Tim Loughton
Main Page: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
Tim Loughton Excerpts
Mr Burrowes
I am afraid not, because I want to make progress to allow other hon. Members to speak.
Dutch registrars who were already employed before the legislation was passed are able to exercise their conscience and object. If it is good enough for those Dutch registrars, it is good enough for UK registrars. During the Bill Committee, one hon. Member suggested that people should realise that the writing is on the wall for their employment and that they should jolly well recognise that they will have to stick to the law and not exercise their own conscience, or get out now while they have the chance. That is disgraceful and amounts to serving people with a notice to quit. It means that this will be not just a marriage Bill, but an unfair dismissal Bill.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
Is not the situation worse than that? In Committee, the Government, in effect, designed a hierarchy of exemptions. A Catholic surgeon is perfectly entitled to refuse to conduct an abortion paid for by public funds, but a Catholic registrar, who is similarly in public service paid for by public funds, could lose his position if he declined, out of a conscientious objection, to perform a same-sex marriage. Where is the fairness in that?
Mr Burrowes
I agree. This Bill is supposed to be about fairness and ensuring appropriate freedom and liberty, which goes beyond what happens in a marriage service.
Tim Loughton
Of course, it would also not be right to be putting out spurious figures. The figure of £4 billion is not the result of an official cost impact assessment by the Department for Work and Pensions. It is an entirely hypothetical figure based on every cohabiting opposite-sex couple choosing to convert to a new civil partnership, with maximum pension liabilities. Is not that actually where the figure has come from?
Maria Miller
I really do thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, because he has made my point for me. At this point in time, there is of course no independent impact assessment because the issues have not been looked at in the kind of detail that hon. Members would expect before legislation is enacted. I hope that I will be able to change my hon. Friend’s mind about pressing his new clause to a vote. I hope that he will see that we need to get more evidence on this issue.
Kate Green
It is very good to hear the hon. Gentleman holding up the situation in France as an example of the practice to which we should aspire, and I could not agree with him more. We see no reason for this review to be excessively protracted. Indeed, we think it can be conducted very swiftly. It would be welcome if it could be completed well before we have completed the passage of the Bill, so that we can take account of the outcome of the review and we can swiftly—indeed, within the next few months—make both opposite-sex civil partnerships and same-sex marriages available .
This morning there were some who were concerned about the fate of this Bill if new clauses 10 and 11 were agreed to. We are anxious to ensure that same-sex marriages arrive on the statute book as swiftly as possible, and we know the Secretary of State is, too. We would not want anything to put that ambition and the Bill’s progress in jeopardy, but this morning it appeared that the failure of those on the Government Benches to reach a common position might do so. We are pleased that by this evening it had been recognised that the best way to deal with the concerns the Government have—late in the day—raised while also ensuring things are dealt with speedily is to introduce the most rapid review possible.
I therefore hope Members will support new clause 16 as amended by manuscript amendment (a). I hope that they will also recognise that new clauses 10 and 11 are, if not wrecking amendments, at best premature and should not be supported, and that they will follow the Secretary of State in relation to the other new clauses and amendments.
Tim Loughton
An awful lot of rubbish has been spoken and reported in the media over the last few days: not all of it has been attributed to me. There have been claims of wrecking amendments, of leadership bids, of Front-Bench mischief and of U-turns. Members will be forgiven for being in a state of some confusion as to where we have arrived at tonight, therefore.
Let me explain what I can make out from the late amendments put before us. We appear to have a last-minute amendment from the Government to kick the whole issue into the long grass. The Government have now put the frighteners on the Opposition, who have tabled a last-minute manuscript amendment to a last-minute new clause on the basis of spurious figures and non-existent delay, aimed at kicking the new clauses into the slightly less long grass. We have now just heard from the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) that the Opposition would like the review to be done and dusted and to have reported before the Bill is passed, so that such a provision can be added through amendments to it. I do not think that that is the grubby deal that those on the Front Bench have negotiated and there is a degree of misunderstanding that must be clarified.
