MANNER OF SOLEMNISATION (Hansard, 24 April 1970)

§ Mr. S. C. Silkin
I beg to move Amendment No. 12, in page 4, leave out lines 1 to 3.

§ Mr. Speaker
With this Amendment we shall take Amendment No. 13, in page 4, line 9, leave out ' and where appropriate the superintendent registrar ', and Amendment No. 14, in page 5, line 7, leave out from ' registrar ' to ' except ' in line 9.

§ Mr. Silkin
Clause 10 deals with the manner of solemnisation of the ceremony for which the Bill is making provision. It is, as I am sure the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) 817 will recognise, a somewhat complex provision providing different forms of ceremony for different circumstances and according to whether those concerned are acting according to the usages of one Church or another and one religion or another.
The proviso which is the main subject of the Amendment provides that where a marriage is to be civil ceremony, rather than, for example, solemnised according to the usages of the Society of Friends or a marriage between two persons professing the Jewish religion, which are covered by an earlier part of the Clause, such a marriage shall be solemnised in the presence of both the superintendent registrar and the registrar.
That provision caused a good deal of doubt for this reason. In the ordinary way, as I understand, a marriage would he solemnised in the presence of one of those gentlemen. Here we are providing for a situation which might involve those concerned with the solemnisation of the marriage travelling a considerable distance to carry out this very important function.
When speaking on the last Amendment I gave an instance of somebody on his death-bed in a remote part of the country or an island. We are imposing an obligation that when the marriage be a civil ceremony both the superintendent registrar and the registrar should be present.
I confess that I could not follow why it should be thought that that duplication of officialdom should be necessary in the circumstances and why, as in the ordinary way, one of them would not suffice. I observed, from what the hon. Member for St. Albans said on Second Reading, that he had had the advice and help in drafting the Bill of the Registration Department. I am sure, knowing from my own experience in days gone by as a member of a local authority, that these officers become seriously overworked particularly at some periods of the year. We are in one of those periods at the moment. If, therefore, one can avoid the duplication of functions where it really is not necessary, the House ought to do so. It is in that spirit that I put down my Amendment.
It may be that the Under-Secretary can explain why it should be essential in 818 civil ceremonies under the Bill for the presence at the solemnisation both of the registrar and the superintendent registrar, notwithstanding all the problems that that might create. If he makes a good case for their presence obviously I should reconsider my Amendment. But as matters stand on the face of it it seems to be what one might describe as an unnecessary piece of red tape. At any rate, it is on that assumption that I put down my Amendment—to remove it because I personally do not like any more red tape than is absolutely necessary. I await with interest the explanation.

§ Mr. O'Malley
I should be delighted to give my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) and the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) an explanation of the present situation, or, to put it more accurately, I shall describe the present situation under the law. I am not sure that I shall be capable of necessarily explaining that description that I make, but, nevertheless, I shall describe it.
The position under the law is that a civil marriage can only take place in the register office with the superintendent registrar and the registrar carrying out two functions. The superintendent registrar must be present to give legal validity to the ceremony. The registrar is present at the register office to register the marriage and he would also be present at the type of marriage dealt with in the Bill.
We are back in a similar position with this Clause and this Amendment as we have been on previous Amendments. This Clause, as it stands, is closely linked, in the type of provision it makes, with the principal and major law on this subject. Again, I take the point which my hon. and learned Friend made when he raised the question of whether it needs more than one person to be present. Certainly, that is the case at the moment where both the superintendent registrar and the registrar have distinct functions in law and it would perhaps not be helpful to insert an Amendment into the Bill which is not in line with the law.
Obviously, I cannot speak for any working party. I am sure the working party will be interested in any remarks made in the House today on this subject. 819 The broad subject which my hon. and learned Friend raised, concerning the superintendent registrar and the registrar, about the use of manpower and the type of function which those officials have at such ceremonies is very properly a matter which could well be considered by the working party.
I therefore suggest that since we want to keep the Bill linked as closely as possible with present legislation the House should not accept the Amendment.

§ Mr. Howie
Like many hon. Members my experience of marriage ceremonies is somewhat limited. It was a long time ago and my memory is not what it was and in any case it was not done in a register office. The Under-Secretary said that the superintendent registrar was necessary at a civil ceremony and I thought he said that he was necessary to ensure the validity of the marriage. Was that correct?

§ Mr. O'Malley
The superintendent registrar must be present to give the ceremony legal validity. That was what I said.

