Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I am pleased to be here and that I heard the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, coming over the hill as cavalry in aid of the noble Lord, Lord Dear. It is an honour to give the opposition winding speech on this Second Reading debate in your Lordships’ House. I am not envious of the task that the Minister has in answering the substantial and passionate debate that we have had for the past two days. My noble friend Lady Royall outlined most eloquently in her opening remarks the reasons why Labour is supporting this Bill and the Government, but as in the Commons there will be a free vote. I shall not repeat all of her arguments.

When we are contemplating something new, I always think that international comparisons are helpful. Last month this House supported making caste discrimination part of our legislative equality framework. In doing this, and persuading the Government and the Commons that it was the right thing to do, we were blazing an international trail of which we should be proud. Today, we are not being so adventurous, because we are proposing that the UK will soon join those countries that have now signed same-sex marriage into law. They are Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Norway, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Uruguay and now France.

I offer my congratulations to Vincent Autin and Bruno Boileau on their marriage last week. It was historic for being the first same-sex marriage to take place in France following President Hollande’s signing of the legislation into law. First and foremost, it was a momentous day for this couple, who on that day made a loving and lifelong commitment to one another before their friends and family, just as I and many in this House have done over the years.

The objections to the Bill to bring same-sex marriage on to the statute book seem to fall into two or three categories. There are noble Lords who are uncertain that freedom of religion will be respected by the Bill. To them I say that the Government have built huge safeguards into the Bill, which, it is widely agreed, will do the job. The most reverend Primate and the right reverend Prelates who have spoken have woven brilliant theology and arguments against the principle of same-sex marriage, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, my noble friend Lady Mallalieu and others have said, the state’s concept of marriage has been ever-evolving. It has long since diverged from religious teaching. They have not managed to unpick the locks, so to speak.

While lawyers can always find something to disagree about, I would encourage those noble Lords to read back the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, who have explained the strong assurances that legal security is provided by the Bill. Some concerns have been raised by noble Lords about the position of teachers and faith schools in reconciling their views of marriage with the new reality. My party is confident that the current law achieves the right balance in securing the right of faith schools to educate pupils in a way that is sensitive to the law of the land and also to students, some of whom may be gay or have parents of the same sex. I may never use these words again, but I agree with the evidence that Michael Gove gave to the scrutiny Committee stage in the Commons. However, it is right that these issues will be tested and scrutinised by this House in Committee, because it is right that these questions and concerns are allayed.

There are those who say that the Bill is in some ways anti-democratic, that it was not in manifestos, that there was no Green Paper—and, they add, let us rubbish the consultation—and they ask why it was not a Private Member’s Bill. The noble Lords, Lord Norton and Lord Kerr, covered the constitutional points, and I agree with their analysis. We have to look at the strength of feeling in favour of the Bill in the Commons. It is remarkable that the majorities at Second Reading and Third Reading were so large. It may serve the opponents’ purpose to suggest that some kind of secret Whip was applied, but I am with the noble Lords, Lord Cope and Lord Bates, about the whippability of such an issue.

Many MPs thought very hard about the Bill and had serious discussions with constituents before deciding how to vote, but each MP made a decision alone about whether to support it, and so must we. Rarely as parliamentarians do we have the opportunity, by the words that we use and the votes that we cast today, to affirm the equal respect that we have for our fellow citizens regardless of their sexuality and the equal respect that we have for their long-term and loving relationships.

We have also had a bit of scaremongering. Scaremongering to further an argument in which you passionately believe is a legitimate debating ploy, but noble Lords are wise and experienced enough to recognise scaremongering when they see it. We can safely say that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, won the award for this one. In a short and sharp intervention, he managed with his usual skill to provide a scare for almost everything, including compulsory promotion of homosexual marriage and artificial insemination of the heir to the throne.

[Lord Tebbit]

Clearly, the noble Baroness has the answer to all questions and is going to tell me the answer to the question that I asked about the heir to the throne.

[Baroness Thornton]

Yes, goal. I am happy to say that it is the Minister who answers the questions here.

The noble Lord, Lord Dear, also did quite well in the old scaremongering field when he said that some 8,000 amendments might be required by this legislation. I thought that that was remarkable and checked whether it is true. I am pleased to reassure the House that this seems not to be the case. The noble Lord seems to have confused the fact that there are indeed 8,000 references to marriage within the total library of legislation, without the need to amend them all. Furthermore, it is clear from discussion with the Bill team and reading the Bill that Clause 11 and Schedule 4 deal more than adequately with his concerns. I am sure that the Bill team will be happy to explain this to the noble Lord in due course.

