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Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Sir Edward Heath: Perhaps I may just finish one sentence.
Many people are just not getting married. They have their children and sometimes spend their whole lives together. Sometimes, by the time their children have grown up, they reach the stage where they want a change. That has now become part of our society. I do not believe that making it more difficult is any solution to the problem, because all that will happen is that people will not get married.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman:
In the 19th century, one had to have an Act of Parliament to get divorced. Until relatively recently, it was extremely difficult to get divorced in this country. Yet far more people got married.
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Sir Edward Heath: I question those figures. I also question the remark by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) that we have had 2,000 years of Christianity in this country, during the whole of which period Christian values in marriage have been maintained. My hon. Friend should take another little glimpse at the history of this country over the past 2,000 years, because it does not correspond to his description.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle moved on to another point which has been raised in various forms: how one deals with fault. I believe that it would be absolutely wrong to restore fault in the Bill. The concept of fault breeds perpetual discontent and it especially affects children; quite rightly,
we have heard a great deal about children. It complicates legislation, as we heard from my hon. Friend, who has spent much of his life dealing with divorce suits. We should not in any circumstances reintroduce the notion of fault: we should be absolutely clear about that.
The question was raised why a Conservative Government should introduce this legislation. It is absolutely right that they should do so, because the responsibility of the Conservative party and of the Conservative Government is to our community as a whole. We have to make provision for everybody. We may not agree with some people, but we have that responsibility as an elected Government and as the party in power.
In the population today, there are those who, as a result of their religious convictions, believe that divorce cannot be permitted. That is very well for those who accept that belief--there is no challenge--but they are not entitled in Parliament to impose their belief on other members of the community. That is the basic difference, whether they accept it or not. Other Christian beliefs have varying views about what is permissible in terms of marriage. Very well--they are all entitled to their views.
All Governments today have to face the fact that a majority of the population do not acknowledge Christian belief at all. Even if one accepts that 52 per cent. of people do not want to change the law, that still leaves 48 per cent. of the population with whom the Government must cope and whom they have to consider. I cannot possibly accept that a Conservative Government cannot introduce changes in approach to these matters, which will affect many people even though some would claim that they are not the majority. The Government are absolutely justified in dealing with this matter.
My second objective is to improve the situation after divorce, or to prevent divorce. To a large extent, that is the responsibility of the Churches and the social organisations; it is also, in part, the responsibility of our education system. That responsibility is not being carried out. If the Churches approach the matter--to answer the question about the point of getting married--we shall begin to do some good overall. That is why it is so important to keep the two objectives separate and to deal effectively with cases in which breakdown has occurred.
We should also do everything possible to deal with the situation before people enter marriage, so that they recognise what the requirements are, what can be achieved and the happiness that they can get. After a marriage has broken down, we should ensure that the right action is taken for the welfare of children, whether one parent is looking after them or whether both are looking after them. We should ensure that people get the necessary guidance and every possible assistance to allow their children to have a proper life of their own.
For those reasons, I believe that the amendment should be defeated. I cannot understand why my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle based the greater part of his speech on the argument that because the Americans were throwing out some aspects of legislation we should therefore do the same. There may be things that we still have to learn from the Americans, but I do not think that morality is one of them. I well know the way in which social forces in the United States work to bring about their ends--we can see what is happening in terms of capital punishment, for example. I know that my hon. Friend will not base his argument on Europe; I hope that he will not base it on the United States either.
I strongly support the position taken by the Minister and by the Government and I hope that the House will defeat the amendment.
Mr. Donald Anderson:
Those of us who try to follow the Christian way have to recognise that divorce law has come a long way since its origin in the old ecclesiastical courts. We have to recognise that times have changed. As the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) said, we have to realise that we cannot impose our views on the generality of the population. Nevertheless, we have a right to point out the effects of a failure to follow the precepts that we seek to follow. It is especially important in human and family law to say that we, as far as we are able as legislators, should consider ways--not only at the time when, alas, families break up--in which to bolster the institution of marriage.
