HL Deb 04 March 1982 vol 427 cc1375-81

3.20 p.m.

Baroness Wootton of Abinger

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. My Lords, in the past three years four Bills have been presented to your Lordships which have sought to enlarge the scope of relationships within which it is permissible to marry, particularly those who are affinities, that is to say connected by marriage but not by blood. No Bill has been presented to your Lordships which in any way suggested that marriages should be contracted between blood relations or between those who are connected by adoption. Three of these four Bills passed Second Reading in this House, and the fourth, I think, was dealt with last week and is on its way. Of the other three, not one completed the course, for different reasons in each case. The Bill which I present to your Lordships today is not in this category. Those Bills proposed a change in the law. The Bill which I propose today only proposes a change which would affect the two persons named in the Title.

My Lords, it is significant, I think, that in all the debates on the other Bills sympathy was expressed, even by those who are opposed to any general relaxation of the law, with possible occasional cases where there was real hardship. That sympathy was expressed, not only by those who supported a change in the law, but also by those who opposed it. One such case has already come before your Lordships. In May 1980, the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, put forward a Personal Bill, comparable to the Bill which is before your Lordships now, which would enable two elderly people, related as stepfather and stepdaughter, to marry after both of them had been widowed and had lived apart for a long time. They were well on in years; I think he was in his seventies and she was in her sixties. It is a similar case of two persons of mature years that I am putting before your Lordships today.

In 1937 John Dare met for the first time a young woman who had already a child of five years old by a previous relationship and who was living with her own parents. He became attached to this young woman. Very shortly, they married. The marriage was, I think, happy and successful for 12 years. At the end of that period the wife developed cancer, and her husband thought it would be wise to take her, along with two children who had been born of the marriage, and himself, of course, to live again with her parents, in order that in the last years of her life, or the last days of her life, his wife might have the company of her own mother.

Two years later, she died and the little girl, the stepdaughter—whom I shall refer to throughout as Gillian, because it makes the story easier—was now 17. Her stepfather and she and the two children of the marriage all remained in the grand-maternal home of the stepdaughter. They stayed on there for another ten years. During that time there was much coming and going; other relatives, both of the Dare family and of Gillian's family came and went. Eventually, at the end of that period, Mr. Dare formed the opinion that it was time he set up a home of his own for his family. So he left; he bought a house and he moved there with his two children. His son by this time must have been over 20 and his daughter in her late teens, and his stepchild Gillian, was now 29. They stayed there for ten years.

As Gillian throughout the period since her mother's death, 10 years, had given her whole time to the care of the two children of his marriage, it was not surprising that an attachment grew up between him and Gillian, and they very strongly wished to marry, the more so as she had acted as a mother to his children through all that time. But they appreciated that the law forbade them to marry and therefore they had to remain single. They stayed in this new location for 10 years and after that they took the final plunge. They moved to a different district, the son and daughter being now well grown up and Gillian being now 39. They lived together openly, as they now do, as man and wife, and are known as Mr. and Mrs. Dare.

My Lords, I cannot think that this story does not arouse some compassion, in an age when more and more men and women are living together outside matrimony in order to evade or at least to postpone the obligations of marriage. This couple have been living together. They are now 66 and 49. They have been living to that age unmarried, involuntarily, wishing to marry, but unable to do so, because of the law which prevents stepfather and step-child marriages. Surely some compassion is aroused that they should have suffered so long, and in close relationship, earnestly desiring to marry and being forbidden to do so.

My Lords, it only remains for me to say that during these years I have got to know Mr. and Mrs. Dare, as they are now known, very well. I have great admiration for their patience, and for their great devotion to one another and their steadfastness through all this long wait, during which they hoped against hope that one of the Bills presented to your Lordships would pass and change the law in their favour. They have only recently discovered that they might achieve this result for themselves, but not for anybody else, by a Personal Bill, and that is the Bill which I present to your Lordships. I would add that I have on file letters from Mr. Dare's two children, his son and his daughter, now both grown up and married themselves, expressing their warm affection, both for their father and for Gillian, his stepdaughter, and earnestly expressing the hope that this Bill might succeed.

Finally, my Lords, I cannot refrain from commenting on what seems to me the absurd anomaly that if, way back in 1937, Mr. Dare and his late wife had decided that they would not marry, but would live together outside matrimony, the law would have said nothing against that, but of course his children would have been illegitimate. What is more, if they had made that decision, the law would have raised no objection to his marrying Gillian at any time after her mother died, and the whole of these proceedings would have been unnecessary. My Lords, I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Wootton of Abinger.)

