Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Mark Field Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

Amendment 10 seeks to make a substantive change to the way in which adultery and non-consummation are treated. The Bill does not need to make such changes for the purpose of opposite-sex marriages, and I think that we ought to look carefully at the implications of their removal as key concepts in marriage law. I therefore urge Members not to press the amendment.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of us—even on this side of the House—are firmly in favour of same-sex marriage, and voted and will vote for it on Second and Third Reading, but are none the less very concerned about the lack of equality that applies to civil partnerships? We want the Government to act on that with some urgency. However, we also want to make clear that those of us who would otherwise have supported some of the Government’s amendments are trying not to wreck the Bill but trying to make it better, and to ensure that the concept of equality applies to civil partnership as well as marriage.

[Maria Miller]

I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s intentions. I assure him that we intend to proceed swiftly with the review of civil partnerships, although we naturally want to take full account of discussions of the Bill in the other place. We would not want to pre-empt those discussions by embarking on a review before their conclusion, but we will certainly consider how we can proceed with a consultation speedily, given the strength of feeling.

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[Tim Loughton]

An awful lot of rubbish has been spoken and reported in the media over the last few days: not all of it has been attributed to me. There have been claims of wrecking amendments, of leadership bids, of Front-Bench mischief and of U-turns. Members will be forgiven for being in a state of some confusion as to where we have arrived at tonight, therefore.

Let me explain what I can make out from the late amendments put before us. We appear to have a last-minute amendment from the Government to kick the whole issue into the long grass. The Government have now put the frighteners on the Opposition, who have tabled a last-minute manuscript amendment to a last-minute new clause on the basis of spurious figures and non-existent delay, aimed at kicking the new clauses into the slightly less long grass. We have now just heard from the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) that the Opposition would like the review to be done and dusted and to have reported before the Bill is passed, so that such a provision can be added through amendments to it. I do not think that that is the grubby deal that those on the Front Bench have negotiated and there is a degree of misunderstanding that must be clarified.

Today we have also heard the Deputy Prime Minister urging hon. Friends in his party to vote against a measure that is party policy for the Liberal Democrats— but we have been there before. We have also had the extraordinary scene of certain hon. Members, who have signed up to new clauses 10 and 11 and have spoken in favour of them in other places, to opinion pollsters and in Committee, now being apparently prepared to do a complete volte-face by voting this evening against something with which they apparently agree in principle. I am very confused.

[Mark Field]

I hope that I will not add to my hon. Friend’s confusion, but does he not accept that the amendment proposed by the Opposition—even though it is late in the day—at least means that there will be some urgency about the issue of equality in civil partnerships, which is close not just to his heart but to mine? With that, we can at least begin to make some progress.

[Tim Loughton]

I hope that we have achieved something, in that a provision that the Government thought was not necessary only days and weeks ago has become a matter that merits review, albeit at least five years away and with no guarantee that it will take place. Now it has apparently become a bit more urgent. We seem to be moving in the right direction, but the extraordinary thing is that everyone seems to agree that the change is right in principle. If it is right in principle, it should be right in practice and this is the Bill through which it can be achieved.

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[Tim Loughton]

There is a trade-off, because if the Bill goes through in its current form an inequality will be created and there will be a delay—we do not know for how long—for opposite-sex couples, who are unable to access civil partnerships, with no commitment that it will be addressed, while same-sex partners will be able to access marriages in fairly short order.

I have a few more remarks to make on how quickly I think that can happen. I think that the whole argument about delay is a complete red herring. The cost of £4 billion is completely and utterly spurious. I asked for a Library note on the cost impact assessments done at the time of the Civil Partnership Act 2004. Part of it says that the cost to the Government was divided between total one-off fixed costs of £19.8 million for changes in administration and rising annual costs each year in both low and high take-up scenarios. The annual cost to the Government in 2010 was estimated at £1.5 million for the low take-up scenario and £3 million for the high-take up scenario, and that that would rise to £11.6 million and £22.2 million a year in each scenario by 2050. The components of the annual costs were state pensions for spouses and bereavement benefits for surviving civil partners, and public funding for civil partnership dissolutions. The note refers throughout to tens of millions of pounds, but nowhere near the figure in the billions that has been plucked out of the air with absolutely no empirical evidence and which was never intended as an official impact assessment from the DWP when the Pensions Minister made his statement to the Joint Committee on Human Rights last week.

[Mark Field]

Does my hon. Friend not see that the amendments proposed tonight, particularly from those on the Opposition Front Bench, would go a considerable way towards what he is trying to achieve? I share some of his concerns about the spurious figures in the billions that we all heard quoted on the radio this morning, which seem to have been plucked from the sky, and about the talk of a massive delay, but does he not realise that the urgency with which we are now looking at this, because of amendment (a), means that in the House of Lords there will be a rapid sense of trying to move ahead in the time frame he has in mind? I regret, as he probably does, that these things often happen in the other place, rather than here in the House of Commons, but does he not recognise that he has won most of the battle? Instead of making the strong case he is making, with which I think many of us agree, why does he not recognise that he has won much of the battle and can happily withdraw his new clause?

[Tim Loughton]

If what my hon. Friend has just said were true, I would be delighted, but I think that what the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said might have raised a few eyebrows on the Government Front Bench. If she is saying that part of the deal is that the review, which would be an added consultation on the back of the one we had before the Bill was introduced, will take place and result in concrete proposals coming forward that can be added to the Bill before it completes its passage through both Houses, I would be perfectly happy, but I do not think that will happen. I do not see how it can happen given the complexities that the Secretary of State has claimed still need to be addressed as regards all the legislative changes, costs, and so on.