Civil Partnership

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Thursday 31st October 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I do.

[Mr Speaker]

Just before I put the Question, I want to say, by way of response to the Minister, a big thank you. That was a very generous and gracious tribute from her. If I may return the compliment—and I think it is relevant to the whole question of the language of discourse—let me say that the hon. Lady has perfected the art of disagreeing agreeably. She is a brilliant advocate of her case, and a very highly respected and rising member of the Government. It is obvious that, in conducting debates in the Chamber, she relishes the political argument, the analysis of policy, the competing claims and so on, but in my experience—and I have heard her speak many times at that Dispatch Box—when engaging in debate, she always plays the ball rather than the man or the woman, and that is to her enduring credit. I reciprocate her very warm wishes: I wish her all the best.

Yemen

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I welcome the appearance of the Minister of State at the Dispatch Box, Mr Speaker, even if you do not.

As the Chair of the Select Committee has mentioned, the humanitarian situation in Yemen remains horrendous, but the impact falls disproportionately on women and girls. Since the beginning of the conflict, there has been an increase of more than two thirds in reported incidents of gender-based violence. Maternal death rates have also doubled in the past four years, as only a third of maternal and early years health services remain intact. What more can we do to help the most affected part of the Yemeni population for future generations, for the perfectly good reasons mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham)?

[Mr Speaker]

I enjoyed the hon. Gentleman’s question. However, as colleagues will know, I always welcome Ministers to the Dispatch Box to answer urgent questions that I have granted. That point is so blindingly obvious that only a very, very, very clever person could fail to grasp it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, particularly the cellist, as the Government Whip on duty chunters from a sedentary position to very considerable public benefit.

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

Will the Minister update the House on the prospect of the Bayeux tapestry coming to this country on loan after the Bayeux museum is temporarily closed after 2020?

Access to Medical Cannabis

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) was a good Minister, too.

[Mr Speaker]

Another ex-Minister to compliment. I am bit surprised by the Secretary of State. He is slipping from his usual standard. I thought that he would be busily cultivating his hon. Friend. [Laughter.]

Speaker’s Statement: New Zealand Terror Attacks

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you.

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

I beg to move, That the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163), and negatived.

Royal Assent

[Mr Speaker]

Before we proceed with the first piece of business, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2019

Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Act 2019

Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019

Stalking Protection Act 2019

Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Act 2019

Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2019.

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

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Colleagues, on a discretionary basis I am changing the order, but, believe me, I know why I am changing the order and there is a compelling reason in this instance for doing so.

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

T8. In yesterday’s education debate in Westminster Hall, we heard about a national emergency in school funding based on the National Audit Office’s predictions of £3 billion of savings being required in the next year—and I have often gone on about the £2 billion shortfall in children’s social care. Will schools and children’s social care be at the top of the Chancellor’s priority list in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

There will be more, and it will be from Mr Tim Loughton.

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

Q5. The Prime Minister is very familiar with my five-year campaign to extend civil partnerships to all couples, and my private Member’s Bill has now completed its Committee stage, so I welcome her recent announcement that it is now Government policy, albeit without a timeline and with my having to find out about it by reading the press. Will she now support amendments to my Bill on Report in nine days as the quickest way to make equal civil partnerships a reality for the many thousands who want her to get on with it?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I will call the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) if his question is shorter than his tie.

[Tim Loughton]

Lipoedema affects 10% of women in this country, many without a diagnosis, so why are an increasing number of my constituents saying they cannot get any therapeutic interventions funded by the CCG? Will the Minister meet a delegation of those people and other hon. Members similarly affected?

Business of the House

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

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

East Worthing will be much briefer than West Worthing, Mr Speaker, and I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. When are we going to have a debate on the parlous state of children’s social care?

[Mr Speaker]

That was splendidly pithy by the standards of the hon. Gentleman. We are deeply obliged to him.

Leaving the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

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

I would be rather more interested in seeing the impact assessments drawn up by the EU of the impact of Britain leaving the EU and how that is affecting the EU’s negotiating position. Does my hon. Friend share my curiosity that Opposition Members are not keen to scrutinise those documents?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The trouble with the interest of the hon. Gentleman, which is of great fascination to Members of the House and many spectators beyond its environs, is that it is not even adjacent to the question before us, but I am sure the hon. Gentleman can entertain himself in the long winter evenings that lie ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Thursday 6th July 2017 Commons Chamber

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

I am afraid that the Minister, as he knows, was on a hiding to nothing in the packed debate in Westminster Hall yesterday, and although his offer to meet—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is too much noise in the Chamber. Let us hear the hon. Gentleman.

[Tim Loughton]

Although the Minister’s offer to meet representatives from the all-party group was very welcome, as he has heard his promotion of apprenticeships for 64-year-olds was perhaps less wise. This is clearly a matter of injustice and inequality for a group of women who have been affected disproportionately, so may we please get everybody back around the table for genuine discussions about finding solutions that will not break the bank but will bring some justice and solutions to hard-pressed women who are suffering now?

Education: Public Funding

Debate between Tim Loughton and John Bercow

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In view of the level of interest and the other business that I have to accommodate, I appeal to colleagues to ask brief, preferably single-sentence questions. I call Tim Loughton.

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

While appreciating the fact that the Government have done more to address the fair funding formula, the Minister knows from his own county, which is the worst-funded shire county in the country, that heads face urgent decisions. In view of the fact that the consultation has been put back a year, can we have an urgent steer on whether the formula is going to be resolved before the recess, because these challenges face heads now?