Cohabitation Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is customary for somebody introducing a Private Member’s Bill to begin his or her reply by saying, "I am extremely grateful to everyone who has taken part. The speeches have been extraordinarily wise and interesting, and I shall read all of them". On this occasion, I happen to believe what I have just said to be true and not part of the customary flattery or gratitude that we all express to each other in this most admirable institution. I have listened to an extraordinary range of extremely wise speeches. When I listened to the right reverend Prelate and former Bishop, if that is the right way of referring to both of them, I realised that the Church of England cannot be described as the Conservative Party at prayer, as it once was. I have listened to speeches that are extraordinarily well informed. Perhaps the most devastating was that of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in dealing with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, who made a very interesting speech which was about the same length as mine. I cannot really answer the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, in less than the time that she took herself, and I would not dream of doing so now. She said that she had thought about her speech for 30 years, but, after 30 years, she still does not seem to recognise the serious practical problems that ordinary people, especially working-class people, face under our current legal system. I think that almost everyone else and the Government have recognised those to be serious social problems. I was counselled once by a very distinguished Conservative to consider the observation of the Judge Learned Hand, that the spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not too sure that it is right. I am not sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, shares that view, but I keep the comment in my own chambers to remind me about the danger of dogmatism. I certainly feel that what has been said today, especially by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, ought to be debated in the form of amendments that probe and deal with some of the important issues that have been raised. I am very grateful to everyone. The problems of religious minorities, especially those of Muslim women, are really serious. I am indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, for drawing our attention to them. Perhaps I may be allowed a little joke in saying that the Attorney-General has done her best as a great advocate to make bricks without straw—by "straw", I mean the right honourable Jack Straw, because it will ultimately be him and the Treasury who decide whether to do anything at all in legal terms before the next general election. It is their responsibility, not mine, to decide whether they are content to run the risk, should they lose power, of losing the only the opportunity that they will have to give some safety net to people who are highly vulnerable and their children. I am an extraordinary optimist. It took me only 30 years to get the Human Rights Act, and I like to think that it might take less time to get this one. The Attorney-General will remember that at about this time of year we had a debate on the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill. At that time, the Government were opposed to the Bill that I had put forward. It was debated here, just as it has been today, and the Leader of the House, standing in for the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, expressed not exactly hostility but certainly scepticism about the Bill. And then something remarkable happened, at about the same time of year: the Prime Minister personally decided to be in favour of the Bill. We sat down with Ministry of Justice officials and, by June, we had taken my Bill and turned it into something that the Government could commend. I am perfectly sure that, if that political decision were now taken, it would be possible to strip out of my Bill any duplication—for example, with bereavement, and matters of that kind—to look at whether the two-year period was the right one or a longer one was necessary, and to try to avoid the situation in which the hated legal profession was in a position to be able to give people proper legal advice to protect their human rights. All those matters could be taken into account. We do not have time to have a Select Committee on the Bill that would take evidence but, when the Law Commission has taken evidence and when we have taken evidence, the Government have no evidence whatever for the assertions that they have made today about how the Bill would increase litigation and be very expensive. That is not evidence-based but simply an assumption being put forward as an argument. On that sort of argument, when I was doing the Sex Discrimination Bill I remember the Lord Chancellor’s Department telling me that, if we extended it to schools, 5,000 cases a year would be brought by dissatisfied schoolchildren and their parents and that under no circumstances should it apply to education at all. There has been less than one case per year over the past 30 years—not 5,000 a year. It is very easy for Ministers to exaggerate grossly what they think might follow from a Bill. I have not done justice to all the speeches, but I thank everyone. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, will forgive me if I do not seek to persuade her, after 30 years, that she might just be mistaken in some of what she said. I do not think that I could ever achieve that. For all those reasons, I think that the right thing to do is to ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading. Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.