Sitting of 24 April 1970

Preamble
The House met at Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

MALTA
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I wish to raise a point of order, Mr. Speaker, concerning the statement made by the Leader of the House during Business Questions yesterday. He stated then that he would ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he would make a statement on Malta today. I think the implication was that if, indeed, the negotiations had been broken off, a statement would be made this morning. May I ask the Leader of the House when we may expect a statement, as it is not, I take it, to be made now?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart): Following the exchanges yesterday, I made inquiries of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The position so far as we know has not changed from that set out in the Written Answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Overseas Development in yesterday's HANSARD to the hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall). If any developments occur which should be reported to the House, my right hon. Friend will, of course, make a statement on Monday.
Sir F. Bennett: Further to that point of order, Mr. Sneaker. I raised this matter first yesterday by your courtesy. I have been put in some difficulty and I seek your guidance not only for myself but for other back benchers on this matter.
All I could do after the statement of the Leader of the House yesterday was to telephone the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Overseas Development as soon as I could this morning. By the time I got the information from the
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Foreign Office that it was not going to make a statement this morning, and from the Ministry of Overseas Development that it was not sure whether it would do so or not, it was already 10 a.m. and too late to put in a Private Notice Question. I telephoned the High Commissioner for Malta in case I had misled the House yesterday in the impression I gave, and was given a categorical answer. It was read out to me. It was a statement from the Prime Minister's office in Malta supporting what I said yesterday and contradicting what Her Majesty's Government had said. It stated clearly that the talks have been broken off. In these circumstances, how can one get the Government to clarify the situation?
Mr. Speaker: It has been clarified this morning. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perth-shire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) has clarified it by his question to the Leader of the House.
Mr. Wall: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will recall the exchanges during Business Questions yesterday on this matter. Since then I have received the Written Answer to my Question No. 6 in which the right hon. Lady the Minister of Overseas Development states clearly that the discussions with the Malta Government are continuing through the British High Commission in Malta. Yet this has been categorically denied by the Malta Government. Surely the position has changed and we should have a statement today.
Mr. Peart: I have made a reasonable answer on this matter. We have read the newspapers this morning. I consulted my right hon. Friends. The position is unchanged from that set out in the Written Answer referred to by the hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall). I am only sorry that he was not present during Question Time yesterday so that the Question might have been answered orally. My right hon. Friend will watch the situation, and, if necessary, there will be a statement on Monday.
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I do not think that it would be profitable to take this matter much further today but if it is the case, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett) assures

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me, that the negotiations have been broken off, surely the Government should be in a position to know and to make a statement to the House on the facts. We shall have to pursue this matter further on Monday.
Mr. Peart: I cannot go beyond what I have been advised by my right hon. Friends and their officials. I must leave it at that. A statement will be made on Monday.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  PARISH COUNCILS AND BURIAL AUTHORITIES (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISION) BILL
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed

  MARRIAGE (REGISTRAR GENERAL'S LICENCE) BILL
  (changed from Licensing of Marriages on Unlicensed Premises Bill).
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  11.8 a.m.
  Mr. Speaker: I have posted, as is my custom, the selection I have made of the Amendments submitted for Report stage.
  Mr. John Fraser: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It arises from the selection of the Amendments. I apologise for raising a point of order on this matter because I realise how extremely difficult it has been both for you and hon. Members in the tabling of Amendments for Report stage, as the Bill was returned so very recently from the Standing Committee. Indeed, yesterday was the first day on which our Amendments could be put in, and this situation has made difficulties for yourself and your Clerks and others who advise you. If I myself had had more opportunity, I would have given you notice of my intention to raise this point of order.
  You have not selected new Clause 1—Power for local authorities to provide marriage suites in conjunction with register offices—standing in my name on the ground that it would be out of order, but my submission is that it comes within the Short Title of the Bill and would be in order.

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  For the purpose of coming within order, the operative part of new Clause 1 is subsection (4), which states:
  "A registrar's marriage suite shall for the purposes of the Marriage Act 1949 so far as it relates to marriages in register offices be deemed to be in the office of the superintendent registrar "—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall deal with the hon. Member's preamble in a moment. It is for the Chair to rule whether an Amendment or a new Clause is in order or out of order. New Clause 1 is out of order.
  In reply to the earlier part of the hon. Member's submission, I appreciate his difficulty. There is difficulty for the House and for Mr. Speaker and his advisers in having to consider Amendments when the Bill came from the Standing Committee only 24 or 48 hours ago.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I desire, Mr. Speaker, to raise a point of order on your provisional selection of Amendments. I do so with the same reluctance as my hon. Friend but conscious, as you have pointed out, Mr. Speaker, of the shortness of time since the Bill was considered in Committee.
  My point of order refers to Amendments Nos. 3 and 4, which have not been selected provisionally. Those Amendments deal with the point in relation to Clause 1 of the Bill which was the subject of substantial debate on Second Reading. Briefly, the purpose of the Amendments—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Speaker has studied the Amendments, knows their purpose and has decided whether to select them. That is the power that the House gives to the Chair. I have not selected Amendments Nos. 3 and 4.
  Mr. Silkin: Further to the point of order. I understand, Mr. Speaker, that your list, which has been posted, is merely a provisional selection and I hope that I am in order in explaining to you why, in my submission, it would be right for these Amendments to be selected.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. If this became a common practice when we reached Report, we should spend a long time in which hon. Members argued with the
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  Chair why certain Amendments had not been selected. The hon. and learned Gentleman must have confidence in the Chair. The Chair has a duty, and it is fulfilling that duty.
  Mr. David Weitzman: Further to the point of order. We understand, of course, Mr. Speaker, and we respect the fact, that you make a selection and that we must abide by your decision with regard to it. When, however, selection is made in this way, surely it is open to hon. Members to put before you grounds on which you can reconsider your decision. In regard to the matters that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) is raising, I respectfully suggest that there are strong grounds why you should reconsider your decision with regard to the question of selection.
  Mr. Speaker: I have ruled and explained exactly the difficulty of the position.
  Mr. W. Howie: On a point of order. I am sorry to appear to persist in this matter, Mr. Speaker, and I am reluctant to do so, but I refer to my Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 8, which have not been selected. I quite understand the powers of Mr. Speaker and the problems which face him. We on our side have problems as well, which you will appreciate.
  I wish to draw to your attention that on Second Reading, on 13th February, I criticised certain parts of the Bill. I do not intend to repeat my arguments, but in the course of my remarks, as appears at c. 1630 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, I gave notice that if the Bill went to Committee and if I were appointed to the Committee I should submit Amendments.
  As it happened, I was not appointed to the Standing Committee. I make no complaint about that, but it means that the Amendments of which I gave proper and due notice on Second Reading could be put down by me only now, on Report, this being the only opportunity open to me. I wonder, therefore, Mr. Speaker, whether you could reconsider your provisional selection in reference to the Amendments which appear in my name.
  11.15 a.m.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is making quite clear the position I took up at the outset. We should spend quite a long time if every hon. Member, for any reason, were to address the Chair at length about the non-selection of his Amendment. Every hon. Member has a good reason for putting down an Amendment. The fact that the hon. Member spoke on. Second Reading and was not appointed to the Standing Committee is not a matter which affects the Chair in making the selection of Amendments. I assure the House that I have given grave and earnest consideration to the selection which I have made, and I have made that selection.
  Amendment No. 7, Mr. Silkin.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: Further to the point of order. I apologise, Mr. Speaker, for pursuing—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. and learned Member will not persist. The Chair is given a duty, and the Chair is carrying it out.
  Mr. Silkin: I wish only to seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on a matter of general importance which arises out of this subject. If in the course of his opening speech on Second Reading the sponsor of a Bill specifically states that there is a certain matter which, in his view, can appropriately be considered when the Bill is being considered in detail, and that he would be willing to consider some alteration in that respect, is that not a matter which should exercise influence in the decision whether an Amendment which would give effect to what the hon. Member has said should be selected?
  It is solely on that basis that the Amendments with which I am concerned have been put down. A considerable amount of debate followed what the sponsor of the Bill, the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew), said on Second Reading, during which more than one Member of the House took the same point as the hon. Member who was in charge of the Bill.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I have given consideration to all that the hon. and learned Gentleman has said but I have made my selection.
  Mr. Weitzman Mr. Weitzman rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Member is now wasting the time of the House and challenging the Chair.
  Mr. Weitzman: I apologise for persisting in this matter, Mr. Speaker, but I wish to raise what I believe to be an important point for the guidance of hon. Members generally. Is your Ruling in this matter that when a selection is made by you, no hon. Member can put forward reasons why that selection should be altered? I ask for your guidance in regard to that matter.
  It is rather important from another point of view. When the Bill goes to another place, obviously Amendments may be made there and a discussion may take place in regard to those Amendments. It may well be that the Amendments which you have not selected are put down in another place and argued upon. The result will be that Members of this House have not had the opportunity of arguing and debating on those Amendments although another place may have that opportunity. I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker, with regard to both these points.
  Mr. Speaker: In reply to the first point, representations are made to me very occasionally on behalf of an Amendment. In reply to the second point, it is not unknown for an Amendment which has not been selected in this House to be selected in another place.
  Amendment No. 7, Mr. Silkin.

