Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Mike Weatherley and James Duddridge

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Huppert]

It is a great pleasure to follow the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley). I also want to pay huge tribute to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). It has been a great pleasure to work with her during the passage of the Bill, and her speech today set the scene extremely well. I pay tribute to her, although I am not sure whether that will help or hinder her future plans. I thought that she did extremely well.

There are two issues that we need to debate today. One is the principle of whether we should allow humanists to conduct weddings; the other relates to the process of how we might get there. This is all made much more complicated because our marriage laws are incredibly complicated. They have exceptions and exemptions all over the place. The Second Church Estates Commissioner, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), who speaks for the Church of England, and who I imagine knows the Marriage Act 1949 quite well, has spoken of how the rules are all tied to places. Section 26 of the Act states that marriages may be solemnised in

“a registered building…in the office of a superintendent registrar”,

and

“on approved premises”.

It also permits

“a marriage according to the usages of the Society of Friends (commonly called Quakers)”

and

“a marriage between two persons professing the Jewish religion according to the usages of the Jews”.

So we already have an exception and, as far as I can tell, the world has not fallen apart since those provisions were passed in 1949. They have worked without any problems. There are other areas of marriage law that are just complicated. We do not have a simple, clear system, and we are not going to get one as a result of any legislation that we pass today. That will involve further work.

Let me turn first to the question of principle. Is there a desire to allow humanists to conduct weddings? This was mentioned by the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt). If any Member here in the Chamber disagrees with the principle of humanists being allowed to conduct weddings, I would be grateful if they intervened on me to say so. If no one expresses such a view, we will take it that there is no dissent on that principle.

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is presuming; the fact those people who are currently in the Chamber do not express disagreement with him does not mean that he is right or that they all agree. That is blatantly obvious.

[Mike Weatherley]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comment. He is absolutely right to suggest that we cannot speculate accurately about the views of the people who are not in the Chamber. It is clear, however, that no strong views have been expressed that challenge the principle of holding humanist weddings, and I hope that that will be useful if this is discussed further in another place. There has not been a strong chorus of speeches here expressing disagreement with the principle. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the views of all 650 Members have not been taken into account, however. It would be helpful to know whether the Secretary of State supports humanist weddings in principle. She is welcome to intervene on me to give me her view on that. There is a desire for this change among the general public. Indeed, most people I have spoken to have been surprised to learn that humanist weddings are not allowed.

There are problems with how the process would work. People who had a humanist wedding would have to have a register office wedding first. Some registrars are very helpful, and make it easy for that to happen. They make it a seamless experience. Others, however, are difficult. They ensure, for example, that the events take place in different locations, thus breaking up the ceremony, to the detriment of people who should be having one of the happiest moments of their life. Some people who have a humanist wedding celebration do not have a legal wedding. I presume they know that they are not legally married, but that can cause problems for them. So there are concerns about the way in which the process works at the moment.

We know that this is a pro-marriage step. We have heard a lot from the Government and the Minister to say that the aim of the whole Bill is to support marriage. We know that that is what it does. We know that in Scotland between 2005 and 2011 there was a very large increase in the number of humanist weddings—the figure I have for the increase is 2,404—and there was a small decrease of 418 in civil weddings. Overall, that is a very large number of extra weddings. That is surely something that a pro-marriage Government would thoroughly want to support.