Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is good to see you in your place for this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. In proposing this Bill, I have not made things easy for myself. It contains four separate main proposals spanning four different Government Departments and potentially four different Ministers. It is not a Government handout Bill, and to complicate matters, three of the four original Ministers involved were moved as a result of the recent reshuffle. It has been a stressful few weeks. I know how hard it is to get a private Member’s Bill on the statute book, even when it contains a straightforward single measure, let alone four, so on the face of it I am being greedy—but for good reason.

In more than 20 years of entering the private Members’ Bill ballot at the start of the Session, my name has never once come out of the hat, and it probably will not again in whatever years or months I have left here. So as this is likely my only opportunity, I have been ambitious in trying to include as many of the good causes that I have tried to promote in this place, in two cases through ten-minute rule Bills in recent years. So I am a private Member’s Bill novice after almost 21 years in this House and I ask the House to be gentle with me.

It has not been easy to keep all the ducks in a row across four Government Departments, but I am grateful that they have all in turn met with support from Ministers such that the Bill can now proceed into Committee, with the will of the House. I freely admit that it has not been an easy process and at times it has been a very frustrating one. I place on record my thanks for the advice, support and patience of Farrah Bhatti in the private Bill Office, which has been invaluable.

The frustration has been that, from the very start, I offered to be as flexible as possible with Ministers with the wording of the Bill, and to sit down with departmental officials to agree on the terminology so that we could make progress with a Bill that had Government support. While at various times I secured agreement in principle to the main contents of the Bill from the revolving cast list of Ministers, it has literally been only in the past week that officials have sat down with me to talk turkey and final details have been thrashed out. Hence my apologies for the very late publication of the Bill just in time. It is only in the last week that we have secured the lead Minister, and I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), to the Dispatch Box; I am sure that all is going to end well.

The upshot of all this is that there is not as much detail and commitment in the Bill as I would originally have liked. There will be much work to be done in Committee and thereafter, but I am confident that we have a Bill containing robust principles that we can pass on to closer Committee scrutiny, with the will of the House. Notwithstanding those reservations, I am grateful to all those who have helped to produce the Bill today, especially those individuals and organisations outside this place who have campaigned long and hard on the various issues, based on powerful and often heartbreaking personal experiences.

To summarise, the four component parts of my Bill are as follows. The first is a provision intended to undertake further work on how the Government can extend civil partnerships to opposite sex couples as per my previous amendments, ten-minute rule Bills and presentation Bills. Equal civil partnerships are unfinished business from the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, and change requires only a straightforward amendment to the Civil Partnership Act 2004, which this House enthusiastically passed, with my support.

The second is a provision that mothers’ names, or second parent names, should be included on marriage and civil partnership certificates, based on previous Bills introduced by a number of hon. Members, which would bring England and Wales in line with Scotland and Northern Ireland, for the first time in about 180 years.

The third is a provision on the registration of stillbirths. My previous ten-minute rule Bill would have amended the definition of a stillborn child in the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 to include the formal recording of a child who is stillborn in the usual way but before the current threshold of 24 weeks’ gestation. The fourth is an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to give coroners the power to investigate late-stage stillbirths if, for example, there is suspected medical negligence.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

If the Bill makes progress, people will be able to get married to, or have a civil partnership with, anybody of any sex. I have been written to by two sisters—this is also a long-standing campaign of my own—about the burning injustice in this situation. The two sisters have lived together all their lives, but when one of them dies, the other one will have to move out of their home because they will not be able afford the inheritance tax. Only the Treasury stands in the way of righting this injustice; it is about money. I hope that when my hon. Friend works on the detail of the Bill, he will try to ensure that it helps siblings to stay in the homes in which they have lived all their lives.

[Tim Loughton]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern, which has been raised on several occasions. It is not my intention, at this stage, to extend civil partnerships to people other than cohabiting couples who are in a relationship. I want to mirror the existing terminology in the Civil Partnership Act 2004. I hope that we will entertain proposals such as my hon. Friend’s in Committee and on Report, and I have no doubt that he will want to raise the matter.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that it is an injustice for everyone apart from siblings to be able to have whatever legal relationship they want? I am not asking him to say now that he will include the matter in the Bill, but does he at least accept that this is a worthy cause, on which I have campaigned for many years?

[Tim Loughton]

I understand that it is a worthy cause, but it is different from enabling people to have their relationship recognised by the state. There are clear financial disadvantages and implications in the situation that my hon. Friend describes. I entirely sympathise with his view and I think that the injustice needs to be dealt with, but I do not propose to deal with it at this stage in my Bill. Doing so would make the Bill even more complicated than it already is. In addition, it is highly likely that the long title of the Bill will need to be amended in Committee, particularly to reflect the change that will be required to the electronic record of marriage certificates.

Let me start with the extension of civil partnerships to include opposite-sex couples. The 2004 Act was long overdue, and it was enthusiastically supported by me and the great majority of hon. Members from all parts of the House. At its heart, the Act tackled a clear obstacle to equal rights for loving couples who just happened to be of the same sex.

Subsequently, the House decided in 2013 that it was time for equal marriage. That has happened, the skies have not caved in and we have moved on. I certainly do not want to reopen the bruising debates that we had at the time, especially across my party. However, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 gave rise to an unintended new inequality, and it is surely time for equal civil partnerships—a natural extension that was supported across all parties when the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill was introduced and that has just as much support now. In the consultation that the Government conducted before the introduction of that Bill, 61% of respondents were in favour of extending civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. Alas, for some inexplicable reason, the proposal never made it into the Act. If it had done, the Act would have been better; that is why change is necessary today.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Can my hon. Friend tell the House how many people entered that consultation?

[Tim Loughton]

Quite a lot, although I have not got the figures. The consultation was one of two, and the result of the second consultation was different. As a result, no action was taken, but this is clearly unfinished business.

[Michelle Donelan]

To help my hon. Friend, the second consultation had only just over 11,000 entries. One could argue that that is not representative of the population or a gauge of public opinion.

[Tim Loughton]

Given that there are 3.2 million cohabiting opposite-sex couples, it is a very small proportion of those who might be affected, so this is unfinished business. More than 80,000 people have signed a petition in favour of the change, and that is a small indication of the demand that exists.

There are three main rationales for supporting the measure. First, it will correct the unintended but glaring inequality that results from the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act, whereby same-sex couples are entitled to continue in a civil partnership, take up a civil partnership or enjoy the recent extension of marriage while opposite-sex couples have only the single option of conventional marriage, albeit by a larger range of religious institutions. That is not fair, and it gives rise to an inequality in an Act that was billed as promoting equality.

Secondly, a positive reason for pushing forward with the Bill is family stability. As a former children’s Minister, that has always been at the top of my priority list. According to the latest estimate, there are some 3.2 million cohabiting opposite-sex couples in this country. That is more than 4,900 couples per parliamentary constituency, and it is about double the figure that was reported just 15 years ago. Those couples are responsible for more than 2 million children. Some 53% of birth registrations are to married parents, but about a third are to unmarried parents who are living together.

Cohabitation is the fastest growing form of family in this country, whether we like it or not. We need to recognise that our society is changing and we need to adapt in order to promote family stability, in whatever form, to provide a continuum that gives children the best and most stable start in life.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

On that point, has my hon. Friend seen the families manifesto by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce)? It raises the importance of stability in the family for bringing up children. Does he support that manifesto?

[Tim Loughton]

Not only do I support it, but I think my name is on it. My proposal will help to create greater stability, with the ultimate aim of giving the 2.2 million children in such relationships the very best opportunities and the best start in life.

The Centre for Social Justice has calculated that the cost of family breakdown to this country is some £48 billion a year, or some 2.5% of gross domestic product. That is a big and growing problem, which is socially and financially costly for our society. Fewer than one in 10 married parents have split up by the time their child reaches the age of five, compared with more than one in three of those who are cohabiting but not married, and 75% of family breakdowns involving children under five result from the separation of unmarried parents. The CSJ has produced a raft of statistics showing that a child who is not in a two-parent family is much more likely to fall out of school, to become addicted to drugs, to get into trouble with the law, to be homeless and not to be in employment, education or training. Let me be clear: that is not to be judgmental about parents who find themselves, through no fault of their own, having to bring up a child alone, but two partners make for greater stability.

We know that marriage works, but civil partnerships are also showing evidence of providing greater stability for same-sex couples, including those who have children through adoption, surrogacy or whatever means. There is a strong case for believing that extending civil partnerships would improve that stability for many more families in different ways. If just one in 10 cohabiting opposite-sex couples entered into a civil partnership, that would amount to more than 300,000 couples and their children. The extension of civil partnerships would offer the prospect of greater security and stability, lower likelihood of family breakdown, and better social and financial outcomes. That, surely, would be progress.

Understandably, some people will ask, “Why can those couples not just get married?” People choose not to get involved in the paraphernalia of formal marriage for a variety of reasons. For some, it is too much of an establishment thing to do. Many identify marriage as an innately religious institution, and even if it is done in a registry office, it still has religious connotations. Some see marriage as having a patriarchal side, and some see it as a form of social control. For others, it is rather expensive. Marriage is not seen as a genuine partnership of equals, as civil partnerships are. Those are not my views, but they represent how many people see marriage. Many people have lobbied me—I am sure that they have done the same to other hon. Members—about why they would like to take advantage of the opportunity to enter into a civil partnership, and why they have not got married.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Some may argue that in effect, the idea of commitment would potentially be undermined, but does my hon. Friend agree that probably in reality, people who might opt for civil partnership might otherwise not have made any commitment?

[Tim Loughton]

It is interesting. I recorded a television interview this morning with a couple who have been together for 26 years; they have teenage children and, for a variety of reasons, do not want to get married. They travelled to the Isle of Man, which is the only part of the British Isles that recognises civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples, and have become the first couple from mainland UK to have a civil partnership through the Isle of Man. Obviously, it is not recognised in the UK proper.

They made a very interesting point. They said, “We want to show our commitment in the eyes of the state. We want the stability and the protection, and the legal protections, that we just don’t have as a cohabiting couple, but marriage is not right for us. If we are going to be forced into a marriage as the only way of getting that legal protection, we would effectively be undermining marriage, because we would be doing it for the wrong reasons.” Civil partnership is a way to show that commitment and get the protections without having to conform in a way that they do not believe in.

Whether we agree with them, that is their right. Surely in an age when families take many different forms, the key thing that the state should be interested in is doing whatever creates stability and the best opportunities for loving couples to thrive and for children, when they are involved, to be brought up in a stable environment. This is surely another opportunity to get more people to be able to take advantage of such a situation.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Tim Loughton]

I will—in for a penny, in for a pound.

[Rebecca Pow]

The consultation did not have any consensus that we should go down the civil partnership line, but will my hon. Friend comment on the fact that in France, religious marriages are not recognised and have to be preceded by a civil ceremony? I wonder whether any data have been gathered about how many split-up families they have there, or whether they have a better record than we are likely to have, because this is really all about family stability.

[Tim Loughton]

I have precisely the statistics that my hon. Friend is looking for. If she is patient for a few minutes longer, I will give her exactly that information.

Such people are mostly in committed loving relationships, but if they do not want to go for a traditional marriage, they have no way of having that recognised in the eyes of the state. That brings me on to the third main rationale for this reform—I promise that I will then come to my hon. Friend’s point. Particularly worrying is the common misconception that there is such a thing as a common-law wife or husband, as a woman typically finds out abruptly on the death of the partner when there is an inheritance tax bill on the estate and potentially on the family home. If a woman has a child with her partner and the relationship breaks down, she is not entitled to any form of financial support if they are not married. There is no automatic entitlement to property, even if she had been paying into the mortgage.

When one partner is much older than the other and there is a reasonable expectation that one will die some years before the other, the long-term survivor would not receive the same tax benefits as a married woman or those in a civil partnership. That would be discriminatory towards the couples’ children. The same vulnerabilities can apply if one partner does a runner. Even a couple engaged to be married have more rights than a cohabiting opposite-sex couple.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not want to stop the hon. Gentleman’s flow, but he will be aware of the work of Resolution, the family solicitors group, which has a Cohabitation Awareness Week. It has drawn my attention, and I am sure that of many other hon. Members, to the lack of rights and the fact that people are totally ignorant about their lack of rights, if there is a breakdown or a loss of one of the cohabiting parents. Hopefully this change in the law will put that right.

[Tim Loughton]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful for his intervention. I was not aware of the Cohabitation Awareness Week, but many family law solicitors have written to me and support the campaign, because they see the fall-out when this goes wrong. People come to them thinking that they had entitlements and legal status because they had been living together for so long, but they suddenly find out that they do not. They have a tax bill and lots of problems and headaches, and their children do not have a home to live in. If anything, I hope that the Bill will help to publicise that real problem in the law that the Government need to address at some stage. I am giving them the opportunity to take the bull by the horns and get on and do something about it now.

The question is: why should not those who have made a conscious choice not to go for a traditional marriage have the opportunity to have the same legal rights, responsibilities and protections in the eyes of the law that we, rightly and not before time, extended to same-sex couples back in 2004? There are also several further applications. Many people with strong religious beliefs—particularly Catholics who have ended up getting divorced, which is in conflict with certain religious teachings—may not be inclined to get married again if they meet a new partner, because their Church supposedly believes that they should be married for life. In many cases, however, they would be able to reconcile that position by entering into a new formal commitment through an opposite-sex civil partnership. In addition, as it stands, someone admitting to being in a civil partnership currently automatically carries the revelation that they are in a same-sex relationship. That could be an unintended invasion of their privacy when some may wish to keep that private. There are a number of practical, real-life scenarios in which civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples could achieve something very positive and non-discriminatory.

I am pleased with the widespread support that the measure has attracted. The Marriage Foundation, for example, has gone on record as saying that it “fully supports” the Bill

“to introduce civil partnerships for heterosexual couples. It is a strong pro-family measure which, crucially, encourages commitment and stability. By making civil partnerships available to heterosexual couples, we would provide a new, formal basis for those who want to make a solid and legally backed commitment to one another but who prefer not to marry for whatever reason.”

I also welcome the support from The Times and the campaign spearheaded by Frances Gibb as part of that newspaper’s family law reform campaign. I see this measure as an important part of reforming family law and making family arrangements fit for the 21st century. We need to grasp the nettle on no-fault divorces and bring relationships into the modern age, and we need to find new ways for the state to recognise committed relationships and give stability, especially to the children within them. Making sure that shared parenting works and keeping warring parents out of the courts, where their children become bargaining chips, still needs further work too.

I come to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). Opposite-sex civil partnerships are not something that has been cooked up in this country. In South Africa, the Civil Union Act 2006 gave same-sex and opposite-sex couples the option to register a civil union by way of a marriage or a civil partnership on the same basis. In France, the pacte civil de solidarité—or PACS, as it is known—was introduced in 1999 as a form of civil union between two adults of the same sex or the opposite sex. A few years ago, marriage was added to that. Interestingly, one in 10 PACS has been dissolved in France, yet one in three marriages ends in divorce. There is evidence that some of those civil partnerships have created greater stability, whether they are opposite-sex or same-sex partnerships, than traditional marriage.

No complications are involved in my proposal. I want opposite-sex civil partnerships to be offered on exactly the same basis as same-sex civil partnerships, notwithstanding the earlier comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). It would not be possible for someone to become a civil partner with a close family member, or if that person was already in a union, and the partnership would need to be subject to the same termination criteria.

It is a simple proposal, and surely the case is now overwhelming. All that would be required is a simple one-line amendment to the Civil Partnership Act 2004. It could all be done and dusted in Committee by tea time—although I guess that by the time drafting officials have got their teeth into it, many more clauses will be required. That is what I originally intended in the Bill and put forward in my amendment to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 and subsequent ten-minute rule Bill and presentation Bills.

I acknowledge, however, that the Government have concerns about taking the full plunge and going the whole hog at this stage, and want to carry out further research about the demand and practicalities for such a reform. I have doubts about what that would achieve, given that, as hon. Friends have mentioned, we have had two public consultations on the subject in the last five years, and we now have 13 years’ worth of civil partnerships for same-sex couples in practice from which to garner evidence. However, I recognise the Government’s caution, and in securing a clear commitment to learn from the experience so far and promote equality further, I hope that they will come to the same conclusion as I have, together with the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign and the now more than 80,000 people who have signed a petition in support, many of whom have been enthusiastically lobbying their MPs in recent weeks.

There is a growing tide of support for the measure, fuelled by a court case that is currently destined to go before the Supreme Court in May. I pay tribute to Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, who have pioneered equal civil partnerships and whose application for a civil partnership to the authorities in Kensington and Chelsea triggered this campaign.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned Charles and Rebecca, who are constituents of mine. As he says, the case is going to the Supreme Court, but so far the courts have indicated that it is for the House and the Government to make decisions about the matter.

Does the hon. Gentleman share my dissatisfaction about the fact that the Government may be considering restricting civil partnerships? They appear to have accepted the concept of equality, but if they remove civil partnerships from same-sex couples rather than granting them to opposite-sex couples, they will be restricting choice.

[Tim Loughton]

I completely agree, and I will say something about that in a minute. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for the couple whom I mentioned, and his support for the overall campaign.

The issue arose when Charles and Rebecca approached their local register office to register their opposite-sex partnership. As they put it,

“We wanted to formalise our relationship and celebrate it with friends and family but we’re not able to do it for what seems like no apparent reason. We prefer the idea of a civil partnership because it reflects us as a couple—we want equality through our relationship and with 2 babies now we want the protections offered by formalising marriage.”

The couple have campaigned tirelessly through the courts. Interestingly, at the Appeal Court last year a split decision ruled against them, but—as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) —the court put the Government on notice that the current situation was unsustainable, and referred specifically to my private Member’s Bill as a vehicle for remedying it. I do not want to prejudge the Supreme Court’s findings—the case has not yet been put before it—but it is hard to see how the Government will not be criticised for not taking heed of the need for action when the golden opportunity afford by my private Member’s Bill has dropped into their lap.

I appreciate that—as the hon. Member for Hammersmith also mentioned—the Government are also reserving the option of achieving equality by scrapping civil partnerships altogether and sticking with same-sex and opposite-sex marriage. I think that that would be a mistake. It is no surprise that there has been a big reduction in the number of civil partnerships since the option of full same-sex marriage was introduced in 2014. In 2016 there were 890 civil partnerships, whereas the average was about 6,000 in previous years, before marriage was an option. That figure was, in fact, an increase on the number in 2015, but, more tellingly, although the full figures have yet to be published, the number of civil partnerships that were converted to full marriage is still in the teens. Indeed, in 2014, when the option first became available, only 4% of existing same-sex civil partnerships were converted to marriage, which suggests that civil partnerships have a specific and different role. That applies as much to same sex-couples as it no doubt would to opposite-sex couples who have been denied the opportunity to gauge the demand so far. Abolishing civil partnerships altogether would deprive not just opposite-sex couples but same sex-couples of choice, and would leave tens of thousands of civil partners in limbo, forced either to become an abolished species or to convert to the full marriage that they had thus far resisted.

