Marriage and civil partnership

I beg to move amendment 127, in clause 8, page 6, line 7, leave out ‘or a civil partner’ and insert

‘, a civil partner, co-habiting or single’.

An amendment to protect single and co-habiting people from discrimination.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 128, in clause 8, page 6, line 10, leave out

‘or is a civil partner’ and insert

‘, a civil partner, co-habiting or single’.

Amendment 129, in clause 8, page 6, line 12, leave out ‘or are civil partners’ and insert

‘, civil partners, co-habiting or single’.

The amendment has been tabled to probe the Government’s thinking on why single and cohabiting people have been left out. Why are marriage and civil partnership protected? Why are they protected and a cohabiting couple or a single person not? It is about relationship status and, in an anti-discrimination Bill, we would not expect any relationship status not to be as important as another. If the provision is not amended, surely single people and cohabiting couples will face the possibility of real discrimination. I would welcome the Government elucidating whether there is something particular that they had in mind that applies to married couples and civil partnerships and from which they, but not cohabiting couples and single people, need protection that.

The hon. Lady would help me enormously if she defined a cohabiting couple.

I would define a cohabiting couple as two people living together—perhaps as simple as that.

Brothers and sisters? Mothers and fathers?

Not a familial relationship. The point is to probe the equivalent of a married couple or a civil partnership, which involves love and a sexual relationship.

The point is that the cohabiting couple and a single person are likely to face the same kinds of discrimination. If they are excluded from the protection, it will create a whole new disparity: treating people differently according to their relationship status. To give a couple of examples, would it not be wrong for a landlord not to want to rent to a single person because he believes that a single person is less likely to be responsible or settled, or more likely to have late-night parties? What about an employer who refuses to give work to a single person applying to look after children because they believe that only a married person is appropriate for such a job? What about a hotel that refuses to give a cohabiting couple a room because they are not married, even though they may have been cohabiting and in partnership for years? I would be grateful if the Minister would elucidate why those in the particular relationships of marriage and civil partnership are included in protection and not cohabiting couples or single people.

I am grateful for the definition, which saved me from raising questions of uncertainty about brothers and sisters and so on. The hon. Lady makes an interesting point about hotel discrimination.  There is a nice story, which now goes way back, about the then Archbishop of Canterbury going with his wife to a hotel, signing the register “Geoffrey Cantuar and Mrs. Fisher” and being asked to leave because they were not married, although of course they were. For the sake of those who are not Latin scholars, unlike the hon. Member for Daventry and me, “Cantuar” is how the archbishopric of Canterbury is described in Latin.

The hon. Lady is right that life is fraught for all sorts of people, but the point of the Bill is to provide protection against discrimination where it exists and where protection is necessary. We would add further characteristics to the scope of protection under the Bill if that were an appropriate and proportionate response to a real problem, but we have not had any evidence that such problems are faced by those who cohabit or are single. In fact, as part of the discrimination law review, the Government consulted on whether to remove the existing marriage and civil partnership protection, because there is not a lot of evidence of discrimination on that basis either. We listened to the responses on whether to remove it. They were pretty much 50:50. Some responses suggested that incidents of discrimination on that basis might still be taking place, but there was no indication of discrimination against those who cohabit.

It is a difficult definition. At which point does someone stop being a single person and become a cohabitee, after how long would someone qualify for that separate category and might they be in danger of losing their protection under the other category too quickly? It is an issue of certainty of definition as well. I hope that I have reassured the hon. Lady that it is a sensible course—just about—to protect married and civil partners, even though there is only the slightest evidence that they face discrimination, and that it would be both impractical and unnecessary to extend the measures following her amendment. I invite her, having probed the issue, to withdraw the amendment.

I have listened carefully to the Minister. With little evidence for marriage and civil partnerships and no evidence for cohabiting couples and singletons, I can understand the difficulty. It goes against the grain to leave a measure that bestows a differential between people in different relationships in an anti-discriminatory Bill, but as I do not have the evidence to bring before her, I will have to leave that disparity in place. However, I would like to put it on the record that I think it creates a differential.

The hon. Lady is making a point about creating a differential. The provision is carried forward from the existing law. I was interested in the proposed amendments, so I went back to the look at the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. Some of the language in that Act seems rather strange now. The Solicitor-General will correct me if I am wrong, but the clear intention of that measure was to protect married women who may be discriminated against, specifically in an employment field because employers felt that they were not sufficiently committed. Employers might, for example, discriminate because they thought that women were going to have children. That was why the measure was introduced. The Solicitor-General was saying that the evidence today is that such discrimination does not exist widely if it exists at all. However, the decision on introducing the  provision was finely balanced. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green raised an important issue, but it shows how the world has changed since some of the provisions were introduced. It is not a new provision, but simply one that exists in law and is being carried forward.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is therefore interesting to ask this question: if the intention of the original Act was to prevent discrimination against women because they were married, why is there not more evidence of such discrimination? I am surprised that there is not more evidence. For example, Nicola Brewer, the outgoing chief executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has said that married women were being discriminated against before they were even employed, because maternity packages were reckoned to be so good.

A person can get pregnant without being married, so is that not discrimination on the basis of sex? That is very adequate coverage. May I tell the hon. Lady that the only bit of evidence that we could find of prejudice or discrimination at all was one case that showed that there were instances of discrimination when an employer did not allow married people to work together, because that might interfere with their commitment to the business? That is the only example we could find.

It is a bit like not being able to go out with or date people in the same office, which often happens.

The hon. Lady was looking for examples. Some years ago, I wanted to visit a Scottish island, but there was no bed and breakfast accommodation for single people whatever—I suppose because the establishments only had twin or double rooms. I accepted that because it was a commercial decision. They are quite small establishments and they cannot cater for everybody, so I did not feel discriminated against, but is that an example of such discrimination?

When I was preparing for the debate on this amendment, I wondered whether those sorts of issues would be dealt with in this part of the Bill, but I was unsure whether marketing and sales was a legitimate or justifiable way to go. There is an unfairness in people having to pay a single supplement when they take a single room in a hotel and a whole raft of similar things. What is the Solicitor-General’s view?

That is not about marital status, but about going on holiday alone, which is a difficult strand of discrimination to protect someone against. We are having a whip-round now to buy the hon. Member for Glasgow, East a tent.

I came to the same conclusion, which is why I did not use such an example as an argument. It makes me slightly uneasy to leave a differential  in relationship status in a Bill that is meant to bring things together, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.