Humanist Marriage

Cat Eccles Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I also declare an interest as a member of the all-party parliamentary humanist group. I rise to speak about the arguments advanced in the past against legal recognition of humanist marriages and why I do not think they hold much weight. However, I will start with my personal situation.

I got married last year. My husband and I would have loved to have had a legally recognised humanist marriage, but because of the previous Government’s endless delays, we were denied that chance. A couple of years ago, I wrote to my MP—not me, but the former Conservative Member for Stourbridge—asking that the matter be resolved following the High Court ruling. The response I got was positive, saying that there was an ambition to remedy the situation, but clearly they were not ambitious enough.

My husband and I chose to marry at the Thomas Robinson building in Stourbridge, which is a beautiful old chapel converted to a register office. We asked about having a humanist celebrant lead the proceedings but were told that would not be possible. We would have needed a separate ceremony, which would have meant not only an additional cost to our budget and organising another event, but that our legally recognised marriage would not have been meaningful to our beliefs.

The registrar offered us a choice of wording for the ceremony from extremely religious to completely neutral. The neutral wording suited us best, but it stripped away all meaning and sentiment along with the religious references. As humanists, we believe in compassion, reason and ethical approaches to human life, giving people the right and responsibility to give meaning to shape their own lives, which makes the denial of humanist marriage even more ironic.

In opening the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) referred to a new briefing from Melanie Field about why the Government should legally recognise humanist marriages. If anyone is an expert on this matter, it is Melanie. She literally led for the civil service on the Marriage Act and our Equality Act 2010. Her time at the EHRC further demonstrates her human rights expertise and no one else has been as intimately involved in both bits of legislation, so when she says that the case for making a humanist marriage order is overwhelming, that should surely carry some authority.

In Melanie’s briefing, she considers the 2020 High Court judgment. As we have heard, the judge ruled that

“there is a continuing discriminatory impact upon those who seek to manifest their humanist beliefs through marriage”,

but that it could be justified, “at this time”, by the then ongoing Law Commission review. Melanie says that this may now be different. Five years have passed since that judgment and three since the review concluded, and no action has since occurred. Obviously, that is first and foremost the fault of the previous Government, but the upshot, Melanie thinks, is that it is possible that the Court would now reach a different conclusion should a further case be brought, and that the case for removing the discrimination against humanists by making an order under the power in the marriage Act, even if done as an interim measure pending wider reform, therefore seems overwhelming.

Melanie considers various concerns raised against that course of action, mainly in a 2014 consultation run by the Conservatives. I will run through them briefly. First, a concern was expressed that the change would lead to inconsistencies with outdoor marriages. Those inconsistencies already exist, as we have heard, with some religious groups already able to hold outdoor marriages. Civil marriages also started happening outdoors in 2021. Secondly, she considers the concern that it would be unfair to allow humanist marriages on approved premises when religious groups cannot have them. She thinks it would be lawful because humanists may have intrinsic belief-based reasons to want their marriages on approved premises.

Thirdly, Melanie considers concerns that there may be other belief groups who could try to gain legal recognition, but no such other groups exist or have been identified. Fourthly, she refers to the supposed risk of commercialisation. Again, no evidence is offered that that would happen, and, as we have heard, in Scotland and Northern Ireland there are laws prohibiting profit and gain by religious or humanist celebrants. Finally, she considers the desirability—or otherwise—of piecemeal reform, and any added complexity that might arise in the law, but she thinks that this concern is insignificant when set against the context of people being denied their human rights.

Melanie also notes that the supposed solution to this issue, the Law Commission reforms, have been criticised by religious groups and others, including for devaluing marriage in a way that means they do not in fact appear to be a simple solution. She also notes that the previous Government pursued many piecemeal marriage reforms while saying that they were against such measures.

In conclusion, the humanist marriage order is not complex. It is a simple, cost-neutral change. It just recreates for humanists the legal provisions that already exist for Quakers. They are tried and tested, and they should be extended so that other couples are not refused their rights as I was.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

I am afraid that I will now impose a four-minute limit on speeches. I apologise to people for coughing, and will endeavour not to. Please do not be too distracted by me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Davies-Jones]

It is important to ensure we do this properly. I am against any piecemeal reform here. If we are to do this, we need to do it properly and together, so that it is succinct. There are ways that that can be done, as I am about to come on to.

I acknowledge the calls made during this debate for the Government to take that step, and to take it quickly, and I will address them directly. Although it is true that using the order-making power would allow non-religious belief organisations to marry within the current framework of weddings law, it is important for us to take into account what the Law Commission has said about doing that. The Law Commission highlighted the complexities of the law in this area and concluded that exercising the order-making power is not, in its view, a viable option. As a responsible Government, we must take that view into account when considering the issue of weddings reform.

[Cat Eccles]

Does the Minister agree that those measures already exist for Quakers? Humanists are not asking for a huge change in the law.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I totally agree, and I recognise that point, which I have addressed in terms of Jews and Quakers; this is about equality before the law, but we need to recognise the concerns raised by the Law Commission about what making that change on its own could entail. We need to look at this in the round, which is exactly what the Government are doing.

I know that the hon. Members who secured this debate will be disappointed when I say that it would not be responsible for the Government to ignore the Law Commission’s report, but we cannot ignore the fact that the report identified a number of complex and significant recommendations. It is absolutely essential that those are considered carefully and in full, and that is exactly what we are doing. I stress that that does not mean the issue of humanist marriage is being overlooked. On the contrary, the Government are actively considering the matter of humanist weddings as part of their broader review of the Law Commission’s report.

As I have said, we are considering the issues very carefully. Although I know hon. Members will be disappointed that the Government have not yet made commitments in relation to the issue, I hope the debate today has at least provided some assurance that the Government understands and hear the strength of feeling on the issues, including the key importance not just of weddings, but of marriage itself, and that we are looking into them with the utmost care and attention. I hope that assures hon. Members that I very much sympathise with humanists’ wish for legally binding weddings. I am happy to confirm—and say “I do”—that my officials are working on this at pace, and that an update on the Government’s position on weddings law reform will come soon. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth, we may not yet be able to set the date, but we can certainly start planning.