Lord Elwyn-Jones

My Lords, I support the Second Reading of this Bill which has been so economically and, if I may say so, ably explained by my noble friend who has introduced it. The House may like to know, in case they have not observed it, that this matter has been the subject of a report from the Personal Bills Committee on Petitions, and the committee, having carefully considered the petition of John Francis Dare and Gillian Loder Dare, have concluded first, that, as is clear, the object of the Bill is to enable them to be married to each other notwithstanding that they stand in the relationship of stepfather and stepdaughter, and the committee are of the opinion that the object of the proposed Bill is proper to be enacted by Personal Bill and that the provisions of the Bill are proper for carrying its purposes into effect.

I submit that the circumstances of this Bill do require Parliament—I would put it as high as that—to intervene in this case, in the interests of compassion and decent human relationships, to remove the legal impediment to the marriage of these two petitioners which now undoubtedly imposes hardship upon them and, in my submission, serves no useful purpose of public policy. They are both persons of mature years, aged 66 and 49 years respectively. There is no blood relationship between them. If I may say so, this House—which is well-established for its humanity—will, I suspect, gladly give a fair wind to this Bill.

3.32 p.m.

The Lord Bishop of London

My Lords, the views of the bishops on the question of marriages between those related by affinity are well known to this House and I shall not repeat them in detail this afternoon. We opposed the Bill introduced on three occasions by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, because we believed that her Bill—which proposed removing all constraints on marriage based on affinity —was too sweeping a solution, which could have damaging results for the delicate network of relationships which make up the family. We accept, however, that cases can arise where it is right for such marriages to take place.

At present the only means by which such marriages can be lawful is, as your Lordships know, through the procedure which is now before us. This procedure has a number of disadvantages: first, it involves the parties in considerable expense; secondly, it puts the spotlight of publicity on aspects of the personal lives of the people concerned; thirdly—and this is most important—it asks the High Court of Parliament to allow discretion from the law of the land without laying down any criteria by which the case for this can be judged. I am sure that a better way must be found.

The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, has attempted to find such a way in the Bill which was given a Second Reading in this House on the 22nd February. But the debate then indicated that the legal experts are not of one mind on the practicability of the solution which was there proposed. I personally, therefore, welcome very much the intention of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced to this House by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford during that debate, to set up a small committee to advise him on this matter, in consultation with the other Churches, to see whether some alternative to the Personal Bill procedure can be devised. I hope that this initiative, in which the theological, sociological and legal aspects of the question can be thoroughly studied, will lead us to a solution to the problem, so that some criteria can be established and a means found of applying them which overcomes the disadvantages of the present procedure.

But until that happens we must operate the present arrangements as best we can. I am bound to say that the Bill now before us is not a totally straightforward one—the relationships are certainly more complex than those set out in both the Edward Berry and Doris Eilleen Ward (Marriage Enabling) Bill, which my predecessor supported in May 1980, and in the Bill concerning Hugh Small and Norma Small with which we shall be dealing later this afternoon. It is complicated in that, although Gillian Dare was not in a "child of the family" relationship to John Francis Dare, being the responsibility of her maternal grandparents, there was a period, during which she was a minor, in which she formed part of the same household as John Dare and his two children.

If we can in due course establish some criteria for looking at these cases, their application to this kind of "extended family" situation will need to be considered. But in this case there is no likelihood of the relationship between John Dare and his stepdaughter —indeed, there is no possibility—causing the break-up or leading to the break-up of another relationship to which he was a party. That, to my mind, is a very significant point. I mention this because it illustrates the difficulty with which the present procedure faces us in looking at cases as they happen to come along without any established criteria and with very little "case law" available. With the situation, however, of these two people as they now find themselves, and with their wish to get married at this relatively late stage in their life together, I think there will be general sympathy. In the circumstances in which we find ourselves this afternoon, I believe that it would, therefore, be right to support this Bill, and I intend to vote for it.

3.37 p.m.

Lord Robertson of Oakridge

My Lords, I, too, share the general sympathy with the aims of the Bill, but should just like to say a few words on the wider issues, following in that respect the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. I take the view that to consider each Bill in isolation might lead to a pitfall. Whatever your Lordships' House decides in respect of this Bill and, indeed, the other Bill to be considered today, I believe that we need to be careful that, in passing Personal Bills, we do not undermine the principle that is at the heart of the matter. In the statement of reasons for the Bill, it is submitted that: There is no ethical, moral, religious or social objection to the marriage of John Dare and Gillian Dare". As I see it, that is not quite correct. There is, indeed an objection on the grounds of principle, and what we are being asked to do is to waive that objection in view of the circumstances of this case.

