Divorce (Financial Provision) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Ruth Deech (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank everyone who has stayed here on Friday afternoon to support the Bill, particularly the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker, who has helped me throughout this very long process. I assure noble Lords, particularly the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, that children do, indeed, have priority in the Bill. There is nothing in it to change the existing law about children. Indeed, I wish as much attention were paid to extracting maintenance from unwilling fathers as is paid to other elements of family law. We have a very bad track record there. This law would not change it; indeed, it would extend the age up to which you have to house your children to 21 rather than 18, given that so many of our children are at university until that age. It allows for a house to be retained for the housing of children where this is necessary Secondly, the law I am putting forward is by no means experimental. It has been acted on with great success in Scotland for 30 years. There is nothing more that needs to be learned about it. I suspect that the Government are fearful of an increase in ex-wives going on welfare. This has not actually happened in other countries If the Government really want to tackle the problem of the damage and cost of family breakdown, which is the price we pay for the pursuit of liberty and happiness, we could cut the cost by making better efforts to extract child support from fathers and investing in affordable childcare to help women back into work. As it is, although I am very pleased that the Government are taking this seriously and are making some moves, the Minister’s reply speaks only of applying sticking plasters to an ill patient who is bed-blocking, who really needs be cured and booted out. The principles underlying the old law remain but they are not just and mediation is difficult because there is no direction, sense of justice, certainty or feeling of fairness at the end. I think the Minister knows and the House knows that reform will come sooner or later Luckily, I have no interest in this. I have never been divorced and I have never earned anything from family law, but I claim a distant relationship to the late Leo Abse MP, who fought for years to reform divorce law and succeeded in the end There is one other serious issue I would like to raise. This Government risk becoming a do-nothing Government. It is quite striking that widespread expertise in the three Bills that have been before us today—years of expertise, not just from me as an academic but from the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and others—has been swept aside. We all say that this House earns its place in the British constitution because it contains expertise and experience. Do the Government not risk undermining the contribution and reputation of this House when not just today but in the Higher Education and Research Bill—with dozens of vice-chancellors and professors and experts—our comments have just been stonewalled? The Government need to listen to this House if they value it and its place in our constitution, which is what we have all said, and yet the expertise is being dismissed by—dare I say it?—ministries that may know less about the topics than the people who have spoken in the various Bills today and this week. Constitutionally, I do not think that I am able to ask for the Bill to be referred to a Grand Committee. I therefore end by asking the House to give it a Second Reading.