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Lady Olga Maitland: I rise to add my support for amendments Nos. 7 and 8, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh). I pay tribute to his work. He has put an enormous investment of effort into studying the institution of marriage, and he has played a major part in focusing our minds and those of the country as a whole on what is at stake.
I believe that amendments Nos. 7 and 8 reflect deep public concern, which has revealed itself in the enormous mail bag of letters and in the telephone calls that I have received. Only today, I have received a fair wodge of them. I shall not delay the House too long by itemising them all, but I shall give two examples of the depth of feeling in people outside in the country. The people think that we are trying to destroy marriage.
I received a letter from a constituent that states:
That letter is obviously from someone who is not very literate and who has found it difficult to write, but who wrote it none the less.
Another letter from a constituent states:
We must realise that we have reached a crunch point. It is almost as if long-lived marriages have gone out of fashion. I am proud to say that I have been married for 27 years. Some people would say that I would take that view, but all marriages have to be worked at. Mine had to be worked at. I am the product of very happy parents who will have soon been married for 60 years. Successful marriages are a role model for successful marriages in their children and grandchildren.
It is also significant that children themselves draw together in friendships with other children who come from stable families, by and large. I have seen that in my own children's experience of growing up. Therefore, the lucky ones have had stability, but stability is not provided by chance. That point seems extraordinary, but stability is not just a stroke of good luck. It was provided because parents in each generation had recognised that they had come together in the sight of the community and made a public vow to each other, for the creation and rearing of children.
The children, above all, are the lifelong commitment. One of the implications of the enormous debate that has been raging is almost that the children are expendable. I find it so frustrating to hear inside and outside the Chamber about couples who try to excuse themselves by claiming that the children understand, that they are being very adult and that they are coping. The truth is that they do not cope. They cry. They sob silently. In many different ways, they express themselves heartrendingly.
There have been many studies of the effect of divorce on children. Exeter university produced one that showed conclusively that children do much better if their parents, even if they are in conflict, remain together.
Ms Corston:
I am following carefully what the hon. Lady says about stable marriages being good role models and how important it is for couples to stay together where
Lady Olga Maitland:
One of the most important points that I made in my introductory remarks was that I supported the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle. If the hon. Lady studies the amendments, she will find that it is clear that there is provision for women who have been the victims of domestic violence. A far greater number of marriages come to an end, however, when couples are downright selfish. They do not like this, and they do not like the other.
I had a conversation yesterday with a man in his 30s who had married a lady because he thought he should. As soon as he married, he formed another relationship because he thought that better and more to his liking. That relationship involved a woman with children.
That example told me that we are living in such a selfish society that couples can have a row, fancy something better and say, "Right, I have had enough." As the law is proposed, a couple could have a blazing row on Christmas day and the following year be out of the relationship, with the children thrown to the elements.
Mr. Jonathan Evans:
My hon. Friend was not in the Chamber when I intervened earlier. It has been made clear for the purpose of debate that, if there is a row between a newly married couple, the earliest that a divorce can be granted is after a period of two years.
Lady Olga Maitland:
We are talking about established families with children. That is crucial. Such marriages have obviously lasted longer than a couple of years. Children become nervous and terrified. As they are surrounded by a world of divorce, they think that divorce can happen to them, as it were, even when they are growing up in a stable family. They have nightmares. They believe that, if their parents have a tiff, that will be the end. They have seen it happen to others.
Dame Jill Knight:
The debate was sparked off by real emotion. I was a child of a divorced couple. All this business about how good it is for children to get it over quickly is dead wrong. It has upset me to hear the contributions of hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber. I would have given anything in the wide world to have kept my parents together.
The longer the period in which to consider whether or not to separate would have led me to think that there was more and more chance, and that just maybe divorce would not happen in the end. It is wrong to say that it is helpful to the child to have a quick divorce.
Lady Olga Maitland:
My hon. Friend has spoken so rightly, so much from the heart and so correctly. We must bear in mind that children do not sanction divorce. They are not the ones who call for hasty divorce. I have not seen them marching in Hyde park. I have not been aware of them pressurising the various children's charities to make divorce easier.
I have heard and read so much about how children pray for their parents to be reconciled. Even if their parents are not entirely happy together, children would rather live in
a family that is one stable unit. Once children are cast out into the world and into other relationships, they are never No.1 to the original parents. They do not do so well at school. They suffer later in terms of their future relationships. Some even turn to crime. Some can turn to drugs. Some can experience such restlessness that they never settle down.
