Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

That is a very good question, but I cannot really answer it. My reading of government Amendment 46G indicates that there is a copying in of what had happened with forced marriage. Furthermore, paragraph (7) of the proposed new schedule in the amendment amends the Family Law Act and gives jurisdiction to the family court. I may be talking complete rubbish and I may be corrected, either by the noble Baroness or by the Minister. I am simply trying to get across why the civil route is so important and the use of family courts is so important.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I shall pick up that point. It is perfectly obvious to me as a former president of the Family Division that it does not matter which piece of legislation it is as long as the work done in relation to female genital mutilation is allocated to the single family court and heard either by High Court judges or circuit judges who are ticketed to try family cases. This is really not for the ordinary civil judges in what was the county court.

I am interested by this talk about the High Court or the county court. We should actually be talking about—I say this respectfully to the Government—the single family court. It does not matter whether it goes into the Family Law Act as is suggested in the excellent opposition amendments, which I largely support. What matters is who actually tries it. Just as with forced marriages and every other child protection issue, we have here issues of crime, but we know perfectly well that there has not yet been a single conviction of anyone who has done this. It is a question of culture, too. One has to train people in this country that this is not an acceptable practice. The Government are to be enormously congratulated for working on that—as were the previous Government when introducing the 2003 Act—but nothing has gone far enough.

I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lester. I would like to see what is good in each set of amendments put together. Therefore, I hope that the Opposition and the Government will get together after Report and thrash out what would be the best of everything and get that into one list that could go into Third Reading. I do not think that the Government go quite far enough. A great deal of what the Opposition are saying is exactly what we need, but it all needs to be put together. Certainly, the most important thing is that it should go to the single family court and be tried by High Court or circuit judges who have specialist family experience.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Monday 8th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, like the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Loan and Lady Berridge, I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Unlike them, I took the view, and take the view today, that the Bill is perfectly clear, even clearer with Amendments 9 and 10 for anyone who doubted it.

The Government responded to the Joint Committee on Human Rights report today. I do not know whether either noble Baroness has read the response but it has not been referred to so far. I have read it, and I am satisfied that it deals quite sufficiently with the doubts that were raised by the Catholic church through Aidan O’Neill QC and Professor Chris McCrudden, who is a member of my Chambers. I felt that the view expressed by the other side—by Robin Allen QC on behalf of the Equality and Human Rights Commission—was correct, but it became apparent that nothing would satisfy the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Loan and Lady Berridge, that there might not be issues that would still be raised. That is their view, and I respect it. I think the views that have been expressed raise fears that cannot be satisfied by language because, whatever we say in the Bill, I am sure that Members of the House will still raise question after question.

I entirely agree with the Government’s legal advice as expressed in the response to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and I suggest that that response is placed in the Library so that people other than the Joint Committee on Human Rights can see what is said before Third Reading. No doubt it will also be repeated by the Minister in reply today, but it is helpful to have it as a matter of record.

I have been on that Joint Committee for 10 years and I am the last person standing out of the original members. In those 10 years, I have never known a situation like the one we were confronted with. We were deeply split and the only way in which we could produce a report was either by taking votes, as we used to do, which would have shown the differences, or by papering over the differences, which is what we did. Your Lordships should know that we were deeply split. The views expressed in the Chamber today reflect the ways in which we were split. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, is in his place. He, too, took an active part in those debates.

The Government have responded, and I congratulate them on the speed with which they have done so. I believe that what they have said is correct and that their citing of the law is also perfectly correct. I am glad that Amendments 9 and 10 have been moved. They are a bit verbose. I would have just said “by any means” without having to put words in brackets, but that is because I believe that at this time of night one should speak briefly and write briefly, if possible.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I have also put my name to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. I share her view and the view of others and join in the congratulation of the Government on Amendments 9 and 10, which go a very long way and certainly meet Amendments 22 and 23. However, there is potentially a gap, shown by Amendments 18 and 19. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, and support his proposal that the guidance offered by the Government should be available. The gap that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has identified in Amendments 18 and 19 may well be met by that guidance, so it would be helpful for the Government to do that. I personally would wait to see that guidance before wishing to take Amendments 18 and 19 any further, although it is clearly not a matter for me but for the mover. However, the Government need to recognise that something needs to be said on paper to be sure that these points are met. To that extent, I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Lester.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Monday 8th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I too have put my name to this amendment. It is a narrow and transitional amendment and does not in any way affect the fundamental underlying purpose of this Bill. Marriage registrars carry out a particularly attractive job. On the number of occasions where I have been to a civil ceremony, I have watched, with mounting enthusiasm, the way in which the registrar has made the marriage ceremony a really important occasion. I assume—and, indeed, I hope, since this Bill will become law—that the majority of registrars will give the same enthusiasm and pleasure to the single-sex couple as I have seen them do in those services. I am about to go to yet another great-nephew’s wedding, which will be a civil ceremony.

