Agenda item

Lucy Ellender, Senior Adviser, introduced the report which outlined proposals from the Law Commission to change the law governing weddings in England and Wales, and their potential impact on councils.

Lucy commented that the proposal has wide reaching implications for councils, especially for registration services who undertake civil preliminaries, conduct wedding ceremonies, and licence external venues for weddings.

Lucy highlighted the following key changes in the proposals:

·       The officiant of the wedding would be subject to regulation rather than the building in which the ceremony was conducted. The Government would also make a determination on allowing other groups or people to conduct legal wedding ceremonies, which can currently only be conducted by registrars and some religious groups. 

·       There would be significant changes to current approved venues regulation. At the moment councils issue licences to venues to allow them to hold wedding ceremonies (conducted by registrars). The new system would make it the responsibility of the officiant to check venue is safe and dignified with no licensing required by the local authority.

·       There would be scope for voluntary pre-approval system for regular wedding venues which would be held by local authorities, with a fee set at a local level for inspecting the venues.

·       A number of changes to fees; councils to have a fee set nationally in regulation for conducting a statutory wedding but there would be no cap on what independent officiants could charge.

·       There could be changes to strengthen the civil preliminaries in advance of a wedding; at present it is an in-person interview with the couple, which would change to a two-step process; providing details remotely and an in-person interview. This would strengthen the role of registrar’s role and assist in the detection of forced and sham marriages. There was a question on whether the current system on Anglican preliminaries should continue or if there should be universal civil preliminaries.

Lucy introduced Jane Parker, Head of Registrars Service and Lead Manager for Coroners Service at Suffolk County Council and Chair of the National Panel for Registration, to provide an officer perspective.

Jane stated that the National Panel recognised the need for reform of marriage laws, which date back to the Victorian era. In general, officers are not against the idea of universal civil preliminaries as there are inconsistencies in how marriages are performed. Conducting universal civil preliminaries for all marriages would incur extra costs to carry out appointments, this would need to be accompanied by an appropriate fee to cover the cost of undertaking this work. However, she noted that with the Commission keen to widen the possibility to allow marriages to take place in more locations, councils may lose current income from approving premises for weddings as it will be for the officiant to decide if a venue is “safe and dignified”. There were concerns that the proposed fee structures did not reflect the full costs involved.

            During the discussion of the proposals, Members made the following comments:

·       Marriage law needs to be simple with a universal legal ceremony. This could then be followed by a celebration in line with the couple’s wishes. It should not be governed by the state or for the state to determine what is dignified.

·       The impact of the proposals on religious weddings was highlighted as a particular issue. It was noted that legal religious ceremonies would be able to be performed under the new officiant based scheme, with wider numbers of religious groups being able to perform legal ceremonies than are currently able.

·       There were concerns around what protections there would be for couples under the new proposals from venues that are operating outside of the law. 

·       Members felt that what made a venue “dignified” was subject to interpretation and a personal choice of how and where weddings take place.

·       There is no mention of same sex marriage and if these can take place in religious places. The Terms of reference of the marriage law consultation state that the Law Commission will not consider the question of whether or not religious groups should be obliged to solemnize marriages of same sex couples.  It will be for government to align the legal changes, and down to individual religious groups and trustees to allow same-sex marriage and civil partnership in their buildings.

The Chair thanked Jane for her comprehensive presentation.

Decision:

Members of the Safer and Stronger Communities Board considered the issues set out in the paper.

Action:

·       Officers to produce a consultation response to capture points raised by members which will be shared with the whole Board.