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

Lord Kilclooney Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 1st February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman]

My Lords, if noble Lords will allow me, there is a wonderful song, which I think is from “Cabaret”, called “Mr Cellophane”. I feel like the noble Lord, Lord Cellophane—“they look right through you”. It was remiss of me in my contribution not to specifically mention the professor the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, and I worked with on trying to bring forward a Bill on this very subject. It was of course Professor Paul Johnson of the University of York.

[Lord Kilclooney (CB)]

My Lords, the Northern Ireland Assembly approved same-sex marriage but it was rejected by the procedures of the Northern Ireland Assembly by a petition of concern. When we drew up the Belfast agreement and the petition of concern was created, it was intended to be used so that one political party would not impose its will on another on issues such as economics, social policy or constitutional politics. I do not think it was ever considered the means for one community to impose its moral standards on another. The basic problem here is that the petition of concern has been used to negative the decision of the Assembly. What needs to be addressed is whether the petition of concern should be amended to ensure that it is not used by any religious minority to impose its will on others.

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

My Lords, I will be brief. I welcome those last comments because the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, has today offered us a way forward that addresses the issue of devolution and the role of the Assembly. The journey that everyone has been on, which I referred to earlier, has also been taken by the DUP. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, is no longer here; when I used to visit Northern Ireland on many occasions as a trade union official, I would never have dreamed that I would see the DUP leadership on a Gay Pride march, but we have seen that. We have seen them engage with the LGBT community. So I am not pessimistic. This is a really good way to show the people of Northern Ireland that we want them to have equal rights, and this is a clear way of doing so without affecting devolution.