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Clause 96
Application of certain sections of 1965 Act
to civil partnership register
Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 13, Noes 2.
Division No. 56]
AYES
Abbott, Ms Diane
Bercow, Mr. John
Borrow, Mr. David
Bryant, Chris
Carmichael, Mr. Alistair
Duncan, Mr. Alan
Love, Mr. Andrew
McGuire, Mrs. Anne
McKechin, Ann
Simon, Mr. Sion
Smith, Jacqui
Stewart, Mr. David
Watson, Mr. Tom
NOES
Chope, Mr. Christopher
Donaldson, Mr. Jeffrey M.
Question accordingly agreed to.
Clause 96 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Duncan: On a point of order, Mr. Cook. Our procedures at the moment are unfolding in a clear and familiar pattern. We face the prospect, in the passage of about 40 minutes of the clock, of having 30
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consecutive Divisions, all of a similar pattern. Is there anything under the Standing Orders, or any discussion that you might have with the Chairman of Ways and Means, to say that although many, including I, do not approve of guillotines, knives or reducing the power of delay when it is appropriate for the Opposition, there comes a point at which such a series of Divisions actually becomes frivolous? Would you have such discussions to see whether in the context of the inevitable guillotine that we ultimately face, this kind of procedure is inappropriate to proper discussion of the Bill?
The Chairman: There is provision in the main Chamber to deal with a situation of this kind, but not in Standing Committee. I can, however, give the Committee an assurance that I will discuss the matter with the Chairman of Ways and Means and place it on the agenda for the next meeting of the Chairmen's Panel.
Mr. Chope: Further to that point of order, Mr. Cook. When you raise that matter at the Chairmen's Panel, will you also take into account the fact that on each individual clause it is open to those who wish to raise questions on that clause or speak against it to do so? It would probably take longer to put those arguments and questions, and one way of demonstrating opposition to a clause is to vote against it, without taking up the Committee's time by speaking against it. That certainly happened during proceedings on the Traffic Management Bill, on the Committee of which I had the privilege to serve previously—
10 am
The Chairman: Order. Principles of limitation of time are well known to this House; I should have thought that they were known to every Member once they have been here more than a week. It serves no purpose to raise aspects of other legislation dealt with at other times. I have given the Committee an assurance that I will raise with the Chairman of Ways and Means and with the Chairmen's Panel the essence of the points raised in the point of order—namely the fact that perhaps some of the tactics engaged in Committee today might be considered by some people as frivolous. Those points I will raise. Limitations of time are well known to us and we have lived with them for years, since long before I came to this place.
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Clause 97
Correction of errors in civil partnership register
Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 13, Noes 2.
Division No. 57]
AYES
Abbott, Ms Diane
Bercow, Mr. John
Borrow, Mr. David
Bryant, Chris
Carmichael, Mr. Alistair
Duncan, Mr. Alan
Love, Mr. Andrew
McGuire, Mrs. Anne
McKechin, Ann
Simon, Mr. Sion
Smith, Jacqui
Stewart, Mr. David
Watson, Mr. Tom
NOES
Chope, Mr. Christopher
Donaldson, Mr. Jeffrey M.
Question accordingly agreed to.
Clause 97 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 98
Offences
Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 13, Noes 2.
Division No. 58]
AYES
Abbott, Ms Diane
Bercow, Mr. John
Borrow, Mr. David
Bryant, Chris
Carmichael, Mr. Alistair
Duncan, Mr. Alan
Love, Mr. Andrew
McGuire, Mrs. Anne
McKechin, Ann
Simon, Mr. Sion
Smith, Jacqui
Stewart, Mr. David
Watson, Mr. Tom
NOES
Chope, Mr. Christopher
Donaldson, Mr. Jeffrey M.
Question accordingly agreed to.
Clause 98 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 99
Occupancy rights
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Chope: Before my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton raised his point of order, I had been in discussion with my hon. Friend who has been voting in a similar way to me.
The Chairman: Order. May I seek clarification? Is this a point of order?