Clause 3

  EVIDENCE OF CAPACITY, CONSENT ETC., TO BE PRODUCED
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 7, in page 2, line 22, leave out paragraph (d) and insert:
  (d) That the conditions contained in section 1(2) of this Act are satisfied and that the person in respect of whom such conditions are satisfied is able to and does understand the nature and purport of the marriage ceremony:
  Provided that the certificate of a registered medical practitioner shall be sufficient evidence of any or all of the matters in subsection (1)(d) of this section referred to.
  Mr. Speaker: With this Amendment I have suggested that we take Amendment
  No. 15, in Clause 16, page 6, line 3, at end insert:
  (d) to give false information by way of evidence as required by section 3 of this Act;.
  and Amendment No. 16, in page 6, line 3, at end insert:
  (d) to give a false certificate as provided for in section 3(1)(d) of this Act.
  Mr. Silkin: Paragraph (d) of Clause 3 —in passing I draw attention to the fact that it should simply be Clause 3; it stands as Clause 3(1), but there is apparently no subsection (2)—has the effect that the person giving notice to the superintendent registrar under the provisions of Clause 2 is required, for the purposes of the new procedure which the sponsor of the Bill is introducing, to produce to the superintendent registrar such evidence as the Registrar General may require to satisfy him on various matters.
  When we come to paragraph (d) the matter required is,
  " that one of the persons to be married is seriously ill and is not expected to recover but that he is nevertheless able to understand the nature and purport of the marriage ceremony."
  That is a throwback to Clause 1(2), which provides:
  " The Registrar-General shall not issue any licence for the solemnising of a marriage "—
  in accordance with the provisions of the Bill—
  " unless he is satisfied that one of the persons to be married is seriously ill and is not expected to recover and cannot be moved to a place at which under the provisions of the Marriage Act. 1949 … the marriage could be solemnised."
  The curious thing about paragraph (d) is that the evidence which is to be produced to the superintendent registrar covers the person to be married being seriously ill and not being expected to recover—had I been able to move my earlier Amendment the wording might have been rather different, but that does not now arise—but does not cover the other provision that he or she
  " cannot be moved to a place at which under the provisions of the Marriage Act, 1949 …the marriage could be solemnised."
  I do not know the reason for that omission and why it is thought necessary that the Registrar General should have
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  evidence to satisfy him of two of those matters but not of the third. I do not see how he can carry out the requirement of Clause 1(2), that he
  " shall not issue any licence for the solemnising of a marriage"
  unless he is satisfied of all those things without some additional provision to Clause 3, which provides the procedural method by which the evidence on all three of those matters is provided for him.
  Accordingly, the purpose of the Amendment is to ensure that the evidence which should be put before him, in accordance with the Clause, ensures that all the conditions in Clause 1(2) are satisfied and also the additional fact, to which reference is already made in paragraph (d) of Clause 3,
  " that the person in respect of whom such conditions are satisfied is able to and does understand the nature and purport of the marriage ceremony."
  There again I have proposed a small addition and alteration to make the matter abundantly clear to cover the position not merely that he is able to understand but that he does so.
  I hope that that explains the purpose of the first part of the Amendment, and I hope that the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) will accept that it should improve the Bill, which is indeed its purpose.
  The second part of the Amendment is perhaps a little more controversial. The Bill does not make any suggestion about the type of evidence which should be provided for the Registrar General to satisfy him of the various matters referred to in Clause 1(2). As the matter stands, any evidence brought before him may satisfy him. On the other hand, it may be that the evidence which is brought before him—evidence of some relative, for example, about the state of health and ability to understand of the person concerned, or of some relative of the other party to the proposed marriage or, indeed, the other party himself or herself —would be of a kind which might, quite properly, make the Registrar General suspicious and lead him to ask for further inquiries to be made, as is his entitlement under the next succeeding Clause.

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  The House will recall that by virtue of Clause 8 the period of the validity of any licence is at present limited to
  " one month from the day on which the notice of marriage was entered in the marriage notice book."
  So time is very much of the essence of the matter. If the Registrar General is unable to satisfy himself within a reasonable period, the whole of the procedure which has been put into effect will be abortive and those concerned will have to start all over again in a situation in which the whole point of the procedure proposed by the Bill is that a person who may be on his deathbed should be enabled to be married as soon as possible.
  In the light of that consideration, it seemed to me that there ought to be at any rate some form of evidence which should be unchallengeable, even though other forms of evidence, such as statements of relatives and so on, might reasonably be open to verification under Clause 1. The kind of evidence which I think should be unchallengeable would be the certificate of a registered medical practitioner as to matters each one of which can properly be described as a medical matter; for example,
  " that one of the persons to be married is seriously ill and is not expected to recover and cannot be moved to a place at which under the provisions of the Marriage Act 1949 …the marriage could be solemnised."
  Clearly, those are medical matters.
  I think that it is also a matter for a doctor to say, which he can quite properly, whether that person
  " is able to and does understand the nature and purport of the marriage ceremony."
  Therefore, for the purpose of expedition of these proceedings, I have proposed that that certificate shall be sufficient evidence and that it shall not be necessary or possible for the Registrar General to look behind it.
  11.30 a.m.
  According to your provision selection, Mr. Speaker, Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 are to be discussed with the Amendment which I have moved. Those Amendments are to Clause 16, which provides for penalties for offences in connection with the Bill's proposed procedure.
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  It was a matter of some little surprise to me to observe that the Bill did not appear to penalise the giving of false information by way of evidence which is required, or may be required, by the Registrar General, so that as matters stand it would be possible for anybody to obtain a marriage on a wholly false basis of evidence without incurring any penalty for doing so. I have sought to rectify that situation by proposing to add to the offences in Clause 16, first, the giving of false information, and, second, the giving of a false certificate by a registered medical practitioner.
  The whole purpose of the Amendments is to make the giving of false evidence and false certificates an offence, and to subject the person who " knowingly and willingly "—those are the words in Clause 16(1)—gives such evidence or certificates to certain penalties. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that this is a useful condition which will tighten the Bill and avoid its use for fraudulent purposes, and that after we had had opportunity to debate these matters he will accept the Amendments.
  Mr. Eric Lubbock: It is amazing how little attention was given by the Standing Committee to any of the points raised on Second Reading. The Standing Committee proceedings occupied only six columns, only six of the hon. Members who were appointed to the Committee bothered to turn up, and the only hon. Member who spoke was the promoter of the Bill. I think that the Standing Committee is to be criticised for not paying attention to any of the views expressed on Second Reading. Because of the little time that we have been given to draft our Amendments before considering the Bill on Report, we are not able to deal adequately with the Bill, and I think that this is a serious reflection on the conduct of affairs upstairs.
  The Amendment does, to some extent, help with the point that I raised on Second Reading, although it does not go nearly as far as I should have like to go had I been on the Standing Committee.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. This is an important matter. It is in order for an hon. Member who is not on a Standing

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  Committee to put down an Amendment which can be considered in that Committee.
  Mr. Lubbock: Certainly, Mr. Speaker, and I have done that on past occasions, but one has to approach somebody on the Committee, explain the meaning of the Amendment, get him to raise it, and so on. It involves a great deal of work in putting the case to the hon. Member who is to raise it. It is bad enough being on a Committee and trying to do it at first hand.
  Mr. Speaker: I am in no way criticising the hon. Gentleman's argument. I am just saying for the record that it is in order for an hon. Member to put down an Amendment even though he is not on the Committee.
  Mr. Lubbock: I accept that, Mr. Speaker. I am only saying that it is far more difficult for an hon. Member to do it that way than it is if he is on the Committee himself. When he has explained it to the hon. Member who is to raise it there may be a misunderstanding, and the sense of the Amendment may not altogether fulfill his objectives.
  Because of the way the Bill is phrased, it is almost certain that the party who is seriously ill will be aware of that fact because of the evidence which had to be put before the Registrar General. On Second Reading I said that it would not be possible for the well party to go to his fiancée in hospital and say, " You may be here for a few months. We have this facility for applying for a licence to get married in the hospital. Why do we not do so, rather than wait until you are fully recovered? ", because the ill party would then know that the illness was of a drastic nature.
  The Amendment is a slight help in this regard because it says that the certificate of a registered medical practitioner
  " shall be sufficient evidence of any or all of the matters in subsection (1)(d) of this section referred to."
  It means that the nature of the illness and the fact that the patient was not expected to recover would be certified by the medical practitioner, and in those circumstances the marriage would take place without the ill person knowing that he was unlikely to recover.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Services (Mr. Brian O'Malley): Without necessarily accepting or rejecting the point which the hon. Gentleman is making, is it not still the case that, because of the words
  " is seriously ill and is not expected to recover "
  in Clause 1(2), the Amendment would not meet his point entirely?
  Mr. Lubbock: It is a question of who has to provide the evidence. If the patient had to say, " I am seriously ill and do not expect to recover ", or if the patient's assent had to be obtained to a statement of that kind, all the facts would be known to both parties entering into the marriage. The patient would be fully aware that he was suffering from a mortal illness. That was my point. If the evidence before the registrar was provided by a registered medical practitioner the patient would not necessarily need to have knowledge of the fact that he was suffering from a fatal illness, although I do not think that the Amendment altogether cures the evil to which I referred.
  On Second Reading the other Joint Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Dr. John Dunwoody), acknowledged that there was a difficulty. He said:
  " There is a problem here. … Because we are identifying the group whom we want to help, this difficulty arises."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th February, 1970; Vol. 795, c. 1651.]
  The hon. Gentleman went on to say that his experience as a medical practitioner was that people would know, or might know, that they were suffering from a mortal illness. I do not think that that is universally the case.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: The hon. Gentleman is making a minor criticism. He will appreciate that the purpose of the unselected Amendment went very much further towards his objective.
  Mr. Lubbock: I accept that. That is why I made my criticisms about the Standing Committee at the beginning. I regard this as a serious flaw in the Bill and think that it should have received adequate consideration upstairs. It is too late now, and we are having to do the