In the last consultation on extending civil partnerships, the Church of England was strongly in favour of retaining them. William Fittall, the secretary general of the Archbishops’ Council and the House of Bishops, said:

“Our arguments for the retention of civil partnerships are based on the need to maintain an option for those same-sex couples who wish for proper recognition of their relationship but do not believe that their relationship is identical to ‘marriage’.”

I hope that, by the same token, the Church of England will soon come round to the idea of giving formal church blessings to civil partners.

I also hope that the Government will quickly move from a further consultation phase to an implementation phase, and nothing in the Bill would curtail the speed at which they could do so. There is no statutory requirement to put a consultation in legislation. I hope that the further review that I think the Minister wants to offer can start immediately and in parallel with the Bill’s passage, so that if the Government determined what we already know, they could enable thousands of potential civil partners to tie the knot with the same urgency with which the previous Government approached the Bill that became the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013.

Many Members believe that the time has come to back equal civil partnerships, to the potential benefit of many cohabiting couples and their children and the stability of our society as a whole. This part of my Bill has widespread cross-party support both inside and outside the House. It is a concise and simple but important measure, which could bring about equality for those who choose civil partnership, and I urge the House to support it.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

My hon. Friend has been tenacious in his negotiations this week with the four Departments involved in the Bill. Will he confirm that he is content for the first two clauses to serve as “marker” clauses, and that he and I will jointly table amendments to them so that we can discuss in Committee the consultations that he and I have discussed this week?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is impatient. I will confirm that later in my speech: there is plenty more to come. My hon. Friend got in first, but it was not really necessary.

I am aware that I have majored on the first of the four parts of the Bill. It has three other important components, which I think are less complicated and hopefully less contentious.

The fact that my late mother could not add her name as a parent on my marriage certificate is an anachronism, well past its sell-by date and, frankly, an outrage. In fact, the signatures of both my mother and my mother-in-law were included on our marriage certificate, but at our discretion, and as the signatures of witnesses rather than parents. My father signed, as did my wife’s father, because in the days when the anomaly originated, a daughter was a father’s chattel for him to give away, and literally sign away. That has been the case in England since 1837, the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign, and has not changed since then. The problem apparently lies with the current system of marriage registration, which relies on hard-copy register books held in churches and other religious establishments as well as register offices. That involves some 84,000 open register books in 30,000 churches and religious buildings, so it is quite a big undertaking.

Surely, in this digital age, it is not beyond the wit of man or woman to introduce a single electronic register instead of relying on hard-copy books. That would avoid the potentially costly need to replace all the register books. Instead of signing a book at the ceremony, the newly married couple would sign a document that would then be returned to the register office to be entered in the existing electronic register so that an official marriage certificate could be issued, including the names of all the parents. The measure could also take account of new family structures, including those to which I have referred. There would be two spaces for the signatures of each of the partners in the marriage, or, indeed, civil partnership. That innovation was actually made when civil partnerships were introduced in 2004, but, bizarrely, it does not apply to marriages. Both parents would be included, be they biological mother and father, same-sex parents of whom one might be a biological parent, or adoptive parents.

That, surely, would be a progressive move to acknowledge and celebrate all types of relationships that give rise to children who go on to get hitched. It would also avoid some of the more insulting scenarios that I have encountered, in which a single mum who has given everything to bring up a son or daughter cannot be acknowledged on a wedding certificate, whereas an absentee or abusive father who did a runner at the birth and played no part in the child’s upbringing has an automatic pass to be registered on the certificate. Tragically, many mums discover that literally when the pen is taken away from them straight after the nuptials, when the register is signed to confirm the marriage.

It is nonsensical that this simple measure has not already come to pass. It is apparently the policy of the present Government and that of the previous one. It has been supported by Ministers and Prime Ministers, and it has been the subject of numerous early-day motions, petitions, debates and Private Members’ Bills introduced by, among others, the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees)—who is present—and my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar). My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) is attempting to push through the latest such measure in tandem with the Bishop of St Albans, and my proposals, which would be considered in more detail in Committee, mirror their intention—although I am aware that there are some concerns about potential Henry VIII clauses, which I will seek to restrict. Ensuring that my Bill passes into law swiftly would be the fastest way to achieve this much-supported change in the law.

I can confirm—the Minister helpfully pre-empted me on this point—that the two clauses relating to civil partnerships and marriage certificates are marker clauses. They will be replaced and elaborated on in Committee, as agreed with Ministers, albeit at the 11th hour. Is the Minister happy?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am very happy.

[Tim Loughton]

My day is complete.

Finally, let me deal with the subject of stillbirths. This is perhaps the most emotionally traumatic part of the Bill. On many occasions, the House has been moved by the personal testimonies of Members in all parts of the House who have spoken out bravely and vividly about their own family experiences. It is because of those emotional personal testimonies that this whole subject probably punches well above its weight in this place—quite rightly—and by doing so has given a voice and hope to the too many parents who are directly affected by the tragedy of stillbirth. I pay tribute to the work of the all-party group on baby loss, and particularly the work done by my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Will Quince), whom I am delighted is here today, and for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), and the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson)—and I am sure anybody I have missed will take the opportunity to intervene or make a speech later in the debate. This has been a great cross-party effort, which is something we do well in this House when we get it right.

I first became involved with this subject while shadow Children’s Minister and then later when a constituent came to me with a tragic tale of how she had suffered a series of miscarriages and then a stillbirth after 19 weeks. A stillbirth is classified as such only if the gestation period is 24 weeks or more; one day less, and that stillbirth becomes a non-viable delivery, more commonly referred to as a mid-trimester miscarriage. There are no central records of exactly how many babies are born in that way, so they do not form part of the perinatal mortality figures, which, while falling—fortunately—are still far too high in this country. Without wishing in any way to downplay the importance and pain of a miscarriage, particularly for new parents struggling to have their first child, the experiences are different. That was brought home to me most starkly by the story of my constituent Hayley.

Back in 2013, Hayley was pregnant. For nearly 20 weeks she carried the child of her partner Frazer. She felt the baby kicking; she went through all the other ups and downs of pregnancy. Previously she had suffered a miscarriage after just a few weeks. Sadly, after around 19 weeks something went wrong, and Hayley and Frazer’s baby died unborn. It was not a miscarriage, and the following week Hayley had to go through the pain of giving birth to a baby that she knew was no longer alive. She had to take powerful drugs to induce the pregnancy; she experienced contractions; and she went into Worthing Hospital and had pain relief. The following day, in June, she gave birth to her baby, Samuel. She held Samuel in her arms. She and her partner took photographs, had his hand and footprints taken and said their goodbyes.

Fortunately, Hayley was given good support by the clinical staff at Worthing Hospital—an outstanding hospital, particularly its maternity department—and had bereavement guidance later. She has an understanding employer in West Sussex County Council, and she was also fortunate to find a sympathetic funeral director, and the funeral took place two weeks later.

To all intents and purposes, Hayley went through all the experiences of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth endured by any other mother, but they were coupled in this case with the unimaginable grief of a parent who has lost a child before they could ever get to know him. She did not just go through a stillbirth: she had a still baby; she became a mum.

The crucial difference is that Hayley and Frazer’s baby is not recognised in the eyes of the state because he was born before 24 weeks’ gestation. If he had survived until 24 weeks and one day, he would have been recognised and the death properly registered in a register of stillbirths. More than just adding to the statistics, that would have been the acknowledgement of an actual, individual baby. To add further insult to injury, Hayley had to hand back her maternity exemption certificate straight afterwards. I am glad to report that the story has a happy ending, because Hayley and Frazer went on to have a child, healthy and doing well, and last year also got married.

The stark difference I have described surely cannot be right; it adds insult to the unimaginable pain that the parents have already had to suffer. Until the passing of the Still-Birth (Definition) Act 1992, which amended the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, the threshold was 28 weeks, so prior to that even more babies went unrecognised in official records. That change followed a clear consensus in the medical profession on the age at which a baby is considered viable. Since then, there have been cases of babies born before 24 weeks who have, incredibly, survived.

It is true that there is an informal procedure for hospitals to issue so-called commemorative certificates for foetuses that are not classified as stillbirths. They provide parents with a certificate that records their pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. The charity Sands has produced a template of a certificate of birth and encourages all hospitals to adopt it. However, it is unofficial and counts for little or nothing in the eyes of the state.

As a result of this case, I brought a ten-minute rule Bill before this House on 14 January 2014. It was supported by a number of Members here today and was widely supported across the House, but, as usually happens, it ran out of parliamentary time. However, I did take the issue further with the help of the then Health Minister my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), who hosted a roundtable at the Department of Health and we were in the middle of coming up with a solution, with the aid of the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which has been very supportive, and the charity Sands among others. Alas, however, as has been the bane of my private Member’s Bill experience, the Minister was moved on and the initiative was lost.

This Bill would resurrect that initiative by committing the Government to holding a proper review of how we could come up with a scheme whereby the state would recognise that a child such as Samuel actually existed. For the many parents who have written to me since I first launched my Bill, it would help to bring some closure after a truly traumatic ordeal. Some of the experiences that have been revealed to me are unimaginable to those of us lucky enough not to have gone through it with their own children.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, which is very difficult to listen to. Will he go into detail about the effects of registration of a baby’s body—on the burial of the body, for example, or what happens to the remains—and also on the legal position of maternity and paternity leave for the bereaved parents?

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[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is an expert on this and has campaigned on it for a long time, and has her own personal experiences. There are many implications in law, in employment and in other regards in recognising that somebody has gone through the experiences of being pregnant, for which they are entitled to various things, but all of a sudden, just because that pregnancy came to a traumatic end before 24 weeks, all that support and recognition completely falls away. There are far-thinking employers who take that into account, although they are not obliged to. So this is about more than just giving closure to parents who have had a traumatic experience; there are all sorts of other things that can help them get through that experience as well. I will conclude shortly, and I know other Members will then recount their own experiences of the very real practical implications.

One particularly stark example was a woman who had given birth to stillborn twins delayed either side of the 24-week threshold. One was registered as stillborn, recognised in the eyes of the state, while the other, born just before 24 weeks, did not exist. That cannot be right and we can and must do better. The Secretary of State for Health shares that ambition and is to be commended for the comprehensive measures to bring down substantially the number of stillbirths and to deal much more sympathetically with the impact when they do still happen. Other countries, such as Holland and Norway, have reduced their mortality rates much more dramatically, yet in the UK we continue to see wide variations geographically and demographically. For example, the stillbirth rate in the south-west of England is 4.7 per 1,000 live births, while in the north-east it is 5.8; that is a 23% difference. There are big differences between age groups and mums from different ethnic backgrounds.

The simple fact is that 3,122 babies were stillborn in England and Wales alone in 2016; those are officially stillborn over 24 weeks, not including those before the 24 week threshold. One in 225 pregnancies end in stillbirth after 24 weeks; it is 15 times more common than cot death, and that equates to around nine babies every single day. That is nine mothers and fathers who have lost a child after completing more than half the term of a pregnancy. They then have to go through the pain of childbirth to see a baby who will not grow up.

The Bill will simply require the Government to hold a review of how we can do better and come up with a simple scheme that could have a huge impact on many grieving parents. It has nothing to do with changing the law on abortion, and that debate is for another day and another piece of legislation. I have deliberately not been prescriptive about what form the review should take, but I trust the Government to do the right thing here and I think we are pushing at an open door.

I know we are pushing at an open door with my last measure, as the Health Secretary signalled his support for it at the Dispatch Box during a statement on stillbirths in November. There appears to be an anomaly in the law where coroners in England have the power to investigate any unexplained death of any humans unless they are stillbirths. That is because a baby who dies during delivery is not legally considered to have lived. If a baby has not lived, it has not died. As coroners can only investigate deaths where there is a

“body of the deceased person”

they have no legal jurisdiction to investigate these deaths. However, one in three stillbirths occur in healthy babies who die at term.

In some cases, those deaths occur due to mismanaged deliveries, and there has been a number of high-profile cases involving clusters of such deaths, well above the national average. According to the charity Sands, an estimated 500 babies die or are left severely disabled because of an event during their birth that was either not anticipated or not well managed. There is currently no independent investigation of these intra-partum deaths, and hospitals are left to investigate their own mistakes. It has been shown that these hospital reviews can be inadequate and fail to inform grieving parents of their findings.

If parents suspect that a mismanaged labour or delivery has caused the death of their child, the coroner has no jurisdiction to investigate, although there are some examples of good practice where the hospital agrees to allow that to happen. At worst, some baby deaths may be classified as stillbirths when there were in fact signs of life post-delivery, to close down on further independent investigation. I am sure that such cases are rare, but it will be to the benefit of all parents who have suffered the loss of a baby, or who want to be assured that their hospital is doing everything possible to keep babies safe, to have much more transparency and evidence that lessons are being learned from these tragic cases.

I am particularly grateful to my local West Sussex coroner, Penny Schofield, who has championed this issue and who approached me to include the subject in my Bill. Penny introduced me to Michelle Hemmington and Nicky Lyon of the Campaign for Safer Births, who have bravely bared their own traumatic experiences and worked for a change in the law, so that the pain of stillbirth can be reduced for others. I pay tribute to them, and others involved in the campaign, for their bravery.

My Bill proposes an enabling clause to give the Secretary of State powers to amend the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to give coroners the power to investigate stillbirths. The preference would be for the change to apply to late-term stillbirths and for discretion to remain with coroners to determine which deaths they wished to investigate rather than be swamped by having to investigate large numbers of otherwise straightforward stillbirths. However, I appreciate the complexities of making such a change, given that the responsibility lies between the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Social Care. I do not seek to be prescriptive about the enabling power at this stage, but I am sure that both Secretaries of State would wish to get on with this sooner rather than later, given the imperative that the Health Secretary has already placed on this issue, on record.

Importantly, coroners tell me that they have the capacity to take on these additional investigations, and indeed it is likely that the measure will cut down on subsequent litigation, as it will afford greater certainty about exactly what has happened. It will also lead to reduced care costs on the back of fewer damaged babies and give much greater comfort to parents who are struggling to come to terms with such a traumatic loss. As such, it should certainly be seen not as a stand-alone measure but as complementary to the panoply of other improvements that the Government are currently introducing, on which they are to be congratulated.

I apologise for the length of my comments, Mr Deputy Speaker, but the complex nature of the multiple measures in my Bill and the complicated and stressful route to getting here today have meant that greater explanation has been necessary. Much work remains to be done, with amendments in Committee and potentially at later stages, but I hope that all hon. Members here today and elsewhere will appreciate that these measures are welcome and important amendments to anomalies in the law and that they all have the potential to have a positive impact on the lives of a great many of our constituents and those yet to be born. I commend my Bill to the House.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Victoria Atkins]

The idea of educating people about their rights is one that I am instinctively drawn to agree with. I will take that suggestion away and speak to my officials about how we incorporate it in this survey to ensure the provision of that education. I now turn to the happy subject—

[Tim Loughton]

Before the Minister moves on, let me say that I am grateful to her and am delighted with everything she has said, particularly her commitment to get on with the work now. But there have been two consultations, it has now been 13 or so years since civil partnerships were introduced and we know about the experiences over many years of all those other countries, so will she acknowledge that an awful lot of the evidence is ready to hand and that this further work need not take much time at all? Can I have her commitment that there will be a sense of urgency to resolve this issue, one way or the other?

[Victoria Atkins]

There is a sense of urgency—very much so. If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will not be drawn into precise time limits because I would not wish to undermine in any way the academic research that will be undertaken, but there is a very great deal of urgency. We hope that we will have a proportionate amount of data from the pieces of work that I have set out by September next year.

I turn to the subject of marriage. In the Home Office, sadly we very often have to deal with the very worst of humanity, so it is a positive pleasure to talk about civil partnerships and marriage, and to celebrate happy and—one hopes—long-lasting relationships. As someone who is very happily married to a long-suffering husband, I know the irritation that can happen at the ceremony when people realise that the marriage certificate does not provide for the inclusion of mothers. The Government fully support the correction of this issue, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham for drawing it forward.

At this point, I should welcome the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee) to her place on the Opposition Front Bench. Although I have only been a Minister for eight weeks or something like that, may I give her just a little piece of advice? Hearing and judging the tone of the House is a very important role for those on the Front Bench. She will have noticed that there is a great deal of consensus in the Chamber today, so perhaps we did not need to drag the discussion into, “He said”, “She said”, and so on.

The long title of the Bill refers to only mothers being added to certificates. We need to ensure that when the marriage entry is updated it allows for all the different family circumstances in society today—for example, same-sex parents. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury set out the pressures that can be present in family circumstances and the need for marriage certificates to reflect that. We need to make sure that we have a system in place that enables the marriage register to be capable of adapting. My hon. Friend suggested that perhaps people could simply strike through the marriage certificate to include the mother’s name. I implore people not to do that. This is a technical, legal document, and doing so may mean that it is not valid, so the happy couple will have to go through another ceremony. We will work very hard on this.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham for agreeing to amend clause 1 of his Bill in Committee to insert the provisions of the Registration of Marriage (No. 2) Bill in its place. That important Bill is the long-standing work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), who has been battling for years to have this anomaly in our marriage ceremony and celebrations corrected. I place on record my thanks for her commitment to ensuring that the marriage certificate reflects the important role of both parents.

When the Registration of Marriage (No. 2) Bill is added to this Bill, the provisions will form the way in which marriages are registered in England and Wales, moving from a paper-based system to registration on an electronic register. I know that some will worry immediately about what that means for the all-important photographs that we show off of the end of a happy marriage ceremony. I assure the House that we will still be able to have the photograph of signing a document at the ceremony. Wedding photographers need not worry: brides and grooms will get that all-important photograph with the document and their signatures.

Moving to a schedule system is the most efficient and cost-efficient way of updating the marriage entry. It would be the biggest reform of how marriages are registered since 1837, moving away from the outdated legislation currently in place. To the joy of my colleagues in the Treasury, it will also introduce savings of about £33.8 million over 10 years. Some concern has been raised about the use of Henry VIII powers in the Registration of Marriage (No. 2) Bill. We would be content for the Bill to be amended to include a sunset clause limiting the use of the powers to a period of three years, allowing for the legislation to be amended to introduce a schedule-based system. Once implemented, that would allow for any amendments required to deal with any unintended consequences.

Having dealt with civil partnerships and marriage, I now move on to the subject of registering stillbirths. I must acknowledge the very hard work and commitment of my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), and the hon. Members for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) and for Washington and Sunderland West, who have campaigned so effectively to ensure that these losses are felt within this Chamber and that our legislation reflects them as well.

