Sisters Sisters – and other Family Members

BARONESS RUTH DEECH Gresham Professor of Law

I remind you of the theme that I set out at length in my first lecture and to which I wish to adhere - that there needs to be a reassertion of the place of morality in our private as well as our public politicians' lives and especially so where there is an overlap between the two spheres. The overlap occurs where public policy issues like taxation childcare and employment are affected by relations within the family. I want to ask why in English law we treat siblings less favourably than married or civil partners; and why we do not expect adults to maintain their parents or their grandparents in return for the keep that was extended to them in their youth. One has to wonder why English law only attaches support obligations to parents of young children and to those in a sexual relationship while the blood relationship comes second.

There is a parallel here with the situation I have described in an earlier lecture: our government feels free indeed obligated to...

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