FOREIGN MARRIAGE BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 18 July 1947)

§ LORD HENDERSON

My Lords, I beg to move the first Amendment, to Clause 1 of the Bill. Noble Lords will remember that the purpose of this Foreign Marriage Bill is to validate something like 92 marriages which were solemnized within the lines by Naval and R.A.F. Chaplains. Clause 1 validates these marriages with retrospective effects. Your Lordships will remember that the Bill as it left your Lordships' Chamber had a second subsection to Clause 1 which was a saving clause. The effect of this was to avoid creating the offence of bigamy by retrospective legislation in any case where either of the parties to one of these marriages had during the life of the other party before the twenty-fourth day of April, 1947, lawfully married any other person. In that case Clause I did not render the first marriage valid or affect the validity of the subsequent marriage. The broad position was that the legal position of either marriage was left quite unaffected by the Bill.

The effect of the Amendment made by the Commons is to make both marriages lawful in cases to which subsection (2) of Clause 1 applies, and to bring the situation into conformity with the general law by deeming the first marriage to have been dissolved immediately before the second marriage took place. The advantage of this provision is that it makes the children of both marriages legitimate, and this point was strongly pressed in another place, where the Amendment was accepted without a Division. I think your Lordships will agree that the new form does confer tangible benefits on the children of the first marriage and I confidently invite your Lordships to concur in it. I beg to move.