Marriage

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, I join in the thanks that have been expressed to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, particularly for the way in which he introduced this debate.

The Relationships Foundation has been mentioned already, and it has set out clearly the benefits of marriage, first to couples, secondly to society, and thirdly to the public purse through the nurturing and launching into the world of children. The trends, however, are obvious: fewer marriages per year, and later marriage. In 2008, 45 per cent of births were outside marriage, and we see rising marriage and family breakdown.

In 1999 the annual cost of the latter was put at £5 million, plus a much higher suicide rate among divorced and separated people. In 2010, Relate put the total direct costs of breakdown at £42 billion, as the right reverend Prelate himself pointed out. That report also pointed to the impact of breakdown on schools. Emotionally damaged children often lose the ability to learn. We also have to take into account the enormous costs of taking children into care. We should reflect on the often unsatisfactory results of the care that those children have received.

I suggest that we are in fact living on the accumulated capital of past long-term stable marriages and families, in which parents cared for children and those children later cared for their ageing parents. In the 1970s the Finer committee reported on one-parent families. Housing associations, in which I happen to be involved, made some limited provision for them. Now the number and proportion of one-parent families has jumped up, sometimes casting a blight on whole neighbourhoods. I suggest that we face a crisis and need to invest in marriage and in longer-term committed relationships of partners to each other and to their children.

I welcome the coalition’s statement on this and the Prime Minister’s offer of £7.5 million per year, starting next year, as my noble friend Lady Hollins mentioned. I question whether this is sufficient in view of the huge costs of family breakdown. The Government should provide help for serious marriage preparation. I had personal experience of this in the 1960s. The Government should also encourage faith and secular groups to provide preparation using trained volunteers. Existing spouses and couples often need quite specialised counselling, and this has been touched upon. The Government should cover the core costs of organisations providing such counselling.

I tentatively suggest that, without being intrusive, the Government and society should encourage informal cohabitants to enter into civil partnerships. Partnerships of this kind would define the duties and rights of the cohabiters. Civil partnerships should not be reserved just for same-sex couples. Heterosexual partnerships would avoid the couple penalty in the benefits system. My suggestions can fit in with current notions of the big society. They could be fleshed out at local level by local support groups for marriage and by family circles for parents, small children and even teenagers. These could help each other, for example, with babysitting, with young people’s discipline and with other practical problems.

Couples should stand alongside single parents. Social clubs, credit unions, holiday schemes and youth organisations all have supporting roles to play. Partnerships between government at all levels and local and voluntary groups are what we need, but far more detailed thought will be required to sustain and improve committed long-term relationships.

It has been said that marriages are made in heaven. I suggest that they also need divine grace to survive. There is, however, a huge amount that all of us can and should do in support of divine grace.