The Government’s ambition is for the health service to provide the safest, highest-quality care available anywhere in the world. I am sure that we would all acknowledge the excellent NHS staff working tirelessly on a daily basis to help us achieve this ambition. Nevertheless, when it does occur—I would like to ensure that Opposition Front Benchers pay due respect to this section of the Bill—the loss of a pregnancy is a heart-rending tragedy for families that stays with them for the rest of their lives. Many of the care considerations for parents experiencing a stillbirth—that is, when a baby is born after 24 weeks’ gestation—will be similar for those experiencing a late miscarriage. Local policies, however, may affect the type and place of care offered or available depending on the gestation when baby loss occurs.

Currently, parents whose babies are stillborn after 24 weeks’ gestation can register the baby’s name and receive a certificate of registration of stillbirth. When a pregnancy ends before 24 weeks’ gestation, however, there is currently no formal process for parents to be able to register their loss legally. Some expectant parents find this to be not just distressing but devastating. The Department of Health and Social Care recognises the need to do more to support families affected by a miscarriage. Some families may want their loss to be acknowledged and registered. Others, however, may feel distressed at any mandatory requirement to do so in the circumstances of their grief. This issue must therefore be approached with great care and sensitivity.

Accordingly, I am pleased that clause 3 will provide for the Government to review this issue and to look at whether current law on registration of stillbirths should be changed to allow for the registration of pregnancy loss before 24 weeks’ gestation. As part of this review, we will seek views and evidence from all interested parties. I hope that colleagues across the House will contribute to that review.

I now move on to coroners’ investigations.

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[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for bringing forward this Bill and commend the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) and my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for their bravery and determination today.

I support all the elements of the Bill, but I wish to speak to clause 2. The civil partnerships aspect is long overdue. I fully understand why the authors of the original Civil Partnership Act 2004 were focused on their primary purpose of allowing gay men and women to live as couples recognised by the law. The need was great, and hon. Members are well aware that it is often better to put forward a Bill that only fulfils the main purpose, rather than load it down with other, possibly more contentious matters that may delay its transition.

It was a shame, however, that, in passing the Act, the House potentially compromised one of the most important principles that gay people had been fighting for—the principle that every citizen of this country should be treated as equal before the law. This point was made at the time, and I can remember that some of those making it were seeking to scupper the Act, so I appreciate why it was passed in the form it was. It was incredibly important to me, as a gay man in a civil partnership with my partner, that our relationship be recognised by the law of the land and in consequence treated as equal by all the relevant civil institutions.

I can remember arguing with a customer service employee of the borough council that neither my partner nor I was living alone and that therefore we should not be in receipt of the single person’s discount on our council tax. We were seeking to pay the borough the correct level of council tax and were denied the right to do so. The officer actually stated, “We do not recognise the existence of same-sex couples”.

My partner can now be my next of kin, will automatically inherit if I die and is accorded all the respect and accommodations due to someone as one half of a legally recognised couple. However, although I fully support the introduction of same-sex marriages, we had no overwhelming desire to get married. We believe that our civil partnership accords us the respect and protections we need and are happy to leave it at that. And that is the position that a substantial number of opposite-sex couples would also like to be in.

Two of my constituents, one of whom is well known to me as a former borough council officer, have lived as a couple for 40 years. They have two children—one is 29 and the other 33—but they have never wished to get married because they do not want to feel that they are binding themselves with some sort of moral straitjacket. They feel that going through the act of marriage would be like an admission that they might split up if it were not for the marriage act, but they do want the fact that they are a couple to be recognised by the law. They have the knowledge and ability to have instituted a complicated legal trust to prevent their children from losing their inheritance when they die, but they are very aware that most couples do not have that ability. They do not understand why, if I and my partner can live in a civil partnership, they should not also have that facility.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for the Bill, and I applaud his public spiritedness in wanting to pay more tax. Does he agree, though, that abolishing civil partnerships and just having the level playing field of marriage would be deeply destructive, because he would be in limbo, belonging to an exclusive and dwindling group to which nobody could be added, which would be an extraordinary position and certainly not progressive?

[Sandy Martin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, and I fully agree with him. I am very pleased with my civil partnership. I would not wish it to be changed in any way. As he rightly says, if the civil partnerships already entered into remained but no further civil partnerships were allowed, it would introduce a separate and different relationship under the law for people of the same sex that does not apply to people of the opposite sex. The basic principle that people should be treated the same in law is well worth upholding.

The other point, of course, which the hon. Gentleman did not make explicitly but which needs to be borne in mind, is that many opposite-sex couples have the same view as the opposite-sex couple I just mentioned, and do not want to enter into marriage but do want their relationship to be recognised. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), who is no longer in his place, made this point very clearly. There are many opposite-sex couples who have been living together for some time, and anything that the law can do to regularise their position and make sure they stay together and are treated properly by the law has to be a good move.

In conclusion, equality before the law is a very important principle. I believe that the civil partnerships aspect of the Bill helps to address that principle, and I urge hon. Members to support it.

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin), and it would be wrong of me not to mention the emotional speech that the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) made earlier on in the Chamber. She is an exceptional advocate for her constituents, and today I was thankful I was here to listen to her testimony.

It is also a pleasure to be here to see the commendable work that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has done. When I go to lobby functions, I often look around to see who else is in the room, and when I come across him—

[Tim Loughton]

You leave quickly.

[Scott Mann]

Ha, ha! When I see him, I know my political compass is pretty much on message.

There are some great elements to the Bill, and the first I would like to touch on is that of civil partnerships. It is always worth remembering in this place to follow the evidence and look at the background of the case, and I want to touch on some of the evidence base. Civil partnerships were introduced in 2004 to allow same-sex couples to obtain legal recognition of their relationships and access to the same legal rights as opposite-sex couples. In the first 10 years, 64,000 people took up civil partnerships, according to the Office for National Statistics figures. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 meant that same-sex couples can marry under English and Welsh law, and from the end of 2014, civil partners were granted the right to convert their civil partnerships into marriages.

Following a consultation in 2012, no changes were made to civil partnerships under the 2013 Act. The Government argued at the time that civil partnerships were created to allow same-sex couples equal access to the rights, responsibilities and protections for those who are married. In 2014, another consultation was launched to gather views and evidence on the future of civil partnerships. Almost 11,500 people responded, with a huge range of views.

Since that, there has been a legal case, which sits behind this Bill. In 2016 a heterosexual couple presented a case to the High Court arguing that they faced discrimination under present law. The case had much wider implications, and the judge granted the couple permission to take it to the Court of Appeal. The hearing took place in November 2016 and the judgment was delivered in February 2017. All three judges said that the claimants’ human rights were affected, but concluded by a majority that it was proportionate for the Government to take time to decide the future of civil partnerships.

I have received correspondence on this issue, and I have no problem with this element of the Bill. However, as the Minister said, we need to consider a much wider evidence base before forming a consensus.

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[Michelle Donelan]

I apologise for spoiling the hon. Gentleman’s tweet, but I do not agree with him. Other Members have yet to speak, so I will make the case in the rest of my speech. I am sure I will answer him in full. Marriage is ended by divorce, whereas civil partnerships are ended by a dissolution, which is just as lengthy a process. We need to be clear about that, because some assume that it is easy to dissolve a civil partnership—it is not. There is no difference, other than that adultery cannot be cited as a reason for civil partnerships to dissolve—that is not a case for expanding them further. They both offer legal recognition of a relationship, they are symbolic, they are acts of union, and one does not have financial benefit over the other. Civil partnerships do not act as a form of additional co-habitation rights; they are legally the same as marriage.

Some say that civil partnerships are a modern alternative to marriage, and I recognise that argument, yet they are basically the same. It is important that we educate people about that and do not mis-sell the point. I have spoken to a number of people who have a civil partnership and they find it offensive to suggest these things are not the same. Nor are civil partnerships a stepping stone for couples who are not ready to marry; they are marriage but with a different name. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding that we need to address in the review.

Another point to make is that civil partnerships are not cheaper. That argument has not been made in today’s debate but I have heard it before. Weddings and civil partnerships can cost as much as people make them cost. Another argument used for the Bill is the claim that people can be put off by the word “marriage” and the connotations, social pressures and expectations of what it represents. Do we really believe that a significant number of people choose not to marry because of the word “marriage”, but are absolutely fine to make all the same legal and financial commitments when the name is different? The connotations, social pressures and expectations around marriage often exist because it is seen as something permanent and something that can end badly, but that is equally true of a civil partnership. As time progresses and more and more people have them, that will become known. So in a few years’ time will we offer a third option and then a fourth? It is also important to note that amending the eligibility criteria for entering a civil partnership would cost at least £3.3 million to £4.4 million, so the option on the table is not exactly cheap.

Another key aspect we must consider is the level of demand. That is particularly pertinent and the review will highlight it, which is why I strongly support having a review and a consultation. As lots of Members have said, two consultations have already taken place, but on the whole there was very little input from people. That suggests that there is potentially a lack of demand in this area, but we need a further review to examine that. In addition, no clear consensus was established.

Since the introduction of marriage for same-sex couples, the number of civil partnerships has fallen dramatically, and there were just over 1,000 formed in the UK in 2016. Between 29 March 2014 and 30 June 2015, 7,732 couples converted their civil partnership into marriage. A key aspect for us to consider in enabling opposite-sex civil partnerships is—

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is perfectly entitled to her view, but I fundamentally disagree with it. I certainly would not wish to deny those potentially many thousands of couples on the basis of this costing about £3 million. She says there is no difference between civil partnership and marriage, and that it should not be treated any differently. In terms of status, that is right, but why is it that more than 80% of same-sex couples who have committed to a civil partnership do not think that they need to or want to convert that into a marriage? They think a civil partnership is different and more appropriate for them—why does she think they are wrong?

[Michelle Donelan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. We do completely disagree on this topic. His accusation that 80% of that cohort do not want to convert into marriage because they see it as something unique is a wild one. I have many friends who have a civil partnership and they choose not to convert it because they already have something that is equal—my hon. Friend is therefore backing up my point that a civil partnership is just as good as, if not the same as, marriage; it is a duplication. That is why they do not seek to convert it.

A key thrust of the case for enabling opposite-sex civil partnerships is that it would encourage commitment, helping ensure that families stay together, which all the research shows is advantageous to children—I agree with that sentiment. However, the argument is tenuous. Some 2.9 million different-sex couples living together in the UK are not married. The Equal Civil Partnerships website, which backs this campaign, states that some of those people do not want to make a legal commitment, but civil partnerships are the same thing. It cites the “trappings of the institution” as another reason but, as has been discussed, civil partnerships will effectively morph into an institution. They are the same as a marriage.

Committed relationships tend to last for just that reason—they are committed. If we add another tier, that does not necessarily mean that different people will enter into that commitment. It might actually mean that all we do is split the same pool. I am passionate about enabling and facilitating commitment and helping families to stay together, but the answer is to further promote commitment, study why relationships and families break down, and invest in those areas.

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[Tim Loughton]

With the leave of the House, I would like to express my thanks to all Members in all parts of the House for such strong support for all parts of this Bill. It was almost unanimous but certainly very strong support.

Labour Members often reduce Conservative Members to tears, but in the case of the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), it was absolutely for all the right reasons. Her speech alone made such a strong case that nobody else need have spoken on why the law on stillbirth needs to be changed. It was brave, powerful and the most stark evidence that her daughter, Lucy, was born and did exist and that the state needs to acknowledge it. Nothing more need be said.

If this debate had been a BBC or Channel 4 hard-hitting documentary, at the end of it the announcer would have said, “If you have been affected by issues in this programme, here is a hotline or website to consult.” That should apply to this debate, because it has touched on some very hard-hitting and emotional issues. I am afraid that I do not have a hotline number or a website for hon. Members to consult, but it certainly has had a dramatic effect on all those here today. I do not want to be more political than that, given the mood of the House. This debate has shown the House at its best.

This is something that needs to be done. All parties have made common cause. It is also the modern thing to do. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) said, attitudes have changed, and the law now needs to be changed to catch up. I do not care what we call the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) called it a smorgasbord, and I referred to it as the hatch, match and dispatch Bill, but my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) won the award: the loved ones Bill. That sums up the common thread. The Bill presses a lot of buttons. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin) even pressed the button of paying more tax as a result of his civil partnership. It is also important for social history.

For all those reasons, I welcome the comments of my hon. Friend the Minister from the Dispatch Box. The Bill is not as forceful in its terminology as it could be, but I am sure we can work on that in Committee. I appreciate her commitment that the review can happen now—that there will be no delay—and I appreciate the sense of urgency and the commitment to addressing the issue, as well as the presumption that we will need to look at how the law can change. She has heard that, for most people here, abolishing civil partnerships is not an option, for very good reasons.

The Minister will also have heard the very emotional contributions on the stillbirth measures, with which it was clear she had a deal of sympathy, and the iniquity of the marriage certificates issue. I have in my hand a piece of paper: a copy of my marriage certificate. To add insult to injury, my father signed it twice, because he also married us—so he got to sign as the clerk in holy orders as well—whereas my mother only signed as a witness. It includes a description of my father’s and father-in-law’s occupations, but there are no details about my mother or mother-in-law. It is an important piece of social history that we are missing out on as well, and that should not be underestimated.

This is just the right thing to do. I apologise for how long and technical my speech and the contributions have been, but these are worthy measures, as the quality of the contributions has underlined. It has shown the House at its best, and I hope that the Government will now make these well-supported measures a reality. I will work constructively with them to bring that about.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

[Victoria Atkins]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In an excess of excitement, enthusiasm and efficiency, the Government issued a “Dear colleague” letter from me in advance of the House’s indicating its willingness that the Bill be given a Second Reading, for which I apologise. We have got to the right place, however, and colleagues should now have a letter addressing that point.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill (First sitting)

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 18th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Welcome to the Public Bill Committee on the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Sharma. May we remove our jackets, given the heat?

[The Chair]

Yes. Before we begin proceedings, I have a few announcements. Please switch electronic devices to silent. Tea and coffee are not allowed during the sitting. Thank you, Tim, for the point of order about removing jackets.

Ordered,

That the Bill be considered in the following order, namely, new Clause 2, Clause 1, new Clause 1, Clauses 2 to 5, remaining new Clauses, remaining proceedings on the Bill.—(Tim Loughton.)

New Clause 2

Marriage registration

“(1) The Secretary of State may, by regulations, amend the Marriage Act 1949 (‘the 1949 Act’) to provide for a system whereby details relating to marriages in England and Wales are recorded in documents used as part of the procedure for marriage, and entered into and held in a central register which is accessible in electronic form.

(2) The regulations may, in particular—

(a) provide that a Part 3 marriage may be solemnized on the authority of a single document (a ‘marriage schedule’) issued by the superintendent registrar for the district in which the marriage is to be solemnized (instead of on the authority of two certificates of a superintendent registrar);

(b) provide that a member of the clergy who is to solemnize a marriage authorised by ecclesiastical preliminaries must, before doing so, issue a document to enable the marriage to be registered (a ‘marriage document’) or ensure that a marriage document is issued;

(c) make provision in relation to the signing of a marriage schedule or marriage document following the solemnization of the marriage;

(d) make provision in relation to the delivery of a signed marriage schedule or signed marriage document to a registrar;

(e) require the Registrar General to maintain a register of marriages in England and Wales, which is accessible in electronic form (‘the marriage register’);

(f) make provision in relation to the entering in the marriage register of the particulars set out in a signed marriage schedule or signed marriage document;

(g) remove existing provision in relation to the registration of marriages which is not to form part of the system provided for under this section.

(3) Where provision made by virtue of subsection (2)(d) gives power to a registrar to require a person to attend personally at the office of a superintendent registrar for the purpose of delivering a signed marriage schedule or signed marriage document, the regulations may provide that a person who fails to comply with such a requirement—

(a) commits an offence, and

(b) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.

(4) The regulations may give the Registrar General power to make regulations under section 74(1) of the 1949 Act—

(a) prescribing the form or content of a marriage schedule, marriage document or any other document specified in the regulations;

(b) making provision in relation to corrections to or the re-issue of a marriage schedule or marriage document before the marriage is solemnized;

(c) making provision in relation to the keeping of a signed marriage schedule or signed marriage document after the particulars set out in it have been entered in the marriage register;

(d) making provision in relation to corrections to entries in the marriage register or a pre-commencement marriage register book;

(e) making provision in relation to the keeping of pre-commencement marriage register books;

(f) making provision in relation to the keeping in a church or chapel of records of marriages solemnized according to the rites of the Church of England or the Church in Wales in the church or chapel.

(5) For the purposes of subsection (4), provision in relation to the keeping of a book, document or other record includes, in particular, provision about—

(a) who is to be responsible for keeping the book, document or other record and how it is to be stored;

(b) the circumstances in which the book, document or other record must or may be annotated;

(c) the circumstances in which the book, document or other record must or may be sent to the Registrar General or a superintendent registrar.

(6) No regulations may be made by the Secretary of State under this section after a period of three years beginning with the day on which regulations are first so made.

(7) In this section—

‘ecclesiastical preliminaries’ means the methods of authorisation described in section 5(1)(a), (b) or (c) of the 1949 Act;

‘marriage document’, ‘marriage register’ and ‘marriage schedule’ have the meanings given by subsection (2)(b), (e) and (a) respectively;

‘member of the clergy’ means a clerk in Holy Orders of the Church of England or a clerk in Holy Orders of the Church in Wales;

‘Part 3 marriage’ means a marriage falling within section 26(1), 26A(1) or 26B(2), (4) or (6) of the 1949 Act;

‘pre-commencement marriage register book’ means any marriage register book in which the particulars of a marriage have been entered under that Act;

‘registrar’ means a registrar of marriages;

‘Registrar General’ means the Registrar General for England and Wales;

‘superintendent registrar’ means a superintendent registrar of births, deaths and marriages.”—(Tim Loughton.)

This new clause allows the Secretary of State to introduce a central, electronic system of marriage registration in England and Wales.

Brought up, and read the First time.

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[Tim Loughton]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clause 1 stand part.

Amendment 12, in the title, line 2, leave out from first “of” to “to” in line 3 and insert “marriage;”.

This amendment reflects the changes proposed by Amendment 2 and NC2.

[Tim Loughton]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma, I think for the first time—as this is the first private Member’s Bill I have introduced in my 21 years in the House, I hope that you will be gentle with me. I thank right hon. and hon. Members who have agreed to serve on the Committee. There was a lot of interest in the Bill. I particularly welcome interest from those so young in the Public Gallery. I also welcome the Minister, who I know is not exactly idling at the moment, given that she is in the midst of the Offensive Weapons Bill and her other duties in the Home Office. Hopefully she will focus resolutely on this Bill for the next few hours.

