Prenuptial agreements debated in the Lords

Debate 

Baroness Deech (Crossbench), lecturer on family legislation and professor of law at Gresham College, London, put forward the debate.  

This is a general debate. During debates, members put their experience to good use to discuss current issues and draw the government's attention to concerns.      

Members speaking  

Contributing members included:

• Lord Farmer (Conservative), chair of the Family Hubs Network
• Lord Keen of Elie (Conservative), barrister and former Advocate General for Scotland
• Lord Meston (Crossbench), judicial fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers.

Opening the debate, Baroness Deech said:

'The current financial provision law—all of it, not just prenups—is so uncertain and unpredictable that it could well be said to be in breach of the rule of law. I urge the Government to get on with reforming it and to take up the challenge in the latest Law Commission report.'

Lord Keen of Elie added:

'In the law of Scotland, a prenuptial agreement is treated as what it is: a contract. There is a statutory test of fairness and reasonableness, but it is applied to the contract at the time it was entered into, which is both logical and consistent with legal theory.'

Lord Timpson (Labour), Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, responded on behalf of the government:

'Since 2014, the Law Commission has done further work on the law relating to financial settlements following divorce. In December last year, it published an important scoping paper, which outlined its assessment that there are problems with the current law, and possible ways the law could be fundamentally reformed.'

Catch up

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Watch on Parliament TV or read the Lords Hansard transcript. 

Explore background information   

• Find out more about the issues the debate covers in the House of Lords Library briefing.
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