Whatever the trends may be, we can point out the sad victims of those trends--the children--and we can point out the great unhappiness that follows. We are entitled to do so and we are also entitled to press the Government to look at ways, across the board, in which the institution of marriage, which is the bedrock of a civilised society, can be strengthened, whether in terms of education, as the hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) said, or across the range of policy--fiscal, housing or employment policy. Clearly, it would be going beyond the scope of the amendment to look at those matters.
There are costs, both financial and in terms of human distress, caused by the high incidence of divorce in this country. It has been said that we are the divorce capital of Europe. We may ask why that is so. We see the victims and the costs that flow from divorce.
Mr. Alton:
I strongly support the points that the hon. Gentleman has just made. Does he accept that the argument is always advanced--it was advanced even against Wilberforce and his companions--that legislators are trying to impose their morality on the nation? Wilberforce and his friends fought successfully in the House for 40 long years to repeal the slavery laws. Is it not the case that, in a democratic society--we live in a pluralist society--it is not just a question of the imposition of values? No one seeks to do that.
However, there is a responsibility and a duty to share what one believes to be right with the rest of the populace in the hope that people will embrace those virtues. If one believes that that is the best way in which to live, that marriage, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, is the bedrock of our society and that the strengthening of family life should be our objective, surely it is legitimate for all hon. Members, regardless of whether they have religious values, to try to achieve that objective.
Mr. Anderson:
I wholly accept that it was right--as it is at all times--for slavery to be abolished and that Wilberforce and his friends in the Clapham sect were right to pursue that aim. I would not put some of the moral issues that we face today--whether abortion, homosexuality or divorce--in the same category. The equivalent of the anti-slavery argument is to ensure, as far as we are able, that the state uses every possible instrument available to support the institution of marriage.
I accept that our divorce laws may well have an influence, for good or ill, on the incidence of divorce. That is one of the key elements that we need to discuss
today. However, I shall come quickly to the nub of the question. Is fault helpful in terms of divorce, and if so, what should be done about it?
Like one or two other hon. Members, I am a lapsed practitioner, so my knowledge is somewhat out of date. However, I recall that our judges, as has so often been said, are brought up in an adversarial tradition and may be ill suited to look into the minds and conduct of members of the public. All too often, the position depends on which party gets to the solicitor first.
It has been said that, in general, the public say, "Yes, we think that divorce should be made more difficult," but when they talk about individuals whom they know--such as their relatives, or people who live in their street--they are far more understanding, and tend to say, "Because we know this couple, we accept that it is not a simple question of 100 per cent. or 0 per cent. There was fault on both sides."
It would be improper if I were to stray into discussing the royal family, so I shall not be specific, but in connection with one or two well-publicised difficulties of some of the senior members of the royal family, it is certain that both the parties could, if they were so minded, rely on various faults in a divorce petition. I shall leave it at that, Sir Geoffrey.
In the generality of cases, the course of events often depends on who goes to the solicitor first. There may be a 10-year marriage, and the wife will say to a solicitor, "I am unhappy." The solicitor will then ask whether, over the life of the marriage, she can think of occasions on which her husband has been difficult. It is a pretty unusual marriage which has not had a fair number of difficult moments over 10 years. The solicitor will then crystallise and distil those examples into 10 or so incidents which, when put together, read in a lurid way, as if the marriage was especially wicked and abnormal, whereas in fact it was probably very normal.
When the petition is passed to the husband, the respondent, he will immediately hit the roof, and will not recognise what he reads in it. That is hardly a basis for dealing with the sad after-effects of marriage breakdown, particularly from the point of view of the children, for whom we should all be concerned.
I am extremely sceptical about the divorce court's searching for where the fault lies. I understand hon. Members' motives, derived from the old ecclesiastical traditions. They will say that there must be contrition--but I say that there must be contrition on both sides. That is a personal matter, and the interest of the state should be rather less concerned with it.
Like the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) and others, my experience is that in very few marriages is the fault wholly on one side. Even if the fault could be accurately divided, there is no real public purpose in seeking to establish its exact apportionment. So although I shall be with the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) on his next key amendment, my experience as a lapsed practitioner leads me to tell him that I shall not support him now.
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