I will make some introductory comments before speaking to the amendments. I do not want to replicate the many excellent speeches we had on Second Reading on 2 February. Many of the Members who contributed at that stage are on the Committee. I am keen that we should keep proceedings short. It is a complicated Bill of four parts. As I said on Second Reading, I have not made it easy for myself by having such a multifaceted Bill that cuts across at least four different Government Departments and four different Secretaries of State, all of whom have changed since the Bill started its passage.

Many of today’s amendments are formal drafting amendments agreed between the Government and me. Others are—I hope—probing amendments from hon. Members, to which I will be delighted to respond. I want to keep the Bill as intact as possible, and the deliberations as tight, because the Bill is a work in progress. The Bill comprises a number of obligations for Government Ministers to review changes in the law that we would like to see and to report on how they can be brought about, and, in some cases, enabling clauses subject to sunset limitations, so that Ministers can bring the changes to legislation into effect at some stage in the not-too-distant future.

Much has happened over the past five and a half months since Second Reading, with working groups having already been established. They have started their business in various Departments. I will probe the Minister for updates on what progress they have made, when they are likely to report, and how and when their deliberations will translate into changes in legislation and whether that can be speeded up.

A lot in the Bill hinges on its consideration on Report, which is anticipated for 26 October, for those who want to get the date in their diary. I will challenge the Government further on why amendments cannot be added at that stage, when we have more than three months to prepare for it.

So, eyes down—let us get on with the amendments. New clause 2 deals with marriage registration and would amend the Marriage Act 1949, with the underlying intent of addressing the extraordinary anomaly that the names of the mothers of those getting married still do not appear on marriage certificates. The clause is an enabling clause, to enable the Secretary of State to bring about those changes, which have huge amounts of support across the whole House. Numerous attempts to change the law have so far come to nothing, but this time it is going to happen.

New clause 2 seeks to remove the marker provision that is the current clause 1 and replace it with the provisions in new clause 2 of the Registration of Marriage (No. 2) Bill, as per the commitment made on Second Reading on 2 February. In addition, the amendments aim to improve those provisions by limiting the scope of delegated powers in the Bill. For example, any regulations made by the Secretary of State under clause 1(1) will now be limited to amending the Marriage Act 1949. The regulations that amend that Act would be subject to the affirmative procedure and require the approval of both Houses of Parliament, providing ample parliamentary oversight.

Subsection (6) of the new clause inserts a sunset clause that limits the use of the power of the Secretary of State to amend primary legislation to a period of three years beginning on the day on which the regulations are first made. I know that this point—that it could be an open-ended power—has been a bone of some contention, and has hampered the progress of similar private Members’ Bills and legislation in the past. By inserting this sunset clause, and specifically limiting the power to the Marriage Act 1949, the Bill has a very clear intent.

The new clause would reform how marriages are registered in the future, to enable the updating of the marriage entry to include the names of the mothers of the couple, instead of just the names of the fathers, as is extraordinarily currently the case. That is the biggest reform of how marriages are registered since 1837. It is incredible that it has taken 181 years to include the mothers’ details, especially as the arrangements for civil partnerships, when they came in, allowed for both parents.

The new clause aims to introduce a schedule-based system, replacing the current paper registers. That is the most cost-effective way to introduce the change. With the introduction of a schedule system, all civil and religious marriages will be held in a single electronic register, rather than in more than 80,000 paper register books scattered around churches and religious institutions up and down the country. It will make the system more secure and efficient, and it will make it simpler to amend the content of the marriage entry, both now and in the future. The new clause enables the Secretary of State to make the required changes to the Marriage Act by regulations, and to move a schedule-based system for registering marriages. The regulations would change the current procedures in part III of the Marriage Act—Marriage under Superintendent Registrar’s Certificate—to provide that a marriage can be solemnized on the authority of a single schedule for the couple instead of two superintendent registrar’s certificates of marriage, one for each of the couple, which is currently the case.

The regulations would also provide for a member of the clergy to issue the equivalent of a marriage schedule, which is a marriage document, for marriages that have been preceded by ecclesiastical preliminaries, for example the calling of the banns or the granting of a common licence. Once a marriage ceremony has taken place, the signed marriage schedule or marriage document will be returned to the local registry office for entry in the electronic register.

Where a registrar is present at a marriage ceremony, the signed schedule will be retained by the registrar for entry in the electronic register. In all other cases, it will be the responsibility of the couple to ensure that the marriage schedule is returned to the registry office. However, they will be able to ask a representative to take it for them, or they could send it by post. Apparently, in Scotland it is traditionally a family member or the best man—if you can trust him—who returns the signed document.

If a signed marriage schedule or marriage document is not returned within the specified timescale, and after reminders have been sent, the person commits an offence in accordance with subsection (3) of the new clause. My understanding is that in Scotland there are no issues with signed documents not being returned to the registry office. Once the marriage is registered in the electronic register, the couple will be able to have a copy of their marriage certificate.

Subsection (4) of the new clause gives the Registrar General power to make regulations under section 74(1) of the Marriage Act 1949 to prescribe the content of a marriage schedule or document, to make provision to reissue or correct the information contained in the marriage schedule or document prior to the marriage taking place, and to make provision for the keeping and maintenance of the existing paper registers. It is as simple as that.

[Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

My hon. Friend briefly mentioned the role of the clergy. For the avoidance of doubt, I make it clear to the Committee that the Church of England consulted on the matter some time ago, and is fully in favour of these practical and equitable changes, which deal with a difficult pastoral situation. At the moment, the clergy often have to break the bad news to a mother that she cannot put her name on the marriage certificate at the ceremony, which causes great distress. The Church of England would like to see this change achieved. The amendments that my hon. Friend referred to are the amendments that the Bishop of St Albans tabled to the identical Bill in the Lords, which is about to return to our House.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, because that is exactly what I was about to say. She has been assiduous in pursuing this cause, and I pay tribute to her. She has her own private Member’s Bill to that effect in this House that is mirrored by the Registration of Marriage Bill, which was introduced by the Bishop of St Albans and which completed its Committee stage in the House of Lords last month. That Bill also met with widespread support. Everybody supports the measure and has done a lot of work on the detail, so we just need to make it happen. Introducing new clause 2 to replace clause 1 will do that, and it is completely complementary with the detail of the Bill that the Bishop of St Albans has progressed through the House of Lords.

The final amendment in the group is amendment 12. Changes to long titles are a common theme—I have spent many hours in Committee debating the details of long titles as well as short titles, rather than the substance of the Bill, but apparently they are terribly important. The amendment would change the words,

“to make provision about the registration of the names of the mother of each party to a marriage or civil partnership”

to simply,

“to make provision about the registration of marriage”.

That is apparently what needs to happen.

That is the purpose of the changes we propose to the first of the subjects in the Bill, namely having the names of both parents on marriage certificates. I am sure that all hon. Members present will want to take the opportunity to support them without further delay. The Minister will throw her entire weight behind them too, so we will be able to move swiftly on.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham for introducing these many and varied important issues in his private Member’s Bill. He has done a great deal of work with several Departments in the preceding months to get the Bill into the shape in which we hope to find it in Committee. I thank him for that hard work. I thank hon. Members from both sides of the House for their hard work on the Bill, and for their contributions, no doubt, in Committee.

As agreed with my hon. Friend on Second Reading, the marker provision in clause 1 has been replaced with a new marriage registration clause that contains the provisions of the Registration of Marriage (No. 2) Bill that was introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden. For several years, she has been a consistent, effective and, dare I say, staunch campaigner for changes to marriage registration. She has done much work alongside the Lord Bishop of St Albans, who introduced an identical Bill to hers in the House of Lords. I formally record my thanks to them for their hard work.

--- Later in debate ---

The provisions in the Bill introduce a schedule system for the registration of marriages that will remove the requirement for paper registers to be held in register offices and about 30,000 religious buildings. It is important that an adaptable system is in place. In making these changes, we must ensure that they allow for all the different family circumstances in society, including, for example, same-sex parents. It is a much-wanted and much-needed change in the law, and I am pleased to confirm the Government’s support for it.

[Tim Loughton]

Without further ado—that sums it up. Nobody is objecting to this; we have all wanted it for ages. With this enabling clause, when the Bill passes, the Minister will be able to bring to an end 181 years of an extraordinary injustice, so that the name of the mother of those getting married is shown on the wedding certificate.

As we said on Second Reading, we have all heard examples of mothers who have single-handedly brought up children, perhaps because the father has deserted them or they have been the subject of domestic violence, and the father may even be in jail as a result, yet only his name is entitled to be on that certificate. The person who has done all the heavy lifting and all the legwork, and who has given all the care and love for so many years, does not get that recognition on the formal wedding document. It seems absurd, but it will no longer be absurd when the Bill passes.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 2 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 1 disagreed to.

[The Chair]

We now come to new clause 1. I inform the Committee that, following the debate on new clause 1, I will not be able to put the question that clause 2 stand part of the Bill. That clause will be omitted from the Bill, as it is not covered by the money resolution.

New Clause 1

Report on civil partnership

“(1) The Secretary of State must make arrangements for a report to be prepared—

(a) assessing how the law ought to be changed to bring about equality between same-sex couples and other couples in terms of their future ability or otherwise to form civil partnerships, and

(b) setting out the Government’s plans for achieving that aim.

(2) The arrangements must provide for public consultation.

(3) The Secretary of State must lay the report before Parliament.”—(Tim Loughton.)

This new clause provides for a report to be prepared on the changes which ought to be made to bring about equality between same-sex and other couples in terms of their future ability or otherwise to form civil partnerships. It replaces the current Clause 2 (see Amendment 1).

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Tim Loughton]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment (a) to new clause 1, line 5, after “partnerships” insert—

“(aa) how the law could be changed in Scotland to achieve that aim,

(ab) how the law could be changed in Northern Ireland to achieve that aim,”.

Amendment (b) to new clause 1, line 6, at end insert—

“(1A) In considering the matter specified in paragraph (1)(ab), the Secretary of State shall also consider the implications for equality in civil partnerships of the difference in legislation on marriage in Northern Ireland compared with the rest of the United Kingdom.”

Amendment (c) to new clause 1, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) The Secretary of State must also consult—

(a) Scottish Ministers,

(b) Northern Ireland Ministers.”

Amendment 16, in clause 5, page 3, line 13, leave out subsection (1) and insert—

“(1) Sections 1, 3 and 4 extend to England and Wales,

(2) Section (Report on civil partnership) extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

See explanatory statement for Amendment (a) to NC1.

Amendment 11, in the title, line 1, leave out from beginning to “make”.

This amendment, together with Amendment 13, reflects the changes proposed by Amendment 1 and NC1.

Amendment 13, in the title, line 3, after “partnership;” insert

“to make provision for a report on civil partnerships;”.

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 11.

[Tim Loughton]

I shall speak to new clause 1 and amendments 16, 11 and 13, which are in my name and that of the Minister. No doubt the hon. Member for Harrow West will then want to speak to his amendments (a) to (c) to new clause 1, and I will be happy to comment on them after he has done so.

New clause 1 replaces clause 2, but of course it still only obliges the Secretary of State—the Minister for Women and Equalities, who is now my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt)—to prepare a report on how to bring about civil partnership equality, which is perhaps the meatiest part of the Bill. We know that there are two ways to achieve equal civil partnerships. One is to abolish existing civil partnerships for same-sex couples. That would leave just straightforward marriage, which is now available to all couples. The other—I hope the Government take this route, in accordance with the clear will expressed by the House in our many debates on this issue—is to extend civil partnerships to all, so they are available to same-sex and opposite-sex couples equally. By doing that, we would achieve equality in marriage and civil partnerships.

That is the unfinished business left over from the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which I tried to amend while it was still a Bill and subsequently through two private Members’ Bills—a ten-minute rule Bill and a presentation Bill. I am pleased that the Government agreed on Second Reading to look at this issue again, and I was pleased with the urgency the Minister showed at the Dispatch Box. Indeed, she actually issued a letter to hon. Members, announcing that she would start the consultation she said was required straightaway, before she had said that at the Dispatch Box, and she had to quickly reel that in again. She might like to give us some details about that.

I was also pleased that the Prime Minister appeared to support my Bill and endorse a change in the law when I challenged her at Prime Minister’s Question Time on 27 June, although I gather there was some hasty backtracking at the subsequent press conference about what she actually said. I was less pleased with the Command Paper, “The Future Operation of Civil Partnership: Gathering Further Information,” which was issued back in May and gave details about how consultation would take place. In particular, paragraph 17 states that questions about consultation

“will be included initially in the May 2018 ONS survey and will be repeated in subsequent surveys for approximately 10 months to secure a big enough sample,”

and that the Government intended to analyse findings no sooner than summer 2019 and, at some stage after that, come back with suggestions.

That rather kicked the issue into the long grass, so I was relieved that the new Minister for Women and Equalities indicated that we will not have such a long-drawn-out consultation, and that whatever work she thinks still needs to be done could be completed no later than this autumn. I will suggest how that work might be brought forward even further. I am particularly pleased that she indicated publicly that she is in favour of achieving equalisation by extending civil partnerships for all, and that she does not support scrapping existing civil partnerships to achieve equality through marriage only.

The Minister for Women and Equalities confirmed that—it is on the record—in an interview with Stonewall. I was pleased to see Stonewall support the extension of civil partnerships. In so doing, it followed in the footsteps of many others, including the Church of England, as the Second Church Estates Commissioner, my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden, will confirm. The Church announced as long ago as April 2014 that it did not want same-sex civil partnerships to be abolished and it supported equalisation by extension. And as of this morning’s count, 139,593 people have signed the petition, organised by the Equal Civil Partnerships group, in support of extending civil partnerships. This measure has huge support.

Of course, things have moved on considerably with the unanimous ruling of the Supreme Court on 27 June 2018 in the case of Steinfeld and Keidan, of whom one and a mini one are not far from our proceedings today. I attended the opening of that hearing on 14 May and also went to the judgment. It was a unanimous five-nil judgment, and the terms used in the judgment were absolutely categorical; it was absolutely clear.

Let me pull out some quotes. The judges stated that

“to create a situation of inequality and then ask for…time—in this case several years—”

which is what happened by creating same-sex marriage but not equalising civil partnerships at the same time—to determine

“how that inequality is to be cured is…less obviously deserving of a margin of discretion.”

That is their lordships’ discreet way of saying, “Get the heck on with it.” They also said in the judgment that there was no end point “in sight” for the present inequality of treatment, and therefore they found in favour of Steinfeld and Keidan, because the situation was incompatible with article 14, taken in conjunction with article 8, of the ECHR. They could not have been clearer than that.

The written findings refer to my Bill in paragraph 8. In fact, there is a whole chronology of the various Bills that I have brought forward on this subject in that paragraph. Towards the end of the judgment, it says:

“The amendment to Mr Loughton’s Bill which the government has agreed does no more than formalise the consultation process to which it was already committed. It does not herald any imminent change in the law to remove the admitted inequality of treatment.”

Basically, the judges are saying that this Bill, or Government action in lieu of this Bill, needs to go a lot further.

The Government have not yet by any means discharged their duties, according to the findings of the Supreme Court, so it will be interesting to hear the Minister’s take on those findings. They came out three weeks ago, but so far we have had no detailed statement from the Government as to what their response is likely to be. Clearly, work needs to be done; preparations need to be made, but the Government have had several years. This was not a bolt out of the blue. Most people thought that the judgment would find as it did—I do not think most people thought it would find quite as forcefully as it did—so the ball is very much in the Government’s court to change the law and, crucially, to get on with it.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful case. May I remind him and others of the genesis of the current inequality? It was not a point of great principle; it was essentially a point of raw politics. At the point when the marriage equality measure was going through the House of Lords, there arose within No. 10 Downing Street a certain nervousness, shall we say. It was felt at the time that it was more important than anything else that we should preserve marriage equality, and it was for that reason, and that reason alone, that the defect that we seek to rectify today was allowed to go ahead. I do not know what is in the judgment, but I suspect that that would have weighed very heavily with their lordships in their consideration of the Steinfeld case.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Wherever that nervousness came from and on account of what, now is the time to be bold and to comply with the highest court in the land. The Secretary of State ruled out the abolition of civil partnerships. If that had happened, it would have left the 63,966 same-sex couples who at the end of 2016 had been through a civil partnership and still have one—the net figure will be slightly higher or lower now—high and dry. It would also deny the opportunity for the stability of cementing a partnership to 3.3 million opposite-sex cohabiting couples, many of whom would want to take advantage of a formal recognition of their status. Like it or not, that is the fastest-growing form of family unit. Therefore, the only option for them, and everyone else, is to extend civil partnerships to all.

Unless the Minister has a cunning wheeze up her sleeve—she has no sleeves, so that is unlikely—a commitment from her now to use my private Member’s Bill as a vehicle to bring about equality is a bit of a no-brainer. Will she signal an intent to go ahead with this change? The Bill may well be the vehicle for that, but if she has a quicker way of doing it we would all embrace that and rejoice.

Speed is of the essence. Examples have been given in the Supreme Court, and in many social posts and blogs, and in everything we have seen of couples who would like a civil partnership—for whatever reason of their own choice they do not want to enter into a marriage—where one of them is terminally ill. If a civil partnership is not available to them in a matter of months, they may be denied the opportunity ever to take advantage of one. We have spent several years talking about this and doing nothing; the Supreme Court has said those days are over.

If the Minister were to signal her intent, that would indicate a further move forward in the Government’s equality agenda and win her many friends among the equal civil partnerships movement, the 139,000 people who signed the petition and well beyond that. This change is part of the bigger jigsaw of family law reform that we must look at, on which there are many moves in particular from their lordships at the moment. It would also make me very happy.

We would be doing a bit of catching up with many other countries throughout the world for whom civil partnerships have been part of their fabric for many years. That includes Gibraltar and the Isle of Man, which brought them in in 2016. Someone not a million miles from this Committee Room was the first UK citizen to take advantage of a civil partnership in the Isle of Man; the only trouble is, that partnership is not recognised by the Government when he and his partner set foot back on the mainland. The Falklands also recognises civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples, having brought them in in 2017. However, they do not happen in England or in the United Kingdom.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I find myself in a deeply unusual situation, as it has been difficult to disagree with anything the hon. Gentleman has said thus far. Nevertheless, specifically on new clause 1 and geographical reach, will the Secretary of State’s report cover Northern Ireland and Scotland, or will it not?

[Tim Loughton]

I see the point the hon. Gentleman is getting to. My earlier, cruder attempts were to amend the Civil Partnerships Act 2004, which is UK-wide. We have civil partnerships in all parts of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, but we do not have same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland. That is the point of his amendments, and we will come to that. Absolutely, I want to extend civil partnerships to all same-sex couples in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England; it is a UK-wide measure.

