My Lords, it has been a privilege to hear from experienced noble and learned Lords in this debate. In particular, the wisdom of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope, Lord Scott and Lord Mackay, has been invaluable, as well as the wisdom of those who have been through divorce or who have been involved in helping others. That means a great deal to me and to all those who think that the law should be reformed.
I am the first to admit that the drafting of the Bill is not perfect. How could I have overlooked the need for agreements to be in writing? Of course, they have to be in writing. But it has been a lesson to me, in that it is one thing to criticise a draft when you have it in front of you, but it is quite another—I could never begin to be parliamentary counsel—to start with a blank sheet and draft a law. Undoubtedly, if the Government give us a fair wind, as I hope they will, professional draftsmen must be let loose on this Bill. It is not something that someone like me can draft exclusively. I am most grateful to all those who have made utterly sensible drafting suggestions. They are all absolutely right. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, about disclosure of liabilities and all the other suggestions that have been made.
I want to clarify what the Law Commission has done. After some years of work, it has made proposals about prenuptial agreements, but I find it difficult to see how those can stand alone, if they are to be enforced, without reforming the rest of the law. The Law Commission has not completed its work on the sharing of matrimonial property and has stated in the report that it needs another five years of work to do that. It will not advance the cause for most couples just to enact, if that were to be the case, a Bill about prenuptial agreements; one has to tackle the whole thing. No further advice will come from the Law Commission, as it said, for about another five years. It is not as if the Law Commission has come to any firm conclusions about the division or sharing of matrimonial property.
We have to learn from the recent reforms that Scotland has made. England and Wales is the odd man out on this. We have all referred to Scotland, but most of Europe and most of North America have a law which is much more like the law proposed in the Bill than our existing law.
I value the feminist compliment from the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and the moving speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. I value, too, the experience brought forward so clearly by the noble and—I cannot call her learned—deeply experienced Baroness, Lady Shackleton. I welcome the contributions from the noble Lords, Lord St John and Lord
Grantchester, and others who have spoken. In none of them have I heard anything to undermine the principles and the three pillars of reform that I have put forward: prenuptial agreements being binding, splitting assets and curbing lifelong maintenance. People may think that it should last for three years; others may think that it should last for five. Those are matters for discussion. I simply point out to the Government that the widows’ bereavement allowance lasts for only one year these days and that it is now expected that women should seek work when their youngest child reaches six. The Government have therefore abandoned the notion of the housewife staying at home until the children reach 21 or some such age. The Bill would simply bring our law into parallel with developments around the rest of the world and developments in the Government’s own law relating to benefits and social security.
I therefore hope that the Minister will agree to see me to arrange a way forward for this Bill, because I do not believe that we can wait another five years for the conclusions of the Law Commission when 119,000 couples are getting divorces every year. While I appreciate the sensitivity and generosity underlying the comments made by the Minister, were they to be followed through to their logical conclusion, it would take us back full circle to a law where nobody knew what the outcome should be and where people continued to waste half their combined assets on paying for the litigation and the lawyers involved in the case.
I shall move shortly that the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, but I welcome the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that committal to a Grand Committee, where a lot of small details could be ironed out, might be a sensible way forward, given that I sense a certain consensus that there is a need not only for a broader reform but for a lot of work on the detail. I would welcome such a way forward.