§ Mr. Howie
I certainly do not intend to press my hon. Friend to explain his description, because I understand his difficulty there. But I wonder whether the necessity for the superintendent registrar goes any further than the superintendent registrar and the registrar being present to hear the words prescribed by Section 44(3) of the principal Act, and the three lines with which subsection (3) ends It the superintendent registrar and the registrar are both required at present to say nothing more than the words prescribed that seems an extraordinary arrangement.
I hope that the working party is looking at this with some care so that these valuable officials—the superintendent registrar and the registrar—can possibly find more useful things to do with their time.

§ Mr. O'Malley
Marriage is not merely a private contract. It is a civil contract under the law and a contract in which the community is interested and from which all kinds of obligations in law arise, not only for the two people con- 820 cerned, but for the State, for example. We therefore have to ask who would perform the civil marriage in these deathbed cases if it were not the superintendent registrar.
I would not want to comment on that part of my hon. Friend's speech which underlined what was said by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich about law and administration. I can go no further than to say that I am sure that the working party will take note of and carefully examine everything that has been said on the subject this morning.

§ Mr. Goodhew
As I have constantly reiterated, I am trying to deal in the Bill with only a narrow point and not to change the general law. There are certain requirements for civil ceremonies. I agree with the Under-Secretary that it would be best to leave any change to the general review of the marriage law rather than to change it in this limited Bill.

§ Mr. S. C. Silkin
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for explaining why he would advise the House to resist the Amendment. None the less, I must again confess to a feeling of some little disappointment about what he said, very much in line with the disappointment which I felt about the previous Amendment. I can well understand the feeling that in a Bill of this kind one ought not to depart radically from the provisions which are general to marriages as set out in the Marriage Acts, but we must be conscious of the fact that we are here dealing with a special situation which is special not only because of the circumstances in which the marriage is to take place, with one of the parties seriously ill and possibly likely to die, but special in relation to the place where the marriage is to take place and which is dictated by these considerations.
I can well understand its being said in the ordinary way when a marriage is celebrated in a registry office that the ordinary rules should apply and that the superintendent registrar is there, it is his office, and the registrar is there, and it is his office. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Howie) said that he did not recollect all the circumstances of his own marriage. I, too, though I was 821 married by civil ceremony in a registry office, do not recollect all the circumstances, possibly because it was so many decades ago, possibly because of the glamour of the occasion.
I cannot say that I can recollect whether there were present both the superintendent registrar and the registrar, but I am prepared to take it on trust that both were present. At least, I hope, at any rate, that all the formalities were proper and that I am validly married: it is rather too late to change now.
Here in the Bill we are dealing with a quite different situation. We are dealing with a marriage which may take place, as I have constantly said, in some remote place to which these gentlemen will have to be fetched from their normal place of work and their normal duties in order to carry out these special functions. The result of that presumably will be that their normal duties will suffer and that people who wish to be married in the ordinary way may have to take their turn in the queue, because both these gentlemen have to take a long journey, possibly at short notice, to help people who are on their death-beds.
I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to recognise that that is quite a different situation from the ordinary situation envisaged by the Marriage Acts where it would be perfectly proper to have this duplication. I take some comfort from the fact that he has suggested that this is a matter which may be looked at by the working party.

§ Mr. O'Malley
I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will understand that I am not suggesting to the working party this morning that one thing or another may well be something which it would care to look at. What I said was that this kind of thing might conceivably be one of the aspects of the marriage laws which the working party would consider. I feel sure that as the matter has been raised in the House and as the working party will obviously consider what has been said this morning, the possibility of such consideration is heightened as a result of the debate.

§ Mr. S. C. Silkin
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am encouraged to learn that there is a possibility that the working 822 party will read the report of the debate in HANSARD.

§ Mr. Howie
We have just had a guarded intervention by the Under-Secretary. Would not my hon. and learned Friend agree with me that the Under-Secretary should be pressed further along the lines on which he has gently started to tread, perhaps not today, because this is a matter which the Law Commissioners should carefully consider? We ought to underline our feeling, while not asking the Under-Secretary to commit himself, that this is a matter which should be gone into very carefully.

§ Mr. S. C. Silkin
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion which I endorse. I hope that the Department, or the Law Commission, or its working party, will go into the matter and take account of the point that we are not suggesting necessarily that in the ordinary marriage there would be a reduction in the number of those present— that is quite a different matter—but that this is a particular occasion in these special circumstances when there is a case for making the ordinary rule rather more flexible.
That is the point I want to make. On the assumption that the working party will not feel it possible to resist the 'Under-Secretary's suggestion that it might read the debate, I am happy to ask leave of the House to withdraw the Amendment.