I appreciate that the Minister is not in a position to table amendments in Committee, so soon after the Supreme Court judgment. I absolutely appreciate that the process is perhaps a little more complex than the one-line amendment to the 2004 Act that formed the basis of my previous, very short, Bills. I also appreciate that the Minister stated, as did the Secretary of State before her, that she wanted to carry out a further consultation to gauge the demand for extending civil partnerships, despite their having been two previous consultations on it, both before and after the same-sex marriage Bill.

However, I can help the Minister on that score, thanks to Professor Anne Barlow, professor of family law and policy at the University of Exeter—an excellent university, which I shall attend tomorrow for the graduation of my elder daughter. She has surveyed extensively using the NatCen panel survey technique, which is a probability-based online and telephone survey that robustly selects its panel to ensure that it is as nationally representative as possible. She commissioned that work in February 2018, around the time of my Bill’s Second Reading but ahead of the Supreme Court judgment.

That format can turn around surveys within eight weeks of their being commissioned. The professor’s survey had a sample of more than 2,000, which I gather is double the amount the Government intended to survey, and which they were to take at least 10 months to do. I am sure it is much cheaper to do it Professor Barlow’s way. Her survey posed the question, “How much do you agree or disagree that a man and woman should be able to form a civil partnership as an alternative to getting married?” It found that 35.3% agreed strongly, 36%.7 agreed, 21.1% neither agreed nor disagreed, only 4.5% disagreed and only 2.5% disagreed strongly. More than 70%—even better than the Brexit referendum—of those 2,000 people absolutely thought that civil partnerships should be made available to all.

The work has been done for the Minister, and for free. Perhaps she can tell me what surveying has already taken place—we were promised it would start in May—what further surveying the Government think is necessary and what they will produce at the end of it. The ball is in the Government’s court. How and when will they comply with the Supreme Court’s clear ruling, particularly given the absolute clarity of their lordships’ statements about the delay that has already taken place?

It is perfectly feasible for us to amend on Report the terms of the Bill as it now stands. I will propose the amendments and the new clause as they are on the Order Paper, but with a view to the possibility of revisiting them at the end of October, if that is when Report takes place. That gives the Government more than three months to decide their course of action. I will work constructively with the Minister to bring about that change, and then lots of people can be very happy rather sooner than the Government had perhaps intended.

I will comment on the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Harrow West when we discuss them. Amendments 11 and 13 would amend the long title of the Bill, so that it would say

“to make provision for a report on civil partnerships”.

That is the crux of these technical amendments, but there is very much a piece of work overhanging it. We know what we want to do and the Supreme Court has told the Government what they need to do. We need to hear from the Government how they will do it.

[Victoria Atkins]

Civil partnerships were introduced in 2004 to enable same-sex couples to formalise their relationships, at a time when same-sex marriage was not available to them. Since then, we are proud to be the Government who introduced marriage for same-sex couples. At last, same-sex couples are able to celebrate their relationships in the same way that other couples have for centuries.

However, putting right this obvious inequality has meant that we now have a situation in England and Wales where same-sex couples can enter into either a marriage or a civil partnership while opposite-sex couples can only get married. Therefore, earlier this year we announced a plan of work to address that inequality, including a research programme which was to run until 2019, assessing the demand for, and impact of, the various options.

The recent Supreme Court judgment in the Steinfeld case, however, emphasises the need to address the issue. In response, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities recently announced that, in the interest of making good progress, we would bring forward elements of our research on the future of civil partnerships, with a view to concluding it later this year. We recognise the sensitive and personal issues involved in the Steinfeld case, and we acknowledge—as the Supreme Court does—the genuine convictions of the couple involved and those who have campaigned alongside them.

Clause two, as amended, will place a duty on the Government to prepare and present before Parliament a report setting out how the law on civil partnerships should change and how we plan to achieve that. It will also ensure that the voice of those affected is taken into account during the decision-making process, by providing for a public consultation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

Obviously I would like the Minister to go further, but will she at least acknowledge that it is in principle possible to amend the Bill on Report, were that to be at the end of October, to satisfy the findings of the Supreme Court? Alternatively, she alluded to the possibility, without going into detail, of an even faster way of doing it, in which case the Government’s priority is to do this as rapidly as possible, but hopefully no later than on Report.

[Victoria Atkins]

I regret to disappoint my hon. Friend, but I am but a small cog in the Government machinery. Although, as my hon. Friend knows, the Secretary of State is very much seized of the matter and concerned by it, I would not want to take the risk, respecting this Committee and colleagues from all parts of the House as I do, of speculating at this stage.

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so, and these discussions will assist others who are perhaps not intimately involved in these matters in understanding the concern that Members from all parts of the House have on the urgency of the situation.

I regret that I have to resist strongly the amendments put forward in the name of the hon. Member for St Helens North, which were spoken to with great eloquence by the hon. Member for Harrow West. The Government support new clause 1, as proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham.

[Tim Loughton]

I rise to respond to the amendments that the hon. Member for Harrow West spoke to. In principle, I am very supportive of them. That may be a slight surprise, as I was not the biggest fan of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 for reasons at the time, but it has become law and the world has not fallen in. It will remain law, and I certainly would not vote to change it.

I believe in law for the United Kingdom. We have the present dilemma over the availability of abortion, but I support the rights for women to be able to access abortion in just the same way as the United States—crikey, not the United States; that is a whole different ball game. I support the rights for women to be able to access abortion in Northern Ireland in just the same way as in any other part of the United Kingdom. Similarly, if we are to have equality in civil partnership and same-sex marriage, they should be available to every citizen or subject in Northern Ireland in the same way as they are for someone in London, Edinburgh or Cardiff.

I have no problem in principle with supporting what the hon. Member for Harrow West is trying to do. If his hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North had needed to take his ten-minute rule Bill on the subject to a vote, I would have happily voted for that, but I just request that this is not the Bill to do it—I have enough work on my hands as it is trying to get the Bill through both Houses without adding a whole dimension that involves the Democratic Unionist party and certain other forces in Northern Ireland. It could kibosh the entire Bill. The Minister has given her view, and we can have a separate debate about what happens about making law in Northern Ireland in the absence of its Assembly. I will continue to support the Bill proposed by the hon. Member for St Helens North, but I would ask that the amendments to this Bill in his name, which have been well and truly probed, are not pressed to a vote. They might cause ruptures in this Bill, which I do not want. I hope that the hon. Member for Harrow West will see my reasoning for that.

The Minister is certainly not just a cog in the Government machine; she is a substantial part of the winding mechanism and is going places, as we all know. The problem here is that she is not in the Department that now has responsibility for equalities legislation, which part of the Bill relates to. Frustrating though that might be at this stage, there are conversations going on behind the scenes, and I know that she is constrained in what she can say, although I sense that she would like to be able to say more. The key point, however, is that the Government Minister responsible has made it very clear that abolishing civil partnerships is not an option to achieve equality, so the only option is to extend civil partnerships.

It has also been made clear that time is of the essence and too much delay has already taken place. That was the basis of the Supreme Court’s ruling. I do not see what additional research, surveying or opinion polling is going to bring to the party. Frankly, it is academic, because this is a matter of equality. If the number of the 3.3 million cohabiting couples who came back and said, “Yes, we want to enter into a civil partnership” were a smaller proportion than anticipated, it would still be a proportion to whom the option of equality is not available, and it has not been since 2014, and that is in contravention of the European convention, as has been set out very clearly.

If the Minister wants numbers, one number that I would certainly like to repeat is that up to the end of 2016, 71,017 same-sex couples had entered into a civil partnership. Of those, just over 7,000 have been dissolved and 7,732 have been converted into a marriage. That is just 12% of civil partnerships, so the vast majority of those entering into same-sex civil partnerships who were then given the option of converting that into a marriage under the 2004 legislation chose not to. That suggests that there is a very significant demand for civil partnerships from those people who undertook them; for them, that is what they wanted to achieve. Although the numbers entering into new same-sex civil partnerships have fallen back substantially because there is now another choice, the number did go up last year. A substantial number of people would be left in a very exclusive and rather awkward little grouping of people if civil partnerships were to be abolished, and that is why it is not a victimless option.

If we come back to Northern Ireland, there is another dimension. If civil partnerships were to be abolished, nothing would be available in Northern Ireland—civil partnerships are available in Northern Ireland, but equal marriage is not—so same-sex couples in Northern Ireland would have absolutely no route to have their partnerships recognised with all the protections that the state brings, either through civil partnerships or through marriage. That would create a huge problem.

We need to make it clear that civil partnerships are here to stay. The sooner the Government say that on the record, in support of what the Secretary of State has already said—and the sooner that they say we are going to extend civil partnerships and have consulted—the better. I hope that the Minister and I can work closely together over the summer to see that whatever procedures need to happen, happen at pace, and that there is the intent and ambition to try to reconcile the matter in time for the Bill to be amended at a later stage. I am open to even speedier ways of achieving equality, if that is possible.

I just wanted to put those points on the record. The Minister is nodding to indicate that she has heard them, if not necessarily that she will agree to execute them. On that basis, I ask Members to support new clause 1 and the accompanying amendments 16, 11 and 13, and I respectfully ask the hon. Member for Harrow West not to press amendments (a) to (c) to new clause 1 to a vote.

[Gareth Thomas]

Having once successfully promoted a private Member’s Bill, I understand the difficulties that the hon. Gentleman faces, and I will not press the amendments.

[Tim Loughton]

I am exceedingly grateful to the hon. Gentleman. On that basis, I will sit down—let’s get on with it.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 1 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 3

Report on registration of pregnancy loss

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 14, in the title, line 3, leave out

“about the registration of stillborn deaths”

and insert

“for a report on the registration of pregnancy loss”.

This amendment adjusts the long title so as better to reflect the contents of Clause 3.

[Tim Loughton]

We come to the subject of pregnancy loss. On Second Reading, many Committee members spoke with extraordinary passion and eloquence about stillbirth. I am sure that no one will object to me singling out the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West. I said at the time that Labour MPs often reduce Government Members to tears, but in that case she did so for the right reasons. That was a highly emotional part of the debate, in which we heard some really brave personal testimonies. The work that hon. Members have done—including the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester and others through the all-party group on baby loss—has rightly raised the profile of this subject. The Government have done a lot as a result, but there is much more to do.

The Second Reading debate gave extra oxygen to the cause and generated great publicity. Celebrities such as Kym Marsh of “Coronation Street” should be applauded for lending their voices to the cause. The previous Health Secretary was greatly moved by that debate and, as a result, set up a working party. I will come back to that, but let me turn first to the guts of what the clause does and why it is necessary.

The Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 provides for the registration of stillborn babies after 24 weeks’ gestation, which is considered to be the clinical age of viability. Parents of babies who are stillborn after 24 weeks’ gestation receive a medical certificate certifying the stillbirth and, upon registration, can register the baby’s name and receive a certificate of registration of stillbirth. When a pregnancy loss occurs before 24 weeks’ gestation, the hospital may, if the parents want it to, enter the baby’s name in a local book of remembrance or issue a local certificate to commemorate the pregnancy loss. That does not happen universally, and of course it does not carry any weight officially. Crucially, for many, that understandably just does not go far enough.

That was the case with my constituent Hayley Petts, who instigated my bringing the issue forward several years ago via a ten-minute rule Bill. I and many other hon. Members made it clear that we believe there should be official acknowledgement of pregnancy losses before 24 weeks’ gestation, which would otherwise be classified as stillbirths. It is only a simple matter of chronology that prevents them from being registered and, crucially, recognised by the state. We should therefore explore whether parents should be given the opportunity or the right to register such a loss. Clause 3 would require the Government to prepare a report on whether the law should be changed—and, if so, how—to require or permit the registration of pregnancy losses that cannot be registered as stillbirths under the 1953 Act.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I apologise for my voice, Mr Sharma; I am suffering from end-of-term lurgy. I hope hon. Members can hear me. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham again for this part of his Bill, and I emphasise that the Government are committed to ensuring that the NHS provides the safest and highest quality care. That is particularly true for maternity services.

Sadly, some pregnancies will end in the death of a much-loved and wanted baby. Although the care considerations for still births and pre-24 weeks pregnancy losses may be similar, in practice, local factors may have an impact on the support parents receive, depending on the gestation stage of the loss. Registration and certification can be an important part of acknowledging a pregnancy loss, and that is why the Government fully support the need to look into the issue more closely.

Pregnancy loss is more common than people realise, and I thank all hon. Friends and hon. Members who have spoken in this place about their experiences, and who have educated those of us who have not had to endure the agony of losing a baby. I am bound to thank the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West for her contribution to the wider debate and in Committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, who has done so much work on the issue across the House. That is why the Government have already committed to looking at whether the legislation should be changed to allow for the registration and certification of pregnancy losses before 24 weeks gestation.

We support the requirement in this clause that a report is prepared before we consider any changes, because of the obvious sensitivities involved. In conducting this review, the Government are engaging closely with health practitioners, registrars and charities. Most importantly, the review is speaking to parents who have lost a baby before 24 weeks, to learn about their experiences and how to ensure that they receive the best care and support possible when such a tragedy takes place.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham and the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West are on that panel. If I may say, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West has demonstrated the considerable weight of experience and the value that she will contribute to that panel. I know that hon. Members were not invited to the first meeting. I understand that it had already taken place before the Secretary of State insisted that both hon. Members sit on the panel. I know that the officials sitting behind me will ensure that future sessions of the panel are communicated properly to both hon. Members, so that they are able to contribute, as they clearly should. The work of the panel will inform the report that the clause requires the Secretary of State to prepare and publish.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful for the great support from the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West. She shares my reservations about the way the committee is going. But with the comments we have made, and the support of the Minister and the new Health Minister, I think we will achieve a satisfactory conclusion in due course.

The hon. Lady also mentioned her daughter Lucy. It was mentioned on Second Reading that if this becomes law, it should be known as Lucy’s law. There was great agreement on that at the time. This affects too many women, and fathers too. It would cost nothing to put it right. A little effort would prevent an awful lot more angst for parents who have already been through this traumatic situation.

The clause only commits to having a report at this stage, but there is an expectation that the Government will want to turn that report into legislative change—into action—to complement the good work that is going on to prevent anybody from being in the iniquitous position of realising that their child is not officially recognised by the state, by substantially reducing the number of stillbirths and miscarriages.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4

Coroners’ investigations into still-births

[Gareth Thomas]

I beg to move amendment 17, in clause 4, page 2, line 18, leave out “whether, and if so how,” and insert “how”.

This amendment would mean that the Secretary of State’s report would examine how the law should be changed, and not whether it should be changed.

[Gareth Thomas]

Again, it was a moment of weakness when I agreed, in the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South, to speak to her amendments, because I had not realised quite how much commitment she had already shown to the subjects in these amendments. As hon. Members, will know, she has had personal experience, through her constituency, of these issues. She had secured from the previous Secretary of State for Health a commitment that the law would be changed. She is, therefore, anxious to use these probing amendments to explore whether the Government have slightly changed their mind or are going slow, and what the timescale is for the Government to move on the previous Secretary of State’s commitment in his maternity safety strategy. In that strategy, he said that he would work with the Ministry of Justice to produce a report on the issues before full-term stillbirths could be classed as neonatal deaths. That report was published in Hansard.

The constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South who motivated her to table this amendment—Jack and Sarah—lost their daughter, Harriet, in labour. I understand that Sarah had a scan at 38 weeks and the baby appeared to be doing well. Sarah was in labour for six days and Harriet died during that time. The death was classified as a stillbirth and, according to the current law, because Harriet was not born alive her death could not be investigated.

Both Harriet’s parents are medical professionals and they knew that something was wrong with the care that they had received. When the internal review found no fault with the care that they had been given, they fought extremely hard to get an external review. That external review found that Harriet’s death was almost certainly preventable. Following that review, Harriet’s parents have campaigned extensively to change the law, so that coroners can investigate stillbirths that occur past 37 weeks.

I press the point that surely a baby’s death should be treated no differently from any other death. In that sense, the coroner represents an independent judicial office, and therefore any inquest into the death would be truly independent and transparent. A coroner would be able to address local issues at a particular hospital or unit where there were concerns about the care arrangements, by making references to other statutory bodies.

As I say, it had appeared that the former Secretary of State for Health was committed to making changes, but the caveat in clause 4(1)—the reference to

“whether…the law ought to be changed”—

has raised some concerns about whether there has been any slowing-down of commitment or even—I hesitate to say it—backtracking. In the spirit of a probing amendment, I hope that the Minister will reassure us and commit to a timescale for moving things forward.

I apologise to you, Mr Sharma, and the Committee because I have a long-standing commitment and if the debate on this amendment goes beyond 4.30 pm, I will have to read the comments of the Minister and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, who promoted this Bill, in Hansard. However, I hope that the Minister will give us the response that we need.

[Tim Loughton]

On that basis, we will do things very quickly. I will comment on amendments 17 and 18, which the hon. Gentleman has moved. However, I will just need to speak to clause 4 stand part and amendment 15, which has been tabled in my name and that of the Minister.

Amendment 17 addresses the issue of coroners having the power to investigate. Currently, under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, coroners have a duty to investigate deaths in certain circumstances, such as where the death is violent or unnatural, or where the cause of death is unknown. Of course, that duty extends to the deaths of newborns of any age, including those who die immediately after birth, but there the duty stops.

So coroners do not have jurisdiction to investigate if a baby showed no signs of life independent of the mother, including if the baby died during labour. The reason for this is that coroners can only investigate deaths where there has first been life and that is obviously not the case for a stillborn child. However, as it says in the title of the clause, they were still born. Nevertheless, the coroner, under the current legislation, does not have the power to investigate stillbirths, however difficult the circumstances might be. The coroner can investigate when there is doubt about whether a baby was stillborn or was born alive, but they cannot investigate the circumstances of why a baby was stillborn if that is what they find.

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[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Just so I am absolutely clear, is the hon. Gentleman saying that the matter can be handled through regulation, and the whole matter will be clarified? Or will we have to revisit it?

[Tim Loughton]

The clause is an enabling clause. It gives Ministers the power to give authority to coroners to investigate stillbirths. It empowers them to do that by amending the 2009 Act; the matter would not need to be revisited. The exact terms on which Ministers will give the power is subject to the report that is being prepared.

To return to the hon. Gentleman’s amendments, the work is happening now and a number of coroners have contributed to it, including the West Sussex coroner, Penelope Schofield, who brought the issue to me and asked me to include it in the Bill in the first place. She has been impressed by the input of the officials involved, and by the progress that the group preparing the report is making. For example, there seems to be a consensus for giving coroners powers to investigate full-term stillbirths—at 37 weeks onwards. Those are the ones that might be considered least likely, in comparison to those closer to 24 weeks, when the position is more delicate, and therefore more questions need to be asked. In some cases it might require a coroner to ask those questions.

