Cat Eccles
MP for Stourbridge · Labour · United Kingdom
“Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Sureena Brackenridge) said, we are often mocked and judged for our accent. When I tell people that I am from Stourbridge, I am often met with a blank look, but when I say that it is near Dudley, I can hear what their brain is thinking before they say, “Dud-laay”.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this morning, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) for securing this debate, and for hosting the excellent recent event on regional accents.”
“The Sutton Trust report on accents highlighted a case in 2013 of a primary school in the Black Country that banned students from talking in Black Country dialect. No wonder some feel the need to tone down their accents.”
“It is the sound of proud, hard-working folk who led the industrial revolution, helping to develop the modern world. In fact, Shakespeare himself would have probably understood Black Country people better than Londoners, as our dialect is so closely linked to Old English, with phrases like “Ow bist yow?” and “bostin fittle”.”
“No one should be judged for how they speak, nor should it affect their life chances. It is heartening that, in recent years, we hear a broader representation in the media of the wonderful range of accents up and down our country. However, we would be naive to think that prejudice is not still harboured in some quarters.”
“That point made me think about the fact that a lot of regional dialects and accents have been lost over the years simply because people have moved away or been forced to tone them down. That is another reason why it is important to embrace our regional differences, so that we do not lose any more of these precious dialects and accents.”
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“As a delegate to the Council of Europe, I will always defend the European convention on human rights and its institution and treaties, and that is why it is important to talk about it in the correct context. In the last 45 years, the Strasbourg Court has ruled against the UK on immigration rules only three times, and in the latest year for which figures are available, the number of successful human rights-based appeals represented 0.73% of all sentenced foreign national offenders. The last time article 8 was successfully applied to block a deportation was in 2020, so why does the Home Secretary believe that articles 3 and 8 of the ECHR are blocking the UK from controlling its borders, when the data simply does not back that up?”
“Children and adults across Stourbridge and the wider Black Country are being prevented from accessing vital care and support because all new shared care agreements have been stopped since the start of September. The Black Country integrated care board has placed the blame on GP surgeries, but I have since discovered that this was at the instruction of the ICB. With some children out of school and some adults out of work without further support, does the Leader of the House agree that ICBs need to prioritise funding for these patients, not leave them waiting any longer?”
“I thank the Minister for her statement. I pay tribute to the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, Simon Foster, who has served diligently and ably since 2021. He has always been community focused; he worked with me to secure a police hub in Stourbridge and helped me to negotiate with police estates to retain the old Brierley Hill police station for community use. I am proud to call him not just a colleague, but a friend. He has also reformed victim services, championed youth commissioners and overseen a reduction in all types of crime across the region. Will the Minister join me in thanking Simon for all his work and assure me that good work already established will continue?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to apologise to the House for failing adequately to declare an interest when speaking in the House on 10 June this year during the debate on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Although I referred to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I inadvertently failed to declare that the visit had been funded by Labour Friends of Israel and that it had not yet been processed to appear on the register. That was in breach of the rules and I wish to apologise to the House for the error.”
“In 2004, he was elected secretary-general of the Council of Europe and served until 2009. The UK delegation in Strasbourg is incredibly active, and several Members have acted as rapporteurs, presenting reports and recommendations for adoption by all member states. In the most recent plenary session, in September, Lord German led an urgent debate calling for an end to the devastating humanitarian catastrophe and the killing of journalists in Gaza. Lord Keen of Elie presented a draft convention to establish an international claims commission for Ukraine, and to create a compensation mechanism, with a damage register and claims body, to fund the reconstruction following Russian aggression.”
“Over the following 75 years, the Council of Europe and the ECHR have grown to encompass 46 member states in Europe, with only Belarus and Russia excluded. The Council of Europe has succeeded in bringing together a universal understanding of human rights, namely that human rights belong to everyone by virtue of their inherent dignity and worth as human beings. As we head into Remembrance Week, it is important to note that the convention is a cornerstone of why we say, “Lest we forget.” I am proud to be a delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, or PACE. The UK is represented by a formidable team of cross-party MPs and peers. I was inspired to run for the Council of Europe by former Stourbridge Labour party member, and former MP for Bromsgrove and later Birmingham Hodge Hill, the right hon. Terry Davis.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered UK participation in the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. Yesterday marked 75 years since the United Kingdom, a founding member of the Council of Europe, was one of 12 states to ratify the European convention on human rights. At the time, the world was emerging from the ruin of war and the defeat of Nazism, but new threats were emerging: a belligerent and confident Russia under the rule of a bloody dictator with his eyes on the west; proxy wars in south-east Asia; and mass population movements in the aftermath of war. The idea was to prevent these atrocities and abuses from ever being repeated. Is the convention really so out of date and out of time, as its critics argue?”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. Earlier this year, my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton and Winchmore Hill (Kate Osamor) reported on Europe’s demographic ageing and the decline in youth and working-age populations, highlighting the impact on the elderly, public services, labour markets and pensions. PACE adopted a resolution urging greater support for older people and called on member states to develop effective policies to ensure their wellbeing and quality of life. It also recommended improving policies to promote migrant integration and social cohesion.”