However, when a number of registrars took the job, the idea that marriage would be between single-sex couples was not even a blink on the horizon. I can understand perfectly well that those who come in in future will take a job in which they recognise that they will marry everybody, whether that is two males, two females or a male and a female. For those already in the post, for the reasons that the noble Baronesses, Lady Cumberlege and Lady Williams of Crosby, have both put forward, this is a small and special group. It would be particularly sad if, having given to the minority in this country the right to marry in the same way as the majority, we cannot recognise that there remains a minority who cannot take it. Are we to say that that minority, those who came into post before one ever thought there would be same-sex marriages, is not to be recognised at all?

As has already been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, what will these people do if they cannot marry but are ordered to do so? If this Bill will not permit them by the amendment to say no, will they have to resign? Will they get a job in this time of stringency and austerity in which we now live, when the job market is difficult? I ask the House to think about a small minority who would have had no idea that this would happen, and whose Christian beliefs would not permit them to marry the couples who will be able to marry by this Bill.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

Will the noble Baroness explain why, when we brought in the race and gender discrimination and other controversial legislation, we never made transitional provision for those public officers to be able to discriminate, as they had been before, that we should now do so with this form of discrimination?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

It happened with abortion but, if I may say so, it was not a marriage. We all know how special marriage is; for goodness’ sake we would not all be here, voting in different ways, if we did not think that marriage mattered in a special way. It is for that reason, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Lester, says.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Monday 17th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

No, I will not, because I think all noble Lords in this Chamber regard marriage as the crowning of our relationships. As a man who has been married for 41 years, I certainly do, as do many gay people who are religious, or not religious but who regard marriage as the highest status they can aspire to. Therefore if you call it something less, such as civil partnership or civil union, it has a lesser status—not just a different status but a lesser one.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

Will the noble Lord at some stage address the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern? It is difficult to believe that his proposal for “marriage (same-sex couples)” could import a lower standard, because it includes the word “marriage”.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I may not be able to do that because I still have to deal with these amendments, so I will reflect on that.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

It is in the same group of amendments.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I will do my best. As the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has said, concepts of marriage have not been static in England or elsewhere. During the past three centuries, Parliament has made changes to the status of marriage. What was once traditional and discriminatory is no longer enshrined in English marriage law. The Bill is a further step in removing unjustifiable discrimination, not against Catholics, Protestant dissenters or Jews, but against homosexuals.

I think my noble friend Lady Williams will concede that gay and lesbian couples are just as able as heterosexual couples to love each other in long, enduring relationships. They are just as able to bring up children in the way good parents do, in lifelong relationships. Some noble Lords will have personal experience of their children in gay and lesbian relationships doing precisely that.

Traditionally, the law governing the registration of marriages was piecemeal, restrictive and discriminatory, beginning with the Act of Uniformity 1662 and Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act 1753, which abolished common-law marriages. In the 19th century, Parliament created exceptions, one by one, to that discrimination. Most recently, exceptions were made under the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855, not only for Protestant and Jewish dissenters but for other denominations and bodies, theistic and non-theistic, including Buddhists, Jains and Muslims, whose premises are registered for religious worship and the solemnisation of marriages.

Under Scots law, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, knows well, marriages by cohabitation and repute could be contracted in Scotland until as recently as 2006. They were still regarded as marriages, even though they were irregular. A traditional marriage could also include a marriage between first cousins, an arranged marriage or a strange thing called a levirate marriage.

