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Lord Elton: My Lords, to put the record straight, I was speaking entirely for myself.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I appreciate that, and I await with interest the official reply from the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe. But there seems to be a current of opinion within the Conservative Party which takes the same view as that of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. It has become fairly apparent in articles in the press, comments in the broadcasting media and so on. It suggests that, somewhat surprisingly, while the party looks with favour on giving rights in the form of civil partnership rights to same-sex couples, it does not wish to do so for couples of the opposite sex. That view is perhaps somewhat inconsistent with the opposition to Section 28.
Lord Elton: My Lords, as I was corrected frequently on points that I misunderstood, perhaps I may tell the noble Lord that I said with some trepidation that constancy in a partnership is something to be encouraged. Therefore, with trepidation, I said that there were elements of the Bill that I would wish to support.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I take that point on board. As I understand it, that is the motivation behind the noble Lord's support for civil partnership between lesbian and gay couples. The view was expressed that this is a second-class form of marriage; that it is open to heterosexual couples to get married and, therefore, they should not have the lesser alternative. I believe that this concern is wrong. A simpler and more private form of commitment such as that involved in a civil partnership could persuade a significant number of couples to take it up who would not be prepared to enter into a formal marriage.
I believe that most heterosexual couples still prefer marriage. Indeed, weddings are extremely popular these days. My own daughters started preparing their weddings at about the age of eight, many years before they met the men to whom they are now married. A wedding is a ceremony—even a register office wedding—conducted in person before either someone from the Church or someone with the powers of a registrar. In the case of a civil partnership, an
application is sent to the Registrar General in the prescribed form, signed by each prospective partner, accompanied by the prescribed fee. I take issue slightly with my noble friend Lady Thomas of Walliswood in that that is not a ceremony and will therefore appeal to those who do not want a ceremony.As the noble Lord, Lord Rees-Mogg, pointed out in an article in The Times the other day, there is a problem with caring relationships between close members of the same family, such as a child looking after an elderly parent, a sister looking after a brother or a sister and brother looking after each other in old age. There is undoubtedly a case for some provisions on taxation rights and other matters included in the Bill to be extended to caring couples. However, there are a number of problems involved. I do not think that it can be done simply by enabling them to enter into a civil partnership agreement. While I certainly support some change, I doubt that this Bill is the place for it.
The only unqualified objections to the Bill came from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford took a more supportive attitude to the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Lester has asked me to deal briefly with the question of pensions raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, because I am more familiar with pension systems. The answer to the question about who pays for the pensions in occupational schemes is that it depends on whether the pension scheme is a defined contribution scheme or a final salary scheme. If it is a defined contribution scheme, there is a fixed pot of money on retirement that is used to buy a pension. Providing a pension for a surviving partner will reduce the amount of the pension payable to the pensioner. If it is a final salary scheme, the cost will effectively fall on the employer. However, most employers with final salary schemes already provide powers for a pensioner to nominate an unmarried partner to receive a surviving spouse's pension, so the cost is probably pretty much written into the scheme already.
The Bill is an important step forward. The wide welcome that it has received shows that it is an idea whose time has come. We must recognise that this may not be the Bill that ends up on the statute book. Many detailed issues will need to be debated and it will undoubtedly have to undergo a fairly lengthy Committee stage. We need debate and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, I think that that debate would best be carried out in a Select Committee. I hope that a Select Committee will be set up to consider the issues in the Bill.
Whether or not there is time to get the Bill through both Houses, it is important to have all the remaining stages completed in this House so that, as well as a Select Committee, we can have a debate in your Lordships' House on the details, which will help to identify and iron out the problems. Our target must be to get a Bill on the statute book during this Parliament.
I join others who have paid tribute to my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill. He has a long and powerful record of work for human rights. Many years
ago he worked on anti-discrimination legislation. He campaigned tirelessly for the Human Rights Act 1998. He and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor were the two people who did most to bring that Act about. The Bill marks another service by my noble friend to the cause of the liberties and rights of the individual.I wait with much interest to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, will say, although, as I have said, I have some idea of what we can expect. I wait with perhaps even greater interest to hear what the Leader of the House will tell us about the reaction of the Government. I have no doubt that he will express sympathy with the purposes of the Bill, but I hope that he will go much further and either indicate the Government's willingness to give the necessary time to get this Bill through Parliament or undertake to introduce government legislation before the end of the present Parliament.
2.5 p.m.
Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, for introducing the Bill, which affords us the opportunity to consider a number of important issues. I also pay tribute to the many thoughtful speeches made today. They did not all express the same view, but they were equally valuable and helpful to this important debate.
The Bill sets out a legal framework for recognising a civil partnership between two cohabiting individuals who wish to register their union formally and share benefits, rights and responsibilities. It gives us, the Conservative Party, an opportunity to restate our commitment to marriage—indeed, I prefer to say our celebration of marriage—and the special rights that come with that association. It is an association that continues, to a great extent, to work.