Today we have also heard the Deputy Prime Minister urging hon. Friends in his party to vote against a measure that is party policy for the Liberal Democrats— but we have been there before. We have also had the extraordinary scene of certain hon. Members, who have signed up to new clauses 10 and 11 and have spoken in favour of them in other places, to opinion pollsters and in Committee, now being apparently prepared to do a complete volte-face by voting this evening against something with which they apparently agree in principle. I am very confused.
Mark Field
I hope that I will not add to my hon. Friend’s confusion, but does he not accept that the amendment proposed by the Opposition—even though it is late in the day—at least means that there will be some urgency about the issue of equality in civil partnerships, which is close not just to his heart but to mine? With that, we can at least begin to make some progress.
Tim Loughton
I hope that we have achieved something, in that a provision that the Government thought was not necessary only days and weeks ago has become a matter that merits review, albeit at least five years away and with no guarantee that it will take place. Now it has apparently become a bit more urgent. We seem to be moving in the right direction, but the extraordinary thing is that everyone seems to agree that the change is right in principle. If it is right in principle, it should be right in practice and this is the Bill through which it can be achieved.
Mrs Main
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that tonight we will vote to enshrine an inequality in law with the hope that a review will redress it? Rather than voting for what people think is right in principle, we would be waiting for a review to see whether it is cost-effective.
Tim Loughton
My hon. Friend is right. The trouble is that, given that there has been such fast movement in various people’s positions, goodness knows what the position will be after the vote has taken place.
I want to support new clauses 10 and 11, tabled in my name and those of other hon. Members on both sides of the House and on all sides of the argument, and in doing so I must oppose the last-minute Government new clause and the manuscript amendment from the Labour party. This is a Back-Bench debate—let us have a Back-Bench debate without Whips and party politics trying to put pressure on hon. Members to change their votes, which should be based on their free will.
Let me be clear once and for all that the new clauses are not wrecking amendments. They are supported by passionate supporters of the whole Bill. If the new clauses are passed, they will remove some of the anomalies and flaws in the Bill and make it more palatable. If that is wrecking, I am not doing a very good job of it.
Mr Tom Harris
Does the hon. Gentleman understand why there are those who are briefing the media and accusing him of tabling wrecking amendments, given his full-throated opposition to the principle of the Bill in the first place? It is hard to believe that his motivation is anything other than to stop the progress of the Bill when it gets to the other place. If that is not the case, he has been ill-used and ill-spoken of, but does he at least understand why people are reading that into his motivation?
Tim Loughton
I can understand why people are trying to cause mischief on that basis. I approach the new clauses in the expectation that the Bill will probably become law, whether I and other hon. Members like it or not. We must therefore plan on that basis. I think it could become better law if it provided for equality in civil partnerships which we could give to opposite-sex couples, and I now want to explain why.
The idea was proposed in Committee three months ago by the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) and supported by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). Bizarrely, neither of them voted for it. In our witness sessions, it was strongly supported by experts such as Lord Pannick and Baroness Kennedy, who clearly said that they thought that the addition of the extension of civil partnerships would greatly improve the Bill. Supporters of the proposals have included those in favour of the Bill, those against it and those who have abstained. They have not just come out of nowhere. Several hon. Members have mentioned the Government’s consultation on the original Bill. Many people responded and 61% said that they were in favour of extending civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. This is not an idea that we have cooked up at the last minute to wreck the Bill; the Government’s research shows that the public—our constituents, our voters—are in favour of it. However, the Government went into the subsequent production of the Bill completely and utterly ignoring the clear wish of the people as shown by their own consultation.
There are two rationales, as far as I am concerned, for supporting the amendments. First, they will correct what is, I am sure, an unintended but glaring inequality that would result from the Bill in its current form. If the Bill goes through, as I expect, same-sex couples will be entitled to continue in a civil partnership, to take up a civil partnership or to take up the new form of marriage. Opposite-sex couples will have only the option of traditional marriage, albeit by a larger range of religious institutions. That is not fair. It gives rise to an inequality in what is intended to be a Bill about equalities. Secondly, a very positive reason for pushing forward with the amendments is family stability, and I will come to that in a minute. Highly divisive as the Bill has been, particularly on the Government Benches, surely that is one issue on which we can all agree and rally round.
