Civil Partnerships Bill

It is a privilege to follow the excellent speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell. I would like to thank my noble friend, Lord Lester, for the hard work that he has put into this Bill. His dedication to this cause springs out of his enormous experience and reputation as a human rights and equal opportunities lawyer. It is informed by great legal wisdom but also by his deep humanity.

This is a very moral Bill. It is about allowing people who are committed to each other to get public recognition and legal support for their partnership and to experience the rituals and rites of passage which affirm and reinforce their mutual love and the legal bolstering which delivers security. Nothing could strengthen society more, than adding to the sum of its commitment, duty, devotion and stability.

I speak not just as an individual firmly in support of this Bill, but as a Liberal Democrat. Our party has adopted support for a civil partnership law as its formal policy. There is, of course, a strong strand of civil rights campaigning in my party which I strongly endorse. But we are also a party strongly influenced by a sense of morality. A high proportion of our members are religious. So I do not accept that to be in favour of a civil partnership law is somehow to weaken the moral basis of society. On the contrary, it reinforces it.

The excellent briefing from Stonewall opens with the remark:

"The traditional stereotype of homosexuals as lonely people forming, at best, casual relationships, is still prevalent."

They could have added that that derogatory stereotype often extends "casual" to "promiscuous". It is a curious paradox that this stereotype coexists, unhappily, with the prejudice against a recognition by society of same-sex partnerships. There is a profound inconsistency between deploring the decline of commitment to long-term relationships--"the breakdown of society"--and refusing support to existing committed partnerships.

Many people were deeply moved by the personal stories that emerged from The Admiral Duncan pub bombing in Soho a few years ago, that hate-filled despicable act of violence. I refer to the fact that a gay partner could not be treated as next of kin to be consulted on medical treatment or was ineligible for criminal compensation and the stark contrast that was thrown up, because the victims included a heterosexual married couple as well as homosexual couples, between the legal treatment of those different sets of partners.

I have spoken so far of people who, being gay, are unable to marry. But of course the Bill provides an alternative to marriage for those opposite sex couples who could marry but choose not to. I can identify with the reasons why people might not want to marry. Marriage still carries some baggage of patriarchy and second-class status for women, as so scandalously represented in the past by the Married Women's Property Act, and the denial until so recently of independent taxation for married women. Marriage also has a strong religious overtone. The Times itself acknowledged that people might have personal or philosophical reasons for declining to marry.

Much has, of course, changed in the past 20 years since my husband and I got married. We chose a registry office and a civil ceremony in order to enshrine an emphasis on a more modern and equal partnership than a Church wedding, for us, represented. Who knows if the civil partnership proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, had been available then whether we might not have chosen it. It would be good to have that choice.

The wisdom of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is not to try to stretch the institution of marriage. In other countries this has been done, notably in the Netherlands where gay people can marry in civil marriages in exactly the same way as heterosexual couples. But I believe that the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, to have this separate channel of civil registered partnership, is the right one here and now in the United Kingdom. I believe that there can therefore be a meeting of minds from different directions on keeping marriage as a ring-fenced institution co-existing with civil partnership. I really cannot see therefore how someone like Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail yesterday can claim that the real agenda of this Bill is "to destroy the institution of marriage" as it deliberately and carefully steers clear of marriage.

There is also a profound muddle at the heart of Ms Phillips' thinking. She equates cohabitation with recognised legal partnership in blaming both for being the biggest threat to marriage. But civil partnerships would shift some relationships from the category of unrecognised and informal to legally recognised commitment, surely many more than would "downshift", if you like, from marriage to civil partnership. So the net result is a gain not a loss in socially beneficial and legally sanctioned long-term commitment.

The Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, would regulate rights to joint communal property in the event of dissolution or death, the right to be treated as next of kin in emergencies and to make proper pension, health and life assurance arrangements. The Stonewall briefing gives some life story examples of the sheer injustice of discrimination in these areas. We all have friends or family in unrecognised relationships. I can think of two particular sets of friends in gay partnerships, one of which has lasted over 30 years. Why should they have to pay inheritance tax on the death of one of them when someone married for just one day would not have to do so?

But let us not forget the partner in a cohabiting, heterosexual relationship. Many women in particular have learned with a rude shock when things go wrong that with a few exceptions they do not have legal or financial rights which more or less equate to marriage. As men on average still disgracefully earn a quarter more even than working women, the potential for an unmarried woman to find herself with no financial resources or without redress for abuse or violence is a big social problem. Even for those who frown on cohabitation it is simply unrealistic to deny its very widespread existence and to leave women in particular without protection. I am again indebted to The Times for its elegant phrasing. It states that the Bill "would extend the law's dominion over unprotected thousands".

It is those kind of practical and moral considerations which have understandably inspired the encouraging remarks today of the Conservative Party Shadow Home Secretary in another place, Oliver Letwin, recognising the justice and the practical imperative of responding to the legal problems encountered by couples who cannot marry. It is disappointing that that is not translated into support by the Conservative Front Bench for this reasonable and thoughtful Bill. But it throws the spotlight on the way the Government are lagging even behind some Conservative thinking and they surely should reflect on that. It is a great shame that the Government have not agreed to give this Bill government time. Perhaps there is time for them to change their mind.

A civil partnership law in the UK would bring us into line with an increasing European trend. As the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, noted, a majority of EU states now have such laws. I should hastily add that this is not a Brussels plot--family law is exclusively a national responsibility--although, of course, there are aspects of EU law such as immigration and free movement which will have to reflect such developments. As there is EU law outlawing discrimination in employment on grounds of sexual orientation which is about to be implemented in the United Kingdom, it is anomalous and hypocritical that employees of EU institutions, even if they have a recognised partnership in an EU state, cannot receive pension or household benefits for their partner as their married colleague might for a spouse. That has been confirmed in a judgment of the European Court of Justice. That needs reform and I hope that Commission vice-president Kinnock will press that in the Commission and that it will be taken up in other EU institutions.

In conclusion, whatever our varying views on marriage, homosexuality or cohabitation, we can surely unite in agreeing that more certainty, more protection and more encouragement to commitment and support for a partner are universally to be welcomed. The Bill is not about marriage which for many people, I acknowledge, remains the gold standard. Civil partnership does not threaten that but reinforces stability in society.