Clause 4 - Successful applications
Gender Recognition Bill [Lords]
9:45 am
Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
I apologise to the hon. Member for City of York and the Committee for the fact that I was not able to be here for the few minutes when he moved his amendment at the end of the last sitting, but I have taken the opportunity to read his excellent contribution. I am pleased to say that I strongly support the principle and the wording of the amendment, and I congratulate him on setting out in such detail formal proposals, rather than probing amendments, to the Government to ask them to change their view on the matter. I also congratulate him on the clear way in which he put his case both on Second Reading—when I was not the Front-Bench spokesman—and during the last sitting of the Committee.
The Government have a clear series of choices. We have already heard that they are not willing to consider the proposition put to them by the Joint Committee on Human Rights that people should not have to get divorced if they do not wish to do so to access their human rights. Later, we shall have a debate on amendment No. 71, when I intend to probe the Government on whether they are willing to make allowances for marriages that existed before the enactment of the measure. If there is a problem with a small number of what the Government call same-sex marriages, it may be less of an issue if they limit the provisions to marriages that existed before the legislation was introduced. We shall hear what the Government's choice is in that case. I am not optimistic that they will consider that sympathetically.
I suspect that the Government intend to reject the proposals in the amendment, but I put it to the Minister that there is a further option. If the Government have sympathy with the amendment but do not want a potentially unlimited number of cases, they could restrict the provisions to people in marriages that existed before the enactment of the Bill, as we suggest in amendment No. 71. That would ensure that people were not treated unfairly by a retrospective measure; at the time they entered into the marriage contract and made decisions on pension provision there was no threat to their pension rights from this sort of legislation, which requires divorce as a condition of seeking one's human rights. It would have been difficult for people to envisage that the Government would introduce such a measure, albeit with the encouragement of the European courts, and would penalise—not necessarily deliberately—the spouses of people seeking to access their human rights by applying for recognition of their new gender.
If the Under-Secretary rejects the amendment, I shall be grateful if she will clarify whether she is also ruling out making an allowance for those in pre-existing marriages. Will she explain, even in that limited number of cases, what she is willing to do? I also look forward to clarification of how the Government believe that the civil partnership legislation, which we have yet to see, will address the
concerns raised by all those who support the amendment.