In January the government issued a White Paper on the above following on from the 1999 consultation paper Registration: Modernising a vital service.
The actual paper can be obtained from Her Majesty's Stationary Office or online
http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm53/5355/5355.pdf
The paper looks at modernisation of the way we register births, deaths and marriages and how the registration service operates.
Considerations are that there will be a facility for registering births and death on line, also for a “through life” record system and making available both baby naming and civil funeral ceremonies but where LifeRites will be most affected is in the new considerations for marriage.
The paper puts forward that there could be a civil preliminary for all where a schedule is given for the marriage to be conducted and will be signed by the celebrant, the couple and the witnesses. Church of England and Church n Wales are consulting to see whether they too will adopt this format or whether they will exempt themselves from this and carry on as they do now.
The regulations on venue and time could also be relaxed and special “one off” licences given for ceremonies other than in the licenced venues. The paper also proposes that an enhanced ceremony with poems music and readings will be made available to everyone.
Celebrants will be appointed to conduct these marriages but the division between religious and civil celebrants and ceremonies will remain firm. Religious celebrants will be appointed and put forward to the Registrar General by their religious body and civil celebrants will be appointed and initially be employed by the local service provider (the local register office). National standards will be set in order to ensure the solemnity and dignity of the occasion are not compromised.
On the plus side, it will mean that a registrar (celebrant) will be able to come out and conduct a civil marriage in the open air, also in the evening, rather than just to a licensed venue (which has to have a roof, must not be open to the elements, must be open to public access and not used for a religious purpose at any other times as it is now).
On the down side, organisations such as LifeRites that provide personal ceremonies regardless of spiritual path and for those outside mainstream religions, or those who wish an eclectically spiritual ceremony, fall between two stools. We do not have a single religious body who is recognised and who could appoint religious celebrants and neither do we only conduct civil ceremonies. Consequently, our celebrants, who provide individual ceremonies for many spiritual paths will not be able to be licenced to conduct legal marriages as we do not fit into any religious or civil body.
We have been debating what action we should take since the paper came out feel that perhaps lobbying for groups such as ours who are “ person centred”, to be a third way.
If the individual who has a nature based spirituality follows a specific tradition, there is hope that if that tradition meets the Registrar General’s definition of a religion, their organising body may be able to gain registration for them, but the majority of those following a nature based spirituality would not term their path as a religion, nor have an organising body as their path is intensely personal.
Much of the Paper is a welcome simplification to Civil Registration moving into the 21st century, yet the desire to keep civil and religious ceremonies completely separate will deny those who follow a personal spiritual path the right to have a spiritual and legal marriage ceremony conducted by a licensed celebrant and so, our clients will continue to need a two part ceremony to make their union legal whilst others that this presently affects will be able to have a single legal ceremony.
The debate on how to approach this will continue for some while and we would welcome your views and suggestions.