Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL]

Lord Elton Excerpts

Friday 19th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, I join my noble friends and others who have congratulated my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, not just on this Bill but her general work. My noble friend Lord Cormack referred to her as a “lode star”. Having seen a good deal more of her work than perhaps he has, I would say that she is more like Halley’s Comet during her visits here. This is a rare occasion when she focuses on the troubles in our little patch. She is active on all five continents and is often in considerable physical danger. However, this is not a party called to celebrate her gallantry and generosity. I will therefore move swiftly on to the substance of the Bill that she brings before us.

The general principle in the Bill is pretty clear, and it is a principle that is subscribed to by all your Lordships: if we are to have two strata of law—a national and universal law, and some sort of minority laws within it—it is absolutely essential that the minority laws shall be in conformity with the national law. That is simple and it is a secular, not a religious, statement. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is here specifically as a secular being and is pronouncing on this so that those of us who are known to be of particular faiths can look to him to validate what we say as regards the logic and history of law.

It seems pretty simple to adumbrate that general statement that there must be conformity between the minor and the major systems of law, but it is not quite as straightforward as that. This debate and the Bill have focused attention on the particular faith of the Muslims and a particular form of practice in the Muslim faith with regard to the implementation of religious laws. It is not just sad but a desperate pity that there is no Muslim voice in this debate. I, for one, long to have some illumination as to what the regard for Sharia is among the different groupings of the Muslim faith, and what sort of material and emotions we are dealing with as we discuss it. My friend the right reverend Prelate said that we have to go carefully in this, and he is right. At the bottom of all this is a religious faith.

My noble friend has emphasised, as have others, that it is actually ignorance that is the great weakener of the female sex in these situations because they are not aware of the rights that they might otherwise have. However, it is not ignorance that takes all of them into those courts or leads all of them to be governed by their decisions; it is the faith of the participants that does so. As long as women believe that it is natural justice that they should be treated as they are under Sharia law, they will not seek to liberate themselves from it and, regardless of what the civil courts may say, they will abide by it.

The question of education is of prime importance. I admired my noble friend’s diatribe in favour of citizenship, and I rather think that I shall join his ranks. I think that Runnymede was actually a conference of barons securing their rights, which have filtered down more widely to us now, but that is a small point of history. I must not be drawn astray in the short time we have left.

The Bill has to be studied in detail in Committee. I support the right reverend Prelate in saying that of course it is bad legislative practice, and unnecessary, to put into law something that is there already. I strongly suspect that a good deal of this is there already, but the difficulty is that it is spread out in different pieces of legislation and amendments to them, and is not known about. This relates to education again—not of the people who go to the courts but of the courts themselves. I wonder if there is any requirement for people who sit on these bodies to be qualified in any way that is recognised by the British legal system. It would be a very good thing if they were, so that they are aware of the detail of the civil law with which they must conform. At some point there will be a conflict—and we should not be shy of that fact—between those who believe passionately that Sharia law is the be-all and end-all of their faith and those who do not. However, we do not know, because of the absentees from this debate, what proportion of the population of this country who subscribe to the Muslim faith fall into either group. We have to go cautiously, but if we are to have justice for our citizens, which is what they now are—brothers and sisters, as we would say—they must be protected in some way.

My noble friend has taken a bold step. In Committee, we shall be able to discover how much further, in what direction and how much more cautiously we have to proceed. I thank her for what she has done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I thank my noble friend for that intervention because it gives me an opportunity to conclude by saying that the Government are fully committed to protecting the rights of all citizens, and there is legislation in place to uphold those rights. What I said earlier is that the Government are actively working with groups to ensure that there is awareness and a change of attitude. The Government believe that that is the best way forward to ensure that the points of view that have been expressed so widely around the House—

[Lord Elton]

I am sorry, I am right behind my noble friend—in one sense only. I intervene just to ask my noble friend whether, when he develops the policies he has told us about in Olympian terms, he will be very careful as regards the sources of the briefings he is given and the research that has gone into them. It is clear that some of the briefings I have seen have simply been drawn from the bodies that are being investigated themselves, with no connection at all with those who have suffered at their hands, or indeed did not even know that they had any recourse.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I can assure my noble friend that the Government and all the other groups that are interested in resolving this issue will be looking at all the evidence. In reaching the conclusions on how best to take it forward, we will be bringing forward a matter that is sensitive, and therefore the Government are working hard with other groups to ensure—