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Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay): The hon. Gentleman's point is well taken but, as I understand it--I am sure that the Minister will confirm this--mediation is legally aided and not compulsory and those parties who do not want it can still obtain legal aid to consult solicitors in the usual way.
Mr. Boateng: Like the hon. Lady, we look forward to receiving the clearest assurances along those lines. The thrust of the Bill is to do little more than encourage people to move towards mediation. We are anxious to dispose of that element which comes perilously close to compelling the party relying on legal aid to adopt mediation rather than any other court-based remedies. There must be a free choice in that respect.
We want the scourge of domestic violence--for it is nothing less than a scourge--dealt with in the Bill. The Bill makes some welcome additions to the law in this area, but it is right to consider how it can be improved still further. On that point, we need do little more than consult those who deal daily with domestic violence and who are to be found in women's refuge movements and district courts across the country. District court judges have to deal with the nuts and bolts of family law in relation to domestic violence.
There is one point, to which we shall return in Committee, on which the Government may well need to think again. I refer to undertakings and their role in combating domestic violence. I am thinking especially of Judge Stephen Gerlis and his experience. He said that undertakings
It is his view, and he is not alone, that elements of the Bill are a disincentive to undertakings. We want that examined in Committee. We also want to examine in Committee the link between the new warrant of arrest--the concept and the order--and undertakings themselves to see whether there is scope for new warrants of arrests to be attached to undertakings. These are all aspects of the law that we should approach with a view to ensuring zero tolerance of domestic violence.
The Bill will require careful scrutiny. It contains welcome elements, but its faults need to be remedied. In the area of family law, we cannot pretend that there is no such thing as culpability or that what is decided in the House and enacted in law has no bearing on the nation's approach to family and marriage or the nation's perception of family and marriage. Similarly, however, we would be deluding ourselves if we believed that it was somehow possible to reverse deep-rooted trends in our society simply by passing an Act of Parliament.
We cannot legislate for domestic virtue--nor, in all humility, are we as a House especially suited to do so. What we can do, however, is to send important messages about what is valued in our society. We value families--the domestic relationship and the safety and security provided for children by families--and we must make it clear that we are not prepared to see the family continually eroded. That is why, in our consideration of the Bill, we shall make a specific proposition to change the way in which we approach and monitor family law.
Inadequate attention has been given to the impact of family law on the institution of the family. Reference was made to the experience of Canada and Australia. Australia is especially interesting. In the 1970s, the Australian Parliament held a debate similar to this and similar concerns were expressed about what the move to no-fault divorce would entail. There was concern about the message that would be sent out, and about the impact on family life and the institution of marriage. It has to be said that the evidence from Australia is that there has not been an escalation of divorce as a result of the move to no-fault divorces. The research also seems to show that there is much room for good work to be done--this was found to be so in both Australia and New Zealand--through early intervention in terms of marriage guidance and counselling and that marriages can indeed be saved if there is a proper approach to education for marriage.
All too often, of necessity--it is perhaps in the nature of the Bill--our consideration of what might be done has focused on almost the last moment. What about considering what we might do at the beginning? What about considering what we might do in introducing registration for marriage? What about provision of information for those who intend to marry? Despite the increase in marriage failures, in terms of numbers and earliness, the evidence is that most people still want to marry. Most people continue to share the fantasy of what a perfect marriage might be, but all too often the fantasies with which we surround marriage cause the failure of marriages. We have an ideal notion of what marriage might be, but unfortunately, when that ideal is confronted with the difficulties and challenges of sustaining a relationship, it is unable to endure.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman:
I have been blessed with two happy marriages. Would the hon. Gentleman agree, however, that even the happiest marriages include difficult periods? Surely it is far better to make divorce more difficult so that couples have to run through those difficult stages.
Mr. Boateng:
We must ensure that people enter into marriage with something approaching a realistic expectation of what is involved. We must also ensure that when the stresses and strains of domestic life begin to emerge there is somewhere for the people concerned to confront those stresses and strains. There should be help available to show them a way through. That is a responsibility that the House must recognise.
The experience of Australia and Canada has shown that if no-fault divorce is to be given a chance of working and not contributing towards deterioration of the fabric of society, it must be introduced within the context of greater
emphasis on counselling and guidance. That is what the House must commit itself to in the weeks and months ahead.
If the Lord Chancellor's Department is to take on the role of seeing through the pilot projects that are to be the precursors of the proposed legislation, and if it is to have the role of funding marriage guidance and counselling, it must itself seek guidance. I do not believe that the Department as constituted and the civil servants within it necessarily form the best structure and body of people to determine these matters. They are not necessarily the sole depositories of wisdom in this area. That being so, let us examine how we can bring other influences to bear which are sustaining and supportive of marriage.