That is probably a good starting point, and if, with experience of coroners investigations, it appears that the term in question should be brought forward, the issue can be revisited later. However, an important starting point is set out, which will give confidence to parents who have suffered a stillbirth that in a small number of cases—it is not a question of flooding coroners with an awful lot of additional work—if the questions have not been answered, the full independence and weight of open inquiry that a coroner can bring to bear will be available to them.

Coroners have made it clear to me that they are sufficiently resourced to deal with the likely demand. As well as being important for parents, the change could mean a financial saving, because getting to the bottom of why many stillbirths happen would make it possible to learn more. We might avoid some long drawn-out and contentious legal cases, on which the NHS pays out a lot of money.

For the reasons I have set out, I urge hon. Members to support the clause—and amendment 15 to the long title. I hope that my assurances will enable the hon. Member for Harrow West to withdraw what he says, because the intention is for coroners to do the work. I think that there was a worry that it would not be coroners, but the measure is all about coroners.

There has been good progress with the report, and I hope that more information may come back even before Report, to be confirmed in the Bill. However, the clause is an enabling clause that would give the Secretary of State the power to allow coroners to investigate stillbirths.

[Victoria Atkins]

I shall speed through, in view of the time. I assure the Committee that the Government agree completely that there is a need to look at the role coroners could play in investigating stillbirths. A great deal is already being done. For example, improvements are already under way in the NHS, including the newly-established Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, which investigates full-term intrapartum stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths, and severe brain injuries that occur during labour. The improvements meet the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists criteria for the Each Baby Counts programme. However, we agree that we should look at how coroners may add to that learning and to prevention of stillbirths in the future.

The Government have already committed to looking into the question of coroners investigating full-term stillbirths and support the requirement in the clause that a report is prepared before we make any changes. There are important and sensitive issues to explore, including what powers a coroner should have to undertake any investigation such as the ordering of post-mortems and when any duty to investigate should apply. We also need to consider how we can maximise the learning from each coroner’s investigation.

Our concern is that amendment 17 would prejudge the findings of the report and the discussions that the Government are having with the many stakeholders in this area. We would not be able to look at whether there should be a role for coroners; it rather assumes that there should be one. We submit respectfully that that is not the correct approach. While many bereaved parents who may have had difficult experiences will want a coroner to carry out an investigation into stillbirths, we need to consider alternative experiences. Some parents may find the formal coronial process too distressing—it may be too much for them on top of the investigation the NHS would carry out—and they may want the official processes to be over so they can find the wherewithal to deal with their grief. They may not want to go through an additional official process before they begin to mourn.

On amendment 18, while the Government agree that we should move quickly, we must not be constrained in time to reach the right conclusions, which are what every member of the Committee is concerned to achieve. It is important that the report is thorough and all views are considered carefully. We want to explore in detail whether and in what circumstances a coroner may investigate stillbirths, and that will take some time. We are not dragging our feet. We have already begun the review on which my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham has given some details. That demonstrates our commitment to making progress as quickly as possible and, if change should be made, to make it in a timely manner. While I cannot commit to timescales, I consider that good progress is being made.

Officials have already engaged with a number of stakeholders, including bereaved parents, the Chief Coroner and senior coroners, medical professional bodies and organisations involved in research and support to those who have experienced stillbirth. I thank all those who have given their time for that. Once the report has been published, clause 4 will provide the Lord Chancellor with a power to amend part 1 of the 2009 Act to enable or require coroners to conduct investigations into stillbirths. The Government support the clause and invite the hon. Member for Harrow West to withdraw his amendment.

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[Tim Loughton]

I beg to move amendment 3, in clause 4, page 2, line 23, leave out subsection (4).

This amendment and Amendment 4 make a drafting change in response to Amendments 5 and 7 and NC3.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 4, in clause 4, page 2, line 26, leave out “Investigation regulations may” and insert

‘After the report has been published, the Lord Chancellor may by regulations’.

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 3.

Amendment 5, in clause 4, page 2, line 36, leave out subsection (6).

This amendment is consequential on NC3.

Amendment 6, in clause 4, page 2, line 43, leave out “Investigation” and insert “The”.

This amendment is consequential on Amendments 3 and 4.

Amendment 7, in clause 4, page 3, line 6, leave out subsections (8) and (9)

This amendment is consequential on NC3.

Amendment 8, in clause 4, page 3, line 10, leave out “investigation regulations may be made” and insert

‘regulations may be made under this section’.

This amendment is consequential on Amendments 3 and 4.

New clause 3—Supplementary provision about regulations—

‘(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations—

(a) amend the Marriage of British Subjects (Facilities) Acts 1915 and 1916 so that they no longer apply in England and Wales;

(b) make other provision in consequence of regulations under section (Marriage registration).

(2) The Lord Chancellor may by regulations make provision in consequence of regulations under section 4.

(3) Regulations under subsection (1) or (2) may include provision amending, repealing or revoking provision made by or under primary legislation (whenever passed or made).

(4) Regulations under this Act may make—

(a) different provision for different purposes;

(b) provision generally or for specific cases;

(c) provision subject to exceptions;

(d) incidental, supplementary, transitional, transitory or saving provision.

(5) Regulations under this Act are to be made by statutory instrument.

(6) A statutory instrument that contains (with or without other provision) regulations under this Act that amend, repeal or revoke any provision of primary legislation may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

(7) Any other statutory instrument containing regulations under this Act is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

(8) In this section—

“primary legislation” means—

(a) an Act of Parliament;

(b) an Act of the Scottish Parliament;

(c) an Act or Measure of the National Assembly for Wales;

(d) Northern Ireland legislation;

(e) a Measure of the Church Assembly or of the General Synod of the Church of England;

“Registrar General” has the meaning given by section (Marriage registration)(7).’.

This new clause makes supplementary provision about regulations under the Act.

Amendment 9, in clause 5, page 3, line 13, at end insert

‘only, subject to subsection (1A).

‘(1A) Section (Supplementary provision about regulations) and this section extend to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.’.

The amendment enables consequential amendments to be made to UK-wide legislation (even though the substantive changes to the law will relate to England and Wales only).

[Tim Loughton]

We are almost there. Amendments 3 to 7 are minor technical amendments to clause 4 to improve the drafting in light of the amendments to clause 1, although those do not materially affect the operation of the provisions. Amendments 9 and 10 amend clause 5: Extent, commencement and short title. Amendment 9 enables consequential amendments to be made to UK-wide legislation, although the substantive changes to legislation relate to England and Wales. Amendment 10 makes provision for the Bill to come into force two months after the Bill receives Royal Assent, which is pretty good.

New clause 3 makes supplementary provision about regulations under the Act. Paragraph (1)(b) of the new clause enables the Secretary of State to make consequential provision in respect of regulations amending the Marriage Act 1949 made under clause 1 of the Bill. Paragraph (1)(a) of the new clause contains the power to make a consequential amendment that enables the Secretary of State to amend by regulations the rarely used Marriage of British Subjects (Facilities) Acts 1915 and 1916 so that they no longer apply in England and Wales.

Subsection (2) of the new clause is a technical measure to make an equivalent power in clause 4(6) of the Bill to the new clause for the sake of good drafting. The power enables the Lord Chancellor to make consequential provision in respect of regulations amending part 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 made under clause 4. Regulations made under subsections (1) or (2) may include provision to amend, repeal or revoke provisions made under primary legislation. Hon. Members may wish to note that the amendment changes the Henry VIII power, limiting the power to consequential amendments rather than incidental or supplemental ones. This is in line with the marriage registration powers. It limits powers to those that in practice are likely to be used, rather than allowing a wider power. It also amends the parliamentary procedure so that only regulations that amend, repeal or revoke any provision in primary legislation will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, ensuring oversight in both Houses of Parliament by virtue of subsection (6) of the new clause. It is as simple as that, Mr Sharma, with apologies to Hansard. [Laughter.]

Amendment 3 agreed to.

Amendments made: 4, in clause 4, page 2, line 26, leave out “Investigation regulations may” and insert

“After the report has been published, the Lord Chancellor may by regulations”

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 3.

Amendment 5, in clause 4, page 2, line 36, leave out subsection (6)

This amendment is consequential on NC3.

Amendment 6, in clause 4, page 2, line 43, leave out “Investigation” and insert “The”

This amendment is consequential on Amendments 3 and 4.

Amendment 7, in clause 4, page 3, line 6, leave out subsections (8) and (9)

This amendment is consequential on NC3.

Amendment 8, in clause 4, page 3, line 10, leave out “investigation regulations may be made” and insert ‘regulations may be made under this section’.

This amendment is consequential on Amendments 3 and 4.

Clause 4, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Extent, commencement and short title

Amendment made: 9, in clause 5, page 3, line 13, at end insert

“only, subject to subsection (1A).

(1A) Section (Supplementary provision about regulations) and this section extend to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

The amendment enables consequential amendments to be made to UK-wide legislation (even though the substantive changes to the law will relate to England and Wales only).—(Tim Loughton.)

[Tim Loughton]

I beg to move amendment 10, in clause 5, page 3, line 14, leave out subsections (2) and (3) and insert—

‘( ) This Act comes into force at the end of the period of two months beginning with the day on which it is passed.”

The amendment provides for the Bill to come into force two months after it receives Royal Assent.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause stand part.

[Tim Loughton]

This is just the fiddly bit at the end of the Bill, which I am sure hon. Members will not want to be detained much longer on. The amendment deals with the extent, commencement and short title. It comes into force when the Secretary of State decides and is tied down to two months after the Act is passed. The rest of the clause is absolutely self-explanatory. I therefore propose that the clause stand part of the Bill and I hope that the amendment is accepted by the Committee. I am sure no one will argue with that.

Clause 5, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause 3

Supplementary provision about regulations

“(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations—

(a) amend the Marriage of British Subjects (Facilities) Acts 1915 and 1916 so that they no longer apply in England and Wales;

(b) make other provision in consequence of regulations under section (Marriage registration).

(2) The Lord Chancellor may by regulations make provision in consequence of regulations under section 4.

(3) Regulations under subsection (1) or (2) may include provision amending, repealing or revoking provision made by or under primary legislation (whenever passed or made).

(4) Regulations under this Act may make—

(a) different provision for different purposes;

(b) provision generally or for specific cases;

(c) provision subject to exceptions;

(d) incidental, supplementary, transitional, transitory or saving provision.

(5) Regulations under this Act are to be made by statutory instrument.

(6) A statutory instrument that contains (with or without other provision) regulations under this Act that amend, repeal or revoke any provision of primary legislation may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

(7) Any other statutory instrument containing regulations under this Act is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

(8) In this section—

‘primary legislation’ means—

(a) an Act of Parliament;

(b) an Act of the Scottish Parliament;

(c) an Act or Measure of the National Assembly for Wales;

(d) Northern Ireland legislation;

(e) a Measure of the Church Assembly or of the General Synod of the Church of England;

‘Registrar General’ has the meaning given by section (Marriage registration)(7).”—(Tim Loughton.)

This new clause makes supplementary provision about regulations under the Act.

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

Title

Amendments made: 11, in the title, line 1, leave out from beginning to “make”.

This amendment, together with Amendment 13, reflects the changes proposed by Amendment 1 and NC1.

Amendment 12, in the title, line 2, leave out from first “of” to “to” in line 3 and insert “marriage;”.

This amendment reflects the changes proposed by Amendment 2 and NC2.

Amendment 13, in the title, line 3, after “partnership;” insert

“to make provision for a report on civil partnerships;”.

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 11.

Amendment 14, in the title, line 3, leave out

“about the registration of stillborn deaths”

and insert

“for a report on the registration of pregnancy loss”.

This amendment adjusts the long title so as better to reflect the contents of Clause 3.

Amendment 15, in the title, line 4, leave out

“give coroners the power to investigate stillborn deaths”

and insert

“make provision about the investigation of still-births”.—(Tim Loughton.)

This amendment adjusts the long title so as better to reflect the contents of Clause 4.

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.

[Tim Loughton]

On a point of order, Mr Sharma. May I thank you for expertly chairing all the technical bits in particular of proceedings? I thank right hon. and hon. Members for attending, staying here in this heat and agreeing with so much of the Bill, and for all their contributions. I also thank the Minister, and I will particularly thank her when she produces the goods on civil partnerships, as we hope she will do in the next few months.

I also thank Linda Edwards in the Home Office who has worked tirelessly to advise not just the Minister but me, at all times of the day and night, to try to bring clarity to very technical procedures. We have got through them today in two hours and six minutes, which is no mean feat.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill, as amended, accordingly to be reported.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

May I pay tribute to the Minister who has just spoken, the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler)? Her speech was a masterpiece of clarity, conciseness and succinctness on a Friday morning on which there is important business to proceed with.

We had a very thorough and constructive Committee stage. I thank all the Members who took part in it, as well as the Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins). She is not in the Chamber today, but she has been part of the Bill process. I welcome the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who I hope will deftly manage the Bill without incident on its passage through these important stages. I am sure she will want to carry on the continuity of support that the Government have given, because there is very widespread support from both sides of the House for all four major parts of this Bill. Virtually all of them are now Government policy, so there is no reason why they should not want it to proceed. I anticipate that today should be a breeze, and that we can get on to the Third Reading of my Bill and swiftly go on to the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill, which so many of us support. We offer our good wishes to the Bill’s promoter, the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), who cannot be in the Chamber today.

Since the Committee sitting on 18 July, there has been a crucial change regarding the extension of civil partnerships, which is why the new clause and the amendment are necessary. That change is of course the announcement by the Prime Minister through the medium of the media—namely, the Evening Standard, on 2 October —when the Government confirmed that, for the first time ever, gay and straight people will have the same choices in life, which will be achieved by new laws to extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. There are now some 3.3 million such couples cohabiting in the United Kingdom. That was welcome news, and I was expecting a call beforehand from the Government to discuss how we could collaborate on my Bill to bring about that Government policy in the speediest and most effective way.

The change was of course spurred on by the ruling of the Supreme Court on 27 June, in the case of Steinfeld and Keidan, which revealed that the Government were in breach of the European convention on human rights. That followed a nearly four-year battle by Rebecca and Charles, which was almost as long as my own campaign in Parliament on this subject. I have proposed amendments going back as far as the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, I had a subsequent private Member’s Bill and of course there is the ballot Bill that we are debating today.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Loughton]

Of course I will give way—not too often.

[Sandy Martin]

May I offer the hon. Gentleman my congratulations on achieving this step forward? As he will remember, I intervened on him on Second Reading about the necessity of treating everyone equally according to the law. Obviously, everyone could be treated equally badly; I am glad that everyone is now going to be treated equally well.

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman quite rightly spoke very eloquently and with his own personal experience in support of this part of the Bill on Second Reading, for which I was very grateful, and that was very effective.

As I say, I was not warned about this advance in Government policy by the Prime Minister, and I have not really been briefed since about exactly what it amounts to. At the moment, I have no idea whether the Government will now accept this new clause, will vote against it, or will allow debate to go on—perhaps beyond 2.30 pm today. Frankly, if there are objections from the Government, I hope they will be based on fact, not conjecture or some of the scare stories about what my new clause might actually achieve. However, I have been involved in some very helpful discussions with the lead officials in the Government Equalities Office on civil partnerships legislation, and of course the continued support of the excellent lead official from the Home Office on this Bill, Linda Edwards.

The problem the new clause addresses is that at no point have the Government indicated a timeline or a method for bringing the extension of civil partnerships into effect. Delay and obfuscation was a major criticism in the ruling by the Supreme Court earlier in the year. More than three months after the Supreme Court ruling, the Government have simply indicated that they will address the inequality by extending civil partnerships, rather than abolishing them. Abolishing them was never a practical option, but that confirmation is very welcome.

Four months on, the Government have not indicated a timeline, despite the urgency factor pressed by the judges. If we read the Supreme Court ruling, we can see that it absolutely highlights the fact that the Government could have acted before now. On several occasions, it refers to this private Member’s Bill and my previous one as a way of rectifying this matter. It actually criticises my private Member’s Bill for not being tougher in proceeding with a change in the law on a timeline, rather than just agreeing to have a report, which I had to do to get the Bill through Second Reading and into Committee.

My Bill, with the addition of this new clause, is actually very helpful to the Government on a number of fronts. It confirms in law that civil partnerships will be equalised and that the breach with the convention will be rectified. It gives a clear cut-off date for the Government to get on and do it, and it would be effective before the end of next year. If this change goes through, a couple who have been looking to have a civil partnership rather than a marriage—for all the reasons we have debated at length—could make plans from the end of next year to make that a reality. Many people have waited years, and the Government have been on notice about this for years. This is now the time to end the delay.

Crucially, the new clause makes no prescription about the method, wording and reach of the legislative change that is required; that is entirely up to the Government. I know there are some technical matters still to be settled, and I do not want to dictate to them how we achieve that. That is why this is a very flexible amendment to what is a very flexible Bill.

I am afraid that the Government have had plenty of time. Back in the Second Reading debate on 2 February, the then Minister stated at the Dispatch Box about this Bill:

“There is a sense of urgency—very much so.”—[Official Report, 2 February 2018; Vol. 635, c. 1122.]

Yet, since that time, the Government have not been able to report on the progress of the review work that was announced then, and they did not do so in Committee in July either. Indeed, I gather that the Government Equalities Office was given the go-ahead to undertake much of the review work only in the past few weeks.

I remind the House that that is on the back of two full-blown reviews in the past few years of the whole subject of extending civil partnerships. This must be the most over-reviewed piece of legislation that this House has seen for some time. Why has it all moved so slowly, not least since the Supreme Court ruling that made it inevitable that the law would have to change—and change quickly? I pay tribute to the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign and to the now well over 130,000 people who have signed its petition for a change in the law. They are understandably growing impatient, and despite the Government’s announcement, they are sceptical in thinking that the legislative changes will be kicked into the long grass.

I gather that the Government plan to bring forward primary legislation in the next Session. That has been indicated in a written ministerial statement released only this morning—at the last moment. I am always rather sceptical of ministerial statements from the Dispatch Box or in written form at the eleventh hour. However, even if there is primary legislation in the next Session, it might be 2021 before a couple could actually take advantage of a civil partnership, and that is only if it is in the Queen’s Speech and survives the vagaries of the parliamentary timetable, which is likely to be under huge pressure during the next Session from potential emergency Brexit-related legislation.

I am afraid, however, that is just not good enough for me, for campaign supporters—including those with life-limiting conditions who are desperate to formulate a relationship while they can—or indeed for the Supreme Court. My Bill is the cleanest and quickest way to change the law, to satisfy the Supreme Court and, most importantly, to address a significant pent-up demand from couples who have waited for this change and the chance of equality for a long time. I cannot understand why the Government have not more proactively used my Bill as a vehicle for achieving that right from the start.