“This summer, I witnessed history being made in Strasbourg as President Zelensky signed a bilateral agreement with the Council of Europe to bring a trial against Russia for crimes of aggression against Ukraine. But what has the ECHR ever done for us? Well, it has ensured that the Good Friday agreement has lasted this long. The incorporation of the ECHR into Northern Irish law means that the people of Northern Ireland have an independent arbiter to trust in disputes over fault during the troubles, and that is no small thing. It is vital to peace, societal rebuilding and the end of sectarianism. Maintained rights can create faith in people and shine light out of darkness.”
“As a member of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media, I have worked with colleagues on youth democracy, artificial intelligence, ethics in sport and media freedom. The Council of Europe develops recommendations on issues affecting all member states, including the UK. We may be an island, but sharing best practice and developing common conventions strengthens rights, freedoms and democratic values across the continent. The Council of Europe continues to lead globally, abolishing the death penalty in Europe, supporting democratic transitions and exposing human rights abuses. It expelled Russia from the Council, declaring it a terrorist state, and Belarus for its support for Russian aggression.”
“My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) is one of the longest-serving delegates. She sits on the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination, fighting for gender equality, combating violence against women and girls and defending the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. She is a rapporteur for the committee and has overseen a report on the ban of so-called conversion practices, which will hopefully be passed at the next plenary in January. That report will provide model legislation for all 46 member states to pass and end that awful practice. Let us hope that this House is ready to enact those recommendations, as promised in our manifesto and the King’s Speech.”
“A memorial was unveiled this week to commemorate those who served during that historical ban from 1967 to 2000. It is because of the ECHR that we got justice for the Hillsborough victims and were able to present the Hillsborough law, the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, in Parliament this week. The ECHR allows us to hold Governments to account and seek justice when those in power try to cover things up or overstep their remit. We must ask ourselves, “Why would anyone want to remove a mechanism to prevent those in power from abusing that power?” How dark our future could be if that were allowed to happen.”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely right—we need to be around that table. We were there at the start, and we need to see it through and ensure that we maintain our place in that conversation. Why not replace the ECHR with a British Bill of Rights? Well, we have one—the Human Rights Act 1998. The ECHR was drafted by British lawyers based on Britain’s common law and Magna Carta. In fact, during the negotiations on the Good Friday agreement, a British Bill of Rights was drafted and later rejected by right-wing politicians, to prevent a difference of rights across the Irish border. It is because of the ECHR that a ban on gay people serving in the armed forces could be challenged and overturned by a young barrister whom we now know as the Prime Minister.”
“He put Britain’s relationship with the EU at the forefront of the agenda and worked tirelessly to get a better deal for Britain, believing that if he could show that Britain can renegotiate, the crocodiles in his party and on the fringes would let up—but in the end he lost it all. I make a plea to the Minister and to the Government: “Let’s draw a line in the sand. Stand up and fight for the convention and our place in it. Do not concede. Do not think that you can find a middle course that will satisfy all parties and stem the anti-politics sentiment that is so prevalent in the UK today. Let’s be bold and argue for the UK’s role in the Council of Europe and the ECHR.””
“There have been noises about tweaking the convention and about opening discussions, the thought of which fills me with dread. Why concede the argument that the ECHR is to blame for our impotence, when that squarely does not match the reality? Why put the EHCR directly in the limelight of the political will of the day? Why cost businesses an estimated £1.6 billion at a time when they are already struggling? Why abandon the soft power that our place in the convention and institution affords us? If I may say so, this reminds me of David Cameron’s renegotiation with the EU prior to the referendum.”
