Cohabitation Bill [HL]

I have great sympathy with the problem of the Burden sisters and others. During the consultation on this Bill one of the original ideas that we put forward was that it might be possible to do something for siblings and other carers in that capacity. In the end, the reason why we decided to limit the scope of the Bill as we have to cohabiting couples in a sexual relationship was because we realised that if we tried to widen the Bill to cover siblings and carers of all kinds, it would be inconceivable that any Government, including a future Conservative Government, if there were one, would ever accept such a measure. We remembered Rab Butler's famous reference to politics being "the art of the possible". There is no fundamental difference in principle about the need to do something for people like the Burden sisters. Of course, they lost their case in Strasbourg, where the court said that there was no obligation to deal with the difference of treatment from which they suffered. I apologise for referring to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, incorrectly as "Viscount". I meant no disrespect at all, rather the contrary. The noble Lord will remember that we have been here before. During the passage of the Civil Partnership Bill, an attempt was made to widen it beyond civil partnerships to all carers, a topic which was put again and again by those who sought to oppose or wreck the Bill. The Government firmly resisted that. I should be interested to know whether that would be the position today, although I know the Government have reservations about the Bill as a whole. We have been very careful about how the Bill is now framed and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has not complained about this on any earlier amendments. The Long Title makes it very clear what the Bill is about. It states: ""Provide certain protections for persons who live together as a couple or have lived together as a couple." Clause 1(1)(a) says, ""in the event of their ceasing to live together as a couple"," and in the definition of "cohabitant", Clause 2(1)(a) says, ""live together as a couple"." So the scheme of the Bill is that there is a sexual relationship between a cohabiting couple. The condition in Clause 2(3)(b), which the noble Baroness wishes to delete, is that the cohabitees, ""are not within prohibited degrees of relationship in relation to each other"." In other words, although the Bill is dealing with a cohabiting couple, what is being proposed is what in marriage would be regarded as incest. I know that is not the noble Baroness’s proposal but that is what it comes to. We have been extremely careful to make sure that the only people who can benefit from the Bill are those who are not in prohibited relationships in the same way as would apply to marriage.