Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

David Drew Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I have precisely the statistics that my hon. Friend is looking for. If she is patient for a few minutes longer, I will give her exactly that information.

Such people are mostly in committed loving relationships, but if they do not want to go for a traditional marriage, they have no way of having that recognised in the eyes of the state. That brings me on to the third main rationale for this reform—I promise that I will then come to my hon. Friend’s point. Particularly worrying is the common misconception that there is such a thing as a common-law wife or husband, as a woman typically finds out abruptly on the death of the partner when there is an inheritance tax bill on the estate and potentially on the family home. If a woman has a child with her partner and the relationship breaks down, she is not entitled to any form of financial support if they are not married. There is no automatic entitlement to property, even if she had been paying into the mortgage.

When one partner is much older than the other and there is a reasonable expectation that one will die some years before the other, the long-term survivor would not receive the same tax benefits as a married woman or those in a civil partnership. That would be discriminatory towards the couples’ children. The same vulnerabilities can apply if one partner does a runner. Even a couple engaged to be married have more rights than a cohabiting opposite-sex couple.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not want to stop the hon. Gentleman’s flow, but he will be aware of the work of Resolution, the family solicitors group, which has a Cohabitation Awareness Week. It has drawn my attention, and I am sure that of many other hon. Members, to the lack of rights and the fact that people are totally ignorant about their lack of rights, if there is a breakdown or a loss of one of the cohabiting parents. Hopefully this change in the law will put that right.

[Tim Loughton]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful for his intervention. I was not aware of the Cohabitation Awareness Week, but many family law solicitors have written to me and support the campaign, because they see the fall-out when this goes wrong. People come to them thinking that they had entitlements and legal status because they had been living together for so long, but they suddenly find out that they do not. They have a tax bill and lots of problems and headaches, and their children do not have a home to live in. If anything, I hope that the Bill will help to publicise that real problem in the law that the Government need to address at some stage. I am giving them the opportunity to take the bull by the horns and get on and do something about it now.

The question is: why should not those who have made a conscious choice not to go for a traditional marriage have the opportunity to have the same legal rights, responsibilities and protections in the eyes of the law that we, rightly and not before time, extended to same-sex couples back in 2004? There are also several further applications. Many people with strong religious beliefs—particularly Catholics who have ended up getting divorced, which is in conflict with certain religious teachings—may not be inclined to get married again if they meet a new partner, because their Church supposedly believes that they should be married for life. In many cases, however, they would be able to reconcile that position by entering into a new formal commitment through an opposite-sex civil partnership. In addition, as it stands, someone admitting to being in a civil partnership currently automatically carries the revelation that they are in a same-sex relationship. That could be an unintended invasion of their privacy when some may wish to keep that private. There are a number of practical, real-life scenarios in which civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples could achieve something very positive and non-discriminatory.

I am pleased with the widespread support that the measure has attracted. The Marriage Foundation, for example, has gone on record as saying that it “fully supports” the Bill

“to introduce civil partnerships for heterosexual couples. It is a strong pro-family measure which, crucially, encourages commitment and stability. By making civil partnerships available to heterosexual couples, we would provide a new, formal basis for those who want to make a solid and legally backed commitment to one another but who prefer not to marry for whatever reason.”

I also welcome the support from The Times and the campaign spearheaded by Frances Gibb as part of that newspaper’s family law reform campaign. I see this measure as an important part of reforming family law and making family arrangements fit for the 21st century. We need to grasp the nettle on no-fault divorces and bring relationships into the modern age, and we need to find new ways for the state to recognise committed relationships and give stability, especially to the children within them. Making sure that shared parenting works and keeping warring parents out of the courts, where their children become bargaining chips, still needs further work too.

I come to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). Opposite-sex civil partnerships are not something that has been cooked up in this country. In South Africa, the Civil Union Act 2006 gave same-sex and opposite-sex couples the option to register a civil union by way of a marriage or a civil partnership on the same basis. In France, the pacte civil de solidarité—or PACS, as it is known—was introduced in 1999 as a form of civil union between two adults of the same sex or the opposite sex. A few years ago, marriage was added to that. Interestingly, one in 10 PACS has been dissolved in France, yet one in three marriages ends in divorce. There is evidence that some of those civil partnerships have created greater stability, whether they are opposite-sex or same-sex partnerships, than traditional marriage.

No complications are involved in my proposal. I want opposite-sex civil partnerships to be offered on exactly the same basis as same-sex civil partnerships, notwithstanding the earlier comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). It would not be possible for someone to become a civil partner with a close family member, or if that person was already in a union, and the partnership would need to be subject to the same termination criteria.

It is a simple proposal, and surely the case is now overwhelming. All that would be required is a simple one-line amendment to the Civil Partnership Act 2004. It could all be done and dusted in Committee by tea time—although I guess that by the time drafting officials have got their teeth into it, many more clauses will be required. That is what I originally intended in the Bill and put forward in my amendment to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 and subsequent ten-minute rule Bill and presentation Bills.

I acknowledge, however, that the Government have concerns about taking the full plunge and going the whole hog at this stage, and want to carry out further research about the demand and practicalities for such a reform. I have doubts about what that would achieve, given that, as hon. Friends have mentioned, we have had two public consultations on the subject in the last five years, and we now have 13 years’ worth of civil partnerships for same-sex couples in practice from which to garner evidence. However, I recognise the Government’s caution, and in securing a clear commitment to learn from the experience so far and promote equality further, I hope that they will come to the same conclusion as I have, together with the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign and the now more than 80,000 people who have signed a petition in support, many of whom have been enthusiastically lobbying their MPs in recent weeks.