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  best we can. Perhaps the noble Lords in another place will pay more attention to what was said in the Second Reading debate in this House than the Standing Committee did. I shall draw the attention of my noble Friends to what was said in the Second Reading debate and what has been said in the debate this morning. We must do the best we can in the circumstances. I merely say that if we had a choice between paragraph (d) as it stands and the hon. and learned Member's alternative, I would prefer his.
  Mr. Victor Goodhew: I was conscious of the hon. Member's remarks in the Second Reading debate, and I said that I would consider them. Having looked at the matter further and thought about it, however, I have come to the conclusion, honestly and truly, that the only conditions in which anyone would want a licence under the Bill would he those in which it was specifically known that one of the parties was not expected to recover. If a person were in hospital in normal circumstances and expected to recover I imagine that the usual arrangement would be for that person to hope in due course to have a marriage in church.
  In the circumstances I came to the conclusion—perhaps erroneously, but it was not without thought—that probably the only cases that would be affected by the Bill were those in which it had been accepted that the only reason for asking for such a licence was that one of the parties was not expected to recover.
  Mr. Lubbock: I can certainly think of circumstances in which the well party would wish to have the marriage solemnised—for instance, to legitimise children—and would be able to persuade the patient in hospital not to defer the marriage until that patient was well, the patient assuming that he or she would recover but the well party knowing that the illness was a fatal one.
  That is possible; people with serious illnesses can delude themselves into thinking that they are likely to recover. That happened with a close relative of mine. He was convinced up to the day of his death that he would become well again in a few months. People seem to have a built-in self-defence mechanism, and in the terminal stages of a fatal illness they
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  can convince themselves that it is not fatal.
  In those circumstances there might be great value in the other person's having the marriage solemnised, although it would not be desirable to explain the detailed provisions of the Bill, because that in itself might be medically harmful for the patient. If a person has to say to a patient in hospital, " Look, there is no prospect of your recovering, and therefore we can invoke the provisions of the Marriage (Registrar General's Licence) Bill," it amounts to a sentence of death. I agree that in many cases the person in hospital will already be reconciled to the situation, but I am contemplating the possibility that in many cases those circumstances will not arise, and that the situation will be as I have put it this morning. In view of that possibility I prefer the words of the hon. and learned Member's Amendment rather than those in the Bill, and I hope that the Amendment will be accepted.
  I want to say a word about the offences that the hon. and learned Member proposes to create. I can see that in logic these provisions should be written in, but I draw the hon. and learned Member's attention to the severe penalties provided under the Clause. The maximum penalty is a sentence of five years' imprisonment, and I ask the hon. and learned Member whether he does not think that that is wholly excessive for the offence of giving false information by way of evidence required by Clause 3. If we are to give the courts these immense powers the penalties should have some relation to the seriousness of the offence.
  Mr. Silkin: I must not anticipate Amendments that I shall move later, but I entirely agree with the hon. Member; indeed, I go further and say that the present penalty is far too severe even for the existing offences under the Bill.
  Mr. Lubbock: If we knew what was in the hon. and learned Member's mind about penalties it might help us to come to a decision about the offences that he suggests should be written into the Bill. I cannot argue with him about the logic of his case; it is just that I do not believe that we should create new offences and impose vast penalties in respect of them without careful thought.
  11.45 a.m.
  Mr. Weitzman: I strongly agree with the criticism expressed by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) about the proceedings in Standing Committee. It is extraordinary that none of the points raised in the Second Reading debate was discussed there, and that the only person who took part in the discussion—apart from the Chairman—was the promoter of the Bill.
  I hope that the promoter will accept the Amendment. I agree with the hon. Member for Orpington that it does not go far enough, but that is not the fault of the mover; it is the fault of the non-selection of other Amendments. That shows the difficulty that we are in in discussing this matter.
  Clause 3(1) provides that the person giving notice
  " shall produce to the superintendent registrar such evidence as the Registrar General may require to satisfy him "
  and so on, but we are left without any guidance as to what sort of evidence the Registrar General may accept. That question is left very much at large, and that is wrong.
  My hon. and learned Friend has put down an Amendment that sets out clearly that the conditions in Clause 1(2) must be satisfied and, more important, there is a proviso. That is absolutely vital. If there is no proviso and no machinery for showing what sort of evidence ought to be given to satisfy the Registrar General the Bill is lacking in an important essential. The certificate of a registered medical practitioner will set out the important evidence in regard to this matter, and I hope that the Amendment will be accepted by the promoter.
  I want to say a few words about Amendments Nos. 15 and 16. My hon. and learned Friend has inserted two additional offences. I agree that this is a difficult matter, and that we should hesitate before adding to our criminal law, but the two matters set out in those Amendments should form an essential part of the Bill. It should be regarded as a serious offence to give false information by way of evidence required in Clause 3 and to give a false certificate as provided for in Clause 3(1)(d). Those offences should be added to the Bill, with penalties provided. I hope that the
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  promoter will also accept those Amendments.
  Mr. Howie: My disappointment about the proceedings in Committee is known to you, Mr. Speaker. It would have been much better if the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) and I had been on the Committee. Perhaps the views about the Bill which we expressed on Second Reading were such that it was better that we were not on it. It seems a pity that we cannot get on it now.
  I hope that the hon. Member for Orpington will draw the attention of his noble Friends to Amendment No. 2, page 1, line 13, leave out subsection (2), and Amendment No. 8, page 2, line 22, leave out paragraph (d), which stand in my name and which, unfortunately, we have been unable to discuss, for reasons which I accept.
  I wish to express a slight doubt about Amendment No. 7. It refers to
  "… the conditions contained in section 1(2) of this Act ".
  To my mind, those conditions are all too narrow.
  The hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) said on Second Reading that he had tried for about 10 years to introduce a Private Member's Bill, and we were extremely pleased that he was fortunate enough to be able to do so. However, I think that most of us were extremely disappointed by the somewhat feeble use which he made of his opportunity. I should have thought that to introduce a Bill of which full use could be made only by a person who was dying was a very limited use of his opportunity. I know that a widow or widower, or any heir, would gain advantage from it. That is sensible and sound. But the number of occasions in the year when that circumstance arises must be fairly small. It is a pity to introduce a Bill of 20 Clauses for that very limited purpose.
  Mr. Goodhew: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I wished not to introduce anything new but to fill a gap. The provisions in the Bill exist for Anglicans but not for other people. That was the very narrow point with which I wished to deal. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that that is a reasonable ambition for any private Member.
  Mr. Howie: I accept that entirely. It is a reasonable ambition but unreasonably limited.
  The Amendment does not assist us in widening the conditions to which I have taken objection. I have much wider ambitions with which I shall deal on Third Reading, if that is feasible. The value of provisions of this kind would be enormously increased if they covered not only people likely to die but people who were perhaps bedridden or crippled or who, for a variety of reasons, are confined to their homes. I do not think that there would have been any objection to the hon. Member for St. Albans widening the Bill's scope to that extent. That is a very small request to make of him. I dare say that, like the hon. Member for Orpington, he has friends in another place. I have not. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will draw their attention to this point about widening the scope of the conditions laid down in the Bill.
  I am hesitant about supporting Amendment No. 7. I am in a different frame of mind about Amendments Nos. 15 and 16. On the whole, I think that my hon. and learned Friends the Members for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) and Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) are correct, but there is one slight difficulty. There is a distinction to be made between the activities of a person carrying out a marriage knowingly and wilfully realising that it is not in order and the position of the medical practitioner providing a certificate when he thinks that someone is likely to die. Should a person who was thought likely to die disappoint his heirs and live, it would be almost impossible to prove that a doctor "knowingly and wilfully" had certified that he was likely to die. Nothing much is to be gained by adding to the Bill a penalty for an offence which might be impossible to prove. My sympathy for Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 is tempered by a feeling that they are not practical.
  I hope that another place will take a different view of the Bill.
  Mr. O'Malley: I have come to the deliberations on the Bill at a very late stage, but it would perhaps not be out of order if I congratulated the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew)
  802
  on introducing a narrow but very useful Bill which in general the Government support.
  The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) complained about the brevity of the Committee stage and that he, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Howie), did not serve on it. I never serve on Committees whose proceedings are as brief as the proceedings on this Bill. The Committees on which I serve all seem to last an interminable time. The Committee proceedings on this Bill were brief perhaps because it dealt with a narrow point.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Luton complained that the Clause and the Bill in general were too narrow and he wanted the provisions to be considerably widened. He will be aware that a review of the marriage law is now proceeding under Mr. Justice Scarman with a joint working party of the Law Commission and the Registrar General. It is expected and hoped that the working party's report will be received by the end of the year.
  I deal first with that part of the Amendment which provides:
  "That the conditions contained in section 1(2) of this Act are satisfied and that the person in respect of whom such conditions are satisfied is able to and does understand the nature and purport of the marriage ceremony".
  This principle has been clearly established for a long time in the civil law. The people concerned should
  "understand the nature and purport of the marriage ceremony".
  Therefore, that part of the Amendment is unnecessary, because it is well established law that a marriage should not take place unless both parties understand the nature of the ceremony.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: My hon. Friend may be right in what he says. I appreciate that he has only just come to the deliberations on the Bill and that consideration of it has been very attenuated. The purpose of the words which he has quoted was simply to repeat and give effect to the words which already appear in the latter part of Clause 3(1)(d):
  "… but that he is nevertheless able to understand the nature and purport of the marriage ceremony."

