[Lord Speaker] Baroness Blackstone on behalf of Baroness Bakewell.
[Baroness Blackstone] My Lords I beg leave to ask the question
standing in the name of Baroness Bakewell on the order paper.
[Lord Bellamy] My Lords, the Law Commission recently published
its report on reforming weddings law in England and Wales,
and we must consider the 57 recommendations in full.
It is important
we balance the needs and interests of all groups, religious and non-religious,
and consider the implications of changing the law very carefully.
I hope to be able to publish our initial response
in the first part of next year.
[Baroness Blackstone] My Lords I thank the minister for his reply,
but I must say I'm a little disappointed by it.
The Law Commission,
to which the noble Lord has referred,
took no position on this question.
Didn't make a recommendation either one way or the other.
Because, my Lords, it is a political decision.
So what’s stopping the government from going ahead
and laying an order under the 2013 Act, getting it done now and stopping once
and for all the discrimination against humanists in this area?
[Lords] Hear, hear!
[Lord Bellamy] My Lords, in a nutshell, the government's position
is that to lay an order under the 2013 Act solely in favour of humanists
would discriminate against other groups Muslim,
Sikh, Hindu and so forth, in
permitting them to
have a particular form of marriage not available to other groups.
And the government's position is that these,
we must go forward together and solve the whole problem.
I will elaborate in a moment what the problem is.
[Lord Cormack] My Lords, we do need to get a move on here,
because as one who believes very fervently in Christian marriage,
but even more in the institution of marriage,
how can it be sensible to allow a wedding
to take place in a registry office, but not to allow humanists
who have their own ethics to have a proper marriage ceremony?
We need to get a move on.
We had an almost identical answer last time.
Let’s have a better one next time.
(Laughter in the crowd)
[Lord Bellamy] The Law Commission,
in a very detailed and well-argued report,
took the view that we should proceed as a country to solve the whole problem
across all faiths at the same time, and not to favour a particular group
that is the government's position and we will publish our position shortly.
[Baroness Meacher] My Lords,
it will be ten years next year since I tabled an amendment to the 2013
Same Sex Marriage Act about humanist marriages in response
to which the government tabled their own amendment enabling ministers
to make this tiny change - it's two words we're talking about
- adding “and humanists” to Quakers and Jews. Okay.
And all that was done ten years ago.
I have to say to the minister,
it seems highly unlikely that any legislation will pass
following the Law Commission report before the next election.
Therefore, will the minister meet with me to discuss
how ten years on this tiny adjustment can be made to the law
through a ministerial order and to end this discrimination once and for all.
[Lords] Hear, hear.
[Lord Bellamy] I'm very happy to meet with the noble Lady, but I doubt
whether I should be able to give her the assurance that she asks for.
This is a quite difficult problem.
We have to solve it across the board without discrimination,
either in favour of or against, any faith or faith group, or non faith group.
We have to deal with the civil preliminaries for marriage.
We have to deal with who is to be authorised.
We have to deal with what is the regime for authorisation, and in particular
the problems raised by the APPG Humanist Group itself
in relation to the Law Commission's report.
[Baroness Thornton] My Lords, why is it, why is it my Lords,
that Scotland and Wales have managed
to have in their law humanist weddings?
If I sound frustrated, it's
because I was part of the move with enormous cross-party support,
this House agreed an amendment to the Equal Marriage Bill,
which would allow humanist weddings, and that has not been implemented
by successive Conservative governments.
There must be a reason why that is the case,
because it is not complicated, it is not discriminatory.
It is actually very straightforward indeed.
And I might say
if and when my son wants to get married and wants a humanist wedding,
he has to go to Scotland or Wales and that seems to me
very unfair indeed.
[Lords] Hear, hear!
[Lord Bellamy] The Law Commission recommended reform
that's already taking place in other jurisdictions.
We're working on exactly how the reform should take place
in this country as fast as we can.
