amendments to Clause 2 will limit the scope to making regulations under Section 74(1) of the Marriage Act. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the House that these regulations are intended only to supplement the current provisions in the Act.

I know that noble Lords recognise the importance of taking these changes forward to modernise the process of registering marriages, and I hope that the amendments made to the Bill will provide some reassurance to them of the value we place on parliamentary scrutiny throughout the legislative process.

I want finally to answer a question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. When the Bill was drafted, the policy was not so advanced and the powers in the Bill provided flexibility. We have been working closely with Home Office officials to develop policy further, which has allowed us to make these changes.