Hansard

Although the bill has been directly influenced by the European convention on human rights Steinfeld and Keidan judgment, I believe that we should all have equal opportunities, regardless of sexual orientation, and I am therefore pleased to speak in today’s debate. I thank everyone in the Government and on the committee and all those who gave evidence to help bring the bill to stage 1.

Although there are few legal differences, the institutions of marriage and civil partnerships are very different. If civil partnership was introduced to be the closest thing to marriage that is not quite marriage for same-sex couples, it cannot now be argued that to opposite-sex couples it is all the same.

I strongly believe that the way in which partners profess, demonstrate, celebrate or formalise their love and commitment to each other should never be dependent on the sex of either one of them. I enthusiastically voted in favour of same-sex marriage because I want every couple to have the same choices.

For the past six years, heterosexual couples have had fewer options than same-sex couples and we are here today to help resolve that. Some people might ask why it is so important that civil partnership should be accessible to all and whether it has not become obsolete since the introduction of same-sex marriage. I believe such views display a lack of empathy for those with their own reasons for objecting to the institution of marriage or for not wanting to enter into it themselves.

I know couples who see marriage as a religious institution with which they cannot identify; people who associate the institution with personal trauma from their early years or from marriages that they were in before; some who object to its patriarchal tradition in which women are given away by their fathers and, in some ceremonies, promise to obey their husbands. Should people who decide not to enter into marriage have the right to formalise their relationships and give their partners legal rights in life and death? Of course they should.

Civil partnership is between those who wish to make that choice of commitment but—for reasons that are frankly none of our business—do not wish to be married. At this point, it is important to reassure those who object: opening up civil partnership to couples of the opposite sex is not an erosion of the institution of marriage, nor is it a threat, nor a first step to erase the concept of marriage—marriage will, of course, continue to thrive.

Reading the bill, I found few issues with its general principles. However, I want to pick up on a few significant points that must be rectified as the bill progresses to stage 2.

If the bill passes as it is, that would mean that, while it would be possible to convert a civil partnership into a marriage, converting a marriage into a civil partnership would still be precluded. Those put at a disadvantage would include not only people with religious beliefs, who would be precluded from choosing a civil partnership in future, but everyone in the chamber and elsewhere in Scotland who is already married.

More constituents than we might expect have contacted me to express their wish to have a formalised relationship giving rights to their opposite-sex partner. More of them than we might expect are married already, because it was their only option for sharing that legal status with their partner. To them, having to do that through the institution of marriage has always been the lesser of two evils, and marriage is not what they really wanted. Those couples must be given the opportunity to convert their marriage into a civil partnership, and it should be up to them how they design and frame their relationship and commitment to each other.

Like me, those constituents will be heartened to know that the Scottish Parliament’s Equalities and Human Rights Committee has picked up on that inequality, and the cabinet secretary has expressed a willingness on the part of the Scottish Government to explore ways to include the possibility of providing for conversion from marriage to civil partnership at stage 2.

Another issue of inequality between the two institutions is that, in marriage, adultery is a ground for divorce, as was mentioned by Graham Simpson. In civil partnership, however, there is no such ground for dissolution. Technically speaking, that makes civil partnership something other than an equal alternative to marriage.

The committee sympathises with the view that certain aspects of divorce and dissolution law are outdated and untidy and suggests that those issues are for consideration during a wide reform of divorce law and are outside the provisions of the bill. In its response to the committee’s stage 1 report, the Scottish Government agrees that

“any wider reform of divorce and dissolution law is not for this Bill but would be for separate consideration.”

However, in the same breath, the Government says that there are

“no current plans to review divorce and dissolution law in Scotland”,

or to consult on that, leading one to the suspicion that the matter of that missing ground will not be resolved for some years. I am unsure why that ground for dissolution has not been included in the bill as long as we are making laws to improve equality between the two institutions. However, I look forward to having a public consultation on those aspects and more when the time comes.

Although the Parliament has many urgent matters to deal with and the Scottish Government has other priorities to address for the duration of this parliamentary session, a review of divorce and dissolution law will ultimately be required if we really want to iron out the existing inequalities between the institutions and between same-sex and opposite-sex couples. I would like that to happen at some point during the next parliamentary session.

I agree with the principle of the bill, even more so in light of the Scottish Government’s intention to explore the possibility of converting marriage into civil partnership, and I am pleased that something that is so important to many couples in Scotland—and indeed to a number of my constituents—is being progressed.