  803
  All that I seek to do is to ensure that he does in fact
  " understand the nature and purport of the marriage ceremony ".
  If the words in my Amendment are criticised as being unnecessary, then the words in the Bill should also be criticised.
  12 noon.
  Mr. O'Malley: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin). I was not criticising his Amendment but examining it, bit by bit, to see what it proposes and how it differs from the existing provision. I was commenting on the nature of the common law as it exists. Nevertheless, while the Amendment is not really necessary, since this is a piece of separate legislation there is no objection to its being included.
  The second part of the Amendment deals with the certificate of a registered medical practitioner and states that this
  "… shall be sufficient evidence of any or all of the matters in subsection (1)(d) of this section referred to."
  The position is that the Registrar General would normally accept the certificate of a registered medical practitioner on this matter, and there is, therefore, no matter of principle here. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich is probably, therefore, only spelling out more clearly what previously had been the situation.
  Therefore, my advice to the House—but the sponsor of the Bill must obviously exercise his own judgment—is that, while the Amendment involves no new principle and for that reason could be argued to be unnecessary, if it is the desire of hon. Members that this provision should be spelled out on the lines suggested it would do no harm to the Bill and cause no difficulty in general administration.
  I turn now to Amendments Nos. 15 and 16. These deal with false certification. The existing law deals with it as well, but once again I can give the general advice that these would not raise fundamental objections or difficulties.
  I turn now to the serious point raised by the hon. Member for Orpington. He dealt with the case of a person who was seriously ill and, indeed, dying but
  804
  was not aware of it. He was worried because a situation might arise in which that person would be getting married and his prospective partner would have to inform him that he was dying. The hon. Gentleman suggested that such a situation could arise as a result of the Bill inasmuch as the person dying would, as a result of the Bill, be made aware that he was dying. This could arise, he suggested, because this is a narrow Bill dealing with a specific point. His case was that a marriage of the kind which could arise from the Bill would be dealing with people seriously ill and not expected to recover. The person who was dying might be made aware of the fact by his marriage being conducted under the terms of the Bill.
  The hon. Gentleman raised a wider question which he must take up with the hon. Member for St. Albans, but, in relation to the specific point he put, I am advised that there is no reason why the dying person should have it brought to his clear knowledge that he is dying. The other party would give the notice and provide the necessary evidence. The dying person would only have to know the nature and purpose of the marriage ceremony. While I take the general point put by the hon. Gentleman—which is a broad question dealing with the nature of the Bill—so far as this provision is concerned we see no reason why the dying person should have his condition brought to his notice.
  Mr. Howie: If the person who is thought to be dying is aware not only of the general conditions under which it is normally possible for him to be married—that is, in a church or register office—but of the conditions for marriage under this Bill, how can he be prevented from understanding that he is dying?
  Mr. O'Malley: I take the point. It is, in effect, the same criticism as made by the hon. Member for Orpington. All I am saying is that if it is possible to make that general criticism of the Bill, as far as subsection (2) is concerned the person involved does not have to be told that he is dying. That is the only point I am making. I doubt whether the vast majority of people, in getting married, realise the legal conditions and restrictions that there are. I am sure they do not know under which Act they are entitled to get married. I am sure

  805
  that few hon. Members are aware of the detailed sections and conditions of the Marriage Acts. While I take the general point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, I am, at the moment, replying to the narrower point which was raised by the hon. Member for Orpington.
  Mr. Gordon Oakes: Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have used the phrase " where a person is dying ". But we should be clear that in Clause 1(2) there is no reference to a person dying. This is very important in relation to someone getting married under the provisions of the Bill.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Interventions should be brief. There is nothing to debar the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Oakes) from speaking in the debate.
  Mr. O'Malley: I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Oakes) but, with respect, I point out that subsection (2) refers to one of the persons to be married who
  "…is seriously ill and is not expected to recover ".
  I speak as a non-lawyer—and my hon. Friend has the advantage of me in that respect—but I would have thought that if one is not expected to recover one is, in fact, at least in a prospective state of dying.
  However, my advice on Amendment No. 7 is that, although it could be argued that it and the other Amendments being considered with it are not really necessary, they would do no harm to the Bill and, in some aspects, would clarify the law. These are Amendments which the hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Albans might care to accept.
  Mr. Goodhew: I am grateful to the House for the consideration that it has given to these matters this morning. Perhaps I should at once apologise for any inconvenience caused to hon. Members by this stage coming so soon after the Committee stage. Certain dates were available to me. For one reason or another they were difficult, and as there is always an anxiety about eventually becoming too late in the whole pro-
  806
  gramme I reckoned I was wiser to come early than to come late. I apologise for the inconvenience this must have caused to many people in trying to prepare Amendments for today after seeing what had been done in Committee.
  I must also express my gratitude for what has been said this morning, and particularly for the helpful contribution of the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin). The drafting of a Bill is not an easy matter for someone like me, who is not learned, and despite all the help and advice that is given one is always grateful to have the advice of hon. and learned Members, who are constantly dealing with such matters in detail and are, therefore, perhaps better able to spot weaknesses at once.
  It had not occurred to me that in paragraph (d) we were omitting anything very important. I thought that the question whether a person could be moved was automatically decided by his being seriously ill and not being expected to recover; I felt that meant that he could not be moved anyway. The Amendment is an important clarification. It also makes it abundantly clear that it should be certain that the person concerned understands, and is not merely able to understand, the nature and purport of the marriage ceremony. Therefore, I gladly welcome Amendment No. 7.
  I now turn to Amendments Nos. 15 and 16. I had assumed that a doctor's certificate would be just the sort of evidence the Registrar General would be looking for. This being so, I have no objection to making it clear here that the giving of a false certificate will be the subject of a penalty under the Bill.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Before the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) winds up the debate, perhaps he would explain to the House whether he will want both Amendments Nos. 15 and 16. They seem to me to be almost alternatives, but not quite.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: They cover two slightly different aspects of the same matter, Mr. Speaker. The phrase
  " false information by way of evidence "
  is intended to relate to matters which are not covered by the certificate of a registered medical practitioner, whereas

  807
  Amendment No. 16 is expressly confined to the certificate of a registered medical practitioner.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. So the hon. and learned Gentleman will want both Amendments?
  12.15 p.m.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: Yes, Mr. Speaker.
  I am very much obliged to the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) for the generous way in which he has responded to my proposals. I am also grateful to my hon. Friends who have participated in this short but useful debate. Of course, I include the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), whom I regard as a friend if not an hon. Friend.
  The hon. Member for Orpington raised a very important point about the general scope of the Bill, which I had hoped to be able to debate on an Amendment but hope now perhaps to be able to raise on Third Reading. I gather that the hon. Gentleman has a friend in another place. I think that the hon. Member for St. Albans also has one, and I happen to have a very good one there, so between us we shall perhaps be able to raise the matter elsewhere if we cannot do so here.
  I think that the hon. Member for Orpington welcomed the Amendment although suggesting that it did not go quite as far as he would like. I agree that the provision I have proposed to insert for the registered medical practitioner's certificate has the additional advantage which I had not mentioned, but which with his ingenious mind he had thought of, that it may help to avoid the situation in which a seriously ill person will be aware of the reasons for the marriage being held in hospital or wherever it may be.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Howie) was mainly concerned about the narrowness of the provisions of the Bill. That is a matter with which we can deal, but I hope that he will agree that in the present position the House must accept, at any rate for the time being, the provisions of Clause 1. Therefore, I must take them as I find them, and it is not really a criticism of the Amendment we are considering that other provisions which we have now
  808
  passed are not as wide as they might have been.
  My hon. Friend also made some criticism of the proposal for making additional offences. He drew attention to the difference between the Bill as it stands, which makes it an offence to carry out ceremonies in certain conditions, and the proposals which I make, which would also make it an offence for people falsely, knowingly and wilfully to provide information or evidence which would allow or persuade the Registrar General to issue his licence so that the marriage might be solemnised in the way provided for by the Bill. He suggests that that is in a different category from the actual Act of solemnisation.
  That may well be, although it seems to me that the degree of enormity will differ rather by the circumstances of the case than the pigeon-hole into which we put the offence. When we come to one of my later Amendments which seeks to give very much greater elasticity to the way in which a court can deal with these various offences, I hope that my hon. Friend's point will be taken care of.
  Mr. Howie: The distinction I was trying to make was between someone knowingly and wilfully carrying out an act and someone knowingly and wilfully coming to a wrong conclusion and opinion. There is a clear distinction. One is readily provable and the other is not, and if we put unprovable things into law I am not sure that that improves law.
  Mr. Silkin: I am obliged to my hon. Friend, and I see the distinction he seeks to make. But I think that I can give the assurance, so far as I can from my experience in these matters, that Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 would certainly not be directed against any person who gave an honest but inaccurate opinion. They would be directed only against a person who could be proved to have deliberately given false information or a false certificate with the object of setting in motion this procedure, which would not otherwise be available to him. I believe that it is right that such a person should be punished.
  My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, in a very helpful intervention, drew attention, as have other hon. Members,

  809
  to the very short time during which the Bill was considered in Committee. I think that, including the usual words of courtesy at the end, the Committee sat for only 13 minutes. I may also point out that apart from the hon. Member for St. Albans, who is in charge of the Bill, not a single member of that Committee is now present, with the exception of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser) who attended earlier, and who is very regular in his attendance here. That being the case, it seems to me that we should look at the Bill very carefully to see whether we can improve it; and I hope that the House will agree that these Amendments are an improvement.
  Amendment agreed to.

