Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Simon Hughes and Susan Elan Jones

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

If my hon. Friend will bear with me, I do not believe that and I am not arguing that. They should of course be entitled to hold that view.

This group of amendments seeks to give humanists the right to have humanist weddings. I support that proposal. I understand the objection to the technical drafting, and perhaps that needs to be considered. However, the principle—my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) made the point—of allowing humanist weddings seems to me to be the right one. The hon. Member for Foyle argued that that is what happens over the border in Ireland. Humanists have a belief, and therefore they should be entitled to have weddings according to their belief. Constituents have argued for that, it happens already in Scotland, and, like other people, I too have been to a humanist ceremony—not a wedding, but a funeral.

As a light intervention, we should not be overly afraid of the word “pagan”. My dear late mother, who lived in a village in Herefordshire, in her latter years went to a pagan wedding in the orchard in Hampton Bishop. She said it was one of the most enjoyable weddings she ever attended. Of course, there was a civil ceremony beforehand. People should be allowed to have the practice they want, including humanist weddings.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me what his proposal would mean to a Nigerian couple on Old Kent road who want to get married in their large, African, black majority church? Would they have to have a separate civil wedding?

[Simon Hughes]

That is a good question. The hon. Lady, as a former Southwark councillor, knows well the communities I represent. The short answer is that we could do it one of two ways. We could either do what is done in many countries on the mainland of Europe, which is to require everybody to have a civic ceremony first. In France or Belgium, people go the town hall, have the civil ceremony and then go to their church, mosque, temple or synagogue and have their faith ceremony. Secondly, one could separate, in the place of worship—the black-led church on the Old Kent road, my own church or any other—the civic part of the ceremony from the faith part. That is not done in the same way at the moment. In my church in Bermondsey people do not see clearly the distinction between the two parts. The couple going to the church on the Old Kent road would believe they were being married in the eyes of God. They would also want to be married in the eyes of the law. It could be done in either of those ways.

What do I want new clause 18 to achieve? For heterosexual couples, I want us to allow a humanist wedding, a civil marriage or a civil union, and civil partnerships. For same-sex couples, I want full, equal civil rights as a married couple, to be called either a civil marriage or a civil union. I want them to have civil partnerships, too. I hope also that we will not allow the easy transfer between civil partnerships and civil marriage, going from one to the other by signing a form, which is the weakness of clause 9.

New clauses 18 and 14 seek to address an issue that the House has not so far wrestled with: would it not be better to seek to address the need to separate, for these purposes, the faith and belief of people of faith that marriage is ordained by God, and the civil responsibility of the state to provide a place where people can come together and perform a ceremony in the eyes of the law? It is pity that we have not addressed it. I will judge the mood of the House on whether to put that to a vote. I am sure it will be addressed in the other place. I hope we can give everybody equal status in the eyes of the law, and, coming back to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), the right for each faith group to decide whether to regard heterosexual couples and same-sex couples as able to be married in the context of their faith, which we should allow to all faiths, as well as to those with no faith at all.