I acknowledge that the quadruple lock that the Government have put in the Bill largely does the job that they intend it to do. That is why many of the Church institutions have been reassured by the safeguards that they have been given. Earlier, we also heard about amendments that tried to give safeguards to people in public service who might fall foul of the legislation.
Let me return to why people seem to be in rather a difficult position. ComRes carried out an opinion poll among 159 Members of this House—quite a large sample—and some 2,012 members of the public. Interestingly, that recent opinion poll found that 73% of hon. Members in this House support the amendments. Among Conservative Members, there was 72% support; among Labour Members, 76%; and among Liberal Democrats, 67%. If the amendments do not get the full backing of 73% of hon. Members tonight, what has changed in the space of just a few days, since that opinion poll was carried out in private?
In 2010, an Office for National Statistics report said that there were almost 3 million—2,893,000, to be precise—cohabiting opposite-sex couples in this country. That is almost double the figure reported some 15 years earlier. Some 53% of all birth registrations are to married parents, but 31% are to unmarried parents who are living together, and 40% of unmarried couples living together choose to have children. Indeed, cohabitation is the fastest-growing form of family in this country, and we need to recognise that our society is changing, whether or not we approve.
People choose not to get involved in the whole paraphernalia of formal marriage for a variety of reasons: it is too much of an establishment thing to do; it is too much of a religious institution for some, and even if done in a register office, it has religious connotations; there is a patriarchal side to it; it is a form of social control—there are a whole load of complex motives as to why many of our constituents do not go down the formal marriage route. They are mostly still in committed, loving relationships, but they have no way of demonstrating that in the eyes of the public and the law, if they do not want to go down the traditional marriage route.
In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) made a very good point about 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 a partner, when there is a tax bill on the estate, and potentially on the family home. Even a couple engaged to be married have more rights than a cohabiting couple. I have received many e-mails and letters in support of this proposal, and one summed up the position:
“I am 60 yrs and have been with my partner for over 20 years. We have two boys ages 16 and 18 yrs. Neither of us wish to get married but we would like to have the same rights as a married couple. We see the civil partnership as discriminatory towards us as a couple, especially as we have children. A great number of friends and acquaintances are in a similar position to ourselves and do not wish to be married although we are all in a lifelong family commitment. My other issue with this is that, as I am much older than my partner, I will probably die before her and she would not receive the same tax benefits as a married woman or those in a civil partnership, which in turn would be discriminatory towards our children.”
Why should those who have chosen not to go for a traditional marriage not have the opportunity to have the same 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?
Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a compelling case for extending civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. In fact, I have not detected any resistance to the idea in any part of the House, so there seems to be agreement that it would be beneficial. The point of argument is when it can be achieved, for the many reasons that he touched on. Benefits, pensions, inheritance and tax are very complex; it will take time to cost the proposal properly, rather than introducing it before we know exactly its implications.
Tim Loughton
I hear the point that my hon. Friend makes and it has been made before. I will come on to say that all that work was done in 2004. I am trying purely to mirror the sort of arrangements that were made back in 2004 when civil partnerships were introduced.
If just one in 10 cohabiting opposite-sex couples were to enter a civil partnership, that would be some 300,000 or so couples and their children, giving them greater security, greater stability, less likelihood of family breakdown, better social outcome and better financial outcome. That surely is progress.
One interesting witness, who has been named already in our deliberations in the witness stage, was Alice Arnold, who is in a civil partnership with Clare Balding. She is very much in favour of the Bill. I entirely respect where she is coming from. One thing she said was that when she is asked, “Are you married?” she has to say, “No, but—” because she is in a civil partnership, not what she regards as a marriage. There is currently a problem with civil partnerships. If someone fills in a form, goes for an interview or responds to a question and says that they are in a civil partnership, they are automatically admitting their sexuality which, for some people, is uncomfortable. If civil partnerships were extended to everybody, people could be in a civil partnership and their sexuality would not be questioned or questionable.