Other noble Lords feel uncomfortable with what they see as a departure from traditional marriage. I do not doubt that this is how they feel, but I ask them to reflect a little deeper on those feelings. Is it habit and familiarity that make change uncomfortable and unsettling? This was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin. The Minister noted that we all move at a different pace when faced with change. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, put it so eloquently, major social changes do not happen when the majority align themselves; they have almost always happened when a minority has stood up for what it believes to be right, put it to the public and in the end proved that it is right.

Unfortunately, some who profess to believe in equal rights for everyone, regardless of gender, race and sexual orientation, find it difficult fully to escape prejudices ingrained over many years when homosexuality was said to be at worst an abomination, or at least something to be very quiet and discreet about because it bordered on the shameful. To noble Lords who are finding the idea of same-sex marriage difficult to come to terms with, I make a plea that they should listen to their heart and indulge their generosity of spirit. Having heard the deeply personal speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Browne and Lord Smith, my noble friends Lord Alli and Lord Collins, the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, it would be hard not to be moved—and it would be very hard-hearted not to support same-sex marriage.

The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, asked me a direct question: would my Government have brought in this legislation? Given that we brought forward all the equalities legislation between 1997 and 2010, and given the presence of my noble friend Lord Alli over my shoulder, how could I say otherwise? It is the personal testimony not just of noble Lords who have faced discrimination and struggle because of their same-sex relationships, but of all noble Lords who have spoken of the love and strength they have found through their partners, civil partners, husbands and wives, that should secure our resolve to reject the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dear, and proceed with the Bill. I speak of my noble friends Lady Royall, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, Lord Young of Norwood Green and many others.

For many, marriage is the glue—my noble friend Lady Mallalieu called it the superglue—that binds together relationships and gives those in them the strength to face life’s challenges. To have the opportunity to extend this privilege to all couples who want to make that commitment is something that we must now embrace and celebrate as a means to a stronger and more loving society.

I look forward to the Bill receiving a Second Reading today and to getting on with the Committee stage, where I hope we will make progress with many of the issues raised by my colleagues and by noble Lords across the House. We on these Benches will look at pension rights, transgender couples, about which my noble friend Lady Gould spoke so passionately, and humanist marriages, which were referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and which we are keen to see introduced. Therefore, I urge the House to vote against the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dear, and to see the Bill through to its next stage. For the sake of clarity, if noble Lords support the continued passage of the Bill, the Lobby to go into is the Not-Content, and I look forward to seeing many of them there.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her support. We have had a comprehensive debate that has shown how this House takes its role seriously and is able to deal with controversial and sensitive issues in a measured way that respects differing views. What has come across strongly is that those who support the Bill and those who oppose it essentially agree on one crucial matter: the importance of marriage. We all agree that marriage is a cornerstone of our society that provides stability and brings families and communities together.

It will not be possible for me to refer to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, or to respond to all the points raised. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for that. However, some key themes have emerged, and I will deal with those. A number of noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Dear, questioned whether the process that had been followed for the Bill was right. My party was clear about its wish to consider the case of same-sex marriage in A Contract for Equalities, published alongside our election manifesto. The coalition agreement set out the Government’s commitment to push for,

“unequivocal support for gay rights”.

We have conducted the process of developing our proposals in a completely transparent way. We carried out the country’s largest ever public consultation, and every response and petition was accounted for and considered with the utmost care. I say to noble Lords who raised questions about petitions that these were not ignored. They were all treated equally, commented on and flagged in the Government’s response to the consultation.

Some noble Lords questioned whether the Bill had had proper scrutiny in the other place. Convention tells us that it is not for this House to comment on how the other House conducts its business. However, it is worth noting that the Committee stage there was completed with half a day to spare. The Bill had two days of debate on Report on the Floor of the House, and was passed by a majority of two to one at Second and Third Readings. As many noble Lords argued, it is now for this House to scrutinise the Bill in detail.

Moving on from process, some noble Lords queried the robustness of the religious protections, including the quadruple lock, whereby no religious organisation or individual minister can be compelled to conduct a same-sex marriage; all will be free to refuse to do so. I say, first, that I am very grateful to the most reverend Primate and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester for their acknowledgement of the work that the Government have done to ensure that the religious protections in the Bill are effective. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, were very clear in their contributions about their view of the robustness of these religious protections. However, it is only right, because in my opening remarks I did not address some of the specific points that were raised by noble Lords in debate, that I should now do so.

