Title (Hansard, 24 April 1970)

§ Mr. Goodhew
I beg to move Amendment No. 20, in line 1, leave out ' unlicensed ' and insert ' unregistered '.
The Amendment corrects an omission on my part in Committee when I amended the Short Title of the Bill, but neglected to do anything about the Long Title. There are no references in the Statutes to unlicensed premises—an expression which has other connotations—but there are to registered or unregistered premises.

§ Mr. Goodhew
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I do not wish to detain the House for long. I express my gratitude, not only to the Registrar General's Department which gave me a great deal of help with the drafting of the Bill, and much advice, but to those hon. Members who, in Standing Committee and this morning, have contributed so much to making the Bill a better one than that which I presented to the House in the first instance.
This is a limited Measure. It provides for the filling of a very small gap in the law. Facilities for these emergency marriages which are now available to Anglicans will be available to members of other Churches and religions, and, indeed, to those who wish to have a civil ceremony. I do not think that many cases will arise under the Bill if it is fortunate to complete its stages and get on to the Statute Book, but I think that we shall remove a good deal of hardship and distress in those very few cases which do arise.
With those few words I commend the Bill to the House.

§ Mr. S. C. Silkin
I have already done a great deal of talking this morning—perhaps too much—and, like the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew), I shall, therefore, endeavour to be brief.
I congratulate the hon. Member on bringing the Bill before the House and piloting it through its various stages. I feel that he has been unduly modest about it. It is true that it may not affect many 834 cases, but I can well see that those which it does affect—enabling people to marry in certain tragic circumstances—will be of great importance not only to the people directly concerned but to their families.
I know from personal experience what emotional feelings people may have who have been living together for a long time without having taken the step of getting married—perhaps because the law has prevented their doing so, because a divorce has been necessary first—when the time arrives when the man realises that he is seriously ill and that he ought to take the opportunity of doing what used to be called " making an honest woman " of his partner—although that is a very unfortunate expression, and I would prefer to say that he wants to regularise the position—for the sake of both himself and his partner and the family. The Bill enables that to be done in circumstances in which it might not otherwise be possible. The hon. Member is doing a great service to people in that situation.
One of the earliest cases that I had to conduct in the court concerned two old people, both over 70 years of age, who had been living together as man and wife for many years. They had reached the point at which they felt that at any moment one of them might depart, and they wanted to get married. Unhappily, there were legal obstacles. One was already married, and was unable to obtain a divorce. That is the sort of situation that the Bill seeks to cover, and I believe that it will be wholly beneficial in that respect.
My only criticism is that the Bill may be more restrictive than is necessary. I feel that its provisions could be somewhat widened. Clause 1(2) provides that the Registrar General must be satisfied that one of the persons is seriously ill and is not expected to recover, and cannot be moved, and so on. That defines a situation where the person concerned is virtuallyin extremis.I would have preferred the Bill to cover situations not quite so desperate as that. It may be that in another place, with the help of the friends that we have heard about, some relaxation will be brought about, but even without it the Bill is a valuable addition to our law and I sincerely congratulate the hon. Member on having promoted it.

§ Mr. Howie
The hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) will know from our earlier discussions that I am somewhat criticial of his use of his opportunity. I do not wish him to take that too seriously to heart, because within the limits that he has set himself he has carried out a very useful purpose. Not only that—and it is in this respect that he deserves our congratulations as a Parliamentarian—but to carry out its limited purpose he had to launch a fairly sizeable Bill, of 20 Clauses, with all the hard work of consultations, receiving advice, taking part in discussions, and drafting that that involved.
The hon. Member also had to carry the burden of seeing a biggish Bill through the House. Because it was a big Bill it gave greater opportunities than usual for such hon. Members as ourselves to propose Amendments, many of which the hon. Member could foresee but some of which he had to deal with as they appeared. He has done that in an expert way, and I am sincere in my congratulations to him. If he likes he can put that in his election address in the fullness of time—and much good may it do him.
I am sorry that the Bill does not go farther, but I shall not go into that criticism in any detail because I am aware of the rules of procedure in Third Reading debates.
It is a source of regret to me that even under the Bill, with its improvements in our law, a Presbyterian Member of Parliament will be unable to get married in the Crypt, under Presbyterian rules—if that is the word—even if he is dying in the Crypt. Perhaps we are more likely to die here than in the Crypt, but if a Presbyterian Member of Parliament were dying in the Crypt and were anxious to get married the Bill would not help him. It seems a pity that a Bill of 20 Clauses does not have a nook or cranny somewhere in it to deal with such a Presbyterian, or Nonconformist—he could even be a Welshman.
In spite of that defect, which may or may not be important to the coming generation of Presbyterian and Nonconformist Members of Parliament who are desirous of getting married, the hon. Member for St. Albans is well worth congratulating. I wish his Measure the 836 greatest of good luck in another place. If it is passed into law I am sure that it will be well received.

§ Mr. O'Malley
I congratulate the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) on getting the Bill to its Third Reading stage after piloting it through its various preceding stages. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Howie) congratulated the hon. Member on the expert way in which has done this. Perhaps he can give me some advice on the wav in which to get a 20-Clause Bill through Committee in 13 minutes. He could act as a paid consultant to Governments of almost any party if he could demonstrate that this can be done on more than one occasion. We look forward to hearing from the hon. Member on that point.
This is a Bill that we generally support. It is an ideal illustration of the value of time being given to private Members to pilot Bills through the House. The Bill is couched in quite complex language, although it affects only a limited number of people.
We all know of the pressures on the parliamentary time available to Governments of any party, and it is precisely through the institution of the Private Member's Bill that Members can deal with limited issues of this kind involving problems of humanity. That is precisely what the Bill does: it deals with people who are seriously ill and are not expected to recover and for whom the marriage laws need some easement.
On behalf of the Government, I welcome the Bill and again congratulate the hon. Member for St. Albans on the expert job he has done in piloting it through the House.

§ Mr. Weitzman
I regret exceedingly not having been present during the discussion on a number of Amendments. I had important business to attend to.
I congratulate the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) on having piloted the Bill through to this stage in such a skilful fashion and for having taken the minimum time in doing so. I see the hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) writhing with impatience to address 837 words of tremendous importance to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. No doubt his time will come.
This is a very useful Bill, and the hon. Member for St. Albans has performed a useful service by introducing it. I know that I should be out of order if I were to talk about matters which are not in the Bill, but I desire to emphasise that on Second Reading we discussed a great many things which are not in the Bill now. We had what was in a way the fiasco of not being permitted to discuss a considerable number of Amendments which would affect the Bill in an important way.
I hope that when the Bill reaches another place these matters will be discussed and that Amendments will be made to deal with the many problems which we discussed on Second Reading.
I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South will be able to say his few words on a matter which may or may not be of the slightest importance.