Against that background, we intend at a later stage to propose the establishment of a Lord Chancellor's advisory committee on family law and marriage. There is ample precedent for that. There is an opportunity to set up a committee that will report to Parliament through the Lord Chancellor. It would be based, as with Australia's experience of family studies, on the notion and with the specific object of promoting the protection of the family as the natural and fundamental group unit in society. That would be its prime objective. That is necessary if we are to monitor pilot projects. It will also be necessary if we are to monitor the impact of the law on the family. The Opposition intend to share that proposition with the House, and we hope that it will find support on both sides of the Chamber.
We need a body of men and women with the requisite expertise and experience and committed to the notion of the family as the fundamental unit in our society. It will have the responsibility of monitoring pilot projects. We do not want a repeat of the Child Support Agency fiasco, but when I consider some features of the Bill, the spectre of that agency comes very much to mind. A great deal is left to the future. There are many hopes and aspirations, but there is not necessarily the will to see them implemented.
An advisory committee would be able to monitor pilot projects. It would be able to offer independent, objective advice which would be supportive of the family. It would not be clouded by any other consideration. Importantly, it would be able to ensure that we are in the business of commissioning research into why families break down. It would also be in a position to commission research into why some families succeed and endure.
We need to do all that, but not merely as a means of imposing another layer of bureaucracy. The approach should be taken as a means of preserving an institution which the House should be committed to upholding: the institution of the family. It is with that objective and determination--maintaining and developing the family and supporting the institution of marriage as the best buttress of the family--that the Opposition will approach the Bill.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris):
Order. I remind right hon. and hon. Members that Madam Speaker has ruled that from 7 o'clock until 9 o'clock speeches must be restricted to 10 minutes.
Mr. John Patten (Oxford, West and Abingdon):
I listened with great care to the eloquence of the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), who spoke from
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on the way in which he handled the House this afternoon. He has demonstrated open-mindedness and has introduced himself to the annals of parliamentary history with a new phrase. We have long known about the free vote, to which Ministers, parliamentary private secretaries and the payroll generally do not necessarily apply. We now have the Freeman vote, which really is a free vote. It will find its place in "Erskine May" in generations to come.
That having been said, I am sorry that the Bill is before the House. I greatly regret that I am unable to support it. My objections are twofold. They rest on principle and on the practical outcomes of the reforms, should the Bill reach the statute book.
I refer first to principle. I have a strong conscientious objection to the Bill as drafted. That objection does not rest on how the Bill might emerge after consideration in Committee. The core of the Bill is founded on the introduction of what is commonly thought of as no-fault divorce. No no-fault divorce, no Family Law Bill. That is absolutely central. The Bill would strip the marriage contract of commitment and thus meaning. It is my strongly held conviction that the vows exchanged and the contracts thus sealed, whether in a secular or religious ceremony, should be meaningful, not meaningless. In no other part of British law are we as a Government--I strongly support the Government--bent on stripping all responsibility from contracts.
In this instance, uniquely, the Government wish to take away the freedom of choice of my constituents to say, when they exchange their marriage vows, "I mean it; I want a binding contract." It is wrong for the Government to wish to remove that freedom. If the Government wish to do that, they should introduce legislation at least to give people a choice of having what might be considered a real marriage contract or what might be considered a no-commitment contract.
I have not received a letter or representation from any of my constituents in favour of the Bill. For example, my constituents, Dr. and Mrs. W. D. Halls--entirely unknown to me personally--wrote from Hurst Rise road, Oxford, to say:
To my mind, they are absolutely right, as is the head teacher of an infant school in Norwich, Mr. Keith Pearshouse--again unknown to me personally, and who wrote to me out of the blue. He writes from Christchurch road in that city:
How right he is, for marriage contracts are, apparently, no longer to mean, "till death us do part," but rather, "until the going gets rough."
The Bishop of Chester, who has said that the Bill
is surely right. Principles and contracts must be about setting out to try to keep one's word.
"have clear advantages--they reduce confrontation, they avoid the need for full, often lengthy hearings and findings of fact, there are no winners and losers thus mitigating feelings of resentment. Because of these effects, they are breached somewhat less than injunctions. To put it plainly--they are popular and they work."
6.46 pm
"If we continually dismiss our vows and pledges as worthless, we are undermining the very basis of our civilisation. Are our words to have no meaning at all? What conclusions will our children come to?"
"Allowing marriages to wither away as though they were friendships that have merely been neglected demeans marriage."
"undermines the meaning of marriage, and will make it a temporary contract",
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