There is a further application. Many people who have strong religious beliefs, particularly if they are Catholics, and 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 supposedly their Church believes they should be married for life. They would, however, in many cases be able to square that position by entering into a new formal commitment through an opposite-sex civil partnership. So there are a number of practical applications where civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples will achieve something very positive—not wrecking, but achieving something for which people have a requirement.
Opposite-sex civil partnerships are not something cooked up in this country. Let us look at various overseas experiences. In South Africa the Civil Union Act 2006 gave the option for some same-sex and opposite-sex couples to register a civil union by way of a marriage or a civil partnership on the same basis. In France, as has been mentioned, 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, and now gay marriage has been added to that. Interestingly, 94% of PACS that took place in 2012 were between opposite-sex couples. Even more interestingly, in France one in 10 PACS has been dissolved, against one in three marriages ending in divorce. There is evidence to show that some of these civil partnerships have created greater stability, whether those are opposite-sex or same-sex partnerships.
Many people would not want to do such a trade-off for religious reasons. We need to recognise that society is changing. What does not change is the desire to create as much stability as possible for couples and children in those families. In the Netherlands in 1998 registered partnerships were created for same-sex and opposite-sex partners which provide the same rights and responsibilities as married partners, except in relation to children, to do with overseas adoptions and so on. This is not rocket science—it already happens.
I contend that a great deal of work was done at the time of the Civil Partnership Act 2004—complicated work, as the Secretary of State said, which took a while to bring into operation, but that work has been done. I want identical terms to apply, as applied back in 2004. The Government also say that the proposal would require big changes to lots of other legislation. Introducing same-sex marriage will require big changes to lots of other legislation; why cannot the two types of change be made in parallel?
Last year, as we said, the Government consulted on the whole issue, as the right hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Mr Woodward) reminded us, and a clear majority said that they were in favour of it. Surely the Government, as a contingency at least, have done some preparatory work on what would be involved if there was a call to change the law, as all the opinion polls show and as I am now calling for.
It was reported in a newspaper this morning that one of the Ministers involved, in objecting to my amendment, had
“said such a radical change must not be introduced in a ‘rush’. She added that civil partnerships should be reviewed once gay marriages had been operating for five years.”
If we take it to 2019, civil partnerships will have been operating for almost 15 years, which seems more than enough time to gauge whether they are working and should be extended. I must say that there has been some pretty scurrilous and disingenuous last-minute scaremongering by certain parties on the Front Bench.
Mr Woodward
I accept in good faith the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. He has obviously thought about the matter in some detail, so what is the maximum time frame in which he would instruct civil servants to conduct and complete such a review, and what process would he recommend by which the Government could bring forward the proposals to ensure that same-sex couples are not obliged to wait an undue time for the Bill to proceed?
Tim Loughton
There is a trade-off, because if the Bill goes through in its current form an inequality will be created and there will be a delay—we do not know for how long—for opposite-sex couples, who are unable to access civil partnerships, with no commitment that it will be addressed, while same-sex partners will be able to access marriages in fairly short order.
I have a few more remarks to make on how quickly I think that can happen. I think that the whole argument about delay is a complete red herring. The cost of £4 billion is completely and utterly spurious. I asked for a Library note on the cost impact assessments done at the time of the Civil Partnership Act 2004. Part of it says that the cost to the Government was divided between total one-off fixed costs of £19.8 million for changes in administration and rising annual costs each year in both low and high take-up scenarios. The annual cost to the Government in 2010 was estimated at £1.5 million for the low take-up scenario and £3 million for the high-take up scenario, and that that would rise to £11.6 million and £22.2 million a year in each scenario by 2050. The components of the annual costs were state pensions for spouses and bereavement benefits for surviving civil partners, and public funding for civil partnership dissolutions. The note refers throughout to tens of millions of pounds, but nowhere near the figure in the billions that has been plucked out of the air with absolutely no empirical evidence and which was never intended as an official impact assessment from the DWP when the Pensions Minister made his statement to the Joint Committee on Human Rights last week.