It is astonishing that a pitiful amount of money is being set aside for reconciliation, when surely that is what will be better not only for the children, but for the country. Funding of £3 million is too little, and almost too late. We should consider the cost to the country, which has been put at £5 billion: the consequence of supporting families when they split up.
Time is moving on, and I know that we want to wind up this important debate, but may I say that we should be listening to the people outside and having regard to the fact that 100 peers on both sides of the House of Lords voted in favour of extending the year to 18 months, where both partners do not consent or where children are involved. If I had my choice, it would be two years.
We should listen to the mood of the country. We have an enormous moral responsibility. We owe it to future generations to enable them to grow up in a stable family where their rights--rather than the selfishness of the world today, which I bitterly deplore--are considered.
I hope that the amendments will go through overwhelmingly, and that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will carefully bear in mind not only my arguments, but the words of the Churches. Cardinal Hume on reflection conceded that we must ensure that we support families. We have had support from the Anglican Church and the Jewish faith. We can go no further than to say, "Hark to those children." They deserve a better deal than we are giving them.
Mr. Boateng:
Children have played an important part, as they should, in the debate. Both hon. Members for the amendment and those against it have referred to children and children's interests. Making an important point, my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong) asked us to make children's interests paramount in our deliberations, which we must do, because, if the current divorce rate continues, one in four children in England and Wales will see their parents divorce before they are 16. That is the scale of the problem.
I hear what the Chancellor of the Duchy says about the expectations of the Bill, but we are entitled to say that we look to the passage of a Family Law Bill that will make a positive contribution to the reduction in the number of divorces. That is a legitimate object of social policy, which we are entitled to attach to our deliberations on the Bill. The question therefore is how we arrive at that position.
I--like, I am sure, many other hon. Members--have agonised over the question of reflection and consideration of what the proper length of time should be. I have asked
myself for what purpose we are intending that reflection and consideration should take place. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) pressed home the point--and, in my respectful submission, with good cause--that there is a distinction between mediation and reconciliation. That distinction has been lost.
I am pleased to see the Under-Secretary of State indicating that that distinction is not lost on him, but it was lost on the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. As Opposition Members noted--along, no doubt, with many others, including the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh)--the Chancellor said that the Bill provided for mechanisms to deal with both reconciliation and mediation, but that is not the case: the Bill makes no provision for reconciliation.
There is a signpost to reconciliation. The Bill mentions reconciliation once--and that is the result of an amendment in the other place. I look forward to the Under-Secretary's clarification of the Government's priorities, but if that is the priority that Ministers attach to reconciliation, it is not good enough. We want the Bill to explain what will happen in the period of 12, 18 or 24 months.
I support a 12-month period, and again my reason relates to children. Children are at the heart of our consideration of the Bill. I believe that extending the period is likely to damage children--that they will bear the brunt.
Whatever period we choose, however, the Bill in its present form is likely to focus chiefly on mediation, but on mediation whose primary objective will be the reaching of an agreement about finances and children. Experience shows that, if all the emotional effort is directed at that, no effort will be expended on reconciliation. Th filing of a statement that the marriage has broken down irretrievably is a psychological breaking point, and it is difficult to recover from that and get into the mind set that is conducive to reconciliation.
A number of studies have been carried out. A particularly helpful one was conducted by Professor Davis of Bristol university. He says:
there is no Auntie Wu here--
That is the problem. Once the declaration has been made, there is a real danger that it will prove self-fulfilling. It is a case of: "I believe that the marriage has broken down irretrievably; therefore it has." All of us who have practised law know that, under the old arrangements, solicitors had to sign a statement to the effect that they had considered reconciliation with the client. We have all signed such statements, and we all recall the nature of that consideration. I see a number of hon. Members nodding.
"I am concerned about the Bill going through Parliament regarding divorce. We need to encourage couples and families to stay together. If divorce is going ahead, couples should have an adequate waiting period, giving a time for reconciliation."
"I am worried that the reduced waiting period will encourage more couples to seek divorce when things begin to go wrong rather than to persevere and work at it."
"We should not delude ourselves about the impact upon the relationship of that first signed statement. It is not the equivalent of a despairing chat with a friend or parent"--
"it is a formal declaration; it is likely to be self-fulfilling."
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