The concern was raised that the European Court of Human Rights might order the Government to require religious organisations to marry same-sex couples according to their rites, in opposition to their religious doctrines. To suggest that this could happen is to rely on a combination of three highly improbable conclusions. First, the court would need to go against its own clear precedent that states are not required by the European Convention on Human Rights to provide marriage for same-sex couples, and that they have a wide discretion in this area. Secondly, the court would need to decide that the interests of a same-sex couple who wanted a particular religious organisation to marry them according to their rites outweighed the rights and beliefs of an entire faith and its members as a whole. Thirdly, the court would need to discount the importance of Article 9 of its own convention, which guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and religion. It would be rewriting the rules not just for one religious organisation in England and Wales but for all religious organisations in all 47 states of the Council of Europe.

Some noble Lords raised concerns that the Bill does not deliver equality. Indeed, they suggested that it creates new inequalities and argued that it redefines marriage because same-sex couples cannot procreate. I will return to the definition of marriage after dealing with some of the specific examples that were raised in this part of our discussion. The current definition of adultery has been developed in case law and does not cover relations between members of the same sex. At present, a married man who has a sexual relationship with another man is not committing adultery. That would be the case only if he had sexual intercourse outside marriage with a woman. The Bill retains this definition. Like existing marriages, a same-sex marriage can be ended by divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour in such circumstances.

As for consummation, that is not necessary for any marriage to be lawful and indeed not possible in some, which is why we allow for death-bed marriages. As consummation is a historical definition associated with procreation, it would not make sense to extend this concept to same-sex marriages and there is no need to do so. If for no other reason, the opportunity for noble Lords to debate these sorts of things in greater detail is a good reason for this Bill to get more scrutiny. I am sure that they will not be able to resist debating all this in great detail.

The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, asked about the law of succession and its interaction with the Bill, and in particular whether a monarch in a same-sex marriage could succeed to the throne and whether his or her child, or the child of his or her partner, could succeed. The answer is that the Bill does not change anything in relation to the law of succession. Only the natural-born child of a husband and wife is entitled to succeed to the throne—not adopted children, children born as a result of artificial insemination or children born to only one party to a relationship. That is the position now and it will remain the case.

[Lord Tebbit]

Is that not discriminatory?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

It is discriminatory now and we are not changing anything.

Some noble Lords expressed concern about the Bill’s impact on freedom of expression and freedom of conscience. Particular reference was made to whether teachers would be forced to promote same-sex marriage and be dismissed if they criticise it, whether employees will be barred from criticising same-sex marriage and whether registrars will have any choice but to conduct such marriages.

The position of teachers has been the subject of a lot of debate and scrutiny already in the other House. My right honourable friend Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, who would like to think that he has the word “standards” stamped through him like a stick of rock, was clear in the evidence that he gave to the Public Bill Committee that there is a significant difference between a teacher explaining an issue and promoting or endorsing it. No teacher will be forced to promote or endorse same-sex marriage. Any teacher will continue to be able to state their own belief or that of their faith about same-sex marriage. However, teachers and schools will be expected to make clear as a matter of fact in teaching about marriage that the law in England and Wales enables same-sex couples to marry.

We do not consider that the Bill changes anything in this area and we are clear that the existing protections for teachers are sound. As I said yesterday, though, we are continuing to listen to, and discuss these concerns with, religious groups and others to ensure that we have done all we can to make those protections clear.

As for changing the Bill to ensure that employees cannot be dismissed or disciplined for criticising same-sex marriage, we do not consider that there is any need to do so. Indeed, there could be harm in making such an amendment by raising doubt in other areas, such as criticising homosexuality or civil partnerships. It is lawful to express a belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and it is lawful to do that whether at work or outside work. That is a belief that is protected under the religion or belief provisions of the Equality Act 2010, and penalising someone because of such a belief would be unlawful discrimination under that Act. This will still be the position once the Bill is enacted.

None the less, we have been considering what steps we can take to ensure that employers, and particularly public bodies, are completely clear about their responsibilities to respect the rights of people who believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman. With that in mind, the Equality and Human Rights Commission will be reviewing relevant guidance and statutory codes of practice to ensure that the position is completely clear.

On registrars, the Government remain of the view that public servants with statutory duties should not be able to exempt themselves from providing their services for same-sex couples.

