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Lord Higgins: It is the principle that is important; one would not want to discriminate.
Baroness Barker: The noble Lord raises an interesting point. The issue appears to concern polygamous marriages which are contracted in nations
other than our own by people who live here. I consider that an interesting question to have raised. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. Throughout our discussions on the Bill they have attempted to clarify matters by drafting, and that has been extremely helpful to our debates. My understanding is that this matter is covered by existing social security law which recognises that some people who are migrants to this country were married abroad in circumstances where polygamy—by and large, it is polygamy—was acceptable and a part of their culture.In speaking to the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, used the word "problem". When I read the amendment, I tried to ascertain whether a problem existed. Having asked practitioners and researchers, I was interested in the fact that no one is yet sure that there is a problem or, at least, a presenting problem. That is not to say that wives in polygamous marriages do not have problems; it is that those problems are not yet being presented to authorities. It is an interesting question as to whether or not there is a problem. It would be an interesting and useful subject upon which to have some research.
Noble Lords will have heard me say before that the older population is changing, and patterns of migration to this country mean that it is becoming more diverse. There may be a problem. It is not a pressing problem yet. However, in an inadvertent way the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, has raised an interesting issue. It should not perhaps be addressed in the way in which he addressed it. None the less, it is an interesting point to raise.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, would be sorry to think that his amendment was inadvertent. I am sure that he thought it was very advertent.
I am fascinated by the Committee's interest in polygamy. This is not the first time that the subject has been raised. I was looking for some help over in a certain quarter. My understanding is that Section 133 of the Social Security Benefits Act 1992, which relates to council tax benefits, also has a specific subsection relating to polygamy. Therefore, this is not entirely new. However, I understand that the noble Lord may not have that cross reference immediately to mind.
Amendment No. 67 seeks to do a reasonable thing. It looks to give equal recognition in pension credit to the custom of a woman taking several husbands as well as recognising the practice of a man having several wives. However, it is unnecessary. Polygamy includes both men having several wives and women having several husbands. The real distinction is between polyandry and polygyny. I do not know whether the noble Lord lays claim to having studied classics or Greek at school, but "polygamy" is a politically correct word, even if the practice may not be.
The noble Baroness asks where polyandry is practised, by which she understood it to mean a situation in which a woman has several husbands. She knew perfectly well that I would not be able to resist
the temptation of trying to find out. Polyandry, unlike polygamy, is prohibited by law in most countries. I am told that two principal forms of polyandry exist, and they are not in Polynesia. Among the Nair people who inhabit the Malabar coast of India a woman may marry several men of equal or superior rank, known by anthropologists as the Nair family. The system also includes the matrilineal social structure, in which children are included in the mother's clan and property is inherited in the female line.Another distinct type of polyandry is practised in areas of Tibet. In that form a woman may marry the eldest brother of a family and then take his brother also as her partner. Certainly the first form is a way of keeping property going down the female line. I thought that I would share the diffusion of useless knowledge with noble Lords.
Amendment No. 68 seeks to recognise the fact that in a polygamous marriage a person might have more than one additional spouse. Likewise, the Bill also deals with that. Under the Interpretation Act 1978, terms expressed in the singular can be taken to include the plural. So, the phrase "any additional spouse" can justifiably be read as "any additional spouses". Amendment No. 69 is more significant, however, in that it would have the effect of treating the first two members of a polygamous marriage as a married couple, with subsequent spouses treated as single people. I should like to explain to the House why we do not believe that that would be an appropriate approach to people living in such households.
We had a similar discussion on one of the other pension Bills within the memory of noble Lords. As noble Lords will know, the MIG regulations, along with those of other income-related benefits, make provision for those circumstances. Where a polygamously married household exists, a special assessment is made of the amount of benefit payable to the household. We do not know how many, but we think that we are probably talking in the order of not more than 200 households. That is based on the couple rate of benefit for the claimant and his first spouse, and the difference between the couple rate and single person rate of benefit, which is payable for each subsequent spouse. Therefore, the second wife gets the addition of what the first wife would get to the original single person's allowance, and so on down the line. In addition, the financial resources of each member of the polygamous marriage are aggregated. I believe that that seems reasonable and provides a basis for dealing with the situation.
