My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, for his amendment. I think that we were all very grateful to him on Monday evening when, in view of the hour, he decided to degroup it so that we could debate it today.
Even allowing for the intervening hours, however, it will not come as a surprise to the noble Lord or to anyone else that we do not feel able to accept this amendment however—to use my noble friend Lord Deben’s word—ingenious or, as my noble friend Lord Lester said, extraordinary it is. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said, it contains within it, in paragraph (b), the same distinction between a marriage of a same-sex couple and a marriage of an opposite-sex couple that was embodied in Amendment 1—admittedly without the brackets, although I am not sure if it is for better or for worse.
The amendment which my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern moved sought to have two different institutions of marriage in law: one for same-sex couples and one for opposite-sex couples. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, this is another attempt. In all fairness to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, when moving his amendment on Monday he said:
“This is the minimum that seems to work, although I and other noble Lords think that it may be possible to go further. The later amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, to which I and others have added our names, indeed goes further than the minimum”.—[Official Report, 8/7/13; cols. 13-14]
4.45 pm
The vote on Amendment 1 on Monday was very decisive—with 119 voting content and 314 voting not content. This House has therefore made clear its view that it would not be right to draw a distinction in the Bill of the kind set out either in Amendment 1, on which we voted, or in Amendment 85. As has been
said on more than one occasion as the Bill has been debated in your Lordships’ House, the Bill is about inclusivity and fairness, and this amendment strikes at the heart of that intention. We do not accept that there should be a separate term or institution in law for marriages of same-sex couples. We want them to be able to marry, plain and simple, in the same way as opposite-sex couples can. My noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston, when replying to the amendment moved by my noble and learned friend, said that it is,
“very simple. There is one institution of marriage, it is one of the most important institutions that we have, and we want gay and lesbian couples to be a part of it in exactly the same way as any other couples who wish to be married. These amendments create two separate, potentially legal institutions and, therefore, undermine the fundamental purpose of the Bill”.—[Official Report, 8/7/2013; cols. 31-32.]
It is because of that principle that we cannot accept the amendment. Amendment 85 would create considerable confusion in terms of the effect it would have sitting alongside Clause 11, as it deals with much the same subject matter—how marriage for same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples is to have effect and be interpreted in law—but adopts a different approach and makes no provision about the interaction between the two. This confusion about how it might work is another reason, in addition to the one of principle, why this amendment should be rejected. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment. However, if it is pressed to a Division, I hope that the House will see fit to defeat it.