MARRIAGE (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 21 April 1942)

LORD ALNESS

My Lords, when a remedial measure is proposed—and this Bill falls within that category—there are two relevant questions which are apt to be put and which, if I may so, are properly put—namely, first, whether a mischief is disclosed requiring remedy; and, secondly, if so, whether the remedy proposed is appropriate. I hope your Lordships will come to think, after I have spoken for the few minutes during which I wish to detain the House, that the answer to both these questions is in this case in the affirmative.

First, as regards the mischief. The law of Scotland as it stands to-day has revealed, under war-time conditions, a certain defect and hardship requiring remedy. I may explain that under the law of Scotland, when two people in Scotland desire to marry, each of them has to give notice to the registrar of the district in which he or she resides and in which—I beg your Lordships to mark these words—they have resided for fifteen days before the application to the registrar is made. If the application has been duly made, and has been notified in a public manner for seven days by the registrar, as the law provides, then he issues a certificate and the marriage may proceed. That applies when the two people concerned are resident in Scotland. But your Lordships will see that under present-day conditions there are difficulties. There is a certain difficulty in giving effect to the requirements to which I have alluded, and particularly to the requirement regarding residence when the two people concerned are engaged in war work, let us say, on this side of the border. To-day there are many Scotsmen and Scotswomen who are resident in England because of war-time jobs which they have here, and the result is that the requirement of fifteen days' residence in Scotland in a particular district cannot receive effect unless, indeed, the man or woman, or both, forfeit their jobs or, at best, secure leave for fifteen days to go o Scotland, where they desire to be 662 married, together with leave for the further period required for the purpose of the ceremony. Accordingly your Lordships will see that a very real difficulty may arise, and indeed has arisen.

The picture I have drawn is by no means a fanciful one. I have been in consultation with the Registrar-General for Scotland, who informs me that during the last three months of last year he had to deal with about a dozen problems of this kind in the course of each week at headquarters, and the local registrars in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Dundee have similarly been beset with problems arising from the circumstances to which I have referred. Accordingly the Registrar-General was well advised, as I humbly think, when, as the result of his consideration of the evidence before him, he came to the conclusion - that a serious hardship was fully documented and that something should be done to remove the hardship so created.

If I have taken your Lordships so far with me as to agree that a hardship requiring redress is frequently disclosed to-day, then what about the remedy? This Bill essays to provide that remedy, and the remedy is in essence quite simple. It is this, that when two Scottish people who arc working in England—very often on war-time work—desire to be married in Scotland, as they generally do, then if one of them had his or her ordinary residence in Scotland at the outbreak of war, he or she may give notice to the Scottish registrar of the intention to marry, and the registrar proceeds to exhibit that notice publicly in his registry office. Then, without the period of residence of fifteen days, when the two people resident in England give notice of the intention to marry in Scotland, if they had their ordinary residence in Scotland at the time of the outbreak of the war—namely, September 3, 1939—the registrar proceeds just as if they had fulfilled the requirement of spending fifteen days in the registration district before the certificate was granted. The registrar, in point of fact, then proceeds to exhibit publicly the notice he has received, and, if no objection is taken, at the end of seven days he issues his certificate, which is the warrant for the marriage to proceed. In short, the requirement of fifteen days' residence is in the circumstances dispensed with. I hope your Lordships will agree with me that I have demonstrated 663 not only a grievance, but also an appropriate remedy for that grievance.

I would only add two things, if I may. Firstly, this measure is chiefly designed for the benefit of war workers, and its terms will be spent at the end of the war. Secondly, I have been, throughout, in close consultation with the Church of Scotland, which is interested in this problem from another angle—namely, marriage following a proclamation of banns. Not only does the Church have no objection to this measure, but I have reason to think that in its own domestic way it will proceed to deal on similar lines with the problem from the Church point of view. This Bill, as your Lordships see, merely applies to marriages which follow upon an application to a registrar, not those which follow on proclamation of banns. The Bill really has only one operative section—namely, the first. The other sections are either ancillary or, in some cases, merely consequential, and I do not think I should be justified in detaining your Lordships on a Second Reading of the Bill by discussing these sections in detail. I content myself by submitting that I have shown that a grievance is disclosed, that redress of that grievance is called for, and that the redress provided by this Bill is satisfactory and appropriate. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.