“For the record, article 8 is primarily used for reunification of British citizens with family members who are foreign nationals. Let us step away from that story and look at some statistics. From 2015 to 2021, the Home Office removed 31,400 foreign national offenders from the UK, and in that period 1,000 foreign criminals managed to halt deportation on ECHR grounds, roughly 3% of the overall figure. Less than 1% of those cases were ultimately successful, so the ECHR is hardly the immovable object blocking the UK’s will in removing offenders from its shores. Furthermore, the Court has ruled only three times that the UK’s immigration rules have violated the ECHR in the past 45 years, but political and media pressure appears to be bearing down on our relationship with the ECHR.”
“They argue that it stops deportations of foreign criminals, sex offenders and individuals who arrived in the UK via small boats. There really is a lot of rubbish written in the papers and online relating to article 8, using examples of how the ECHR is being used to stop deportations and erode national security and identity. The most notorious example was in February this year, when an Albanian criminal was apparently granted appeal to deportation because his son would not eat foreign chicken nuggets. The ruling was made because the criminal’s younger child had sensory issues, food sensitivities and emotional difficulties, but the upper tribunal rejected the appeal as not strong enough to be considered unduly harsh, and the case is still under review.”
“The University of Oxford recently published a Bonavero report titled “The European Convention on Human Rights and Immigration Control in the UK: Informing the Public Debate”, which centres on misinformation, over-reporting and outright lies in the press that poison the debate around the ECHR. I highly recommend it to all Members who are wavering on whether the UK should stay in the convention or leave it because of immigration. There are two articles of the ECHR that have been tied to immigration. Article 3 is applied so that we do not send individuals back to torture or death—I would like to believe that we can all agree on that. Article 8, the right to family life, is projected by the ECHR’s critics as the real villain of the piece.”
“Mr Mundell, did you know that the ECHR has nothing written down relating to immigration or asylum? There is no right to asylum in the ECHR. Did you also know that, since the Human Rights Act 1998, the European Court’s rulings against the UK have fallen dramatically? It used to average 17 a year; now it is fewer than four. Indeed, it ruled against the UK only once in 2024—when, in a very nice piece of irony, the ECHR protected the rights of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday to freedom of expression. Even the convention’s harshest critics come running to it for protection when they are under threat from big government.”
“My hon. Friend has made a really important point. The convention covers so many parts of our life and we must maintain it. Currently, our politics is consumed by the issue of small boats. Despite representing less than 2% of all immigration into the UK, the boats are suddenly the reason why we must abandon the convention and place our collective human rights at the mercy of Government. In many ways, the attempted attacks on our freedoms under the guise of liberation remind me of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. They say that truth is stranger than fiction, but I do not want to find myself looking from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, and finding that I cannot tell which is which. Of course, even the conflation of small boat arrivals with the ECHR is a lie.”
“Far from being outdated, the ECHR has evolved into a cornerstone of European democracy, promoting equality, accountability and the rule of law across all 46 member states. Yet misinformation, false narratives and political opportunism now threaten to erode that legacy. Sovereignty gives us the right to be party to international treaties. The facts are clear: the ECHR does not hinder deportation or weaken our sovereignty. If we were to leave, it would be short-term gain for long-term pain. As pressures mount to dilute or abandon our commitments, we must stand firm. Britain helped to build the ECHR, and we must continue to defend it.”
“I thank all hon. Members who have participated in this interesting and lively debate. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan), the hon. Members for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) and for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart), and my hon. Friends the Members for Mansfield (Steve Yemm), for York Central (Rachael Maskell), for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon), and for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) for their contributions. I am sure that my hon. Friends who have not been able to contribute to the debate also had excellent points to make. It is clear that this discussion must continue. In marking the 75th anniversary of the ECHR, we are reminded of its founding purpose: to safeguard dignity, freedom and justice. That remains as vital today as it was at the start.”
“T2. Welin Lambie in Brierley Hill in my constituency designs, builds and manufactures davits for marine applications. It employs about 45 local people, uses local supply chains for its products and is really keen to win a Government contract, but sadly under the previous Government it lost out to a Spanish cruise ship company. What is the Minister doing to support British defence businesses? Will he visit Welin Lambie with me to help it work further with the Government?”