Clause 6

  MARRIAGE OF PERSONS UNDER EIGHTEEN
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 9, in page 3, line 4, at end insert—
  'within a reasonable period of time '.
  Mr. Speaker: I suggest that with this Amendment we take Amendment No. 10, in page 3, line 7, leave out ' required ' and insert ' entitled '.
  Mr. Silkin: I hope that the House will not be weary of my voice, but in this case, as in some others, once one starts on something one tends to go on with it. That is how a number of Amendments now appear in my name.
  Clause 6 states that the provisions of the Marriage Act, 1949, are to apply for the purposes of this measure to a marriage intended to be solemnised under the procedure laid down by the Bill as they would to a marriage intended to be solemnised under the provisions of the principal Act, but with a modification in respect of the consent of any person whose consent under that Act would be required.
  The modification is that where, as matters now stand, there is, by reason of the absence of that person, or his inaccessibility or being under a disability he presumably cannot be found, that consent can be dispensed with. The reason for that modification is the shortness of the time within which these matters have to be dealt with because
  810
  of the fact that the person with whom the Bill is concerned may be, if not on his deathbed, certainly seriously ill and one therefore wishes to proceed with the utmost dispatch.
  It occurred to me on reading the Bill as it emerged from the Committee that the Clause does not make abundantly clear, as it ought to do, the necessity for that dispatch. It provides that if for the reasons set out the required consent cannot be obtained that consent should be waived, but no direction is given to the Registrar General as to the sort of period he should allow for absence, inaccessibility, and so on. We may have a situation in which the person whose consent is required is to be absent for three or four months, and will then come back. It will be difficult in those circumstances, to say that his consent cannot be obtained by reason of absence, because it would be able to be obtained after that four months period.
  In the meantime, the unfortunate person who is to benefit from the provisions of the Bill may be beyond recovery. That difficulty could be resolved by inserting the proposed words. The word " reasonable " would be related to the time scale under which the Bill is in any event to operate.
  Amendment No. 10 is, in a sense, a probing Amendment. The Clause continues with the words
  " … the superintendent registrar shall not be required to dispense with the necessity for the consent of that person and the Registrar General may dispense with the necessity of obtaining the consent of that person …".
  Although I have read the words many times I cannot follow the intention of the word " required ". I cannot see why the superintendent registrar should in any event and in any circumstances not be required to dispense with consent. It seems to me that he should be entitled to do so, but I cannot see how he can be required to do so. I may have completely misunderstood the wording. If I have, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will put me right, and that, if he does not do so, the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) will.
  Mr. O'Malley: The Clause states that
  "… if the consent of any person whose consent is required under that Act cannot be obtained by reason of absence or inaccessibility or by reason of his being under

  811
  any disability, the superintendent registrar shall not be required to dispense …"
  I cannot recommend the House and the Bill's sponsor to accept the Amendment proposed by my hon. and learned Friend, because I am advised that it might, in practice, prove restrictive as it could force the Registrar General to delay for a " reasonable time " before deciding to dispense with the consent. As the Bill stands, the Registrar General would be enabled and entitled to use his discretion taking into account all the circumstances and the urgency of the circumstances. The Amendment could cause delay where delay, because of the circumstances of the case, could well be fatal.
  My hon. and learned Friend referred to the use of the word " required ". Section 3 of the Marriage Act, 1949, says that in certain circumstances the superintendent shall dispense with consent. If we are linking or seeking to maintain similarities between this piece of legislation and the principal Act it seems that the word " required " is more appropriate than the word " entitled ". My advice to the House is that the Clause as it stands is in line with the principal legislation on this subject and " required " seems the appropriate word. In some circumstances, there would be delay as a result of the words proposed by my hon. and learned Friend in his first Amendment. Therefore, I could not commend either Amendment to the House.
  12.30 p.m.
  Mr. Goodhew: While I am most anxious to be helpful to the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin), I was given to understand, and still believe from what the Under-Secretary has said, that one of the vital things about the Bill is that it should tie in with the principal Act. This form of words ties in with the form in the principal Act. Therefore, I hope that the hon. and learned Member will not press his Amendment.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I listened with great interest to what the Under-Secretary said and I appreciate that the effect of the proposed Amendment might be the opposite to that which I intended. I had intended to speed matters up but the advice which the Under-Secretary has
  812
  received is that these words might have the effect of rather slowing matters down. No doubt the point can be considered further elsewhere.
  In view of what my hon. Friend has said, I think that it would be right that the matter should be considered elsewhere rather than dealt with definitely here. In those circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 8

  PERIOD OF VALIDITY OF LICENCE
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 11, in page 3, line 21, leave out ' notice of marriage was entered in the marriage notice book ' and insert:
  ' Registrar-General's licence was granted '.
  Clause 8 provides the very important matter of the period of validity of a Registrar General's licence. I have emphasised more than once the need for speed for this procedure to be of value. The Clause gives effect to the desired speed by providing that a marriage may be solemnised on the authority of the Registrar General's licence at any time within one month from the day which the notice of marriage is entered in the marriage notice book.
  If a month is allowed to go by without the marriage taking place, the whole procedure has to be started again. No doubt that is perfectly right and proper, but the difficulty I see in the Clause is that the period of a month runs from the day on which a notice is entered in the marriage notice book.
  If I have correctly understood the procedure under the principal Act, that notice is entered in the book when notice is duly given by the person concerned and it would be only after that that the Registrar General would put in motion, if he felt it necessary to do so, procedure provided for under Clause 4 whereby the evidence is given to the superintendent registrar for submission to the Registrar General to show that the provisions of Clause 1 have been satisfied. The Registrar General is then enabled by Clause 4 to give directions for the purpose of verifying the evidence and the superintendent registrar is required to comply with those directions.

  813
  I can well understand that a case might arise where the evidence produced to the Registrar General would not, in his view, be satisfactory, notwithstanding the Amendment we made tightening up the procedure. Consequently, he would give directions to the superintendent registrar to verify the evidence. It would not be for perhaps some little time before that evidence had been satisfactorily verified and the Registrar General would be in a position to grant the licence.
  Then, as I understand the scheme of the Bill, the month would have already started to run because the notice would have been already entered in the marriage notice book. More and more of that month would be consumed while the procedure for verification took place. Eventually, there might be little time left within the month during which the marriage could be arranged and take place.
  If I have correctly understood the procedure upon which this rather complicated matter is based, I think that it would be much more logical and helpful to those concerned if the period of a month ran, not from the date when the notice was entered in the book, but from the date when the Registrar General granted his licence after he had had the opportunity of verifying the matters which he thought necessary to verify. The parties would not then be penalised by steps taken by the Registrar General rather than steps for which they themselves were responsible. They would not be placed in the position that the time was inadequate and the whole procedure had to be started again.
  Again, I hope that the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) and the Under-Secretary will feel that this would be an important improvement of the Bill and would make it substantially more effective in the kind of case which is contemplated. I hope that the hon. Member will feel able to accept the Amendment.
  Mr. O'Malley: I listened with interest and with some sympathy for at least some of the points made by my hon. and learned Friend. I am in some difficulty in advising the House on this Amendment. I think that I should give a balance of advantages and disadvantages and then suggest the way in which I think the balance should tip.
  814
  I was impressed by some of the comments made by my hon. and learned Friend about the timing and the period of the licence. He suggested that if we extended the period of the validity of the licence it would be helpful in some circumstances—and I take that point. I understand, however, that the Amendment would extend the validity of the licence by only a day or two and certainly not for a long period, since the period of validity of a certificate or licence of the superintendent registrar runs from the date of the entry of the notice in the marriage notice book.
  We are, therefore, not talking about a long extension in the period of validity. Nevertheless, I take the point that there might be cases in which an argument could be made that the period of validity of the licence ought to be somewhat longer.
  The time during which a licence is valid is in some ways a general question which might well be under consideration by the working party on the marriage laws. I listened with some sympathy to the situation which could conceivably arise in some cases, but the difficulty is that the Bill is closely tied in with, and needs to be tied in with, the existing principal legislation on the subject. Consistency suggests that we should retain the present form of the Clause in order to tie it in with present legislation.
  On balance, therefore, my advice to the House is that we should retain this consistency. The Bill is not making a major revision of the law—simply an accretion concerning a very small aspect of the Marriage Acts. My advice, therefore, is that we should ask my hon. and learned Friend to withdraw the Amendment because of the need for consistency, while nevertheless assuring him that I recognise that some of the points which he made could conceivably have validity in certain cases. I wish to look more closely at what he said by reading the report in the OFFICIAL REPORT. If there were a case for an extension of the validity of certificates, it might well be a subject for consideration once the report has been received from Mr. Justice Scarman's working party. That would be preferable to amending the principal Act at present.

