Howard in U-turn over gay `marriages'

MICHAEL HOWARD endorsed proposals to give gay and lesbian couples new legal rights yesterday, as he aimed to soften his harsh public image.

Setting out his personal credo in a speech, the Tory leader announced he would vote for the Government's Civil Partnership Bill which will allow same-sex couples to register their partnership and qualify for new rights, including joint treatment for state benefits.

Mr Howard has never been seen as a friend of the gay rights movement. When he was a local government minister in the Thatcher government he was involved in the introduction of the much criticised - and now repealed - Section 28, which banned councils from promoting homosexuality. More recently, he demanded Iain Duncan Smith impose a three-line whip when the Tories opposed adoptions by gay people - something that sparked a revolt by Tory moderates and a crisis for the previous leader.

Yesterday's speech, entitled The British Dream, was intended to show that Mr Howard, a hardliner when he was Home Secretary, has learnt lessons on his personal political journey. He reiterated his pledge that Tory MPs would have a free vote on the Civil Partnerships Bill.

Mr Howard told the Policy Exchange think-tank: "The family remains the most immediate and important group within which people share responsibility for one another's well-being. But families are changing. I continue to believe that the conventional marriage and family is the best environment within which to bring up children. But many couples now choose not to marry. And more and more same-sex couples want to take on the shared responsibilities of a committed relationship.

"It is in all our interests to encourage the voluntary acceptance of such shared responsibilities - but in some instances the state actively discourages it. That should change, and I will support the Government's Civil Partnerships Bill."

Anxious not to alienate Tory traditionalists, he stressed that recognising civil partnerships would not denigrate or downgrade marriage. "It is to recognise and respect the fact many people want to live their lives in different ways. And it is not the job of the state to put barriers in their way," he said.

The Tory leader has ordered a review of the provision of child care in Britain. "We must remove the obstacles for families to finding the best child care, to getting access to the best schools, to creating the best working environment. Very often it is the state, through misguided regulation, that puts these obstacles in people's way," he said.

Promising to give people more control over education, health care and policing, he argued that Labour's approach to public services had failed. He said the Tories had to convince the British public that there was a better way.

"My belief in small government is not some academic exercise," he said. "Only when the state is small will people be big. It is a means to an end and that end is opportunity, giving people power to control and run their lives as they see fit.

"Government often runs as if it were on a treadmill. It just carries on going, never questioning its direction. That era is coming to an end. Government must be much more responsive, much more clear- sighted and have a much more defined role."

Mr Howard outlined the moral case for low taxation without promising specific tax cuts. "Low taxes give people the opportunity to make their own decisions: decisions to save, to give, to spend, to keep more for their families and their children," he said. "People grow in confidence, and grow morally, when the state gives them the opportunity to do so."

He said his "dream" was for everyone in Britain to have the chance to succeed on the basis of their own talents and efforts.

w Mr Howard has failed to win over floating voters in the wake of the Hutton inquiry. A Populus poll for The Times shows the Liberal Democrats and not the Conservatives have benefited from the fallout and that Labour retains a five-point lead.

Copyright 2004 Independent Newspapers UK Limited
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.