“Although the focus on non-lethal culls for badgers is a definite improvement to the status quo, I urge the new strategy to take into account new science and evidence that calls into question the link between badgers and livestock. It is time that we stopped this failed and cruel policy, and focused instead on tackling bovine tuberculosis at its true sources. Let us not wait until the end of this Parliament to do the right thing: let us end this barbaric practice now.”
“That does not drive good practice, and nor does it support the long-term health of the herd. A fairer and more robust approach would be regular MOT-style health checks for farms. Stronger badger culling is not the answer. It is scientifically unsound, economically wasteful and morally wrong. We should invest in real solutions such as biosecurity, testing, farm management and ending practices such as slurry spreading on grazing fields. I am pleased the Government are working towards a new national strategy to bring down bovine TB, and I am proud to be part of a party that has a manifesto pledge to end the badger cull by the end of this Parliament.”
“Those badgers that are killed are often too young to have developed TB. It simply does not add up. Fewer than one in 10 badgers tests positive for TB. As one campaigner noted to me, TB is primarily spread by aerosol. So I ask colleagues in more rural constituencies, when was the last time they saw a badger sneeze on a cow? The economics of the policy are just as indefensible. Policing the cull costs over £1 million per zone. The official badger cull trials cost millions, but the results were then ignored. Meanwhile, alternative methods, such as the Gatcombe strategy or improved skin testing, offer more effective, humane and cost-effective options. Let us not overlook the perverse incentives in the current system. Farmers receive far more in compensation for TB-affected cattle than they would receive from selling the animals at market.”
“The Government themselves recognised in a previous debate that slurry spreading is a major cause of bovine TB transmission. Yet instead of tackling that problem head-on, we persist with killing badgers. It has been more than a decade since general testing of all animals was undertaken. The last large-scale testing found that sheep, deer and alpacas showed far higher incidence of bovine TB than badgers, with sheep at about 28%, deer at 22% and alpacas topping the list, at 30%. Badgers, however, came in at only around 7%. That really matters. Even in areas with no badgers present, bovine TB persists, yet we continue to scapegoat this single species. The science also tells us that badgers become fully infectious with tuberculosis only after about five years, but the average lifespan of a badger in the wild is three to four years.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart, and a privilege to speak in this important debate. I pay tribute to those who signed the petition, and to the campaigners, experts and local groups who continue to fight for evidence-based policy on bovine tuberculosis and badger culling. I do not support the continuation of the badger cull. The evidence on whether it works is at best deeply flawed and at worst deliberately ignored. In June this year, Sir Brian May and vet Dick Sibley from the Save Me Trust visited Parliament to highlight the science. They showed us—as many independent scientists have—that the link between badgers and the spread of bovine TB has been overstated and misrepresented for years. Crucial facts often get ignored.”
“T4. In 2022, Tory-run Dudley council entered an agreement with a social housing developer but later pulled the plug and sold off the land, so we may not get those much-needed homes. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that councils maximise opportunities to build affordable and social homes on land owned by councils?”
“As we remember our fascinating past, there is much to look forward to in the future. I am not having a laugh—the Black Country really is bostin’.”
“Stourbridge has long produced sporting, musical and artistic talent, from England football star Jude Bellingham to Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Pop Will Eat Itself and Robert Plant. Just last week, cyclist Ben Healy retained the yellow jersey, finishing in the top 10 in the Tour de France. It would be remiss of me not to also mention the strong and diverse community and the friendly people across the Black Country. We also have our own community radio station, Black Country Radio, and brew our own beer at the famous Batham’s Brewery in Brierly Hill— “Blessing of your heart, you brew good Ale”. I even met my husband in a Batham’s pub. Hon. Members may not consider the Black Country as a destination this summer, but I am sure they will agree that there is plenty to see and do, and they would be welcomed with open arms.”
“The Black Country is no longer the heavy industrial power it once was, but I believe that, with the right investment and the opportunities provided by this Government, it can thrive once more, with modern technology and green industries. It may be a bit black over Bill’s mother’s today, but I believe the future is bright. In fact, we have already seen groundbreaking innovation in Allister Malcolm Glass at Stourbridge Glass museum, which has transitioned fully to renewable energy and is working with another Black Country company to develop the country’s first high-power electric furnace. Stourbridge is also home to the shortest railway in Europe, the Stourbridge Shuttle, which runs between the town and Stourbridge junction, where our most famous resident, George the station cat, can be found.”