A glance at Clause 12, with which the amendment is grouped but to which the noble Lord did not speak, reveals that we are dealing with the same basic structure as with MIG: an unambiguous definition of what is meant by a polygamous marriage and provision to prescribe for a non- standard amount of pension credit and aggregation of the household resources. In the light of those comments, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Noakes: Before the Minister sits down, can she tell the Committee how she intends to treat unmarried polygamous family units?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I suspect that that would be blasphemous. If a person has a polygamous marriage and comes to the UK, that is being incorporated into the UK from outside. If such persons come over here as a couple and then acquire a subsequent "spouse", that "spouse" is not legal under British law and would be a mistress. There is no recognition in social security law of funding for a mistress as well as a wife for a UK resident. If I have misled the noble Baroness or in any sense cramped her or anyone else's aspirations, I shall seek to ensure that my comments are correct.
Lord Higgins: On the last point, I would have said that that is bigamy. Despite the clear explanation given by the noble Baroness, I am still unclear as to why this needs to be in regulations. I am not in the least clear about why we cannot simply put it on the face of the Bill. Presumably this is something which will not change. The noble Baroness has set this out clearly. Therefore, I would have thought that she could table an amendment on Report which puts on the face of the Bill exactly what she has just said.
I turn to the amount of state pension credit which such individuals receive. I presume that they would all have become UK citizens at this point. Will they receive state pension credit—I emphasise "state"—as a result of this legislation if they arrive in this country as a polygamous household but are not UK citizens? The noble Baroness mentioned that there are 200. Presumably that is 200 households. Will they also receive widows' pensions, for example? Once we go down that particular route, I am not sure where the matter ends.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Neither am I, given the world that the noble Lord has opened up. As I understand it, for eligibility to income-related benefits, one has to establish habitual residence in this country. Therefore, persons in this situation who have come to this country in their sixties or seventies—it is hard to work out what family permutations might be possible—might well not have a complete retirement pension record; that seems probable. They would need to pass the habitual residence test and not fall foul of refugees' exceptional leave to remain, asylum status and so forth. They might be elderly relatives of someone who is already resident here. Normally, they would have to show that they would not be dependent upon public funds. However, if they were entitled for whatever reason under the habitual residence test, they would then be eligible for minimum income guarantee. In that sense, they would receive part of the state pension credit in the form of MIG. In response to the noble Lord, it seems unlikely that they would be eligible for the savings element of the pension credit.
I am told that since August 1998 immigration legislation has prevented a polygamous wife settling in Great Britain with her husband if another wife is already in the country. Given that, the number of polygamous households in Great Britain should diminish over time.
The figure of 200 was the approximate figure we have of those households eligible to claim MIG. I find it hard to envisage circumstances, other than in a handful of cases, in which someone has a complete retirement pension—that is, that he has been here for a working life of 40 years—and savings from an occupational pension, and all of his marriages occurred legitimately outside the UK. It is conceivable. I hope that answers the noble Lord.
The basic arrangement is that for one of the marriages—presumably that to the first wife—the members are treated as husband and wife. Subsequent wives are treated as dependants receiving the same moneys. The noble Lord asked why this is being done by regulation. In the light of changes perhaps in immigration law, for example, it is conceivable that legislation might need to change in future. Having a regulation power to amplify the words in the Bill seems to me to be a wise precaution.
Given the concepts of human rights and so on, it is not impossible that attitudes and conventions and the responses of government to the treatment of polygamy may change over time. Therefore, the Government might want to revisit this matter at some unspecified date in the future. It is not wise to do that through primary legislation.
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