  815
  I therefore hope that my hon. and learned Friend will withdraw the Amendment.
  Mr. Goodhew: I endorse the words of the Joint Under-Secretary of State. One reason why this apparently simple Bill, setting out to achieve a very limited objective, occupies 20 Clauses is that we have been required to tie it in carefully with the principal Act. That being so, I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) will withdraw the Amendment.
  12.45 p.m.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I confess that I am a little disappointed by the reaction of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. I appreciate the difficulties which arise in relation to other parts of the Bill, in that it is undoubtedly desirable to tie in the provisions of the Bill, which to a limited degree adds to the principal Act, with the provisions of the principal Act. But my hon. Friend recognises, I am sure, that the point with which we are dealing is one precisely at which the Bill differs in principle from the principal Act.
  I would point out that the principal Act deals with marriage in the ordinary way, where there is no necessity for the speed with which we are dealing here, whereas the whole purpose of the provisions of the Bill is to deal with the situation in which speed is of the essence, because one of the parties who may wish to get married is possibly on his deathbed or very near it. The criteria which very properly govern the provisions of the principal Act are, therefore, not at one with the kind of provision which we ought to take into account in this Clause.
  Mr. O'Malley: No doubt my hon. and learned Friend recognises that the effect of his Amendment would be limited. It would extend the validity of the licence for only a day or two.
  Mr. Silkin: I heard my hon. Friend say that in his reply. I understood the point which he made, although I do not necessarily accept it. Where a medical practitioner's certificate has been granted, this point would not arise as that would be conclusive evidence. But where we are dealing with a situation in which other forms of evidence are put forward, different circumstances might arise.
  816
  Possibly it might be evidence from a very remote place—not a remote island off the coast of Scotland, because the Bill does not deal with Scotland, but a remote island; and to be satisfied about the situation, the Registrar General might feel that he needed verification and he might have to send someone to see what was the position.
  Accordingly, in certain circumstances it could be a matter not only of a couple of days but possibly of two or three weeks. There might be only a week or less during which the provisions of the Bill could operate. That is the kind of situation which I had in mind.
  I hope that what I have said will make it possible for further consideration to be given to what I submit is a very important provision of the Bill. I hope that further consideration to the point will be given in another place. If my hon. Friend is willing to give me that undertaking, as I hope he is, on that basis I am prepared to seek leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Mr. O'Malley: Of course, the Government will consider very carefully what my hon. and learned Friend said in the last few minutes about the basis of and reason for the Amendment. I can give that assurance.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In those circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 10

  MANNER OF SOLEMNISATION
  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.
  1.0 p.m.
  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.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 16

  OFFENCES
  Amendment proposed: No. 15, page 6, line 3, at end insert
  (d) to give false information by way of evidence as required by section 3 of this Act.—[Mr. S. C. Silkin.]
  Mr. Goodhew: Amendment No. 15 and Amendment No. 16 each propose to add a new paragraph (d). I do not know whether the drafting is correct.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: The manuscript of the Amendment was not in that form. I deliberately left out the appellation "(d)" of the second, but someone kindly has filled in the blank.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): We are now dealing with Amendment No. 15.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made:No. 16, in page 6, line 3, at end insert—
  (d,) to give a false certificate as provided for in section 3(1)(d) of this Act.—[Mr. S. C. Silkin.]
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 17, in page 6, line 5, leave out from ' to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years ' and insert
  'on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100 or on indictment to a fine not exceeding £500 or to imprisonment not exceeding three years or to both such fine and such imprisonment '.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: It would be convenient to consider, at the same time, Amendment No. 18, also standing in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin), in page 6, line 12, leave out from ' to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years ' and insert
  ' on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100 or on indictment to a fine not exceeding £500 or to imprisonment not exceeding three years or to both such fine and such imprisonment'
  Mr. Silkin: Clause 16 creates certain offences in relation to this procedure. They are offences we have now added to by Amendments Nos. 15 and 16. The purpose of Amendments Nos. 17 and 18 is to give substantially greater flexibility to the means of dealing with offences committed.
  It was a surprise to me to find, even in the original form of the Bill, that the sole penalty prescribed for an offence of " knowingly and wilfully " solemnising
  "…a marriage by Registrar General's licence in any place other than the place specified in the licence; …"
  was that the person concerned should be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.
  I am sure that I can anticipate what my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State will be saying about that—we have heard it many times before. No doubt he will say that we are simply following what the Marriage Act does and that in a Bill of this kind we should not depart from the provisions of that Act even though they were
  824
  brought into effect as long ago as 1949, when ideas about penalties may have been rather different from what they are now and even though wt are dealing with special circumstances with this Bill. I am sure—indeed, I hope—that he will go on to say that the working party can look at all these matters.
  But we should look at the matter rather more carefully than that. The offence of
  "… knowingly and wilfully—
  (a,) to solemnise a marriage by Registrar General's licence in any place other than that place specified in the licence; "
  does not seem to me to be amongst the greatest offences known to the law, and to suggest that the only appropriate penalty is that of imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years seems to put it on a par with offences of grave dishonesty or assault, and so on, which is going a little far.
  The same criticism applies to the other part of Clause 16. Subsection (1)(b) states:
  " to solemnise a marriage by Registrar General's licence without the presence of a registrar except in the case of a marriage according to the usages of the Society of Friends or a marriage between two persons professing the Jewish religion according to the usages of the Jews; ".
  The heinous crime where one has not got two people who are members of the Society of Friends consists of solemnising a marriage without the presence of a registrar, and for the unfortunate person who does it, a sentence of a term of imprisonment not exceeding five years is specified.
  Finally, subsection (1)(c) states:
  " to solemnise a marriage by Registrar-General's licence after the expiration of one month from the date of entry of the notice of marriage in the marriage note book; "
  If a person delays for one month and one day after that date—and I have already drawn attention to circumstances in which delay could easily occur, and my hon. Friend agreed to look at this matter—and does so "knowingly and wilfully ", the unfortunate gentleman concerned will be guilty of an offence for which he is liable to up to five years' imprisonment. All this seems out of proportion to the kind of thing we are dealing with even in the Bill as it stands.

  825
  1.15 p.m.
  I refer to the Amendments which the House has already been good enough to make. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Howie) has drawn attention to the difference in principle between the matters which were contained in those Amendments and the matters already contained in the Bill before it was amended, and also to the fact that there may be some difficulty or doubt as to whether the person accused of the offence was absolutely certain, or not absolutely certain, that the information he was giving, or the certificate he was giving, was false. Whilst I accept that that goes essentially to the question whether or not he has committed an offence, none the less it indicates that there may be very wide gradations in the seriousness of the offence which under this Bill may be committed.
  It seems rather extraordinary that we should be limiting the courts to imprisonment to a term not exceeding five years, which means, if I understand the situation correctly, that all these offences will have to be dealt with on indictment, however relatively trivial in the circumstances they may be. A magistrates' court would not be entitled to deal with the matter. It will be impossible to impose a penalty by way of a fine. It will have to be imprisonment or nothing. I cannot see any sense or justification for limitations on that time.
  The Amendment would give a desirable flexibility to the way in which the offence could be dealt with instead of the limitation of a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, which necessarily means treating the offence as indictable and going through all the machinery up to quarter sessions.
  It provides two possible methods of dealing with the offences concerned. Which method is chosen will obviously depend upon the degree of gravity of the circumstances in relation to the offence rather than simply pigeon-holing all these offences as though there could be no difference in the degree of gravity. The less serious offences would be capable of being dealt with on summary conviction by the imposition of a fine not exceeding £100. That seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable way of dealing with an offence
  826
  of this nature which could not be regarded as being excessively grave.
  The court would, no doubt, bear in mind the particular situation with which we are involved: that a person, possibly on his deathbed, is anxious to make a marriage which, perhaps, he has wanted to make for a long time but has been unable to do so. Perhaps he wants to marry a person with whom he has been living as though she were his wife, or he her husband, as the case may be. That is the sort of situation which we are dealing with. The temptation in those circumstances perhaps to stretch a point a little beyond the true facts is a grave one and one which the court should be entitled to take into account.
  In many circumstances of that kind, the ability to deal with the matter by way of fine on summary conviction should be adequate. In the more serious cases, the Amendment would enable the courts, on indictment, to deal with the matter by way of a more serious penalty, here again extending the inherent flexibility of the Bill, which provides only for a term of imprisonment, by allowing the higher court to impose a much more substantial fine—not exceeding £500—a term of imprisonment, which I propose to reduce to three years from five years because I feel that five years is excessive for this sort of offence, or
  " both such fine and such imprisonment."
  Those conditions would give the courts the much greater discretion which they should have. Those provisions would be very much in line with the views recently expressed by the Lord Chief Justice when he suggested that mandatory punishments are wholly undesirable. I do not say that the present worry is a mandatory one, but the basis of what the Lord Chief Justice said was that the courts should have as wide a discretion as possible in the punishments which they can impose. I entirely agree with him about that. The Amendment would enable effect to be given to that principle.
  I regard this as an important improvement to the Bill. I hope that we shall not receive by way of reply simply the answer that the principal Act dealt with the matter in this way and, therefore, we ought not to depart from it. We are dealing with particular circumstances. Our ideas on penalties and the criminal law generally have I hope moved a very

