The Catholic Bishops of England and Wales have broadly welcomed a report which proposes granting new rights to cohabiting couples.The report by the Law Commission, an independent body which advised the UK Government on legal reform, has proposed giving unmarried couples divorce-like rights, should they split up after a minimum period.
The proposals would allow unmarried partners to claim lump sums, the right to live in the family home and possibly a share of their partner's pension in the event of a breakup.
The commission suggests that the minimum period should be two to five years. Scotland already has a similar rights package in force since last year, though with no minimum period of cohabitation required.
Responding to the proposals, the Bishops noted that the Commission was “careful to devise a scheme for cohabiting couples who separate which is entirely distinct from that which applies to spouses on divorce”.
The legal provisions surrounding divorce “centre around the notion that both partners had made a commitment to share the whole of their lives together and thus that they share equally what they possess”, they said.
Couples who have chosen not to marry have chosen not to take on the responsibilities of marriage, the Bishops added. Under this scheme, such couples “still forgo the legal benefits of marriage”.
Instead, the proposals require partners who attempt to avail of the scheme to give evidence of economic disadvantage deserving financial relief, the statement continues.
The statement also expressed the hope that the Government, in considering the proposals, will examine them in the light of two principles:
1. The duty of the state to promote, uphold and safeguard marriage as the basis of family life, the best and most stable environment for bringing up children;
2. The duty to remedy manifest injustice and alleviate unacceptable hardship or vulnerability to the extent that it merits the protection of the law.
While the statement welcomed the fact that “the welfare of any children of the cohabitation is rightly to the fore in this proposed scheme”, it questioned why the report recommends that there be a minimum period of cohabitation before a couple is eligible to claim relief.
It continued by expressing the concern “that any scheme should not in any way equate cohabitation with marriage, and, in particular, it was thought that identifying a minimum duration of the cohabiting relationship began to create a new legal status of cohabitation with attendant rights and entitlements”.
The statement concluded: “Reading the Law Commission’s proposals with all the complexities and implications of the proposed measures leaves one all the more convinced of the rightness of marriage as the basis of family life.
“We believe that being happily married is something that the majority of young people today still aspire to, and it is vital to the common good of our society that we create and sustain a legal framework that supports and encourages them in this aspiration.”
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