Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, this has been a long and tiring debate, and one that has been a privilege in which to participate. I thank all Members of your Lordships’ House who have spoken, and in particular those who have offered such steadfast support to me, both before and during the debate. I am very grateful. As has just been confirmed, this is a free vote, and Peers across the House have supported my amendment. All of them recognise that it should not be a matter for party politics but a matter of principle.

It is interesting how in the course of this fascinating debate, over two days, the thrust of the debate, or the tide for and against, flowed backwards and forwards. Last night, the first half of that session was more or less in balance, while the second half of last night was discernibly running in my favour, as it were, and today the tide has turned and is running the other way. I make no criticism of that; it is the random way in which the speakers list is put together. Certainly, all of us agree that this is an issue of profound interest and importance and one that will affect every member of our society. We cannot escape the fact that the Bill will completely alter the concept of marriage as we know it. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and the right reverend Prelates, the Bishop of Leicester, the Bishop of Chester and the Bishop of Exeter, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey of Clifton, and the noble Lord, Lord Singh of Wimbledon, all explained their opposition to the Bill and the detailed practical and theological reasons that underpin their stance.

In the debate over the past two days, it appears to be an accepted fact that the process of the Bill was seriously and unusually flawed. Nobody has really challenged those facts, and I comment very briefly on them because they have been repeated several times already. It is useful to remember that there was no proper consultation or Green or White Paper. There was no manifesto or pre-legislative scrutiny. The Government consultation procedure was, frankly, a mockery, and the result was rigged, because whichever way you look at it the vote was 83% against the Bill. It was heavily constrained in its passage through the House of Commons, with some serious doubts about the process.

Here in your Lordships’ House our debate strangely never came to real grips with the consequences of the Bill should it become law. There was very little examination or comment about the major issues of employment, education, freedom of conscience or the rights and well-being of children, save the one intervention that I noted from the noble Lord, Lord Eden of Winton. Neither was very much time spent on the inevitable impact on the existing legal framework. All we knew for sure was that the Government had admitted that the impact on existing legislation would require at least 8,000 amendments. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has just tried to put that into context.

I hope noble Lords will agree with my very unusual procedure of quoting five lines from my opening remarks yesterday, which can be found in col. 947 of Hansard. I reflected on the fact that the last country to change the law as we seek to do was Argentina, two years ago, and the results are just becoming apparent. A valued commentator in that country said this:

“It quickly became clear that legalising same-sex marriage required a revolution to our internal law. It impacted laws regulating public order, identity, gender, rules of kinship, filiation, marriage, names, marital property arrangements, divorce, alimony, parental rights, succession, domestic violence, adoption, artificial reproductive techniques, surrogate motherhood, liberty of conscience, criminal law, tax law and employment law, among other topics”.—[Official Report, 3/6/13; col. 947.]

Whether there are 8,000 or 800 amendments, that is the sort of change that we must expect as a result of the change in this law.

The major part of the debate that we have had here focused, perhaps unsurprisingly, on aspects of love and acceptance—and who, really, can deny the importance of that? The homosexual community is very small numerically but is none the less just as important and seeks society’s affirmation and social acceptability, which it claims would come from access to, and inclusion in, marriage as we know it. Civil partnerships already give legal equality, as we know; what is now being sought is social inclusivity. I, like many others in your Lordships’ House, was moved by the speeches of, for example, the noble Lords, Lord Browne of Belmont, Lord Smith of Finsbury, and Lord Black of Brentwood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. Their ability to speak as they did, and that those views can be accepted in public, was refreshing and commendable.

I have been one of many who have helped in some small way to further the steady growth of full integration of homosexuals into society from a position of illegality, through a phase of tolerance, if you like, into full recognition and acceptability. I am also aware of the very large number of others in society who recognise the huge change that is being sought by this Bill. Balancing the understandable fears and wishes of the majority against the understandable demands of a small minority is a difficult task, but in their haste to force this Bill through Parliament the Government will not satisfy either group. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, spoke convincingly of the dangers of forcing legislation on to the statute book without wide consultation and carrying all shades of public opinion with it. I wholeheartedly agree and have cited the current situation in France as one example.

There seems to be, if not general agreement, certainly some agreement that the Bill is in a mess, ill thought through and without proper process or popular mandate. The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, went so far as to say that the progress of the Bill has to date been tantamount to an abuse of process. He might well be right.

Some argue that it should pass Second Reading and be ameliorated in Committee. We all know that it is constitutionally proper to force a vote at Second Reading. There are precedents for doing so, the most recent being the Health and Social Care Bill only two years ago. We know that such a move was endorsed by the 2006 Joint Committee on Conventions and I recognise and endorse the usual approach in your Lordships’ House to taking care and time to examine a Bill in detail, but not on this occasion. The structure of the Bill is too bad for that and I am certainly not alone in that view. A battery of big guns in your Lordships’ House agreed with me that the Bill is so fatally flawed that it is incapable of sensible amendment and should be voted down now and sent back to the drawing board.

Yesterday, the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, the noble Lords, Lord Naseby, Lord Framlingham, Lord Tebbit, Lord Mawhinney, Lord Waddington, Lord Anderson of Swansea, and others—all parliamentarians widely experienced in both Houses—supported the move to vote the Bill down now. We have heard the same today from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, and—in his short intervention—the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean.

It might be a bold move—it probably is—but it is legitimate, it has a precedent and it is appropriate. Who is prepared to drive a steamroller over the address given by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, himself at one time chairman of the Bar, who asked a series of questions about what the next factors are, whether we should dwell solely on emotion and avoid questions of law, and particularly the fact that Clause 1 of the Bill gives no room for negotiation or manoeuvre when it gets to Committee. All the might of government has been thrown at this Bill. Every corner has been cut, yet it is ill constructed and does not have the stamp of democratic legitimacy.

Perhaps I may close in posing a few fundamental questions? Are noble Lords sure that the process has been properly handled? Are they sure that the Bill has democratic legitimacy? Are they sure that all the likely consequences have been thought through—remember Argentina? Are they sure that we know everything about the legal effects of the Bill? Are they sure that there will be no later attempts to widen the definition of marriage further, and are they happy for another Government on another occasion to ram a different Bill through in this way? If not this Bill, when would noble Lords vote against a Bill at Second Reading? If some of the answers are in the negative, I suggest that we vote the Bill down now and do not waste further parliamentary time on it. I suggest that we send it back for proper, mature research, consultation and debate about the whole institution of marriage, taking into account, if you like, civil partnerships for both heterosexuals and homosexuals, because the issue is too important for all sections of society, gay or straight, to be introduced on a whim and handled in so cavalier a fashion.

How can we refuse a Second Reading? Rather, I ask noble Lords: how can we allow it to proceed? I ask your Lordships to agree my amendment and, in doing so, I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.