[Bishop of St Albans] Those of us on this bench in principle,
have no problem at all with humanist weddings.
But would not the minister agree with me that the best way forward is one
that's been alluded to already, which is that
it could be achieved most easily by following the historical precedence
which has been established with Jewish and Quaker weddings.
Rather than adopting what is the overtly complex
recommendations of the Law Commission report.
[Lords] Hear, hear!
[Lord Bellamy]
The government has to consider in detail the Law Commission report, its
undoubted strengths, the various points that have been made,
not least by humanists about it.
And we will publish our position as soon as we can in the New Year.
[Lord Desai] My Lords,
is the problem that humanists are not religious?
Every other religion has been treated kindly.
LGBTQ marriages can take place.
Just humanists in England are discriminated against.
Is the Church of England so upset about humanist
that they won’t let humanists get married?
(Loud chatter from the crowd)
[Lord Bellamy] My Lord,
as far as I know, it's not a matter of the Church of England.
This particular problem.
The government's view is that we should proceed as a country
across the board to solve and update our law of marriage all at the same time.
[Lords] This side!
No, this side!
[Baroness Burt of Solihull] Thank you.
My Lords, in Scotland
where, as has already been mentioned, humanist marriage is legal.
There are more humanist marriages than Christian ones,
and marriage is more popular than ever.
David Cameron supported gay marriage because he believed
that marriage is a good thing and everyone should be able to marry.
Does this government believe that marriage is a good thing
and if they do, why won't they allow humanists
to legally marry?
[Lords] Hear, hear!
[Lord Bellamy] This government strongly supports
the institution of marriage and I think I'm probably boring your Lordships
by repeating myself that the government thinks
that the whole problem should be solved across the board at the same time,
and not just with one particular group - the humanists.
[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port] My Lords, may I declare an interest as an ordained
Methodist minister nearing 50 years since he's been ordained
and as someone who enjoys the fellowship of humanist celebrants
in funeral services, in crematoria across the city.
May I therefore declare to the minister
my total bewilderment at the nature of this discussion?
It would enrich all of us if people, according to conscience and practice,
could marry in the way being asked for in this question.
Can the noble Lord understand
the predicament that those of us of religious persuasion and the noble Lord
the Bishop of St Albans
has already spoken and the noble Lord
Cormack has spoken from faith positions.
It would be an addition to the richness and the value of the ceremonies
we produce.
Can the government explain why they can't understand this yet?
[Lords] Hear! Hear!
[Lord Bellamy] With respect, my Lord, I very much hope
the government does understand what the problem is.
As the government sees it, we should have a regime for marriage in this country
in which the civil preliminaries are common to all marriages,
which the persons authorised to conduct marriages
are authorised under one regime, that we
define what belief systems we are going to accept as people
are capable of authorising marriages, how we're going to exclude
extremists and cults and so forth.
And these are not straightforward questions.
It's a very simple and if I may say so,
not complete
answer to say it's easy to do it for the humanists.
We want to make sure that, for example, a marriage of a Muslim at home,
which might at the moment be a lawful marriage, is now taken forward
and we create a situation in
which that does become a lawful marriage and we have proper
officiants and rules and regulations that regulate it all.
That is the government's position.
[Lords] My Lords! My Lords!
[Baroness Brinton] My Lords, I supported this amendment in the Same Sex
Marriage Act of 2013, and the noble Lord, the minister, probably feels he's
being rather beaten up by members of your Lordships’ House from all sides,
because we remember what ministers said then and how the provision
that was arranged was deliberately simple to enable this to happen.
I am sure that the House would welcome other faiths being drawn into it,
but this is very long overdue.
Please can the minister go away and look back at the history
of the passage of that Act?
[Lord Bellamy] Of course I will go back and look at the history.
I am equipped with elderly but serviceable shin pads
and I'm quite used to having my shins thoroughly kicked when necessary.
But this is a case where the government feels the country as a whole
must go forward together and not favour a particular group.