Lewis Atkinson
Main Page: Lewis Atkinson (Labour - Sunderland Central)Department Debates - View all Lewis Atkinson's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(2 days, 21 hours ago)
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Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under you, Dame Siobhain. Like others, I commend the hon. Member for Henley and Thame (Freddie van Mierlo) and my hon. Friends the Members for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) and for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) on securing this debate.
In 2009, I got married in the National Glass Centre in my constituency, in a humanist ceremony. Because, as other hon. Members have mentioned, that ceremony was not legally binding, we had to get legally married two days earlier in Sunderland Civic Centre. Choosing a humanist married reflected the shared values of my wife and me. With our humanist celebrant, we thoughtfully worked through what we wanted to say, and the commitments that we wanted to make to each other.
I would love to say that every marriage ends in a “happily ever after”. The hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) was right to draw attention to the lower divorce rates statistic. Unfortunately, my marriage has resulted in a separation. That is a cause of sadness for me, but the shared humanist values that we committed to when we embarked on our marriage still provide an enduring basis for a positive relationship between my wife and I to co-parent our children. Even if, unfortunately, “happily ever after” is not possible in every marriage, humanist values and celebrations have significant value in bringing children up, as other hon. Members have stated in this debate. I intend to do further work in this Parliament on positive parenting in separated families.
For the meat of my contribution, I will highlight how society has changed over the last 12 years, since the Government first gained the power to enact legal recognition of humanist marriages. Others have mentioned the steps made in nations of the UK other than England and Wales. I highlight the ongoing growth in the number of census respondents who are humanist or non-religious. The share of people ticking “no religion” in the census rose from 25% in 2011 to 37% in 2021—a significant rise. Around two thirds of people who get married are between the ages of 25 and 39, and among that group 48% of people ticked that they had “no religion” in the census.
The current law essentially means that around half of people of normal marriageable age are being denied the choice of having a legally binding marriage that conforms with their beliefs. More widely, we have seen other advances for humanism in the last 12 years. Humanism is increasingly becoming a recognised part of the school religious education syllabus. Humanists are now officially included in national moments, such as the service of remembrance and Holocaust Memorial Day. They provide input into the moral and ethical issues of our time. I worked in the NHS during the covid pandemic, and humanists were officially consulted on, and contributed to, some of the advice that we received from the Department of Health and Social Care’s moral and ethical advisory group.
A lot has happened in 12 years, yet humanist marriages are still not legally recognised. As others have said, it is overdue that we change that. The order is drafted and ready to go. We have had to wait far too long for this already. I look forward to hearing how we can get this done as quickly as possible.