Mr. Chope: On a point of order, Mr. Cook. We feel very strongly about the way in which the Government have transacted the Bill. We have voted against every clause in part 2 as a matter of principle. We are hotly opposed to part 3, but we have made our point. We hope that the Government will accept the right to debate issues about which they feel strongly, but about which a minority also feels equally strongly, and that they will take account of the strength of feeling that we have expressed.
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The Chairman: Having been presented with a point of order, I must respond that if the hon. Gentleman wants to discuss the clause stand part, he is free to do so. That is the Committee's procedure.
Mr. Chope: I do not wish to discuss the clause stand part; I wish to let the matter go.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 99 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 100 to 114 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 115
Dissolution
Mr. Chope: I beg to move amendment No. 236, in clause 115, page 59, line 37, leave out 'dissolution' and insert 'cessation'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 237, in clause 115, page 60, line 3, leave out paragraphs (a) to (d) and insert—
'(a) the defender consents to the granting of decree of dissolution of the civil partnership,
(b) the defender has committed an act of sexual infidelity, or
(c) there has been no cohabitation between the civil partners at any time during a continuous period of six months immediately preceding the bringing of the action.'.
No. 238, in clause 115, page 60, line 22, leave out subsection (4).
No. 239, in clause 115, page 60, line 36, leave out subsection (6).
No. 240, in clause 115, page 60, line 40, leave out subsection (7).
Mr. Chope: These amendments mirror amendments that were tabled to an earlier part of the Bill but could not be discussed because of the guillotine. Their purpose is to ensure that the Bill reflects more properly the concerns expressed by, among others, the noble prelate, the Bishop of Oxford, who said:
''it is a concern to some in the Churches that the legislation enshrined in the Bill parallels that for marriage at almost every point. There is an ambiguity here that some find worrying''.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 April 2004; Vol. 660, c. 399.]
I find it worrying, as do a lot of people whom I have spoken to. They want to ensure that the Bill recognises that cohabitation and partnership short of marriage involve a looser bond than marriage, which is the purpose of the amendments. If they were agreed to, they would effectively ensure that civil partnerships had a different nature to marriage and were described in different language.
Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman was trying to pray in aid the comments of the Bishop of Oxford. He will, I am sure, have read all the Bishop's speech, in which he made it clear that while many in the Church expressed such feelings, he personally did not, which is why he chose that form of words very carefully.
Mr. Chope: He said those words, nevertheless. He recognised—perhaps the hon. Gentleman does not—that there are a large number of people who find the matter worrying.
Chris Bryant: But not the Bishop of Oxford.
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Mr. Chope: One way of overcoming such concerns is to pass the amendment and ensure that the Bill creates something more akin to the civil solidarity pact available in France, as opposed to same-sex marriage, which is in essence what the Government are trying to impose on the country.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland got rather wound up when I referred to Lord Lester of Herne Hill, who is a Liberal Democrat, but much of the language in the amendments is taken directly from Lord Lester's own Bill on civil partnerships—the plural form was used—in the House of Lords, and that language is also analogous to the law in France. The amendments anticipate that chapter 1 of the Bill will still refer exclusively to same-sex partnerships—the current reality. They would remove the need to show that a relationship had broken down irretrievably and introduce the issue of cessation instead.
Mr. Carmichael: On the point about cessation instead of dissolution, I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman will favour us with an explanation of what he sees as the distinction. Will he explain why he seeks to change ''dissolution'' to ''cessation'' in amendment No. 236, when amendment No. 237 states:
''the defender consents to the granting of decree of dissolution''?
Why did he not favour us with an amendment making further reference to dissolution?
Mr. Chope: If the hon. Gentleman is saying that I had not tabled enough amendments and that I should have tabled some more consequential amendments, I plead guilty. However, on the substantive concern he has expressed, the issue of cessation was referred to by Lord Lester in his Bill, and I presume that he used that term—indeed, this is why I have drafted my amendment as I have—because it makes it clear that the partnership that we are discussing is different from marriage. The Government say that that is the case, but we keep saying that if it looks like marriage and has all the trappings of marriage, it is marriage, even though they deny it.
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