Not all married couples choose to raise a family, and the value of their marriage is no less important for that, but society particularly benefits from the fact that children brought up by married parents are more likely to have a stable background. There are many one-parent families, as well as cohabiting couples, who bring up children incredibly well, as many have said today, and who create homes as loving and as stable as those offered by married couples. However, the figures show that the commitment of marriage increases stability. As the Office for National Statistics says in a recent report:
- "recent research has shown that children born to cohabiting couples are twice as likely to see their parents separate as children born within marriage".
At this point I take issue—as I rarely do—with the noble Earl, Lord Russell. It is not about respect. Our respect is without question.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. As she has raised my question, may I ask if she could answer mine? Does she think, a priori,
as a matter of universal principle, that it is better for an unhappily married couple to stay together than to separate?
Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, no, I do not think that it is better for a married couple who are unhappy to stay together. That is why we say not that marriage works, but that it works to a great extent.
In a world where politicians search, usually in vain, for social policies that confer unambiguous benefits, they should leave well alone when they encounter longstanding institutions that do precisely that. We must build on success, in which case we must do nothing to undermine the institution of marriage.
Consequently, we cannot support the Bill. It provides rights, such as the right to inheritance and to share life assurance and occupational pensions, that are already available to couples through marriage. There is no need to create a separate category of registered civil partnerships for mixed-sex couples because anyone seeking those rights can attain them by marrying. Providing a watered-down variant of marriage would serve only to undermine the institution and increase the risk of the state intruding into people's lives in order to discover whether the extent of their cohabitation justifies the rights that they would claim.
The Bill does, however, provide us with the opportunity to consider seriously the rights of those who are not able to marry—the couples who do not have that choice, particularly same-sex couples who have a long-term stable relationship. There is no doubt that those couples face a number of real problems in their daily lives, problems that need to be addressed in a sensitive, respectful and practical way. The Bill clearly seeks to overcome statutory discrimination against those who want to make the commitment to share within a coherent framework rights and responsibilities.
In addition to those economic rights and responsibilities within a union, the Bill specifically addresses issues that test the emotional strength and heart of a relationship, such as the right of action in respect of a fatal accident, the right to register the death of a partner and the provision for the health and welfare of a partner without capacity to act—issues whereby, if a couple are in a stable relationship and unable to marry, it must be right to allow them the dignity of acting on each other's behalf in the same way as a married couple. It must be right to confront any form of discrimination that compromises mutual respect and commitment within a stable and loving relationship for no good reason. I should add, in response to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, that I believe that that is right in principle no matter what the actual numbers may be.
Moving on from the principal themes, we have various concerns which I shall touch on briefly. The Bill wishes, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in the Explanatory Notes,
- "to enable cohabiting couples to live together within a stable and coherent framework of rights and responsibilities".
As I said, the Bill addresses some real practical problems requiring particular practical solutions—some of which may be legislative, others administrative, but all need to be sensitively and precisely targeted. In that context we should bear in mind that such problems are not confined to gay couples. Just as the benefits to society of marriage are clear, particularly when there are children, so is the virtue in other forms of relationship expressly excluded from the Bill.
In particular, why does the noble Lord, Lord Lester, exclude from eligible persons, in Clause 2(1)(d), "close relatives"? Why should close relatives—for example, two cohabiting sisters who may have pledged to care for each other—not register and thereby enjoy the same rights and responsibilities as others? Surely that exclusion is discriminatory in principle, particularly against the elderly. Is the noble Lord interested only in protecting the rights of couples in a sexual relationship? He may respond by saying that as two sisters they are perfectly capable of contracting to afford each other certain rights and responsibilities. However, the same can be said of those couples who are eligible under the Bill.
There are also questions of family law. In particular, what happens to the children of a couple who have registered their partnership when that partnership breaks down? Is the Bill specifically intended to exclude the interests of children other than in the context of the working families tax credit, property and non-molestation orders? Indeed, I feel some personal discomfort with a Bill that demands such a watershed in our thinking and our social attitudes but that does not pay more attention to children. Perhaps that is intentional, and perhaps it is right. However, it is hard to consider all the issues in a clear-cut manner since our lives and different lifestyles are so varied and often complex.
We are also concerned with regard to the cost implications of the Bill. That is an area that we would certainly want to explore further as the Bill addresses, quite rightly, a broad range of issues which carry financial consequences.
We understand that the Government are in the process of reviewing current financial implications relating to some of those issues and look forward to hearing what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, has to say in that regard.
We are also interested in those conditions that must be satisfied prior to the formation of a civil partnership. In particular, the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, has specified that the prospective partners must have lived together for a minimum period of six months before the relationship can be registered. Is it possible to demonstrate a stable relationship in that period of time?
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