Mark Field
Does my hon. Friend not see that the amendments proposed tonight, particularly from those on the Opposition Front Bench, would go a considerable way towards what he is trying to achieve? I share some of his concerns about the spurious figures in the billions that we all heard quoted on the radio this morning, which seem to have been plucked from the sky, and about the talk of a massive delay, but does he not realise that the urgency with which we are now looking at this, because of amendment (a), means that in the House of Lords there will be a rapid sense of trying to move ahead in the time frame he has in mind? I regret, as he probably does, that these things often happen in the other place, rather than here in the House of Commons, but does he not recognise that he has won most of the battle? Instead of making the strong case he is making, with which I think many of us agree, why does he not recognise that he has won much of the battle and can happily withdraw his new clause?
Tim Loughton
If what my hon. Friend has just said were true, I would be delighted, but I think that what the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said might have raised a few eyebrows on the Government Front Bench. If she is saying that part of the deal is that the review, which would be an added consultation on the back of the one we had before the Bill was introduced, will take place and result in concrete proposals coming forward that can be added to the Bill before it completes its passage through both Houses, I would be perfectly happy, but I do not think that will happen. I do not see how it can happen given the complexities that the Secretary of State has claimed still need to be addressed as regards all the legislative changes, costs, and so on.
Mr Woodward
I understand the spirit behind the hon. Gentleman’s question. I understand that some will see the delay to the extension of civil partnerships as unfair. However, let me be very clear that same-sex couples have no justice at all. It is not about fairness; there is no justice, because they cannot be married. It would be grossly unfair to perpetuate that injustice, especially if the spirit of the proposal put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston were accepted tonight.
I fear that some—I say again that I do not believe that this is the sentiment of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham—want to use the principle of extending civil partnerships to delay indefinitely or wreck this House’s enactment of same-sex marriages.
Tim Loughton
I hear what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. No doubt there are some Machiavellian Members of the House who have such motives. He knows, because of the clear votes that we have had on Second Reading and this evening, that there is every likelihood that the Bill will pass through this House and the other. I will undertake to do everything in my power to stick to the Government’s timetable if my proposal is part of it. That is not wrecking the Bill.
Mr Woodward
Again, I accept the hon. Gentleman’s word. I simply ask the Secretary of State to hear what her colleagues are saying about the spirit and speed with which they wish the review to be conducted. She is far more qualified than I am to give the hon. Gentleman and the House comfort by saying how quickly it would be possible to conduct such a review and when the Government would intend to implement it. She could give an assurance that if a majority were again found to be in favour of the proposal, instead of remaining unconvinced of its need, she would introduce it.
None the less, in passing this Bill it is important that the Government find time to introduce legislation for civil partnerships for everyone. It is also important to look in the review at a glaring injustice of the Civil Partnership Act 2004—the second-class pension provision for same-sex men and women. That is clearly iniquitous and should be addressed, and I hope that those on the Opposition Front Bench will make an undertaking that, should this Government not do it, a future Labour Government will seek to put right that injustice.
Nick Herbert
I have no objection in principle to the extension of civil partnerships to heterosexual couples—far from it—but I am concerned about what is proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), and the effect that it could have.
First, let us look more carefully at the policy intent that lies behind new clause 10. It has been claimed that some 3 million cohabiting couples have not married and that the new clause would give them an incentive to formalise their arrangements, but why do they not wish to formalise their arrangements at the moment? What evidence or assessment should lead us to believe that any proportion of those 3 million people would seek to enter into a commitment that is as exacting as a marriage commitment, with all that it entails?
The fact is that none of us, on either side of the House, can quantify the demand. We are struggling with the figures relating to the potential pension and taxation impact, for instance, because we do not know the extent of that demand. If we are honest about it, we must acknowledge that no group or lobby is telling Members of Parliament that this is what they want. Indeed, very few people are doing so. That stands in stark contrast to those who have been urging for some time—
Nick Herbert
I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I make some progress.
As it does not appear that there is a constituency that is in favour of the change, we do not know how many people would enter into such a commitment. The findings of a poll that was conducted by YouGov at the weekend suggested that the uptake would be relatively low. Given the number of cohabiting couples, we must start to consider what are the proper policy solutions.