“One of my priorities in Parliament is to promote and protect our varied history, heritage and crafts. I am already working towards keeping our own glass festival at home in Stourbridge. Wollaston produced the Stourbridge Lion, the first locomotive to run on a commercial line in the USA. Round Oak steelworks in Brierley Hill provided employment for thousands of local people and was a world centre of iron making during the industrial revolution. Netherton was the home of Hingley’s, whose most famous product was the anchor for the RMS Titanic. Lye was famous for the manufacture of nails, anvils, crucibles and firebricks, and the Stourbridge name can still be found embossed on old bricks. Linking all these places are the many miles of waterways, once the highways for transporting goods, now the perfect place to walk ya wammel up the cut.”
“I have been lobbying to have the Black Country flag included in the historic county flags display currently outside Parliament—maybe next year. I am Black Country through and through, growing up in Halesowen and later moving to Stourbridge; my family have roots in Smethwick and Langley. Us Black Country folk are fiercely proud of our area and its history, and rightly so. During the industrial revolution, it was known as the workshop of the world. My constituency takes in not only the town of Stourbridge but also Brierley Hill, Netherton, Wollaston, Lye and Amblecote, Norton and Pedmore. Since the 1600s, Stourbridge has given its name to glass production, and the rich local resources of coal and fireclay made it the perfect location for that industry.”
“Elihu Burritt’s 1868 “Walks in the Black Country and its Green Border-land” opens with the words “black by day and red by night” because the local furnaces gave out smoke and grime during the day and glowed red at night. At the centre of the Black Country flag is the glass cone, a well-known shape on the Stourbridge horizon, flanked on either side by black and red skies. A chain flows across the flag, representing the region’s heavy industrial past: chain making was done by women in the back gardens of homes in Cradley, and larger chains and anchors were made at Hingley’s in Netherton. The Black Country area was originally made up of Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire, but when the West Midlands county was established in 1974, some of our identity was lost.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Ms Vaz. ’Owamya, me babbies? It’s bostin’ to be here with my Black Country muckas to celebrate all the great things about our region, past and present. Black Country Day was first celebrated in 2014, bringing together the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton and Walsall to acknowledge our shared, rich cultural heritage and history. It is now an annual event, where we can reminisce about the past and look towards a prosperous future. The Black Country flag was designed by a local schoolgirl, Gracie Sheppard—she is not so young any more—and it has become a recognisable symbol of the region, flying atop flagpoles on our civic buildings, spotted at football matches across the world and even on display at the campsites of Glastonbury.”
“Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that it is Richard Parker and this Government who have fully funded the West Midlands Metro to Brierley Hill, and that, sadly, Andy Street left a big black hole in that budget and did not enable the link to be fully realised?”
“In 2020, a consultation was carried out to give prescribing rights to operating department practitioners, but despite positive discussions with the Department we are no further forwards and OPDs and allied health professionals are being held back. Does the Secretary of State agree that expanding their roles within scope of practice will improve efficiency, patient care and professional development?”
“The people of Gaza are being starved to death despite UNRWA having enough supplies to feed the population for three months. It is not a matter of logistics; it is sheer cruelty. GHF ration centres are purposely located in the south in militarised zones with sporadic opening hours and sudden closures, leaving people with no option but to make that long journey on foot and wait many hours on the off-chance that supplies may become available—or they may be killed while trying. This is not just a genocide; it is now ethnic cleansing. When Israel’s Government are ignoring calls from 31 countries, what further action can we take?”
“T5. In my constituency I am proud that we have the first example in the country of a high-energy use craft that has transitioned fully to renewables, having worked with a UK manufacturer to create a super-efficient electric furnace. Will the Secretary of State come to Stourbridge and visit Allister Malcolm Glass at the Stourbridge Glass Museum with me, to highlight it as an example for others to follow, and protect high-energy use heritage crafts across the country?”
“Punitive sickness policies meant I was soon being managed out of the job I loved so much by human resources, which refused to acknowledge the recommendations of occupational health. I was in receipt of universal credit for about a year, receiving £690 a month, but that did not even cover my rent and bills, and I was at risk of losing my rented home. Thankfully, I had friends and family to support me, but not everyone is that fortunate. My confidence plummeted, and the feelings of failure, rejection and uselessness at not being able to sustain myself were all-consuming. Nobody chooses this life. In fact, just yesterday the United Nations wrote to the Government stating that the rhetoric, language and false statements used when discussing welfare is damaging, as well as raising concerns about human rights violations.”
