Marriage between transsexual persons
Gender Recognition Bill [Lords]
4:30 pm

Mr Tim Boswell (Daventry, Conservative)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause provides for marriage between transsexual persons. I can be brief, because many of the arguments have been thoroughly rehearsed in Committee and because I deliberately tabled the new clause as early as I could so that Ministers would have time to consider it.

The new clause is designed to repair a specific unfairness in the Bill, which comes on the back of another and wider concern that has been expressed by Members. The Bill is characterised by huge swings between issues that affect people's personal lives and issues such as social security that are equally complex but of a different nature. The new clause returns us, perhaps appropriately as we near the end of Committee stage, to the identity of individuals. The greatest difficulty that we have encountered in that respect is the Bill's requirement that if a party to a marriage to whom a gender recognition certificate has been granted wishes to take up the full gender recognition certificate, they must have their marriage annulled. Therefore if the couple continue to live together, they cannot do so as man and wife.

That circumstance initially came to my mind as a theoretical possibility, and I corresponded with the Minister's colleague, Lord Filkin, six months ago when the Bill was in draft, suggesting that it might be possible to make an exception in the specific case of two transsexual persons who had both received a gender recognition certificate. The Minister's concern, which has been properly expressed here and which I share, is not to permit same-sex marriages. However, if both parties to a marriage changed gender, that objection falls, because the couple would still be a man and a woman who wished to be married to each other. No doubt, pursuing some of the prudential

consequences of the annulment of marriage, they would also wish to avoid the practical problems that might arise in respect their pensions and benefits, or any difficulty arising from the discontinuity of marriage.

Under the Government's proposals, such individuals, like any other party to a marriage to whom a gender recognition certificate had been issued, would be required to annul their marriage and, in the case I have set out, remarry themselves—they could not even conclude a civil partnership. It is an unnecessary procedure that is bound to be stressful and traumatic, and it should be avoided. If the Minister believes, as I am sure he does, in the importance of marriage as an institution but wishes to enter the reservation that marriage is to be between persons of opposite sexes, I cannot perceive what objection might be made to the new clause.

I subsequently found, although I have not taken steps to interest myself in the identity of the parties involved, that there may be a real case in which two partners, both transsexuals, wish to avail themselves of such a provision. The matter therefore becomes more urgent. The principle is important. Even if no one were currently included in the class of persons who might wish to do as the new clause would allow, it would be wrong to make such people to go through the hassle of an annulment before reconstituting themselves as the married partnership that they always believed themselves to be.

Dr Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak, Labour)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Daventry for raising the issue. As he rightly says, the new clause relates to an extremely rare, but possible, case. Whether or not the Government are minded to accept new clause as worded, I urge them to take steps to ensure that such a married couple would not have to end their marriage and remarry simply to have their correct genders recognised.

Mr David Lammy (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Tottenham, Labour)

I am grateful to the Committee for raising the issue. The Bill will put couples in which both parties seek recognition in their acquired gender to the trouble of first having to end their marriage and then re-form it after gaining recognition. The practical implications are less serious than if one party seeks recognition in the acquired gender. If the couple remain an opposite-sex couple after recognition, they will be able to remarry and regain all their previous rights and responsibilities. We would not expect them—

Mr Tim Boswell (Daventry, Conservative)

The Minister may be coming to this point, but is he telling the Committee that the discontinuity in their marriage, albeit for as little as 24 hours, would not constitute a disqualification for any benefit entitlements either in the public or private sector? If he is, that would meet at least part of the difficulty that the new clause identifies.

Mr David Lammy (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Tottenham, Labour)

That is indeed my understanding.

We would not expect such couples to seek orders for financial provision on the dissolution of the first marriage, as their financial responsibilities to each other would shortly be reinstated. We have considered the new clause carefully but, on reflection, we are not minded to make special provision for such couples. That is partly because of the numbers involved: our information suggests that there are only about four couples in that category.

Aligned to that is the fact that we would require the equivalent of schedule 3 to issue new marriage certificates. The new clause refers to the issue of a modified certificate of marriage, but we do not believe that it is appropriate to change that historical record. The Committee will note that the Bill does not modify the original birth certificate—it stands as an historical fact, and the new birth certificate sits alongside it. The original birth certificate remains in existence and a mechanism is created for a new birth certificate. The Committee will realise that that requires detailed provisions under schedule 3. Given the small number of couples involved, we believe that it would not be proportionate to replicate schedule 3 for marriage certificates, either in terms of the legislative provision or administrative arrangements. For those reasons, the Government oppose the new clause.

Mr Tim Boswell (Daventry, Conservative)

I am bound to say that I am a little disappointed by what the Minister has said. The issue has fallen into the ''too difficult'' category, but if Ministers were prepared to get to grips with it, they could resolve that difficulty. Making provision might require alterations in the marriage certificate, or some other mechanism, but I am sure that it is not beyond the power of the draftspersons to produce a schedule—even one running to pages—that would enable that to happen.

The argument that only very few people are involved is not in itself compelling. However, I do not want to end what has been a positive Committee on an unnecessarily heated note, so, rather than press the matter now, I shall withdraw my new clause and reconsider it in the light of what the Minister said. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.