Humanist Marriage

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

I do not think that I need to remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. As everyone can see, a large number of people would like to speak, so rather than impose a rigid timescale, I will be grateful if you could all be kind to one another and speak for approximately four minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I also declare an interest as a member of the all-party parliamentary humanist group. I rise to speak about the arguments advanced in the past against legal recognition of humanist marriages and why I do not think they hold much weight. However, I will start with my personal situation.

I got married last year. My husband and I would have loved to have had a legally recognised humanist marriage, but because of the previous Government’s endless delays, we were denied that chance. A couple of years ago, I wrote to my MP—not me, but the former Conservative Member for Stourbridge—asking that the matter be resolved following the High Court ruling. The response I got was positive, saying that there was an ambition to remedy the situation, but clearly they were not ambitious enough.

My husband and I chose to marry at the Thomas Robinson building in Stourbridge, which is a beautiful old chapel converted to a register office. We asked about having a humanist celebrant lead the proceedings but were told that would not be possible. We would have needed a separate ceremony, which would have meant not only an additional cost to our budget and organising another event, but that our legally recognised marriage would not have been meaningful to our beliefs.

The registrar offered us a choice of wording for the ceremony from extremely religious to completely neutral. The neutral wording suited us best, but it stripped away all meaning and sentiment along with the religious references. As humanists, we believe in compassion, reason and ethical approaches to human life, giving people the right and responsibility to give meaning to shape their own lives, which makes the denial of humanist marriage even more ironic.

In opening the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) referred to a new briefing from Melanie Field about why the Government should legally recognise humanist marriages. If anyone is an expert on this matter, it is Melanie. She literally led for the civil service on the Marriage Act and our Equality Act 2010. Her time at the EHRC further demonstrates her human rights expertise and no one else has been as intimately involved in both bits of legislation, so when she says that the case for making a humanist marriage order is overwhelming, that should surely carry some authority.

In Melanie’s briefing, she considers the 2020 High Court judgment. As we have heard, the judge ruled that

“there is a continuing discriminatory impact upon those who seek to manifest their humanist beliefs through marriage”,

but that it could be justified, “at this time”, by the then ongoing Law Commission review. Melanie says that this may now be different. Five years have passed since that judgment and three since the review concluded, and no action has since occurred. Obviously, that is first and foremost the fault of the previous Government, but the upshot, Melanie thinks, is that it is possible that the Court would now reach a different conclusion should a further case be brought, and that the case for removing the discrimination against humanists by making an order under the power in the marriage Act, even if done as an interim measure pending wider reform, therefore seems overwhelming.

Melanie considers various concerns raised against that course of action, mainly in a 2014 consultation run by the Conservatives. I will run through them briefly. First, a concern was expressed that the change would lead to inconsistencies with outdoor marriages. Those inconsistencies already exist, as we have heard, with some religious groups already able to hold outdoor marriages. Civil marriages also started happening outdoors in 2021. Secondly, she considers the concern that it would be unfair to allow humanist marriages on approved premises when religious groups cannot have them. She thinks it would be lawful because humanists may have intrinsic belief-based reasons to want their marriages on approved premises.

Thirdly, Melanie considers concerns that there may be other belief groups who could try to gain legal recognition, but no such other groups exist or have been identified. Fourthly, she refers to the supposed risk of commercialisation. Again, no evidence is offered that that would happen, and, as we have heard, in Scotland and Northern Ireland there are laws prohibiting profit and gain by religious or humanist celebrants. Finally, she considers the desirability—or otherwise—of piecemeal reform, and any added complexity that might arise in the law, but she thinks that this concern is insignificant when set against the context of people being denied their human rights.

Melanie also notes that the supposed solution to this issue, the Law Commission reforms, have been criticised by religious groups and others, including for devaluing marriage in a way that means they do not in fact appear to be a simple solution. She also notes that the previous Government pursued many piecemeal marriage reforms while saying that they were against such measures.

In conclusion, the humanist marriage order is not complex. It is a simple, cost-neutral change. It just recreates for humanists the legal provisions that already exist for Quakers. They are tried and tested, and they should be extended so that other couples are not refused their rights as I was.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

I am afraid that I will now impose a four-minute limit on speeches. I apologise to people for coughing, and will endeavour not to. Please do not be too distracted by me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

First of all, it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Dame Siobhain. Secondly, it is also a pleasure to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) set out in this debate the reasons for humanist marriages and why they should be recognised.

On the question of humanist marriages being recognised, I ask myself why they are not. What is the problem? My hon. Friend made what I think amounts to an unimpeachable case as to why marriages of this nature should be facilitated, as other types and classifications of marriage are, and I thank Humanists UK for the briefing that it sent. I thought, “Shall I throw in some facts and figures?” No, I think other people are much better at that than I would be. It still comes back to the question of why we are debating this issue so many years on. I am not quite sure why we should have to reiterate this request time after time after time. But we are where we are, so I decided to participate in the debate with my tuppence-worth.

I wondered what my approach should be. As you know, Dame Siobhain, we think very carefully about these matters. As I said—facts, figures, statistics? I decided not to do that. Rhetoric has its place in debate. Who has not used rhetoric in their day? What about a little bit of polemic? Should I throw a little bit of polemic in? I decided not to. What about an historical examination of the nature of marriage going back thousands of years, because marriage predates, for example, any current religious timeline in relation to the concept? I decided not to do that, either.

Perhaps taking a different perspective might add a different angle to the debate—on the nature of marriage, so to speak. Indeed, who is impartial to a quote here or there from literature in one form or another? I began to think laterally, which I have to admit is a big challenge for me in most circumstances. I looked to my constituency for inspiration—it is a fantastic place to do so. A number of streets that date back to the 19th century that are named after characters in Shakespearean plays. On the surface, they are just street names. But lo and behold, they are named after characters who were married and who faced terrible challenges in getting married.

What has that got to do with what we are talking about today? That is a fair question. It elucidates that the debate must, in part, be about the nature of marriage, the commitment of marriage, and marriage in good faith. It must also be about the wishes of the people concerned to marry as they see fit, without duress and with, of course, appropriate safeguarding mechanisms. It is also about giving those who choose to do so the capacity to marry as they see fit, and for the process to be recognised as other marriages and ceremonies are.

Shakespeare uses marriage as one of the most prominent themes, if not the most prominent, in his repertoire. Does he talk about the service? No. Does he talk about the legalistic nature of it? No. He focuses on the personal nature of marriage: the relationships, the tensions, the feelings, as Beatrice and Benedick realise when they acknowledge, reluctantly, that they are to become partners in marriage. So, let us leave the last words to Shakespeare:

“Marriage is a matter of more worth

Than to be dealt in by attorneyship.”

This debate should not be much ado about nothing.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Just to warn the Front Benchers, I am going to reduce your time to nine minutes in order to keep the time limit for Back Benchers at four minutes.