Ministers have put it around that the new clause is flawed and unworkable, but neither is true. I have discussed its wording and terms at length with Clerks of the House and lead officials from the Government Equalities Office, and because of flexibility in the wording of the Bill and new clause, the timetable can be achieved by using a truncated six-week review process. Indeed, the Scottish Parliament is currently undertaking its own review into the extension of civil partnerships, and I am sure that it would not mind if we just nicked that. A ready-made “one we made earlier” is on the table, and with a little tweaking it could go into the consultation process in a matter of weeks. A statutory instrument could then be designed in the new year, to be drafted by parliamentary counsel and put before Parliament ahead of the summer recess. I know that will be tight and demand a lot from officials—frankly, those officials would be better placed if they had been allowed to get on with the work when the writing was on the wall some time ago. However, it can be achieved in a way that enables the law to allow opposite-sex couples to enter a civil partnership before the end of 2019. That is what the new clause would do. The statutory instrument route gives greater flexibility on a subject which, frankly, we have debated almost to death. It is less vulnerable to the vagaries of the parliamentary timetable than primary legislation.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

Has my hon. Friend considered civil partnerships when the relationship is platonic, such as between siblings who live together, and how to protect their future?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point that has been raised several times. Indeed, an amendment to the Civil Partnership Act 2004 has been tabled in the other place to that effect. I have some sympathy with those changes, but for me they are largely a matter of taxation and an issue for the Treasury, because they mainly concern inheritance tax and other tax matters. My Bill is a social family Bill, and one reason for it is an attempt to cement family units and create greater stability for children—recognising a partnership in law, with all the protections that goes with that, is a good fillip for family stability. The point raised by my hon. Friend is a separate and largely financial issue, and I would be sympathetic to separate legislation that will not mess up my Bill but will address that point elsewhere.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

My hon. Friend knows that I support him in his endeavours. Given his response to our hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), perhaps the Government should indicate that they will consider taxation relationships between people who have a relationship but not a partnership. That may involve siblings, or someone who has stayed at home to look after an elderly parent, but the current taxation arrangements are desperately unfair. However, my hon. Friend is right to say that that issue should not necessarily complicate the Bill.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is right. This Bill is about civil partnerships, which are a different sort of relationship. I know the issue is fraught with all sorts of nuances, but my original point stands.

Just this week, the Government announced that primary legislation could be introduced to prescribe food labelling in the light of the recent death of a customer of Pret a Manger and that those measures could be in place by next summer. No Supreme Court ruling hangs over that problem with the law, so why cannot we achieve today the change under discussion with the new clause to my Bill? If the Government allowed the amended Bill to proceed, they would send a strong and reassuring message about their real intent and put their money where their mouth is.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Tim Loughton]

I will give way for the very last time, and then I will conclude my remarks.

[Kevin Foster]

Like my hon. Friend, I am keen for the provisions in the Bill to be introduced. Will he outline briefly why his new clause only covers provisions on civil partnerships when, for example, we have been waiting to get mothers’ names on marriage certificates for many years?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend pre-empts my closing remarks. If there is a problem getting this Bill through the House, it must be one of the most complicated private Member’s Bills there has ever been, which is my fault. It so happens, however, that all four tenets of the Bill are now Government policy, so there should not be a problem. We still have some way to go before, hopefully, the Bill passes to another place and becomes subject to the vagaries there. If we do not get there, there is the important issue of adding mothers’ names to wedding certificates—that has been an anomaly since the reign of Queen Victoria and should have been addressed ages ago. Now at last we can do it.

The Bill contains important provisions on allowing coroners to look into certain stillbirths, and again, huge cross-party support for that has been aired on many occasions. There are also other important matters regarding how we view stillbirths before the 24-week gestation period. This Bill is not just about civil partnerships; it is about a whole load of other things for which there is widespread support. I hope that the Government will see that the new clause is well intended and will hold the feet of officials to the fire as they work long hours to get this legislation through. It is achievable. I have tabled new clause 1 in the spirit of being helpful to the Government in achieving equality. Consequential amendment 1 has now become redundant, because it is now Government policy to allow civil partnerships, and the new clause will ensure that we get on with it.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

When warned that I might be speaking early, Madam Deputy Speaker, I had not expected it to be this early.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has raised important points, and I am grateful to him for having promoted this Bill in its entirety and for his enormous and, as he pointed out, long-standing campaigning work in support of civil partnerships.

As most hon. Members will know, when the Bill was first introduced back in February, the Government had not yet taken a final decision on the future of civil partnerships. We were clear that the current situation, in which same-sex couples can marry or enter a civil partnership but opposite-sex couples can only marry, needed to be addressed. Indeed, earlier this year, we published a Command Paper that set out how we would proceed with our deliberations to ensure that we chose the right course of action. Events over the past few months have moved on substantially, not least thanks to the efforts of my hon. Friend in promoting this Bill, and I am pleased that the Prime Minister recently announced our intention to make civil partnerships available to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples. We intend to introduce specific legislation to do just that, and I know that in conversation with my hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities made those intentions clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

There are a number of important points I would like to make with particular reference to the amendment and some of the challenges we think it poses. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be patient and allow me to get to them.

There are a number of reasons why we are concerned about my hon. Friend’s amendment and a number of reasons why the Bill may not be the most appropriate legislative vehicle in which to equalise access to civil partnerships between same-sex and opposite-sex couples. As I have said, the Bill contains a number of important measures that we certainly do not wish to jeopardise by allowing the substantive amendment on civil partnerships at this late stage in the Bill’s progress through Parliament. I think that these substantive changes deserve to have been debated more thoroughly at earlier stages of the Bill’s progress, rather than just in the limited time available to us today.

I also need to make the point that, while we are happy to have announced our intention to extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples, there are still quite a number of significant issues that need to be resolved before we can move on to implement opposite-sex civil partnerships. Some of these are entirely practical. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) from a sedentary position is yelling, “Such as”. If he will give me a chance, I will get to them. For instance, we need to check all the existing legislative provisions that cross-refer to the civil partnership regime to make sure that they still work as intended for opposite-sex couples as well as same-sex couples. These existing provisions are spread across a wide range of current legislation, from arrangements for adoption through to pension entitlements, so this is not an insignificant body of work. Any existing provisions that are not appropriate to extended civil partnerships will need to be changed. There are also a number of sensitive policy issues that will need to be resolved, such as whether convergence from a marriage to a civil partnership should be allowed and whether the terms for the dissolution of an opposite-sex civil partnership should mirror those for same-sex couples or be the same as for opposite-sex marriages.

We also need to resolve a number of cross-border and devolution issues, such as how we should provide for recognition of similar relationships entered into in other countries and how our own relationships should be treated in other parts of the United Kingdom, which have their own legislation on civil partnerships.

I am disappointed that the amendment tabled today seeks to replace the provisions in clause 2, particularly the requirement for Government to consult and report to Parliament on the way in which they intend to equalise civil partnerships between same-sex and other couples. We particularly supported this original requirement, as we see consultation prior to the implementation of the extension of civil partnerships as key in both helping us to set out the Government’s views on the issues I have just mentioned, as well as getting a broader view of the implications of the various options.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend will acknowledge, of course, that the requirement for review and consultation is not a statutory requirement. It did not need to be in the Bill, but it was the only way of getting it through. And of course the Government, by their own admission, have started that review and consultation, albeit at a late stage. Taking the clause out of the Bill does not mean that it stops it, so it is actually not required.

[Caroline Nokes]

This is a subject on which we conduct long conversations, reviews and consultation across the Government, and the fact that the review has started does not mean that it should stop, but we do want to conclude it. It is important to us to have those views.

The Government are keen to progress the review and to do so as quickly as possible. The planned consultation is not some sort of prevarication; it is a necessary step to help us to ensure that when we introduce legislation it is fit for purpose and does not slow down its parliamentary passage. Officials are already starting to identify all the matters on which we want to consult. I hope that we will soon be in a position to say more about our proposed timing for that consultation, but we wish to conduct it as soon as possible. I stress that the consultation will be about how we make the provisions to ensure that civil partnerships work as intended for opposite-sex couples, not about whether we intend to extend them in that way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. I said at the beginning of my previous remarks that this morning would be a breeze. There have been a few headwinds, but so far, so good. I hope we can continue in that spirit of agreement and consensus across the House regarding all four measures in the Bill, which are much needed and much supported. My Bill has been referred to as the hatch, match and dispatch Bill because it covers so many junctures in people’s lives. I like to view it rather more as a Bill to address anomalies and iniquities in the law that, in many cases, should have been dealt with a long time ago.

I want to apologise in advance to officials, because if the Bill now goes through as amended, as I hope will be the case, they will have a lot of work to do in a relatively short space of time, but we now have a timeline, and that work should be a welcome distraction for them from Brexit, so there are upsides as well as downsides.

There are four aspects of the Bill, as I have mentioned. Clause 1, which is about marriage registration, seems to have excited the most vociferous support this morning. I am sure that the Minister will actively support it, rather than not actively support it—she appeared to say earlier that she did not like new clause 1 but would not actively oppose it, although passively she would have done. But we have moved on to Third Reading now—we are on the final bend.

I pay tribute to the Bishop of St Albans for the Bill that he has steered through the Lords, ably supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), whose name is attached to it on today’s Order Paper, albeit somewhat later on. She has been a champion for this issue over many years, as have other Members who have attached their names to various private Members’ Bills to try to address this anomaly. It is absurd that mothers have been able to put their signatures on marriage certificates in Scotland since 1855—and indeed in Northern Ireland—and in respect of civil partnerships in England and Wales since 2004, but that not since Victorian times has a mother’s name been recognised on a marriage certificate.

On Second Reading, I produced my own marriage certificate. My dear late mother’s name is absent from it, and to add insult to injury, my father’s name is on it twice, because he signed not only as witness but as the vicar who married us, adding double insult to injury. There are countless cases of people saying, “I never knew my father because he assaulted my mother and did a runner on us before I ever knew him, yet his name has to go on my marriage certificate, and the name of my mother, who has done all the heavy lifting, suffered all the abuse, and brought up, nurtured and loved me as a daughter, does not appear.” That is not right. I hope that the Bill will at last address that anomaly and that mothers can then proudly put their names on the marriage register in the new electronic form, which will bring it up to date for the future.

I am not going to go into the second aspect of the Bill, which is civil partnerships, at length again. We have been debating the matter since the 2013 same-sex marriage Bill. If my amendment had been agreed at that time, we would not still be having this discussion now. There have been many opportunities to address this unintended inequality.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Since the Government are in the mood to apologise for all sorts of historical events, does my hon. Friend think they should apologise for getting the law completely wrong?

[Tim Loughton]

I am in a generous frame of mind this morning, and rather than their saying sorry, we should be saying hurrah that we are now doing something about it—[Hon. Members: “Hurrah!”] I do not know how Hansard will treat that.

The third aspect of the Bill relates to the production of a report on the registration of pregnancy loss. Again, clause 3 has already achieved its objective, partly in the light of our Second Reading debate, which we had back on 2 February, when we were all moved by the extraordinarily touching personal testimony of the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) about her own experiences—I wonder whether she will draw her attention away from her mobile phone, because I know she would like to listen to this tribute and not be distracted. As a result of the strength of feeling in the speeches and the subsequent response from our constituents, the then Health Secretary—he is now Foreign Secretary—said, “Well, actually I think we just need to get on with changing the law.” A group was set up with a mandate to see how we could change the law to acknowledge in some way those births that are stillborn but happen, by whatever quirk, to fall below the 24-week gestation line and are therefore not recognised in the eyes of the state. The situation has brought huge distress to parents who are already in distress at the trauma of losing a child. The fact that they happened to lose that child at 23 weeks and six days means that, in the eyes of the state, that child never existed and is classed as any other baby loss. In saying that, I in no way diminish the trauma of all baby loss, but there are so many examples of this.

My constituent Hayley Petts first brought this matter to me, and she served on the working group with the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West. The group has been discussing many aspects of how the law can be changed and has also thrown up a lot of problems about how we go about changing the law. Should we have a universal certificate for all baby loss, for example? Should the scheme be voluntary or mandatory? Should it be subject to medical verification, as is the case under the Australian scheme, and should it be retrospective? There is then the whole thorny issue of how we avoid getting into the minefield that is abortion and other forms of termination. The Bill has done its job before it has become an Act because such work is going on under the aegis of the Department of Health and Social Care, and I hope we will have some results in due course.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing his Bill to Third Reading. On clause 4, does he agree that when parents lose a child—a healthy full-term baby—as my constituents Jack and Sarah Hawkins did, they should not have to fight to get answers? A coronial inquest might provide them with independent, public, open and honest answers so that they can concentrate on grieving, rather than having to fight to get to the truth of what happened.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady because she pre-empts my clause 4 moment. The fourth, and very important, component of this Bill, which is addressed in clause 4, is coroners’ investigations. She participated in earlier debates and worked very helpfully with me and others to move this important issue up the agenda. I am grateful for her contribution.

Clause 4 will allow part 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to be amended. That is not easy, and the matter is slightly complicated by the fact that it falls under the jurisdiction of both the Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for coroners, and the Department of Health and Social Care, which is responsible for healthcare in relation to baby loss. I must pay tribute to some very helpful and proactive support for this measure by MOJ officials. I had a very helpful meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who I am glad to see is present on the Front Bench. He was a great champion of many of the Bill’s provisions when he was just a commoner on the Back Benches and added his name to many of the measures I have been trying to get through today.

The Minister has confirmed that an immense amount of work has gone on at the Ministry of Justice. There are issues still to be resolved, such as whether coroners should have the power to investigate all stillbirth loss or should concentrate, which I think is practically the better approach, on full-term baby loss, when there are the fewest excuses or reasons for stillbirths to happen. Also, should this be mandatory or effectively subject to parental veto? There are serious problems with that, as there are some cases in which a stillbirth may have been connected to domestic violence and some sort of cover-up may be wanted, so I think we are coming to the view that the scheme should be mandatory. Should there be specialist coroners or should all coroners have the ability to investigate? Of course, there are also capacity constraints. The fact that a lot of work has been going on in the Department in the last few months shows that this can be done.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this important Bill, which is, in effect, enabling legislation in this regard. It is worth reiterating something he has already mentioned, so will he join me in thanking the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar)? It is one thing to have enabling legislation, but given the complex nature of what my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is trying to introduce, a Minister who is so supportive is worth their weight in gold?

[Tim Loughton]

Give my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) a job—I am sure that will happen shortly. We should be paying tribute to him, too, because although many other Members have been part of this crusade, including my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who is sitting next to him, he has probably done more than anyone to put stillbirth absolutely on the parliamentary and national radar.

It is because of the Minister’s empathy, understanding and preparedness to work with parliamentarians that we are in a position in which, if this enabling legislation is enacted, we can have practical measures in fairly short order, perhaps even ahead of the first civil partnership for opposite-sex couples happening in this country before the end of 2019. This enabling clause gives a good deal of discretion to the Minister, and there is no other Minister I have greater faith in to make sure that something actually happens. Now that we have praised him to the rafters, we will expect a very early announcement on when the change will happen.

This is a complicated Bill, as I have said, and that is my own fault, but it contains four really important measures that have widespread support across the whole House and across the country.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Loughton]

If my hon. Friend wants to ruin my peroration, I will allow him to do so.

[Luke Graham]

I apologise to my hon. Friend and thank him for giving way. I am in full support of the Bill, but I have one technical question that I hope he will be able to answer. Clause 6 clarifies that clause 5 applies to Scotland, England and other parts of the United Kingdom. Clause 5(1)(a) states that

“the Marriage of British Subjects (Facilities) Acts 1915 and 1916…no longer apply in England and Wales”.

Under clause 6, that will also apply to Scotland. As I am sure the House will know, those Acts make reference to the recognition of marriage certificates in the United Kingdom and those of British dominions, basically giving British citizens getting married in the dominions and those getting married here in the United Kingdom almost equal recognition. I am all for increasing rights, but I just want to make sure that that provision will not reduce any of our constituents’ rights in their future marriage choices.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that very pithy intervention. He makes some good points, and no doubt some other smartarse in the House of Lords will want to bring them up as well. With the greatest respect, I am sure that he can speak further to those points on Third Reading—as long as he does not go on for too long. To coin a phrase from Front Benchers, I would be happy to write to him and give him more details. I shall now somehow try to return to my peroration.

As I was saying before I was so helpfully interrupted, the Bill is long overdue. It sets out a practical route and a timeline—certainly in the case of civil partnerships—for these iniquities and inequalities to be resolved. I know that it has widespread support in this House, and I am grateful to all those who have made it possible to get this far. I will be particularly grateful to the Immigration Minister if she ensures that the Bill gets through its Third Reading so that we can have further discussions in the other place. I very much hope that it will be granted its Third Reading without a vote today.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Mr Speaker]

Said with alacrity and buoyancy. With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments 2 to 6.

[Tim Loughton]

First, I echo the comments made by you, Mr Speaker, and all other Members on the senseless and brutal murder in New Zealand. New Zealand might be one of the furthest countries from the United Kingdom, but at times like this we stand shoulder to shoulder with our close cousins in all communities in New Zealand and express our sincere condolences and sympathy after this terrible tragedy.

Said with alacrity indeed, Mr Speaker, because today is quite an exciting day. In fact, it is so exciting that I got halfway to my office in the Commons this morning before I realised that I had non-matching jacket and trousers on and had to return. I have quite a nice tie on, and I am taking it personally that I was not singled out for such an accolade, too.

[Mr Speaker]

It is an admirable tie.

[Tim Loughton]

Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. Having made the journey back home, I eventually got to my office to realise that I had left my mobile phone in my jacket that I had taken off, so things can only get better today.

We have before us technical amendments. The Bill has had a long journey. It had its First Reading on 19 July 2017—those heady days when we had a relatively stable Government and could get legislation through the House. Today is a culmination of that, with ping-pong, which I hope will be solely ping and leave no pong.

Members will remember that when my Bill left the Commons last year, it contained my last-minute amendment obliging the Government to bring in the legislation on civil partnerships within six months of the Bill achieving Royal Assent. Curiously, although the Government at that time were not supportive of it, when it came to the possibility of a vote, a rather curious new parliamentary term was coined by the Immigration Minister, who said that the Government were not “actively” opposing my amendment. Hopefully that has now transmogrified into the Government supporting it.

While the wording of clause 2 has changed since the Bill left this House, I want to assure Members that the intention of the clause—to create equality between same and opposite-sex couples in their ability to form a civil relationship—remains. I amended my Bill on Report, before it left this House, to give the Government the ability to extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples, rather than just review the possibility of an extension. The Government, although slightly belatedly, came to support the principle of opposite-sex civil partnerships, perhaps spurred on by the Supreme Court judgment in a case last June. I accept that there were technical deficiencies in the drafting of my original amendment.