Regarding the Government’s position on this important issue of same-sex marriage, at the moment those of us who love someone of the opposite sex can get married, and those of us who love someone of the same sex can be civilly partnered. In legal terms, there is little difference except in the way they are formed and the way they can be dissolved if that sadly becomes necessary. Yesterday I explained why marriage is important to us as a society. Others referred to it as a social good. We all agreed that the institution, the enterprise, the endeavour or whichever word we think best to describe it is a good thing, and that it is important. Some noble Lords, including the right reverend Prelates on the Bishops’ Bench, my noble friend Lady Cumberlege and others, have suggested that gay couples should have their own institution separate from marriage. My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern repeated that today, and made clear that he believes so on the grounds of procreation.

On the question of a separate institution, gay men and women already have their own institution called civil partnership. Like the Bill, the arrival of civil partnerships was a huge change. Unlike the Bill, which has 19 clauses, the Civil Partnership Act had 200 clauses and was contested strongly in debate in your Lordships’ House. After it was finally passed, same-sex couples had access to equal legal rights but they remained different. Marriage remained the preserve of couples made up of one man and one woman. It is the success of civil partnerships that has driven greater acceptance of same-sex couples. In an amazingly short space of time we hear people, including those who used to oppose them, say, “We can’t believe we were all so concerned at the time”. Civil partnerships have led many people—indeed, the majority—to say, “Do you know what? If civil partnership is marriage in all but name, why can’t gay men and lesbian women get married, if that’s what they want to do?”.

Another institution just for gay couples, as suggested by several noble Lords, is not going to make the demand for them to be able to get married go away. Another institution just for gay couples will not address the fundamental purposes at the heart of this Bill: the acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people for who they are, and the preservation of marriage itself as a vital institution to our society.

In his powerful contribution, my noble friend Lord Black said that legislation drives social change, and up to now the Civil Partnership Act has been the best example of that. As some noble Lords pointed out during the debate, positive social change, when it favours minority groups, is not by definition about numbers. In 2010 the Government made a commitment to push forward unequivocally for gay rights in the coalition agreement. The fact that three years later we are legislating for same-sex marriage reflects the accelerating acceptance of same-sex couples and the possibility that change is possible.

The Bill does not change the religious doctrine or beliefs of any religious organisation that does not want to change them. The Bill protects and promotes religious freedom. Outside of religion, though, gay couples want to marry and many straight couples want them to be able to. The majority of people are ready to open the door to marriage and to welcome those who want to commit publicly to their partner, because they see that they want to do so for all the same reasons as them.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester asked yesterday,

“Do the gains of meeting the need of many LGBT people for the dignity and equality that identifying their partnerships as marriage gives outweigh the loss entailed as society moves away from a clear understanding of marriage as a desirable setting within which children are conceived and raised?”.—[Official Report, 3/6/13; col. 962.]

That may be a legitimate question for the church to ask itself when or if it ever considers whether to allow same-sex couples to marry. However, I would argue that, outside the church, people already understand that two gay men or two lesbian women marrying each other is the same as a man marrying a woman. They have accepted that it is okay for same-sex couples to marry and that them doing so will not redefine their own marriage, because they understand that gay men and women decide to enter a civil partnership for the same reason that a straight couple decide to marry. Same sex couples and opposite sex couples are different physically, but that which leads them to want the same is not different.

I urge this House to ensure that the protections that allow the church and other faiths to maintain their very legitimate belief in marriage being only between a man and a woman work properly. This House should also debate and scrutinise whether the Bill protects freedom of speech and freedom of expression; that is what we really need to ensure is the case. We need religious belief in marriage to sit comfortably alongside what the state allows in law, just as we already do for divorce, contraception and abortion. It is possible for us to allow something in law that not everyone agrees with and to respect our differences of view. The Bill, which allows same sex couples to marry, is, as I said at the very start of the debate yesterday, also about protecting and promoting religious freedom. I say again that, if further changes are necessary to make those protections clearer, the Government will consider doing so.

There have been many powerful speeches but I hope that noble Lords will forgive me, and that my noble friend Lord Jenkin will not be embarrassed, if I say that I thought that his was one of the best. He said better than I ever could that this Bill will not redefine marriage because it will not redefine his own of 60 years, which has provided mutual comfort and support.

Over the past two days, we have heard lots of views about what marriage means and we have all expressed ourselves differently, but we all unite on three points of principle: marriage is a serious commitment between two people; we think that the institution itself is vital to our society; and we respect and must protect religious freedom and freedom of speech. The Bill supports all three principles. I hope that your Lordships’ House, building on its tradition of supporting social change, will wish to affirm that the Bill should have its Second Reading here. I urge noble Lords who support the Bill, and those who remain unsure and so want it to be scrutinised in detail before they decide, not to accept the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dear. If the noble Lord calls a Division, I urge all noble Lords to vote not content.