The principle is that when two people marry they become one flesh. The blood relations of one partner become the family of the other partner so that marriage within the defined limits of affinity is ruled out. This principle was upheld, as I understand it, by your Lordships' House only last May when they declined to give the Marriage Enabling Bill a Third Reading.

As the right reverend Prelate has said, the circumstances of this particular case are not entirely straightforward, and they therefore gave me just pause for thought. They made me realise that sooner or later we may be faced with a case which poses a choice between, on the one hand, abandoning the principle behind the rules of affinity or, on the other hand, having to make a judgment on individual circumstances and conduct in a way that would be distasteful, I am sure, to your Lordships' House and painful to the petitioners. I am sure that we are all anxious to avoid a situation of that kind.

I recognise the feeling that provision should be made for dealing with cases where the rules of affinity seem to bear unduly harshly. As was apparent in the debate last week, attempts are being made to find a satisfactory system for doing so. But there are problems. In this respect, I see much hope in the initiative of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, if a satisfactory system cannot be found, I believe that we should be very careful before we continually waive the rules of affinity.

3.40 p.m.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Belstead)

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, has, with her usual clarity and persuasiveness, urged the merits of the proposals in this Personal Bill in the light of the circumstances of the particular case. As the noble Baroness has reminded the House, in 1980 Parliament passed the Edward Berry and Doris Eilleen Ward (Marriage Enabling) Act so as to enable a legal marriage to be contracted between Mr. Berry and Mrs. Ward, who were related to each other as step-parent and step-daughter. On that occasion my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor explained that while it is entirely proper for a Minister to address the House on a Personal Bill of this kind, the Government collectively adopt a neutral position on the merits of an individual case.

Having said that, I feel that I must take account of the proceedings on the Private Member's Bill of the noble Baroness of last Session. The debates on that Bill and, indeed, the debate we had only a couple of weeks ago on the Marriage (Step-parents and Stepchildren) Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, demonstrated just how far this House is from reaching a consensus about the circumstances in which the present law should be relaxed. Your Lordships may recollect that about the only substantial measure of agreement that has been manifested on this subject generally has been the view that both parties to a marriage between the present prohibited degrees of affinity should have attained 21 years of age.

As my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor said in his speech of two years ago, the Personal Bill procedure is expensive, rather embarrassing and imposes hardship on the petitioners. Of course, the embarrassment flows from the wide publicity which the procedure attracts. However, this very publicity has at least one merit, in that it enables other people who may be affected, however indirectly, to know about a petition for exemption from the general law as it applies to all other persons who may be in similar circumstances.

I submit that it is important that Parliament should give the most careful attention to the circumstances of those who seek personal legislation. I think that it is widely recognised on all sides that the Personal Bill procedure, as I have suggested, leaves something to be desired. I think that all your Lordships who have referred to the matter applaud the initiative to be taken by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury in deciding to establish a committee in consultation with the other Churches, to consider whether some better procedure might be substituted to decide these matters. But in the meantime we have to do the best we can with our present procedures, in the hope that they may serve to produce a result that is right and just to all who may be concerned.

There are no special features which persuade the Government to advise your Lordships regarding this Personal Bill, except that it requires the careful and sympathetic consideration of your Lordships' House, which I think it has been given this afternoon. Once again, it draws attention to the need for some satisfactory procedure for deciding these matters.

3.43 p.m.

Baroness Wootton of Abinger

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones, to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, and also to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for the way in which they have received this Bill. We appreciate that the attitude of the Government is necessarily neutral, and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for putting this in such a fair way.

I would point out to your Lordships that none of those of your Lordships who has spoken today has suggested that on merits this is not a case deserving of consideration and, indeed, deserving to succeed. I think that it would be most unfair and very hard on Mr. and Mrs. Dare if they had to suffer because—as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, has anticipated—possibly in the future there might be a case that was not so deserving of support, or if they had to suffer because in the past rather mixed opinions have been expressed upon this hole issue, and there have, as yet, been no clear criteria expressed by which particular cases should be decided.

It will also be very hard if Mr. and Mrs. Dare, having already waited 20 years, had to wait an even longer period of time because of the time it will take for the committee of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury—about which I am very glad to hear—to consider this matter, to make recommendations and for those recommendations to be passed into law.

Therefore, I think I may take it that I have the underlying, if not the fully expressed, consent of those who have spoken today on this Bill that the particular case of Mr. and Mrs. Dare ought to succeed.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.