“I rise to speak in favour of a variety of amendments, which I will mention as I go. In the life of an MP, not a day goes by without hearing from a constituent with an issue relating to benefits or health. We can all think of the people we have met who have suffered badly after 14 years of austerity imposed by the Conservative party. Our sick, disabled and vulnerable were left trapped in a doom loop, living hand to mouth and battling worsening mental health, while fighting a broken system that fails far too many. I doubt many hon. Members in this Chamber have personal experience of the cruel welfare system. I do. I first became ill at work with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which is a heart condition. Not long after, I suffered a pulmonary embolism and almost lost my life. That was followed by a total mental breakdown.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a really impassioned speech. In some ways, I agree with elements of what he is saying; I was involved in extensive discussion with the humanists recently about exactly this issue. A gentleman was prosecuted for burning a Koran, and he just wanted to express his displeasure to the Turkish Government. Does the hon. Gentleman not think it would be preferable to ensure that the law is being adhered to correctly by those who administer it in the courts, rather than trying to bring in an additional law that could damage religious relations in some way?”
“If those people lose their payments, they will not be able to afford to pay their bills, and they could lose their jobs and their homes. How are we to get people into work when we are pushing others out of it? PIP has never worked for disabled people and the Government should work with the disabled to design a positive vision for PIP. The Green Paper is not a meaningful reform; it is tweaking the same bad policies.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) for securing this timely and important debate. More than 6,000 people in my constituency claim personal independence payments. Hundreds of them have written to me and I have met many of them and their families at listening events I have held across the constituency. One clear thing they all say to me is that being disabled is already a full-time job. Of the 6,000 people who claim PIP in my constituency, 40% will never work; 30% are in work; and approximately 30% are awaiting some form of treatment. I have been seeking assurances from Ministers on behalf of those constituents who are in work thanks to their PIP, and the answer I keep getting is that they may score differently next time around.”
“As an operating department practitioner with more than 20 years of experience, I emphasise that controlling and administering drugs is already a key part of every healthcare professional’s practice. Medicines management is at the front and centre of everything we do when handling drugs. Does my hon. Friend agree that the safeguards added to this Bill, along with the existing frameworks, are more than adequate to deal with this?”
“Finally, she considers the desirability—or otherwise—of piecemeal reform, and any added complexity that might arise in the law, but she thinks that this concern is insignificant when set against the context of people being denied their human rights. Melanie also notes that the supposed solution to this issue, the Law Commission reforms, have been criticised by religious groups and others, including for devaluing marriage in a way that means they do not in fact appear to be a simple solution. She also notes that the previous Government pursued many piecemeal marriage reforms while saying that they were against such measures. In conclusion, the humanist marriage order is not complex. It is a simple, cost-neutral change. It just recreates for humanists the legal provisions that already exist for Quakers.”
“Civil marriages also started happening outdoors in 2021. Secondly, she considers the concern that it would be unfair to allow humanist marriages on approved premises when religious groups cannot have them. She thinks it would be lawful because humanists may have intrinsic belief-based reasons to want their marriages on approved premises. Thirdly, Melanie considers concerns that there may be other belief groups who could try to gain legal recognition, but no such other groups exist or have been identified. Fourthly, she refers to the supposed risk of commercialisation. Again, no evidence is offered that that would happen, and, as we have heard, in Scotland and Northern Ireland there are laws prohibiting profit and gain by religious or humanist celebrants.”
“Obviously, that is first and foremost the fault of the previous Government, but the upshot, Melanie thinks, is that it is possible that the Court would now reach a different conclusion should a further case be brought, and that the case for removing the discrimination against humanists by making an order under the power in the marriage Act, even if done as an interim measure pending wider reform, therefore seems overwhelming. Melanie considers various concerns raised against that course of action, mainly in a 2014 consultation run by the Conservatives. I will run through them briefly. First, a concern was expressed that the change would lead to inconsistencies with outdoor marriages. Those inconsistencies already exist, as we have heard, with some religious groups already able to hold outdoor marriages.”
“In Melanie’s briefing, she considers the 2020 High Court judgment. As we have heard, the judge ruled that “there is a continuing discriminatory impact upon those who seek to manifest their humanist beliefs through marriage”, but that it could be justified, “at this time”, by the then ongoing Law Commission review. Melanie says that this may now be different. Five years have passed since that judgment and three since the review concluded, and no action has since occurred.”