In 2007, the Law Commission produced a set of proposals that would have imposed duties on cohabiting couples when it came to separation and their responsibilities for children. My hon. Friend—who I know has a fine record, having been a children’s Minister—did not mention that. According to the Law Commission,
“cohabitants have not made the distinctive legal and public commitment that marriage entails.”
The truth is that the arrangement into which they enter is completely different from the arrangement that we would create in respect of civil partnership. I think that more work needs to be done to assess the real level of demand and determine what are the right cohabiting policy solutions.
The second issue that I wish to raise was described by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) as the need to ensure symmetry. Let me point out that no symmetry will be created even if the Bill is passed, as I very much hope that it will be. If passed, it will be a huge step forward in allowing marriage for same-sex couples, but no symmetry will be created, because the principal Churches will not allow marriage for same-sex couples. The Church of England will not be allowed to do it, and the Catholic Church will choose not to do it. It is a false argument to suggest that a symmetry will be created, or that the Bill will create an asymmetry that it will be possible to correct by extending civil partnerships to a completely unquantified and unknown group of people.
Nick Herbert
I have already said that I have no objection to the principle, but there is no evidence that there is a demand for the measure.
That brings me to the third point that I wish to make. We now have the prospect of achieving an incredibly important step forward for same-sex couples by introducing marriage for them, and I am very anxious about the possibility that that will be put at risk—I do not put it any more strongly than that—if we add to the Bill an uncertain and unquantified element for which there does not appear to be a genuine demand. I believe the other place may then add greater difficulty into the Bill than would otherwise be the case. It will have two issues to deal with, rather than one. I therefore urge all of good faith who support marriage for same-sex couples to be very cautious before supporting the amendment in question. Indeed, I urge them to oppose it, and to do the straightforward thing of agreeing to the review. I support the Opposition amendment to ensure that the review is immediate. Given the complexity of these issues, that is an eminently sensible way forward.
Tim Loughton
My right hon. Friend clearly said we do not know the cost of the proposals in the amendments. Will he therefore put on record that it was entirely irresponsible and misleading for the Government to brief that the cost could be £3 billion, £4 billion or, as they said today, between £4 billion and £8 billion, and that that may have falsely swayed the argument?
Nick Herbert
With the greatest respect to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour—indeed, my constituent —for whom I have a lot of time, he cannot have it both ways. He suggested that the proposal would be a way of dealing with the £44 billion cost of family breakdown. If the impact is small and very few heterosexual people want to take up civil partnerships, it will have little impact on the cost of family breakdown. The answer is that he does not know, the Government do not know and the Opposition do not know, because the work has not been done.
I fully accept that some Members genuinely wish to support the amendment because they believe it would somehow provide an extension of equality, and that they would therefore do so for the best of intentions, but let us be clear: some Members are supporting this amendment for precisely the opposite reason. I do not include my hon. Friend in that. Some Members are breathing the word “equality” for the first time. It sticks in the craw of many of us to be lectured suddenly now about equality by Members who have been opposing this Bill and equality and every single measure that has come forward to promote equality in the first place, including civil partnerships.
Some of the Members who have put their name to this amendment and who intend to vote for it, proclaiming the need to ensure equality and symmetry, voted against the civil partnerships legislation in 2004. One of those Members described that civil partnerships legislation as a buggers’ muddle and thought that was a funny thing to say at the time. Suddenly, within less than a decade, almost no Member of this House will say that they did not support the civil partnerships legislation, and suddenly some of the Members who did not support it stand up now and say, “Oh, it’s terribly important on equality grounds that this category of civil partnerships”—which they did everything they possibly could to oppose—“is extended to heterosexual couples.” It is a faux attachment to equality and it should not be taken at face value.
I do not take anything away from those who genuinely think that it would be a sensible status to create. I am with them, but we must not imperil this Bill by allowing others to play their political games. I assure Members on both sides of the House that those in the other place are waiting for the opportunity to declare that this Bill will need more time and they will have to look at it in much greater detail, and then suddenly we will find that it will not be returned to us, or that it will be returned to us in a form we do not like.
