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9.40 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. Jonathan Evans): I begin by echoing the words of the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche)--we came to the House at the same time, the last general election. I have participated in a number of debates in the short time that I have been in the House, and I do not recall a debate as good as this. At a time when so much of parliamentary life is derided in the press, it would have been a revelation for some of those who have had so much to say about the subject in our newspapers if they had been present to hear the debate. The quality of contributions from both sides of the House has been immense. It has been said that many hon. Members have chosen to contribute on the basis of personal experience; many other hon. Members have brought strong personal views on conscience issues to bear in the debate--that has all contributed to the quality of the debate.
I shall quote some remarks issued by the Catholic bishops conference on 15 November last year. In touching on the issue of divorce law reform, the bishops said:
I agree with that view; that approach has underlined the stance taken by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh), and to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), who said earlier that he could not be present for the winding-up speeches. They have had the opportunity to outline their specific concerns, of which the Government are keen to take account.
The core aim of the Bill is not to introduce no-fault divorce, as some have claimed. The core aim of the Bill is to introduce a new concept of a minimum period for reflection and consideration--the introduction of a sort of cooling-off period. It is important to stress that that is wholly different from anything that has been part of our law hitherto. It is true that two of the grounds under current divorce law require people to have been living apart for periods of two years, for a consensual divorce, or five years for a non-consensual divorce. But, as with fault-based grounds, from the time that the petition is presented, one is on a conveyor belt--or, as others have put it, an escalator--the outcome of which is the divorce itself.
What do we know about the presentation of the petition? We know that there is a median time of, broadly, seven months from the time that the petition is presented to the time that a divorce order is granted. We also know that many thousands of people withdraw their petitions within that time--the petition is presented, but the petitioner then thinks better of it. How many other marriages might have been saved if there had been time for reflection and consideration?
I must take issue with one of the points raised by the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Davies)--I am sure that he will take my comments in the spirit in which they are intended. He said that he did not know anyone who regretted having gone through a divorce. However, the statistics are slightly against him: more than half of men and 28 per cent. of women who have been through divorce regret it and, oddly enough, 10 per cent. regret divorcing each other--in other words, both husband and wife regret the divorce. I believe that the introduction of the cooling-off period is an essential step.
The legislation will encourage reconciliation. The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton) said that marriage support services are not mentioned on the face of the Bill. I do not expect him to have read all the legislation at this stage, but clause 8 refers specifically to marriage support services, and reconciliation is mentioned in other parts of the Bill.
Mr. Hutton:
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way in his usual courteous manner. I said that the Bill does not refer to marriage guidance services. Will he confirm that he is prepared to use clause 20 to provide active support for marriage guidance services? Whether we call it marriage guidance or marriage support is neither here nor there. The Bill certainly does not refer to marriage guidance.
Mr. Evans:
The new structure that we shall put in place will channel people towards marriage support services. For example, we have introduced the information meeting. Under current law, lawyers are required to advise their clients of the availability of marriage support services. No doubt due to the stress of the divorce process, 75 per cent. of people have no recollection of those services having been outlined to them.
That is one of the reasons why we need a structure that will ensure that people receive the requisite information. We are receptive to all sorts of proposals--to which hon. Members referred in the debate--as to how that information may be conveyed to the individual. The Lord Chancellor's Department proposes to deal with it by establishing an advisory committee and a pilot project. I am sure that that approach will be welcomed across the House.
A statement can be served only after the information meeting has taken place. The cooling-off period then begins. We are promoting mediation--I shall refer later to the issues raised by the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) on that subject--which we believe is the best way of reducing much of the hostility in the divorce process. I state clearly at the outset that no one claims that the Government are in a position to remove the acrimony or hostility from divorce: we could not contrive a situation to achieve that objective. However, we can remove from our divorce process those structures that build upon hostility and acrimony and that emphasise or exaggerate those elements. I believe that they are not in the interests of children.
It has been said that the proposals will lead to quicker and easier divorces. As was made clear during the debate, the median time for granting a divorce is seven months, and that time will almost double under the proposals. Greatest interest was expressed in what has been characterised wrongly as the "no-fault divorce". It is wrong to claim that the proposal to move to one, set
ground for divorce--the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage--was dreamt up by a liberal Law Commission in the 1990s. We must go further back to a committee established by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1966--I do not know whether some of my hon. Friends would express the same view about that Archbishop of Canterbury as they have expressed about more recent Archbishops.
According to "Putting Asunder", the Archbishop of Canterbury's report in 1966 said that the structure of the marital offence built upon the very hostilities to which I have referred and, for the first time, proposed moving to a structure in which the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage should be the ground for divorce.
A matter has been raised on many occasions by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, and my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle raised it with me tonight. It is certainly not a part of our law that conduct has no part to play. Section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 states that conduct should be taken into account. I have listened with care to the points that have been raised and, in view of the concerns that have been outlined in that regard, I shall certainly examine what the practice has been in the courts.
In the same way, the period of time is clearly a matter of conscience and must be subject to a free vote. I am pleased that the whole House has welcomed that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen(Mrs. Peacock) is not in her place, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy promised that I would respond to her earlier intervention. Under current law, one is unable to present a petition for divorce unless a period of at least 12 months has elapsed. Therefore, a petition could be presented by a newly married person only after that 12-month period has elapsed. Under the proposed new law, that period would double to a minimum two-year period--the one-year period during which no petition can be presented and the following year, during which the couple would have to engage in reconciliation and consideration of their position. That is a great advance on the current state of the law.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten) should examine one aspect of the current structure of our law in relation to the two-year and five-year periods. It is a requirement of those conditions that couples should live apart. I am very much aware that concerns have been expressed in many quarters about the fact that once a couple separate, they are moving towards the eventual break-up of their marriage. If the difficulties in a marriage lead to circumstances in which a couple are required to live apart, they may inexorably proceed to divorce. The two-year and five-year grounds both require the couple to live apart for a period of two or five years.
"In respect of the proposed legislation to reform the divorce law, we recognise that differing judgments can be made, sincerely, honestly and legitimately on the details of the Bill and its predictable effects."
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