Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Mark Menzies and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Some people say that the Bill is just about semantics, but semantics matter and words express the values of our society. The Bill is part of an astonishing and wonderful change that has taken place over the past 50 years and which has taken millions of us from criminalisation to legal equality and the enjoyment of self-worth and validation.

Those sentiments were certainly not apparent to me as a young man. I thought there was something wrong with me that had to be mastered, and for three decades I managed that struggle. The relief and happiness that comes from not having to do so any longer is due to the courage of others who fought for all the measures to advance equality over the past five decades that are the precursors to today’s Bill. My comments need therefore to be understood in the context of my enthusiasm and appreciation for those who have been prepared to lead on this issue, particularly the Prime Minister.

The final line of the Stonewall briefing for the debate reads:

“Stonewall therefore urges you to support this modest final legislative measure of equality for homosexual men and women in England and Wales”.

As presented, however, the Bill is not the final measure. While civil partnerships remain open only to same-sex couples, we will have retained an inequality that we will have to revisit. However much I have tried to explain to my constituents that we propose to legislate to deliver equality in the eyes of the state, protecting the beliefs of the religious, I do not believe that my constituents of faith understand the distinction between marriage in the eyes of the state and marriage in the eyes of their God.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

I am a Catholic and religious freedoms are very important to me, as is my religion, but so too are equality and tolerance. I think that the Bill protects both those things. I came here to abstain, but I have listened to the debate like I have listened to no other, and it is now my intention not to abstain, but to support the Bill .

[Mr Blunt]

I am delighted to hear that intervention from my hon. Friend. I advocate that Members support the Bill and make those distinctions even clearer as the Bill passes through the House.

Much as the Bill will be another step forward; even unamended it gives us the vehicle properly to differentiate marriage in the eyes of the state from religious marriage. Simply put, we should be legislating for equal civil marriage and enabling religious organisations to carry out same-sex marriages if they wish to do so, and protecting them if they do not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Menzies and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to involve the charity sector in prison-based initiatives.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

The National Offender Management Service is committed to opening commissioning to all sectors. The Green Paper and the Ministry of Justice business plan for 2011 to 2015 set out that we will no longer provide rehabilitation services directly without testing where the private, voluntary and community sectors can provide them more effectively.

[Mark Menzies]

It is likely that many of the contracts for the rehabilitation of offenders will be placed with large providers, but what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the charities and small-scale providers that do a lot of valuable work in that regard are being rewarded under payment by results?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Menzies and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

18. How much was paid to convicted criminals by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority in (a) 2008-09 and (b) 2009-10.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority paid £6.9 million in 2008-09 and £12 million in 2009-10 to people with unspent convictions. These figures reflect only cases where the CICA reduced the award due to unspent convictions, which the current compensation scheme says it must do. However, there are still cases being considered under previous schemes that did not make such reductions compulsory, so the real figures are likely to be higher.

[Mark Menzies]

Does the Minister agree that it is slightly perverse and repugnant to be paying out compensation to criminals who have often caused severe injury and offence to their victims?

[Mr Blunt]

Yes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Menzies and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

T8. Will the Minister pay tribute to Winston Churchill, who, exactly 100 years ago today, as Home Secretary, commented:“The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.”?

[Mr Blunt]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Of course, it is a delight to offer a tribute to the greatest parliamentarian of the 20th century. Right hon. and hon. Members should note that today is precisely the 100th anniversary of one of the great speeches on prison reform, given by Winston Churchill while he was in his Liberal phase. I am delighted that I will mark that anniversary by speaking to the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders. I am sure, Mr Speaker, that you will allow me to use the final phrase of that speech 100 years ago, when Churchill said:

“an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man—these are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.”—[Official Report, 20 July 1910; Vol. 19, c. 1354.]

Those are measures that we will live up to.