I urge those who wish to see a very important and genuine step forward for equality to recognise the sense of the compromise that the Government and the official Opposition have agreed, which is to review this matter immediately in order to assess whether there is a genuine need for such a change. Let us make sure we genuinely take forward this step for equality now, and that we are not seduced by false arguments.
Maria Miller
Clearly, we have had a vigorous debate today. Let me wind up before we move to a vote.
It is clear that adding the whole new concept of the extension of civil partnerships threatens delaying and even potentially derailing the Bill. New clause 16 offers a considered way forward, ensuring that the questions that hon. Members on both sides of the House have rightly asked can be answered. There has been a great deal of talk about fairness, and the fairness that this Bill enables is that same-sex couples can marry for the first time. We should not be trying to rectify other issues before we rectify that.
We must make it clear, as those on both Front Benches have done already, that an immediate review is possible to assess the need for the extension of civil partnerships. I am absolutely happy to accept the manuscript amendment tabled by the Opposition and to make it clear that we will facilitate a speedy review. It is clear from today’s debate, however, that there are policy and cost implications and we should ensure that we know them before we move forward. I will not allow the extension of civil partnerships to heterosexual couples to delay the Bill, and I think that all three main parties agree on that.
The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) rightly said, in her considered contribution—I welcomed the tone that she took—that to date there had been “cursory” consultation in this area. I welcome her desire for further elucidation of the issues that we have talked about, and her desire for the Bill’s passage not to be delayed. New clause 16, and amendment (a) to it, will give us a considered way forward. I also welcome the fact that she will not support new clauses 10 and 11, and I hope that those proposing those new clauses will consider not pressing them as a result.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) gave an interesting and passionate display of argumentation. He will see that there is a clear undertaking around new clause 16, and that a review will take place while the Bill is in the Lords, which will provide a prompt response, in terms of a consultation; perhaps that will give him the reassurance that he is looking for.
Tim Loughton
We have a dilemma here, because if my right hon. Friend goes ahead with new clause 16 on the basis that the review could take until 2019, we must vote against it. She has just said that an immediate review is possible. Will she clearly tell Government Members whether she agrees with the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who has made it clear that she thinks a review can have taken place come Report in the Lords, and that its findings could be added to the Bill before it has gone through both Houses? If that is the case, I would be delighted to support my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and drop my new clauses, but she needs to make it clear whether she thinks that is practically doable.
Maria Miller
What I can be absolutely clear about is that I am committed to undertaking an urgent review, and that the review will come through promptly, and in the way that my hon. Friend would expect. The Bill is due in the House of Lords in two weeks. It would not be feasible—no Member of the House would expect it—for me to undertake a proper consultation in that time frame, but I undertake further to discuss the timetable for the review with my hon. Friend, and it will absolutely go forward in a prompt fashion. That is what he would expect us to say.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) made an impassioned speech. He properly talked about the importance of getting the right solutions for cohabiting couples, and the extension of civil partnerships may or may not be that right solution. We need to do the right policy work to ensure that we take these decisions for the right reasons, and in the right way.
The right hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Mr Woodward) put his finger on it when he said that the gross unfairness is the fact that same-sex couples cannot get married. That is what the House needs to focus on today. By voting for new clause 16 and amendment (a) to it, we can get to a position in which we can deal with the issue of extending civil partnerships to heterosexual couples without it getting in the way of making sure that the unfairness that he rightly identifies is dealt with swiftly. He talked eloquently about the inequities in pension provision. If that was a simple issue to rectify, presumably his Government would have addressed the issue back in 2004.
The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) talked about same-sex marriage being a step too far in 2004. I was not a Member of the House at that point, but I understand the sentiment behind his comments. I can say to the House today that this is not a step too far. It is not something that we should shy away from. We have to be clear in our commitment to focusing on extending marriage to same-sex couples, and should not be distracted by trying to incorporate into the Bill, at this point in time, issues that would create further delay and debate in the other place.