My Lords, I welcome many aspects of the Registration of Marriages Regulations and look forward to the guidance, eloquently detailed by my noble friend Lady Sherlock—I commend her expertise to the House—and the forthcoming Law Commission report due to be published in August, particularly with reference to weddings and their registration.
I am pleased to be speaking in this debate and my primary focus is to draw the House’s attention, as I have done previously, to the hundreds of thousands of unregistered marriages and the detrimental effect of such decisions, which have left countless women in particular and their families, when separated or divorced, facing destitution and without fundamental legal protection and rights. I agree with the sentiments and questions of my noble friend Lord Hussain. This is a grave matter of ensuring equality and opportunity to safeguard hundreds of thousands of British-born women, and a smaller group of men, for whom there are no legal remedies or entitlement when marriages break down.
I am therefore pleased that the Law Commission in its consultations throughout the country cited the work of the Register Our Marriage—ROM—campaign, which, alongside many leading organisations, is supportive of the Law Commission’s proposal to modernise the marriage laws. It is asking the Government to amend and modernise the Marriage Act 1949 and require all
persons, regardless of their faith, to register their marriage according to the law of the land. This would send a powerful message and clarity to all parties who enter marriage. It would also remove significant imbalances of power between couples and prevent pain and suffering, as well as enabling legal support. In that context, I thank Aina Khan OBE once again for her relentless efforts and for her comprehensive briefing which underpins this contribution.
I welcome much of the regulations. An important aspect worth noting is that for the first time, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, stated, mothers’ names will be recorded by acknowledging both parents. This has been an outrageous anomaly to be remedied given that it is the mothers who gave birth to both partners. I very much welcome those amendments and proposals. I also note that no other institutions will be able hold blank copies of marriage certificates, which it is proposed will be centrally held and registered, and details of marriages will be held centrally on a marriage register. That is indeed welcome news.
Finally, I have a request and a question to the Government and the Minister. In the light of the expertise our Government have developed in the past year in reaching out to communities with public health information, will the Minister assure me and this House that public education and materials on the proposed changes will be made available to all senior schools, colleges and universities, which may empower many women in particular to make informed choices and decisions, and protect and uphold their human rights?
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