Humanist Weddings

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress has been made to enable legal humanist weddings.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede) (Lab)]

My Lords, the strength of feeling around legally recognising humanist weddings is clear. I assure my noble friend that the Government understand the issues, including the key importance not just of weddings but of marriage itself, and we are looking at them with the utmost care. As the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, my honourable friend Alex Davies-Jones, said in the other place a couple of weeks ago, our officials are working on this issue “at pace” and an update “will come soon”.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that and I apologise to the House for the fact that I have persistently been asking this question for the last few years. I am channelling my noble friend Lord Rooker on folic acid, and I just hope it is not going to take me quite as long as it took him to win that argument. As my noble friend has said, the Minister responsible for matter in the other place said that

“officials are working on this at pace”,—[Official Report, Commons, 12/6/25; col. 454WH.]

but she said that they were working at pace on the position of wedding law reform, so while there may be the slightest glimmer of hope, I am rather worried that law reform looks like it may take years. Therefore, I re-ask my noble friend whether we are looking at months or years for humanists not be left at the altar any longer.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

As I think my noble friend acknowledges, this is indeed a very complex issue which goes far beyond humanist marriage. The Law Commission highlighted the complexities of the law in this area and concluded that exercising the order-making power, which is what I think my noble friend wants us to do, is not, in its view, a viable option. We believe, as a responsive Government, that we need to look at the wider picture. I say to my noble friend that when we say we are working at pace on this issue, that is indeed true: we do want to resolve the wide-ranging discrepancies within wedding law across England and Wales.