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Mr. David Borrow (South Ribble) (Lab): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak about a Bill in which I have a personal interest, because I hope to take advantage of it once it is passed. I can think back to what society was like when I was in my late teens and early 20sin the late 1960s and early 1970safter the Sexual Offences Act 1967 was passed and compare it with what it is like now. The 1967 Act made it possible for gay men to live without such a risk of being criminalised, but it did not mean that that was easy, so few entered into lifelong relationships. In about 1971, I met a couple in Huddersfield, where I grew up, who had met during the warthey seemed very old to me at the time, although they were probably about my age now. Couples from previous generations have lived in lifelong relationships, so it is nothing new.
I have had the privilege of being a Member of the House for the past seven years, during which there has been a sea change in public attitudes to, and legislation affecting, gay people. I have a short list of the measures that the House has taken in that time, because it is sometimes useful to remember what the Labour Government have done since 1997. There have been measures to equalise the age of consent; to equalise sexual offences legislation; to give employment rights; to abolish section 28; to allow gay people to serve in the military; to give adoption rights; and to allow spouses from overseas to join their partners in this country. Those are the measures that I have remembered since I entered the Chamber this afternoon. That batch of legislation has generated changes to public attitudes.
The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) mentioned some of the unfairness of current legislation and suggested tackling that piecemeal. That would be totally wrong. When people, be they heterosexual or gay, meet someone special, a relationship develops. One can be in love with a person, but that does not mean that one wants to share one's mortgage with them. When the point comes in a relationship when couples decide that they want to make a lifelong commitment, such a commitment should involve rights and responsibilities. If we are considering the structure in which we want couples to live, dealing
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with only the unfair and difficult bits, such as next-of-kin issues, or a little bit about inheritance tax, will not address the responsibility aspect.
If we are to provide a proper framework for relationships, there must be a way in which rights and responsibilities kick in. Mixed-sex couples reach that point when they decide to get married, but I believe that too many such couples feel that they can drift along without taking on rights and responsibilities in full, with the misguided assumption that everything will be all right. When people are relatively young, all the ifs, maybes and things that could go wrong seem to be in the distant future, so they wonder why they should worry about them. However, I am beginning to wonder how my partner would cope if something happened to me, because I am not 20-something, but 50-something. That consideration has become crucial to me and many others who are in long-term same-sex relationships.
I am fortunate that my partner and I have the support of an extended family, so problems involving next of kin, funerals and what happens in hospitals are unlikely to arise as starkly as they do for others. However, there are well-documented cases of the partners of people who have died or become ill being completely excluded from any consideration. We need to address such matters comprehensively, which is what the Bill does.
The issue of rights and responsibilities relates to benefits. It is crucial that same-sex couples are treated as a single household, not as separate households, in the benefits system. That is part of the quid pro quo of what we want to establish. Whether people see that as the equivalent of marriage is not important. What is important is that we provide a structure for same-sex couples to live their lives in a way that gives them some security, especially as they move towards old age. That is when such issues become very important.
When I speak to constituents about the subject, they say, "What's the big deal? Why is there a problem? I assumed you'd be all right anyway", or "Is that what would happen if you died and your partner was left on his own? I didn't realise that was the case." All those issues are in the melting pot.
There is something important for a couple in publicly demonstrating and affirming their commitment to each other. It is not simply about signing the bit of paper, but about having a big do with families and friends in which the relationship is publicly endorsed by people for whom we care and who care for us. That may be like marriage, but it is important to be able to do that in the family in which I live. It is crucial to demonstrate to my family and friends, and to my partner's family and friends, that this is who we are, where we have come to and how we care about each other.
The amendments agreed in the Lords will, I hope, be thrown out in Committee. No matter how good the intentions, they are clearly unworkable. If we are to tackle some of the issues raised by the amendments, it is better done elsewhere.
I have some concerns about the part of the Bill that deals with pensions. I said in an intervention that I have paid into a public sector pension for nearly 30 years. No one has offered me a discount, because survivor's rights are not applicable to me. It is a matter of equality, not retrospectivity. I and thousands of other gay men and
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women have paid into the pot knowing that our partners will not benefit from it, yet we have had to pay for other people's surviving partners.
The Minister made a helpful contribution. I look forward to hearing an even more helpful contribution in the wind-ups. I certainly look forward to the Bill's successful passage, with full equality on pensions in due course.
Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con): Listening to the debate, I have been wondering why the Bill is called the Civil Partnership Bill rather than the same-sex partnership Bill. I suspect that the amendment was passed in the House of LordsI include myself among those who sympathise with the arguments made therebecause people took the Bill at face value and thought that it was about giving new rights to people who are in partnership outside marriage. If it were designed merely to enable those in settled long-term relationships to have a better deal from inheritance tax law or pension benefit law, I would have no problem with it.
The extent of the financial burden borne by those in settled long-term relationships outside marriage is apparent from the estimate of the Government Actuary's Department, but just extending survivor pension rights in contracted-out pension schemes to close family members could cost as much as £2.25 billion a year. That is not as much as the £5 billion being taxed by the Chancellor from pension funds every year, but it is still a large sum.
I therefore do not take seriously the Government's suggestion that they will address the issue. Answering interventions, the Minister of State was remarkably vague about what the Government would actually do.
I welcome what my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said on the subject. His letter states:
"I therefore think it better to allow the Bill to be returned to its original form and fight vigorously for provisions to be included in a Finance Bill which would remedy the unfair disadvantages which affect them"
that is, people not of the same sex who are engaged in relationships outside marriage. He continues:
"This is what we shall do our best to achieve in the House of Commons during the passage of the next Finance Bill."
However, if we go along with the Government's arguments on rejecting the Lords amendments to the present Bill, we will have missed a great opportunity to get a fair deal for participants in long-term relationships outside marriage.
Mr. Leigh: The truth is that no Government will ever address that issue in any Finance Bill. Doing so would simply be too expensive.
Mr. Chope:
My hon. Friend states the very point implicit in my remarks. It is disingenuous of the Government to argue that they will give serious consideration to the matter when they have an opportunity, in the form of the Civil Partnership Bill, to ensure that there is no discrimination between different types of relationship outside marriage. We should deal with all such relationships on the same basis.
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Ultimately, we shall have to face the problem that is succinctly and coherently set out at paragraph 22 of the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which states:
"when the Bill comes into force, exemption from inheritance tax will be available to a surviving spouse and a surviving civil partner, but not to the surviving partner of an unmarried heterosexual couple, even though they may have lived together as though husband and wife for the whole of their adult lives, and possibly raised children together."
That is the problem that we as parliamentarians should be addressing, but the Government are ducking it.
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