  827
  long way since 1949. I am glad to see my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department present with us. He will, I am sure, bear out in his mind, if he cannot do so audibly, what I have just said. This is surely the time to make a change and not to be frightened of creating some sort of precedent.
  Mr. Howie: I strongly support my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) in his Amendments. I must at this stage say that if the sponsor of the Bill does not feel inclined to accept these Amendments, I shall be very tempted to push them to a Division. I might not yield to that temptation—it will depend entirely on the strength f the hon. Member's arguments —but I am strongly tempted to push the Amendments to a Division, which might prove hazardous for the Bill.
  The Bill is unduly inflexible. It may be that the rest of the law is inflexible also, but that is not a sufficient argument. On a number of occasions throughout our debates on the Bill, we have had to put up with the argument that because the principal Act is inflexible and is cast in certain directions, the Bill must be inflexible, too. There is something in that argument, but I do not find it at all strong on this group of Amendments.
  The only punishment provided in the Bill is imprisonment. Presumably, that is because reasons of inheritance might be connected with the need for such a marriage. If a marriage of this sort for purposes of inheritance were improperly carried out either by the medical advisers, the registrars, the superintendent of registrars or the parties to the marriage, it might be sensible to punish them severely. At the same time, we must realise that marriages of this nature might be carried out for nothing more than sentiment or for the convenience of children, to give them a name, in which case I should have thought that any irregularities were fairly forgivable.
  It might be that if the authorities felt that the reasons behind the irregularities were to give children a name, they might turn a blind eye, but we should not rely on that. We cannot pass laws in the expectation that those who in due course will operate those laws will turn a blind eye to evasions of them.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: My hon. Friend would, I am sure, agree that it becomes much more difficult to turn a blind eye to an offence when the only penalty which the law provides is imprisonment for a term of up to five years.
  1.30 p.m.
  Mr. Howie: Perhaps my character is different from that of my hon. and learned Friend, but it is exactly that which would make me turn a blind eye. If I were in charge of this kind of business—I am happy to say that that is extremely unlikely—and thought that, by applying the law, the effect would be to send some malefactor to prison for five years when the offence had been perhaps irregularly giving a name to children, I should be inclined to turn a blind eye. I should probably go to gaol myself at a later stage.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: May I express the hope that if I am ever charged with this kind of offence my hon. Friend will be on the jury.
  Mr. Howie: I can understand that it is good to have a friend on the jury—almost as good as having not only a friend, but also a relation in another place. However, as a Member of Parliament I cannot get on a jury. At any rate, I have applied to be excused jury service, which is not quite the same thing. Therefore, I shall be unable to assist my hon. and learned Friend in that way.
  I think that both my hon. and learned Friend and I are probably right: that the seriousness of the sentence in a sense adds seriousness to the offence which would make it difficult even for me to turn a blind eye to it, however much I may be tempted to do so.
  This becomes worse when we add the two additional matters for which a sentence can be imposed. On an earlier Amendment I drew a distinction between offences concerned with carrying out an act such as those in paragraphs (a) (b) and (c) and offences concerned with, as I thought, the forming of an opinion which might be wrong under what should now be new paragraphs (d) and (e). I thought that there was a distinction between the two kinds of offences and it seemed to me that there should be a distinction between the kinds of punishment which can be imposed for offences which, under

  829
  the principal Act, are not of equal importance.
  My hon. and learned Friend was correct to draw attention to the fact that one offence is
  " to solemnise a marriage …after the expiration of one month from the date of entry of the notice of marriage in the marriage notice book ".
  I have no doubt that it is extremely dreadful, through slackness or for any other reason, to wait for longer than a month before solemnising a marriage. But it is terrible that a person should be sent to gaol for five years for doing it. Five years, even with remission for good behaviour, open prisons, and all the delights which can be enjoyed by prisoners, is still a longish time. I think that the penalty is absurdly inflated in relation to the offence. If it was an enormous fraud, perhaps not. But since the reasons for the offences can range so widely, I think that it is a great exaggeration.
  I want now to consider the jury problem. Experience throughout history is that if a jury thinks that the relationship between the offence and the sentence is disproportionate it becomes more difficult to obtain a conviction. The lesson that we learned from the severe penalties for sheep stealing, stealing handkerchiefs, and so on, in the 19th century, was that if a jury thought that the sentence was out of proportion to the offence it would not convict. I think that in this instance a jury would be likely to react in a similar way.
  I cannot see any sensible man—not even a judge—sending anyone to gaol for waiting longer than a month to solemnise a marriage in these circumstances. It is impossible to visualise sending anyone to gaol for five years for that. It is clear, therefore, that five years is far too long and that, in addition, the alternative of a fine is absolutely necessary.
  I know that the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) is very humane and would not send anybody on his side to gaol if he could reasonably avoid it. I urge him to accept these Amendments and to bear in mind that I am tempted to carry them to a Division if he does not. I put it to him as an argument rather than a threat.
  Mr. O'Malley: I listened with considerable interest to the case put forward by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Howie). They would expect me, in replying to their speeches and to this Amendment, to be consistent. I know that consistency is regarded as a high virtue in this place. An exercise which has always amused me—I am not sure how valuable it is, but I have done it on many occasions—is to turn back to other hon. Members' speeches to see what they said five or ten years' ago or on the last debate on this or that subject and to point out that they have changed their minds or that they are being inconsistent. So, as I said, we place a high value on consistency in the House.
  Mr. Howie: Does my hon. Friend realise that the best defence in that situation is to change his mind not once, but twice, so that the third time he is always consistent with one or other of his earlier decisions?
  Mr. O'Malley: That is an interesting theory. However, my hon. Friend knows that all members of the Government are open-minded and are always prepared to accept and examine evidence impartially at any one time. Nevertheless, if I am to be consistent in my treatment of the Bill, I must point out that the penalties set out in Clause 16 correspond to those for similar offences under the principal Act. So it is that we read
  " any person found guilty of any of the above-mentioned offences shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years."
  I assume that the offences under the principal Act are based on the fact that the marriage may be found to be void, which has serious consequences for the parties. Nevertheless, as has been pointed out, this is legislation going back to 1949 and we are not examining the principal legislation this morning; we are simply looking at offences of the kind mentioned in this Clause of this Bill.
  Quite frankly, there is no need for me on this occasion to maintain the admirable consistency that I have shown in dealing with Amendments this morning. When I looked at the Bill and saw five years in the Clause and then looked at the current legislation on the subject, it seemed to me that, whatever one's