Until the Civil Partnership Act 2004, loving gay and lesbian couples could not get legal recognition for their enduring relationship. Now, they may do so. The Act has worked very well, even though it was strongly opposed at the time. However, even though the Civil Partnership Act gives them equivalent rights and duties to those of married couples, it forbids them from marrying and the words “civil union” add nothing to the notion of civil partnership. That is why it is a lesser concept.

A year before the Civil Partnership Act became law, there was an important case—which many of your Lordships will have heard of—Goodridge v Department of Public Health, in which the chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Margaret Marshall, presided. That court upheld the right to gay and lesbian marriage, rejecting the argument that some of your Lordships have made today and elsewhere, that civil union or civil partnership was good enough. The chief justice explained why, on grounds of due process and equal protection, the state did not have a rational basis for denying same-sex couples marriage. A majority of that court agreed that same-sex couples must not be assigned second-class status, which is what I suggest would be accomplished if any of these amendments were accepted.

The other place has formed a similar view about the need for same-sex couples to marry, as have the Government. I know of no judgment of our courts or of the European Court of Justice that suggests the need for amendments of this character. They would suffer from the serious vice of encouraging a belief in a need for a second-class status for same-sex couples to be enshrined in English law. If the House divides now or hereafter, I will have to vote against any of them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

The declaration of sexuality would be relevant only at the moment of marriage. It would not be relevant to everybody else who meets them or knows it. They will be married. Perhaps the most important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, was about children. If we have marriage and same-sex marriage, so far as the children are concerned, it is marriage. They will say, “My parents are married”. It seems to me that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern—

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I apologise to the noble and learned Baroness, but I never answered her question when I was on my feet. She asked what I thought of Amendment 2. What I do not understand, either in Amendment 2 or in the speeches in support of it, is why it is necessary. The Bill begins by saying in Clause 1(1):

“Marriage of same sex couples is lawful”.

Subsection (2) refers to:

“The marriage of a same sex couple”.

We do not need to have sarcastic remarks about Lewis Carroll and Humpty Dumpty. The words could not be clearer. I do not understand why one needs to add anything. The Bill is about the marriage of same-sex couples and nothing else.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for being prepared to answer the question that I asked him some considerable time ago. The House needs to recognise the deep division that exists both in this House and in the country. From the quantity of e-mails and letters that I have received, I know that there are a number of people out there who are bitterly upset, bitterly distressed and angry at what has happened with this Bill. I support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, because the amendment is a compromise—it is an attempt at reconciliation. I do not support the word “union” for the very sensible reasons that have been given. I think that there has to be the word “marriage”—I am, with regret, converted to that now—but I believe that we have to seek a middle way. If we do not, there will be many people out there listening who will be even more upset than people in this House.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I wonder whether I might make some brief comments, bearing in mind the time. I would like to add to what has been said. It has largely been lawyers who have spoken, and I very much hope that noble Lords will not give less weight to the names on this first amendment or to the lawyers who have supported it. That is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, has just said, inevitable because we know what goes on on the ground. As a former judge, hearing mostly legal aid cases, I have clear knowledge of what happens on the ground.

The lawyers who have spoken are all very distinguished. They have done a great deal in the past and indeed are still doing it. What they have to say should resonate with all Members of this House because these are not party political issues. I very much hope that no noble Lord will make them party political issues. Seeing as people have spoken from all sides of the House, it would be good if no one spoke any longer in a party political way. This issue is too important for us to do so.

To recognise and accept the amendment would not drive a coach and horses through the Bill. On the contrary, it recognises financial restraints and in my view is very shrewdly phrased. I do not believe that it has the effect that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, was suggesting. There is nothing to stop us dealing with other areas where we would say it is necessary to have legal aid and it would not be possible for the Government to say that such legal aid should not be forthcoming. However, one has to recognise reality. We have to recognise that not every aspect of the current legal aid bill can continue to be paid. There are areas highlighted by amendments—some of them my own and some from other noble Lords—which we have to look at and say that there should not be cuts. One example of that is private law.

This amendment sets out in simple language the right of citizens to have access to justice in general terms. It is an amendment that would be extremely difficult to oppose and I strongly support it.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords—