Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Bill

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 1st March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 1 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Collins of Highbury. This amendment is similar, but not identical, to the amendment I moved in Committee. The changes I have made to it reflect the concerns expressed in that debate by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and the briefing note I subsequently received from Church House.

Your Lordships will be aware that under the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 the Church of England and the Church in Wales are subject to what is called the “quadruple lock”. The first three elements of that lock apply to all religions, but the fourth states that the common law duty of the Church of England and the Church in Wales to marry parishioners does not apply and that the canon law of the Church of England does not conflict with, and is not overridden by, civil law. So those churches are exempted from the general ability of a religious organisation to opt in to perform same-sex marriages. The Church of England can change those provisions through measures, and the Lord Chancellor can make similar changes in respect of the Church in Wales with its approval. My amendment gives the Secretary of State a duty to make the sort of changes that the Church might otherwise make through measures—or the Lord Chancellor, in the case of Wales—while maintaining the quadruple lock as far as possible.

This amendment differs from the amendment I moved in Committee by virtue of proposed new subsection (4). Paragraph (a) preserves the position of canon law; paragraph (b) preserves the exemption for same-sex marriages from the common law duty of members of the clergy to solemnise the marriages of their parishioners; and paragraph (c) reserves the carve-out from the Equality Act that allows religious organisations or ministers to refuse to conduct a same-sex marriage.

I hope that your Lordships, and in particular my good friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, will agree that this is a modest amendment. It simply says to the Church of England and the Church in Wales that Parliament will not stand in their way when they eventually get round to extending the right to marry in church to same-sex couples.

I also hope that this debate will have another consequence: to send to gay people everywhere the message that our society is loving and inclusive and that there is room for everyone in it. I must tell your Lordships that the main reason I persevered with this amendment was the numerous messages of support I received from the clergy. For example, I received this email from the vicar of St Peter’s Church, Hammersmith, the reverend Charles Clapham:

“I am writing as a Vicar in the Church of England to express my thanks to you for your interventions … in the House of Lords debate, and your support for the amendment to remove (in part) legal restrictions on the ability of Anglican clergy to solemnise same-sex marriages.


You will know this is an extremely contentious issue in the Church of England at present. But I hope you will also be aware that there are very large numbers of clergy and lay people who are supportive of equal marriage, and would like to be able to conduct such marriages in our churches. As things stand, these views are not being represented by our current House of Bishops.


The response to the amendment by the Bishop of Chelmsford in the chamber … was, to my mind, disappointing, and (to some extent) misleading. The Bishop made reference, for example, to the current ‘Living in Love and Faith’ project being undertaken by House of Bishops which is exploring issues of sexuality and gender. But he did not make clear that the parameters of this project are quite restrictive: it is an educational process only, and will not pronounce on the rights or wrongs of gay marriage (as the chair, the Bishop of Coventry has made clear). So this project will not result in the bishops recommending a change in current church practice regarding equal marriage.


My own parish in west London is hardly radical: we are a very ordinary suburban ‘middle-of-the-road’ Anglican church. But we have a number of LGBT people, some of whom are in civil partnerships or marriages, amongst our most valued parishioners and worshippers. It is a matter of embarrassment (to say the very least) that we are not able to celebrate their relationships formally in church, and a frustration that our bishops are unwilling to represent our views.


So I thank you for your advocacy and support, and do hope you will keep pushing the issue”.


Writing on Facebook on 8 February, the Dean of Leicester, the very reverend David Monteith, who entered into a same-sex civil partnership in 2008, said:

“I’ve had one of those weeks where the reality of being gay in the Church of England came home. I spend a lot of time with many sceptical folks encouraging them to hang in there. I find myself often encouraging others not to be daunted and to believe that one day God’s grace might actually be seen abundantly and more consistently in God’s church. But there are some weeks when it is difficult to know that deeply realised hope in practice as well as in theory. It gets no easier as a ‘senior priest’”.


That comment from David Monteith attracted more than 100 supportive messages, such as:

“With much love and prayer David Monteith. Many people are inspired by the fact that you and others in senior posts are willing to be courageous and prophetic at such personal sacrificial cost”.


Somebody else said:

“Sorry to read this David. I have found The Scottish Episcopal Church to be a kinder place”.


Unfortunately, there are still many examples of negativity in the Church. The Lambeth Conference of bishops is to be held in 2020. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has invited “every active bishop” in the Anglican Communion, and the conference planning group is to run a joint programme for bishops and their spouses. The Lambeth 2020 website says that this is,

“in recognition of the vital role spouses play across the Anglican Communion and a desire to support them in their ministry”—

but not if they are same-sex spouses. I understand that there are three in the Episcopal Church in North America who have effectively been disinvited.

The reverend canon Simon Butler, who is the vicar of St Mary’s, Battersea, and a member of the Church of England’s General Synod since 2005, asked an important question in the debate on the Pilling report on human sexuality at the February 2014 synod:

“My question requires a little context and a large amount of honesty. I’m gay; I don’t have a vocation to celibacy and at the same time I’ve always taken my baptismal and ordination vows with serious intent and with a sincere desire to model my life on the example of Christ simul justus et peccator. Those who have selected me, ordained me and licensed me know all this. My parish know it too.


My question is this: at the end of the process of facilitated conversations will the College of Bishops tell me whether there is a place for people like me as priests, deacons and bishops in the Church, rather than persisting in the existing policy that encourages a massive dishonesty so corrosive to the gospel? For my spiritual health, for the flourishing of people like me as ministers of the gospel and for the health of the wider Church I think we will all need to have an answer to that question”.


I suspect that we will not get the answer to Simon Butler’s question any time soon. However, I hope that, by debating this amendment today, this House will send a message to the Church of England and the Church in Wales—and to the Anglican Communion worldwide—that we in this House, at any rate, think it is time that they moved forward at rather more than the glacial speed we have seen so far. This amendment is intended to help them. I beg to move.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment and very much welcome the introduction by my noble friend, who has set out the issues extremely well. As we heard in Committee, this is about a journey that the Church of England in particular has been on, and there has been some movement. I certainly recall opposition in this House when I was hoping for agreement to civil partnerships going through. That opposition came from the Church of England too, and it delayed my civil partnership by a year, as it happens. However, when we came to the same-sex marriage debate, I welcomed the fact that the most reverend Primate spoke up in favour of civil partnerships. Therefore, there has been movement on the journey and I very much welcome that.

--- Later in debate ---

I started by commenting that I thought time had moved on—that the times were changing and enough was enough. My own relatives have moved back to Belfast. They are constituents in the most marginal constituency in Northern Ireland, Belfast South. They have moved back to Belfast because they believe that the world is changing, and they are some of the most astonishing advocates of the changing nature of Belfast. In moving my amendment today, I hope that the people who want to see the change can and will have the opportunity to know that they and their families can celebrate what we grant to everybody else across the rest of the United Kingdom. I beg to move.

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment, and I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, for continuing to push this issue because it is a fundamental one. It is not unrelated to the debate that we had on Amendment 1, because no one disputes the rights of religious people to determine their own rules and regulations and to determine their view. But freedom of religious belief is also about not imposing on others. That is what this debate is about today.

The debate is also about means. We get stuck into this issue because, at the moment, there are no means to ensure that we treat all our citizens in our United Kingdom in the same way, apart from pushing this sort of legislation. As the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, said, if the majority of people in Northern Ireland so desire to adopt same-sex marriage, at the moment there are no means to do it. The fact of the matter is that there is huge support in Northern Ireland for same-sex marriage. I never thought that I would see the day when a referendum conducted in the Republic of Ireland would result in support for it. In fact, we have seen huge change in communities, and it is about recognising the human rights of individuals. That is what today’s debate is about.

Of course, it is not correct for me to say that there are no means for change because this Parliament has the right, as Ministers have said. I heard the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, in Committee, and I recognise that there is an issue about devolved government and devolved powers. In fact, I am sure that everyone in Northern Ireland who has been campaigning for this would rather that they won it in their own communities and their own Assembly. They would rather have that, but as the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, said, they do not know what means will be available to achieve that at the moment. They are asking for our support and encouragement, and I am certainly prepared to give that.

I agree with the noble Lord that no one wants to hinder or harm the Bill in its progress through Parliament. I certainly do not. I have had many emails from people saying that they do not want to lose their hope of civil partnership, because they have been against marriage as an institution but want to protect their legal rights; civil partnership is a means of doing that for the first time. I certainly do not want to stand in their way, but I also know of the frustration and hurt that many people in Northern Ireland feel because they cannot exercise the same right as the rest of us in celebrating a same-sex marriage.

It is about time, and I hope that this amendment will send a clear message: that our debate today is saying that Parliament must act to address this fundamental denial of equality and human rights. Parliament must act and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, said, this is about having a free vote—a vote that we can all support, across all sections of Parliament.

However, I hope that during this debate we will hear the Minister being able to address the question: if not now, when? If it is not now, will she commit, as my party will, to guaranteeing the next earliest opportunity to ensure that everyone in the United Kingdom has the same rights? We want to hear about progress and a timetable, so I support this amendment.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, perhaps I may make a few brief comments. We have had quite a number of challenges from those who have already spoken on this issue. They recognise, I think, that the Northern Ireland Assembly is the place to decide this matter, and, as a former serving Member of that Assembly, I could not agree more.

We need to keep things in perspective, because it seems to me that a number of debates are contained within one debate today. In our previous debate, about animal welfare, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, said that it would be up to the Northern Ireland Assembly to decide these issues. When asked about the position in relation to Northern Ireland, he said that it was a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly. I wondered then whether the next issue for debate would be a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly. I will repeat what I have said on other occasions in this House: give us the Assembly or give us direct rule. At the moment, we are in no man’s land, and we cannot abide there much longer. Northern Ireland deserves to be governed, just like any other region of the United Kingdom.

There was allusion to the fact that the petition of concern is the problem. Let me make it very clear: at no time did my party ask for a petition of concern to be inserted into the Belfast agreement. We believe that it is very bad government to have it and we will say that anywhere. However, it is there; ironically, at the last talks neither Sinn Féin nor the SDLP wanted it withdrawn. We believe that there is a much better way to do it.

We have to be very careful. If we start cherry picking—saying that we will do this piece of legislation but we will not do that—where will that take us? We can draw only one conclusion. When this House and the other place start to make legislation relating to Northern Ireland, irrespective of the issue—and this is where we get lost sometimes—the message will go out very clearly that both this House and the other place have given up on devolution.

I have said this before and I think it bears repeating: if devolution returns tomorrow—it is unlikely to be tomorrow, since it is Saturday, but we will take Monday—the first through the door will be my party. We will be at the head of the queue. We did not bring the Northern Ireland Assembly down, but, because of the way the Belfast agreement was constructed, one party can at any time bring the whole thing to a halt.

Let us face the elephant in the room. We were told that Sinn Féin could not continue because of RHI. But there has been a public inquiry into RHI and it will make its findings known within months or perhaps weeks—that fox has been shot. What is now holding it up? Sinn Féin has another list of things that it needs—and you can be sure that, once there is any move to bring back the Assembly, another list will appear to say we cannot have devolution because this has to be done. Remember, this is not the first time that the Northern Ireland Assembly has come to a standstill. Noble Lords will recall that there was another occasion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, for the manner in which brought forward his amendment, and the respect with which he has treated those who have different views on this subject. As I have said before, I respect and do not doubt the sincerity of noble Lords who hold different views from me, but nor do I apologise for the views which I hold with deep conviction.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, talked about profound frustration. I suggest to her that she knows nothing about profound frustration when it comes to Northern Ireland. I have been an elected representative—for 25 years in another place, for 37 and a half years in local government and for 15 in the local Assembly—and I know what it is to represent the people. For each of those posts, I was elected by the people, not chosen or given some honour as I have been for this House.

However, there is certainly a profound frustration when it comes to what is happening in Northern Ireland because, as my noble friend Lord Morrow rightly pointed out, it was one party—Sinn Féin, and Sinn Féin alone—that brought the Assembly down. Many in your Lordships’ House seem reticent to condemn or name it for pulling down the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many of these issues could once again be debated in that Assembly, because that is the debating chamber in Northern Ireland under the devolution settlement.

During every debate I have attended that has made reference to the Belfast agreement and to the devolution settlement for Northern Ireland, it has been emphasised and re-emphasised that nothing will be done by this Government or by the Opposition which would undermine that settlement. However, I suggest to noble Lords that these amendments do just that. Whenever this issue was referred to the court, it was acknowledged that it was the prerogative and the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly to debate and decide this issue.

I have been asked a question about when this will be. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, that, in this conversation with Sinn Féin, perhaps we could ask it when it is going to lift the embargo and allow the Assembly to come back into existence, because it and it alone is stopping that. Again, as my noble friend Lord Morrow said, if the Assembly were to be started on Monday morning, my party would be through the door and take its rightful place there. It is Sinn Féin alone that is blocking the Northern Ireland Assembly from coming in to sit. I cannot in good conscience have any knowledge of when the Assembly will come into existence, because I do not know when Sinn Féin will lift or remove its objection and be willing to come back into it.

Let us be quite honest. There are many very demanding issues that need to be decided. For example, people are dying because things are not happening through the health service, which is happening because Ministers are neglecting their position. Many decisions have not been made because Ministers are not there. But it is Sinn Féin alone that is stopping those Ministers from being there—it needs to be pointed to and shown up for what it is doing. There are many issues that Ministers need to decide on, but the Government have decided that no other Minister will come, that devolution must not be undermined and that direct rule will not take place. At this moment, direct rule is certainly not in the offing, and devolution is the only show in town.

While there is a possibility of the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly, I appeal to noble Lords not to close its doors and remove a major plank for the existence of the Assembly in making these issues, as was acknowledged by the court.

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

May I ask the noble Lord one simple question? If the Assembly comes back, will the DUP support this amendment—or this principle of allowing same-sex marriage?