  831
  views on the maximum sentence, certainly it was rather more rigid and inflexible than it ought to be, apart from the question on which I think every individual, according to his conscience, has to take a view—namely, the relative severity or non-severity of the maximum sentence laid down in similar legislation.
  I think that we can treat these Amendments differently from the others, and I should like to explain why. So far, we have debated administration, the conduct of marriages, and the issuing of certificates. What we are here debating is the discretion which a court will have when examining individual cases. The Clause as it stands says that anyone guilty of these offences shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. I think that a case can be made for saying that that is an inflexible provision, and that there might be occasions when it would be helpful for a court to have greater flexibility in deciding what penalty to impose. There does not seem to be a case for consistency with the previous legislation, and it seems, therefore, that there are good reasons for accepting the Amendments.
  Mr. Goodhew: I am grateful to the Minister for his personal views on the matter. I was much moved by the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin), more, perhaps, than I was by the scarcely veiled threats of the hon. Member for Luton (Mr. Howie). It seems that there is a good argument for not being as inflexible as we originally intended to be, particularly as someone is not likely to make a practice of committing offences of this sort. The offence is likely to arise only in some unusual circumstance. I am, therefore, attracted by the idea of a fine, rather than an automatic sentence of imprisonment, and I thank the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich for his helpful advice this morning.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I am extremely grateful to the Minister and to the hon. Member for St. Albans for the sympathetic way in which they have dealt with these Amendments. I am delighted that all those who have spoken support the inclusion of the Amendments in the Bill.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment made:No. 18, in line 12, leave out from ' to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years ' and insert:
  ' on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100 or on indictment to a fine not exceeding £500 or to imprisonment not exceeding three years or to both such fine and such such imprisonment '.—[Mr. S. C. Silkin.]
  1.45 p.m.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 19, in line 13, at end insert:
  (3) No prosecution under this section shall be commenced after the expiration of three years from the commission of the offence.
  On seeing the Amendment, hon. Members may have wondered about the reason for it. I have to make a confession. Up to now I have moved Amendments which seek to make a distinction between the Bill and the Marriage Act, 1949. I have asked the House, in some cases successfully and in others unsuccessfully, to be inconsistent with the principal Act, but here I am asking the House to be consistent with it. Section 75(4) says:
  " No prosecution under this section shall be commenced after the expiration of three years from the commission of the offence ",
  and that is precisely what I seek to include in the Bill.
  I hope that on this occasion consistency will prevail, and that the House will agree that this is the right thing to do.
  Mr. O'Malley: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) says that he is being consistent in following the Marriage Act. I think that, with one exception, we have both been consistent this morning, because this is what we have been advising the House to do. I accept the point made by my hon. and learned Friend, and I suggest to the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) that there is no reason why the Amendment should not be accepted.
  Mr. Goodhew: I am grateful to the Minister. I am glad of his views, and I support them.
  Mr. S. C. Silkin: I am grateful for what has been said. I hope that it shows that I have read the Marriage Act before putting down my Amendments.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Title
  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.
  Amendment agreed to.
  1.47 p.m.
  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.
  1.50 p.m.
  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 virtually in 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.
  1.55 p.m.
  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.
  1.58 p.m.
  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.
  2.1 p.m.
  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.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS (REDISTRIBUTION OF SEATS) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  2.2 p.m.
  Mr. Ronald Bell: Following the invitation of the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman), I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This Bill is very different from that which my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) has steered into harbour. Not only that, but it is a long way from harbour. I do not expect for it anything like the general approbation in which my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans has just been asking.
  The Bill raises a question which, though narrow in the sense that it applies only to the constitution of the House of Commons, is wide in the sense that it proposes a change in the size and, therefore, to that extent, the character of the House which obviously is of general importance.
  I do not suppose that a matter like this can be decided in principle on a Friday afternoon on the first occasion that it is put before the House. However, I should like to think that the Joint Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office would commend the Bill warmly to anyone who might happen to hear, but I do not expect that to occur. It is probably not correct to ask the House to reach a decision on a matter of this kind in view of the sort of debate which we can have on it today. I am, however, glad of the opportunity to bring my proposal forward in a specific legislative form—the only useful way of bringing it forward.
  The purpose of the Bill is to reduce the size of the House of Commons from 630 to 500 Members. The House of Commons is almost the largest parliamentary body in the world. It is matched by one assembly only, namely, the Italian Chamber of Deputies, which also has 630 Members. The consequences of its size expressed in terms of the number of people represented by each Member are that in the United Kingdom there is one seat in the elected House of Parliament for every 87,750 people. In the United States the ratio is one member of Congress to 467,000 people; in Japan, one to

  839
  about 216,000 people; in France, one to 103,000 people; and, in Western Germany, one to 116,000 people.
  I mention those figures, which are not central to my theme, only to show that what I am proposing would not be out of line with the situation in other countries. However, the number of people we represent is not the main point. The purpose of the Bill is to reduce the number in this deliberative assembly. The Preamble to the Bill recites that the House of Commons
  " is now too large to be effective as a deliberative assembly, and no changes of procedure can remedy this defect."
  If the provisions in the Bill were to be accepted the House of Commons would still be the largest deliberative assembly in the world apart from the Italian Chamber of Deputies. The number of people each Member here represented would still be among the smallest in the world. Therefore, on the representational side, we should not experience any great difficulty.
  Before coming to the reasons for what I am proposing, I should like to describe the Bill's mechanics. The House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1949, prescribes a number of 625 for the United Kingdom Parliament. The number is not to be greatly in excess of or less than 625. In fact, it is 630. The 1949 Act prescribes a minimum number of 71 seats for Scotland and 35 for Wales. The number for England is a residual number arrived at by subtracting the minimum for Scotland and Wales from the recommended number for the United Kingdom, which comes out at 507.
  That is the pattern of the 1949 Act. The composition is slightly in excess of the recommended number, because there are 630 seats for the United Kingdom—12 for Ulster, fixed by Statute; 511 for England, which is four more than the number in the Schedule to the 1949 Act; 71 for Scotland, the minimum that it can have; and 36 for Wales, more than the minimum, making a total of 618 for Great Britain which, with the 12 for Ulster, makes 630.
  The Bill's proposals would have this result. In these figures I use the 1969 electorate, because that means more in comparative terms to us in the House
  840
  than the new 1970 figures, which include the 18–21 voters. We have not yet got used to thinking in terms of the new electorate based on the new rolls. Using the size of electorate over 21, if the Bill were passed the average electorate in Britain would be 73,891.
  In England, the average electorate would be 74,902, as compared with the quota used by the Boundary Commission, whose recommendations were not accepted, of 58,759. The Boundary Commission, whose ill-fated recommendations we dealt with in this Session, worked on the 1965 electorate and on the provisions of the 1949 Act as to the number of seats. Thus, my proposal in relation to England is an increase on average of 16,000 electors per constituency.
  Under the Bill, the average electorate in Scotland would be 67,968, or approximately 7,000 fewer than in England, allowing for a slight degree of overrepresentation because of the geographical extent in relation to population. In Wales, the average electorate would be 70,859, 4,000 fewer than in England because of the lower population density. The Bill reproduces, broadly speaking, the differentials between England, Scotland and Wales in the 1949 Act.
  So much for the result of the Bill. Experience, has shown that a House of 630 cannot any longer operate successfully. In the past the House has varied in size. At one time, the United Kingdom included the whole of Ireland, and the number of Members was as high as 700. In more recent times it was 612, then 615, 625 and 630. So the number has been growing for some time.
  This scale of number was sensible when only a minority of Members were active participants in debates and when the majority was willing to be the sounding board for the active minority. In those days a House of this size could and did function successfully. There may well have been much merit in having a House of that size, representing a population substantially smaller than the present population; because it provided a sounding board at Westminster which was particularly ample and particularly full.
  During the last 20 or 30 years everyone has seen how the House has become

  841
  increasingly filled by Members who want to take an active and articulate part in our proceedings. Nowadays there are few silent Members. Any Member who is silent for long gets appropriate mention in some appropriate part of a newspaper, possibly a Sunday newspaper.
  The result has been that far more hon. Members wish to take part in every major debate than can possibly do so. This is true to a lesser degree of debates which are not major debates, but ordinary debates. It is rare that the principal debate of any day has not sufficient speakers to sustain it until the hour at which Standing Order No. 1 closes the proceedings on it.
  This has its effect on hon. Members. On any major occasion an hon. Member who is not a Privy Councillor can have only an odds against chance of catching Mr. Speaker's eye. The odds against his being called may be anything from 3–1 to 10–1.
  In those circumstances, many hon. Members will not be willing to give the same attention to preparing their speeches —speeches which, by definition, are unlikely to be delivered. Increasingly, the number actually seeking to speak in a debate does not reflect the number of Members who would like to take part in the debate were it not such a lottery.
  This visibly results in poor attendances during the middle of our debates. In my time in the House I have seen how Question Time has become more and more important relatively. When Questions and statements after Questions are over, most hon. Members leave the Chamber and are not seen again for a long time. In the middle of our debates the number present would rarely be sufficient to sustain a quorum if any Member chose to call attention to the fact. Others in the building than the numbers listening to a debate in the middle of a debate are very small. This is because debates have less reality, inasmuch as a Member can no longer feel that if he has something to say on an important subject he can come to the House and say it. He is driven to writing a letter to The Times or some other newspaper.
  Another result is the proliferation of Committees. As it is clear that our work
  842
  cannot be got through on the Floor of the House, there has been a practice of setting up Committees and remitting to them matters which ought to be considered in the full House. With a House of 630 Members it is inevitable that all debates take longer, because a sizeable proportion of those Members want to take part in each debate.
  This results in extending the business each day; on how many days do we not suspend Standing Order No. 1? It results in the extending of the periodic sittings so that our recesses are now short. There is always a question whether the recess at Whitsun will be two weeks. We come back on Mondays instead of Tuesdays, and still we have tremendous pressure to get through our business.
  This is partly because there is far too much Government business these days, but it is also because we are trying to operate a deliberative assembly of an unrealistic size in modern conditions. I believe—I do not know whether my view is shared—that the process of farming out our work to Committees, which increasingly sit while the House is sitting, is a bad development which cannot but diminish the authority and influence of the House.
  During our current Session we have had, and probably still have, no fewer than 10 Standing Committees considering legislation, two Grand Committees and an unexampled proliferation of Select Committees. An increasing number of these Committees are sitting while the House is sitting.
  What must be the effect of this upon the middle of our debates? When the two opening speakers have finished, not only is there the exodus which might be expected when the two principal spokesmen have had their say, but there is also the very substantial exodus of hon. Members going to carry out their parliamentary duties on Committees in other parts of the building, sometimes sitting until late in the evening.
  I have heard it argued against my proposed change that if there were fewer Members we should not be able to man all the Committees we need to carry out the work of the House. This is an error. First, I think that the House is trying to

  843
  pass too much legislation anyway. It would be a very good thing if we passed less, but it is the very size of the House—
  Mr. Leslie Huckfield: On a point of order. The hon. and learned Gentleman has been talking about quorums and the small numbers of Mem-
  844
  bers present at certain times. There hardly seems to be a quorum present now.
  Notice taken that 40 Members were not present:
  House counted, and, 40 Members not being present, adjourned at twenty-eight minutes past Two o'clock till Monday next.

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