Since then, I have worked with the Government and the noble Baroness Hodgson of Abinger, to whom I pay great tribute. She guided the Bill through the Lords as a private Member’s Bill virgin, as she described herself, but did so skilfully and with great deftness, steering it on an even course so that it is back here with us today. Baroness Hodgson was able to correct those deficiencies and improve the drafting of the Bill. She then tabled and successfully moved the revised clause 2 and related changes in Committee in the other place, despite some rather indulgent attempts by certain peers in the other place to add their own agendas to the Bill, which were, alas, defective and would have had the result of scuppering the whole Bill. I pay tribute to the way that Baroness Hodgson steered those through potentially choppy waters to avoid the Bill being holed below the water line.

Lords amendments 1 and 2 replace my earlier version of clause 2. The new clause now requires the Secretary of State to amend by regulations the eligibility criteria of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 so that two people who are not of the same sex may form a civil partnership. The Bill requires that these changes be made so as to come in no later than 31 December. That will mean, as we have agreed with Ministers in the other place, that the legislation needs to be in place by 2 December, because notification of a clear 28 days is required before a ceremony can actually take place. There was an undertaking that civil partnerships would be available before the end of 2019, and I look forward to a series of invitations to civil partnership ceremonies on new year’s eve.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Many congratulations to my hon. Friend on steering this Bill through so successfully and on getting his timing absolutely right so that it could incorporate the decision of the Supreme Court. May I ask him whether he is concerned about the fact that subsection (1) of the new clause says:

“The Secretary of State may, by regulations”

thereby indicating a certain discretion, but subsection (2) says that if he exercises that discretion under subsection (1) then he “must” do so before 31 December? Is my hon. Friend suspicious that the contrast between “may” and “must” in subsections (1) and (2) could be used by the Government to undermine what he has just asserted?

[Tim Loughton]

I know my hon. Friend is always vigilant, rather than suspicious. Having sat through many Committees over many years in this House arguing the toss over whether the word “may” should be replaced by the word “must”, I have to say that I am not concerned about the wording of the Bill. I have had many conversations with the Ministers responsible, and the Government are absolutely committed to delivering on the undertakings in this Bill. It had to be put together in such a way to give some leeway to Ministers to be able to produce the right legislation at the right time. That involved a degree of discretion, which I know my hon. Friend and others in both Houses were concerned about. A number of undertakings were therefore added to the Bill and were given orally, not least a sunset clause, so that this clause, which I know my hon. Friend has had concerns about in the past, could not be used for other purposes as something of a Trojan horse. I entirely appreciate his observation, but I do not share his concern that this will not actually be produced. I think it will be produced in a fairly short space of time. Goodness knows, we tried for long enough to get mothers’ names on marriage certificates.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Fairly shortly after being elected, I was approached by several opposite-sex couples who are determined to have a civil partnerships, and tens of thousands of people around the country would like to have such a civil partnership. Does the hon. Gentleman share my confidence that, were the Government to try to renege on it at this very late stage, such demand would be enough of an incentive to make sure the Secretary of State actually followed through on this?

[Tim Loughton]

As I will come on to say shortly, there have been some ups and downs with getting this Bill through. Back in October, on the civil partnerships clauses, the Prime Minister herself, in an article in the London Evening Standard, made it clear that Government policy was now firmly in favour of extending civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. That was a clear undertaking, which was almost unanimously supported by Members of this House and very largely supported by Members of the other House. We have factored in the legislation in such a way that it can be brought in this year, which is really important and means it will also comply with the Supreme Court judgment. If there are people who have not entered into a civil partnership—presuming there are those who want it, and I know there are—before the end of this year, I shall be more than a little peeved, but I shall also be greatly surprised. That is not a problem I anticipate.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I think this is an excellent Bill in principle, but I want to clarify one specific point. Subsection (2) of the new clause says:

“The Secretary of State must exercise that power so that such regulations are in force no later than 31 December 2019.”

Presumably, that does not stop them coming in earlier. Has my hon. Friend any expectation that they will do so?

[Tim Loughton]

That is a very good point. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s support in saying that the Bill is very good in principle, but I also think it is very good in practice. If he remembers, the amendment that I added on Report said that the Government needed to implement this legislation within six months of Royal Assent. That was actually quite a tall order and, for all sorts of reasons, the Government were not as prepared as they might have been for this change in the law, which the Prime Minister finally gave her complete assent to in October. I was therefore content to let the six months slip, but the principle that it needs to happen by the end of the year is very important. As I will mention in a minute, a number of consultation exercises still need to take place to make sure that we get this absolutely right. Let us remember that this legislation does not give rise to the specific changes in the law; it enables the Secretary of State to bring in the changes that will enable opposite-sex couples to enter into a civil partnership. An awful lot of detail still needs to go with that, although I am glad to say that a lot of work has now been done by civil servants.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Tim Loughton]

Everybody wants to chip in, and of course I will give way to my right hon. Friend.

[Sir Greg Knight]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has the second best tie in the House, for giving way to the person wearing the best tie. Subsection (6) of the new clause imposes a duty to consult. Who does he expect to be consulted, and is he in any way concerned that this consultation process may lead to a further delay?

[Tim Loughton]

I am going to come on to the consultation, but, absolutely, that cannot lead to further delay because we now have a timeline in the Bill. There is some detail still to agree—I absolutely appreciate that—but that should not prevent this new legislation from coming in before the end of this year. Again, my right hon. Friend is right to be slightly suspicious, and I am very grateful to him for taking the time to be here today. I am not sure how much longer he is staying, but I hope he does not get a ticket on his car—if he is parked on a line or somewhere on private property.

Subsection (3) of the new clause enables the Secretary of State to make other provisions by regulations if this is appropriate in view of the extension of eligibility. The current civil partnership regime is bespoke to same-sex couples, and this subsection enables the Secretary of State to ensure that a coherent scheme can be introduced for opposite-sex couples. Subsection (4) sets out some of the areas in which regulations will be needed, including matters such as parenthood and parental responsibility, the financial consequences of civil partnership and the recognition of equivalent opposite-sex civil partnerships entered into overseas.

Subsection (5) enables the Secretary of State to make regulations relating to the conversion of a marriage into a civil partnership and vice versa. At present, same-sex couples are able to convert a civil partnership into a marriage, and in implementing an opposite-sex civil partnership regime, the Government will need to consider what conversion rights should be given to opposite-sex couples. That is actually an important point about the practicalities of how this will be brought in. If hon. Members remember, the original Civil Partnership Act came in back in 2004-05 and then there was the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, but there was a delay between same-sex marriage becoming available and conversions from same-sex civil partnerships becoming available. Interestingly, however, according to the last figure I saw, only about 15% of same-sex civil partnerships chose to convert into a same-sex marriage after that became available.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward this very important Bill, which I fully support. I am very impressed by his prescience in introducing this Bill a year before the Supreme Court decided that this was a very good idea. He mentioned the power in subsection (3) of the new clause to make “any other provision”. Will he detail what kind of provision that might be in that particular part of the clause?

[Tim Loughton]

Is my hon. Friend talking about civil partnerships?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Yes.

[Tim Loughton]

As I have mentioned, how one converts is one of them. My hon. Friend may be aware that the Scottish Parliament has been slightly ahead of us in that it has been making preparations to bring in opposite-sex civil partnerships, and it has launched a consultation. That is one reason why I have said that the Government here could actually get on with this rather more speedily, because they could take what Scotland has already done. However, there were some gaps in the Scottish consultation, including the whole thorny subject of conversions. That is why we need to make sure that we cover all those areas. As I know, because they have contacted me, a small number of people, who got married because that was all that was available, would be more comfortable with a civil partnership. On such details, it is perfectly reasonable to get some form of consensus. By and large, the principles in the Bill seek to emulate and reflect the Civil Partnership Act 2004 for same-sex couples.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Greg Knight]

My hon. Friend is generous in giving way. Subsection (4)(c) of the new clause refers to the financial consequences of a civil partnership. Has he received any assurance from the Government that such an arrangement will have no adverse financial consequences?

[Tim Loughton]

There are some financial consequences—mostly about private pensions—just as there were when civil partnerships were introduced for same-sex couples. That was accounted for in the Government’s previous consultations—my right hon. Friend may remember that there was a consultation on extending civil partnerships before the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, and again afterwards as a result of an amendment I tabled. The Government are aware of the financial consequences, which are not huge and are relatively insignificant, and they have consulted on them. He need not worry that this Bill will be costly—indeed, I assure him that parts of it will save money.

Subsection (7) allows the Secretary of State to make regulations that protect the ability to act in accordance with religious belief. That could include, for example, ensuring that religious organisations are able to decide whether to host opposite-sex civil partnerships on religious premises, which should remain a decision for an individual religious organisation—I am not proposing any changes there. Subsection (8) enables the regulations made under the new clause to amend, repeal or revoke primary legislation, and amendments to clause 5 will ensure that those regulations are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure—I know that right hon. and hon. Members will be concerned about that. That will ensure that the regulations receive proper parliamentary scrutiny and are debated in this House and the other place.

Amendments 3, 4 and 5 make the necessary changes to the supplementary provisions for making regulations in clause 5, and amendment 6 changes the long title of the Bill to reflect the fact that clause 2 no longer relates to the publication of a report on civil partnerships, and instead relates to the extension of civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples—that is how it was when the Bill first started out, before the Government wanted me to change it. We are back where we were originally, but there has been a lot of good fun in the process.

Other clauses in the Bill that attracted widespread support across the House and beyond are completely intact, helped by various assurances given in the Lords by Baroness Hodgson and Baroness Williams, particularly about the consultation on moves to extend the power of coroners to investigate stillbirths. Other parts of the Bill add mothers’ names to marriage certificates—that has not been available in England since 1834—enable coroners to investigate stillbirths where appropriate, and oblige the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to review how we might register stillbirths before 24 weeks, which are technically referred to as late-term miscarriages. A working party has already started work on that. It has slightly ground to a halt since last autumn, but it will be obliged to report under provisions in the Bill. A lot of work still needs to be done on that difficult subject, about which hon. Members heard many emotional testimonies during the passage of the Bill.

Perhaps I may crave the House’s indulgence before I conclude my remarks, because this will hopefully be the final hurdle for a Bill that started in this House on 19 July 2017, but had its genesis in amendments that I proposed to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill in 2013. This Bill has kept me awake for much of the past 20 months or so, and I wish to say some thank yous.

Even if I say so myself, this Bill is quite a remarkable achievement—[Interruption.] I am going to say so myself, and I really do not care: it is a remarkable achievement, and will be law in a few weeks’ time. As I said at the outset of my remarks, this is the most greedy and ambitious private Member’s Bill that I have seen in my 22 years in this House. It proposes not one but no fewer than four main changes to the law. It involves legislation involving not just one Department but four, and the engagement of not one but four Secretaries of State, three of whom unhelpfully got reshuffled when the Bill was approaching Second Reading, which meant that I had to start my difficult negotiations all over again in January 2018.

This is not a handout Bill, and it would not be happening had not various people supported putting all these clauses together. As I said, I made it so complicated because in my 22 years in this House of applying for the private Member’s ballot each year—other than when I was a Minister—and failing to be picked, this was the first time my name came up, and no doubt it will be the last. I went for broke, and I think we have come up trumps.

We started in the Commons on 2 February 2018, not knowing whether the Bill would receive its Second Reading, and we had to make a number of last-minute compromises. We had a lot of help from Baroness Hodgson and Baroness Williams, and other organisations that have fought tirelessly for this Bill, such as the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign—its members are looking down from the Gallery very sedately and excitedly, ahead of the celebration that we will have later on—as well as other organisations, such as the Campaign for Safer Births, and I particularly pay tribute to Nicky Lyon, Michelle Hemmington and Georgie Vestey. A few other institutions were not quite as supportive, but we got the Bill through anyway and I will not name them.

[James Cartlidge]

I was pleased to speak on Second Reading, but I think one question was not covered—forgive me if it was. It will be interesting to see what happens to civil partnerships before we break up the fundamental partnership that we are currently debating, but what is the impact on nationality rights for those in civil partnerships compared with those in a traditional marriage? Is it the same, because that issue will be important in the coming months for those in a civil partnership with an EU citizen?

[Tim Loughton]

As I think I said rather unfairly to one of our colleagues who made a not-dissimilar slightly technical point on Report, nobody likes a smart-arse. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend and I are very good friends, Mr Speaker, and I am grateful to him because he raises a good point. I have had a number of emails from people who live abroad or who have had ceremonies in other jurisdictions, and part of the consultation and final details that need to be added to the Bill are on such matters. The principle is to replicate absolutely the rights and opportunities that are available for same-sex couples. If the Bill does not try to achieve complete equality, or as close to it as is physically possible, it will not have achieved what it tries to achieve. This is all about equalities and equal opportunities.

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

Having heard my hon. Friend’s observations on my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), I am loth to ask a question, but I wonder if he will reflect on the Lords debate on civil partnerships between siblings, and say how he feels about that.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend, who attended previous debates as assiduously as my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), raises a good point. I think it is the noble Lord Lexden who has a private Member’s Bill in the Lords, and, in the past, other Members in this House have tried to change legislation so that a formal civil partnership would be available to sibling couples, typically two sisters who have lived together in a jointly owned property over many, many years. When one dies, the other is faced with a large inheritance tax bill and all sorts of other things that are clearly disadvantageous. I have a great deal of sympathy with that, but my response—Baroness Hodgson spoke to Lord Lexden and others about this—is, first, that the Bill is not the place to address that situation, because it is essentially a financial matter.

The Bill is about families and partnerships; that situation is about fair financial treatment between blood relatives who are committed to each other. If it were to be addressed in a finance Bill or a similar measure, I would have some sympathy for it. I think it should be judged on that basis. I am talking about couples who come together and may have children. I know there are some special circumstances, for example where a couple of sisters may be looking after a niece or nephew of a deceased sibling. It is complicated, but essentially it is a matter of financial unfairness and I would like to see it dealt with in financial legislation.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

On that specific point about financial matters, does my hon. Friend therefore think that that should also apply to pensions and the passing on of pension rights?

[Tim Loughton]

Again, that is a good point. As the law is framed at the moment, they would not qualify. Some generous schemes might recognise that there was a dependent relationship, but those issues need to be looked at in greater detail, with the wisdom and scrutiny of officials and Ministers from the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions. I would certainly suggest that the Government, or any other Member whose name comes up in the private Member’s Bill ballot, look at the issue separately. Private Members’ Bills cannot be used for financial matters, so there might be a problem there, and that is why this Bill would not be the most appropriate vehicle to deal with it.

Hundreds and hundreds of mothers and fathers of potential civil partners have written to me and other hon. Members in support of the Bill on its long journey. There have been some heart-rending accounts, particularly from those who have suffered the trauma of stillbirth. I have to say that at times the progress of the Bill has been in spite of the Government, rather than with their support, although I think they have come to realise that the Bill always was the best and the speediest vehicle to deliver civil partnerships and marriage certification with mothers included, especially after many abortive attempts.

If I could just single out one Minister it would be the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar). He wanted to be here today. He has a lot of skin in the game with many of the issues in the Bill that he has championed in this House. He has gone above and beyond. He stepped in to bash heads together in Departments to find a way through and he has done a lot of work within his own Department on preparing for the power to go to coroners to investigate stillbirths. When the Bill becomes law, I think there will be a short space of time before it is put into effect. I pay particular tribute to him and give him my thanks for all the help he has given in some uncertain waters that we have charted on the Bill’s journey.

Lastly, I would like to thank the officials. A number of officials have also suffered sleepless nights. They have pulled their hair out and sent me emails at some very antisocial hours as they battled to ensure we got this through the Lords in particular. It is invidious to single them out, but if I could just mention Ben Burgess in the House of Lords, whose quiet but skilful diplomacy in convincing certain Members of their lordships’ House that less is more kept the Bill on an even keel. I would also like to mention the redoubtable Linda Edwards from the Home Office, whose combination of energy, cajoling, diplomacy and forthrightness has been the absolute making of the Bill. I am convinced that without her guiding it through as the lead official in her role in the Home Office, we would not be where we are today. I pay tribute to them.

It has been a long journey. I first raised this issue in 2013 via an amendment on civil partnerships during the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. It would have prevented an awful lot of angst if at that stage the Government had agreed to full equality by agreeing to amendments, which were supported by many Members on both sides of the House, to bring about equal civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples. The genesis of the Bill is even longer than Brexit, but unlike with Brexit today we will have closure and a reason to celebrate.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman—in fact, now probably right hon. Gentleman.

[Tim Loughton]

I very much doubt it.

[Mr Speaker]

Well, if he isn’t, he jolly well ought to be. I feel sure that it is only a matter of time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

That is probably the strongest argument for it, but my hon. Friend has already said that his constituent was going to get married in the absence of this measure. I am nervous about the argument, “I would prefer something else because I feel that marriage is sexist.”

[Tim Loughton]

I completely respect my hon. Friend’s view, but the reality is that there are 3.2 million opposite-sex cohabiting couples who have no protections within the law, and half of them have children. One of my local registrars is running a waiting list for people waiting for this legislation. There is a lot of demand for it, and it can only bring about greater family stability, greater commitment and greater benefits in safe, healthy, loving upbringings for those children. That is why this is really important.

[Neil O’Brien]

We will find out in due course when we pass this Bill whether that is the case. My fear is that the dissolution rate may be higher if people believe that civil partnerships are a softer institution.

[Tim Loughton]

I assure my hon. Friend that where there are different options—in France for example—the divorce rate among those who are conventionally married is rather greater than it is for those who have entered an opposite-sex civil partnership, so the data does not support that assertion.

[Neil O’Brien]

At the moment, the dissolution rate for civil partnerships in the UK is higher than for marriages. Of course my hon. Friend is correct that it is not a good example, because there are a lot of other pressures on gay people. We will not know, in the unique circumstances of the UK, who is right until we do it, and I hope he is right.

I have said my bit on this subject, and today we will be passing some measures that I hugely welcome, that put right some of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull and that give comfort to grieving families, who are much larger in number than is often realised in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

There are other Bills to consider today, so I will briefly discuss the registration of stillbirths, which was addressed at length in my private Member’s Bill on parental bereavement. I have a number of constituents, including the one I mentioned earlier, who had a baby at 23 weeks and six days. If those babies had not survived for two days, the parents would never have been able to register the birth. It is right that the law is changed.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is not correct. If a child is born before 24 weeks with signs of life, the birth will be registered. If a child is born before 24 weeks with no signs of life—what we would define as a stillbirth—the birth will not be registered. That is the actual position.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend has cleared up that point. Nevertheless, this is an important part of the Bill.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I congratulate my hon. Friend yet again on introducing this Bill, which I fully support.