---

Marriage

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. I am delighted that I was able to provide the perfect opportunity for the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, to make such a brilliant maiden speech. I have closing comments on two areas. The first is that I was struck by the contributions from different religious and racial traditions, from the noble Lords, Lord Sacks, Lord Ahmed and Lord Parekh. One of the enduring contributions which immigration will prove to have made to our society is the recovery of some proper understanding of marriage and family life gained from those different traditions. That is not sufficiently recognised in our public discourse. As an individual on these Benches, I would not begin to speak for the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, but I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, that there should be a completely level playing field for different religious and non-religious traditions in relation to marriage. The Minister did not respond to that point but I express my personal support for that. The focus of our debate has been on marriage, and rightly so, but I end by emphasising that there must also be proper support for relationships other than marriage. In that sense, at least, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Patel, although I thought he still gave some evidence of the nervousness of using the ““m”” word, which possibly characterised the previous Government. I encourage the present Government to plunge headlong into studying this debate and all that has been said this afternoon. I have a final comment on cohabitation. It suits men. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, drew attention to that. I have two daughters, one of whom is a successful lawyer here in London and one of whom is qualifying as a doctor. They both had complete equality of opportunity, but it has been on men's terms. They have had to conform to a male world, and our society needs to think deeply about what will genuinely support women in our society. That has been an underlying theme of our debate. On that note, I ask the indulgence of the House to beg leave to withdraw the Motion. Motion withdrawn.