Mr. Nicholls rose--

Mr. Patten: I shall give way to my hon. Friend, but he must remember that I have been very nice to him this afternoon.

Mr. Nicholls: I say this with all obsequiousness. My right hon. Friend has pointed out that there has been a surge in divorces. Is he saying that there must therefore have been a surge in marital breakdowns, or is it simply that broken marriages have been formalised?

Mr. Patten: To the best of my knowledge, in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, there has been a surge in marital breakdowns.

I was not invited by President Clinton to his national prayer breakfast in Washington on 1 February, but he was quoted as saying--referring to his lawful wedded wife--

"Hillary said in her book that 'Till death do us part' has often become, 'Till the going gets tough.'"

Speaking with American experience, the President said:

"It may be that it ought to be a little harder to get a divorce where children are involved".

I say, "Hear, hear Mr. President," to that.

Nor have I ever met the Governor of Iowa, a Mr. Terry Branstad. In his state of the state of Iowa message on 9 January 1996, he said:

"I believe that we can, as a state, reinforce the two-parent family for the good of children . . . I do believe we should reform our divorce laws to require mutual consent or specific grounds for divorce. Our present no-fault divorce laws have transformed marriage into an arrangement of convenience rather than an act of commitment. Parents need to understand that a divorce can severely hurt children".

Again, I say, "Hear, hear."

My third and last point is about what happens in Britain. Some say that we should not look to legislators in America, New Zealand or Australia. We do not have to look so far to see that our European brethren in Germany, France and elsewhere are, very sensibly, not seeking to go down the road of no-fault divorce. They generally have a much more stable social set-up as far as the family is concerned.

I end with two quotations from two letters. One is from my constituents Dr. and Mrs. W. D. Hawes of 74 Hurst Rise road, Oxford, who wrote to me saying:

"One-year divorce would send out the wrong signal for the nation. Marriages are entered into by two adults making binding vows before God in a church or public promises in a register office and should not be treated lightly."

They continue, and this is such a telling phrase:

"If we continually dismiss our vows and pledges as worthless we are undermining the very basis of our civilisation. Are our words to have no meaning at all? What conclusions will our children come to?"

6.30 pm

My constituents are right, as was the head teacher of a primary school in Norwich, Mr. Keith Piercehouse of 57 Christchurch road, Norwich, who wrote to me saying:

"Why should divorce always be on the basis of no fault? Faults like wrong and responsibility are concepts that are readily used in other branches of law and morals. Often there is wrong done by one party in a marriage to the other and this should be acknowledged . . . We do not have no-fault crimes so why should there be no-fault divorces?"

That is very telling from a practised head teacher.

What will happen if the Bill passes into law? The signal will go out from this place that we do not regard the marriage contract as a binding contract and as something which is, or should be, full of commitment, which one should strive to keep to for the rest of one's life.

The evidence from all other countries where that form of divorce has been introduced is that there has been an immediate surge in the number of divorces. My prediction is that our alarmingly high divorce rate, which makes us the divorce capital of Europe, will so increase that by 2020 there will be just as many applications for divorce as for marriage licences in any one year.

We are dealing with a solemn and difficult issue. I wish my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench well in wrestling with these arguments, but I thoroughly commend to the Committee the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle.

Mr. Paul Boateng (Brent, South): The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, when reflecting on the Bill earlier in the year, thought back to a statement made by the Catholic bishops conference in November last year. The bishops said:

"differing judgments can be made sincerely, honestly and legitimately on the details of the bill and its predictable effects".

Anyone listening to this debate and to the contributions from the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh), my hon. Friends the Members for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) and for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) and the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls)--the latter made a particularly worthwhile and important contribution--would agree that that is the case. All were sincere and genuine in their concerns, but were arriving at differing conclusions about the effect of the legislation and calling on us to go into different sides of the Lobby.

It is a good thing that, on both sides of the Committee, we have agreed to treat the issue and the other amendments tabled this evening as matters of conscience and matters for a free vote. Therefore, anything that I say from this Dispatch Box should not be seen as in any way seeking to persuade my colleagues or anyone else how to exercise their vote. It is a matter of conscience.

The right hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame A. Rumbold) is right to say that lawyers should claim no particular wisdom in this area, as we have a particular role and responsibility in relation to our

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I have learnt that, whether one considers the old matrimonial offences, which I can just about remember, or fault as evidence of irretrievable breakdown--there is a distinction, which is not just semantic--the role of fault in divorce and the role of fault as the right hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) would have it--up front--almost universally has the effect of engendering bitterness and conflict between the parties. Almost invariably, it is a source of harm and suffering to those parties and to the children. That is my experience.

Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith): Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Boateng: May I first complete this point?

I am driven from that experience to the conclusion that we ought to take the steps on fault proposed in the Bill. Having said that, we must be clear about what the law can achieve and about the messages it sends, and the importance of ensuring that the law reflects reality. Part of that reality is that there is culpability in the breakdown of marriage. It is no use pretending that, when a relationship breaks down, one can divorce that from fault. One cannot do so.

It is no use pretending either--here there is a real danger--that what we say in this House because many of us are from a different generation and we are in a different place is irrelevant to the way in which people behave out there--or, indeed, the way we behave ourselves. It is not.

Therefore, the law can never be value-free. We have somehow to build into what we are doing in this place in the next few weeks some messages about values. If we do not do so, the continuing escalation of the breakdown of the family and the undervaluing of marriage, which we all regret on both sides of the Committee, will continue. That is a difficult task, but it is one that we have to embrace.

The cardinal archbishop went on to say that the Bill has to be the starting point of deliberations on the topic, and added:

"any necessary reform of the divorce law can only be part of a larger project of supporting and strengthening the institution of marriage and family life."

Written into the Bill, in terms of a practical policy and a mechanism, must be the means by which we can support and strengthen the institution of marriage and family life. It must not be only a pious aspiration.

That is a challenge for us, and it will be a challenge in Committee and on Report. In creating those practical mechanical structures for making something of reconciliation and of education and support for marriage, we need to be clear that we cannot hope to do it in this House unless we change what is on the face of the Bill.

If the Bill were to pass through the House in its present unamended form, or if it were to pass in only a marginally amended form, it would be a disaster of enormous proportions for society. In fact, it would be a disaster comparable with the child protection agency fiasco--

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In 1971, in the aftermath of the last great reform of divorce law, Lord Scarman said:

"The law is groping its way towards a new conception of the duties of married life."

The duties of married life have been cast aside. Married life and the importance and value of marriage are being widely questioned. Marriage is undervalued, marriage is not supported, marriage is now something that one can win on a game show.

If one turns on the television on a Saturday night, one can see someone win a marriage. The young couples who walk down the pink staircase--I do not know why the staircase is not white; no doubt pink looks better on television--get more preparation for marriage, in terms of what they will get at the end, than we give them in relation to civil marriage today.

The couple I saw the other night were at least asked--as they were about to make the last step down the staircase to their honeymoon in Barbados--what one felt about the other and what one believed the other felt about them. If they got the answer right, they got the marriage and the honeymoon. They were asked whether it was respect or sexual attraction. They gave the right answer: respect--as it happened. They got some preparation.

At the moment, there is no preparation at all for civil marriage, and there is absolutely nothing on the face of the Bill to give any hope whatsoever that that will occur or is envisaged. Are we going to have any assurances about that tonight? That is something that hon. Members want to hear. We also want to look at the experience of other nations within the common law jurisdiction where no-fault divorce has been introduced. The most useful example in this regard is Australia. In 1975, no-fault divorce was introduced by a narrow margin and on a bipartisan vote--I suspect that that experience will be replicated in the House on a number of issues.

There is debate in Australia about what the figures subsequently show. Some statistics, in some forms, show that there has been an increase in marital breakdown; other statistics, in another form, show that there has been a decrease in marital breakdown. I do not see much point in arguing about those statistics.

However, we have to recognise that with that Bill came a whole raft of other proposals--including the proposal to establish the family law court and the Australian Institute of Family Studies. With that proposal came court counselling services; with that proposal came suggestions for the custody and guardianship of children to be subject to independent analysis and review by a court-based officer; with that proposal came a positive mechanism for underpinning reconciliation and supporting marriage generally.

Marriage and the family are the fundamental units of society--and this Bill is silent in that regard. If we are to pass the Bill into law--if we are to see the vote that I think we will have tonight on this issue of no fault become part of a Bill that actually addresses the crisis in marriage and the family--the Government will have to come forward with proposals in relation to reconciliation, or they will have to accept our proposals in that regard.

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The Government also have to come forward with proposals in relation to preparation for marriage and with proposals that recognise the need for concerted and focused action to support the institution of marriage and the family. Only then can hon. Members rest easy in terms of the consequences of their deliberations today.