There is a growing tide of support for the measure, fuelled by a court case that is currently destined to go before the Supreme Court in May. I pay tribute to Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, who have pioneered equal civil partnerships and whose application for a civil partnership to the authorities in Kensington and Chelsea triggered this campaign.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I am very conscious that I must not comment on an individual case. The Government intend to get on with this piece of work, frankly regardless of whether the House permits this Bill to have its Second Reading, although I sense that it will not come to that. This piece of work will be commenced immediately because we are determined to resolve the matter.

The work to which we are committing involves four elements. First, we are committing to continue our existing work on assessing the relative take-up of civil partnership and marriage among same-sex couples. Since 2013, when marriage was introduced for same-sex couples, an increasing number of couples have chosen marriage instead of civil partnerships. We do not know, however, whether the current levels of demand will be sustained or whether they will change over time.

We currently have only two full years of data for civil partnership formation following the introduction of marriage for same-sex couples. Given the scale and significance of the decision, it is proportionate to gather more data so that we can be sure that demand has stabilised. Our assessment is that we will have a proportionate amount of evidence by September 2019 to be confident in assessing the ongoing level of demand for civil partnerships among same-sex couples.

The second piece of work that we are committing to undertake relates to those already in civil partnerships. We continue to consider whether phasing out civil partnerships for same-sex couples is the best way forward. We want to approach the issue sensitively and delicately because it would be wrong to rush towards a decision without understanding how it would affect same-sex couples who continue to opt for a civil partnership and who do not wish to convert their civil partnership into a marriage. We are therefore committing to undertake research with same-sex couples to understand their motivations for forming and remaining in a civil partnership, and what they may do if the evidence drives us to remove them.

The third piece of work we are committing to is to undertake surveys to understand the demand for civil partnership among opposite-sex unmarried couples. Our previous consultations did not suggest that a significant number of opposite-sex couples wished to enter a civil partnership. Indeed, the most recent survey, which was conducted in 2014—admittedly, with a relatively small number of respondents—suggested that people would not wish for an extension of civil partnerships. But rather than relying on that survey, we want to conduct a thorough survey to ensure that our evidence is accurate and up to date when it comes to assessing the demand for civil partnerships from opposite-sex partners.

The fourth piece of work will be a review of what has happened in other countries when they have been faced with similar choices. This is an important part of the evidence base. Although drawn from a different social context, the experience of other countries gives us information on the choices couples actually make when offered the choice between marriage and another form of legal recognition, such as civil partnerships.

[Dr Drew]

Would the Minister consider a fifth piece of work? She heard my intervention on the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). I suggest a piece of work to publicise the lack of rights that co-habiting couples have if that partnership breaks down. There is just no awareness at all of that lack of rights, so anything that the Government can do to get people at least to check what their rights are would be very helpful.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill (First sitting)

David Drew Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 18th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

Any change involving coroners’ investigations will not replace the important role that the NHS plays here already. It will supplement and support it, and will ensure that coroners can contribute to the learning and to playing a role in reducing the stillbirth rate. I urge the Committee to allow the clause to stand part of the Bill.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Just so I am absolutely clear, is the hon. Gentleman saying that the matter can be handled through regulation, and the whole matter will be clarified? Or will we have to revisit it?

[Tim Loughton]

The clause is an enabling clause. It gives Ministers the power to give authority to coroners to investigate stillbirths. It empowers them to do that by amending the 2009 Act; the matter would not need to be revisited. The exact terms on which Ministers will give the power is subject to the report that is being prepared.

To return to the hon. Gentleman’s amendments, the work is happening now and a number of coroners have contributed to it, including the West Sussex coroner, Penelope Schofield, who brought the issue to me and asked me to include it in the Bill in the first place. She has been impressed by the input of the officials involved, and by the progress that the group preparing the report is making. For example, there seems to be a consensus for giving coroners powers to investigate full-term stillbirths—at 37 weeks onwards. Those are the ones that might be considered least likely, in comparison to those closer to 24 weeks, when the position is more delicate, and therefore more questions need to be asked. In some cases it might require a coroner to ask those questions.

That is probably a good starting point, and if, with experience of coroners investigations, it appears that the term in question should be brought forward, the issue can be revisited later. However, an important starting point is set out, which will give confidence to parents who have suffered a stillbirth that in a small number of cases—it is not a question of flooding coroners with an awful lot of additional work—if the questions have not been answered, the full independence and weight of open inquiry that a coroner can bring to bear will be available to them.

Coroners have made it clear to me that they are sufficiently resourced to deal with the likely demand. As well as being important for parents, the change could mean a financial saving, because getting to the bottom of why many stillbirths happen would make it possible to learn more. We might avoid some long drawn-out and contentious legal cases, on which the NHS pays out a lot of money.

For the reasons I have set out, I urge hon. Members to support the clause—and amendment 15 to the long title. I hope that my assurances will enable the hon. Member for Harrow West to withdraw what he says, because the intention is for coroners to do the work. I think that there was a worry that it would not be coroners, but the measure is all about coroners.

There has been good progress with the report, and I hope that more information may come back even before Report, to be confirmed in the Bill. However, the clause is an enabling clause that would give the Secretary of State the power to allow coroners to investigate stillbirths.