Issues raised in Parliamentary debates on the major divorce law reforms in England and Wales: a quantitative analysis

John Haskey FAcSS AKC University of Oxford Department of Social Policy and Intervention

This article the second of three analyses the issues debated in the Parliamentary debates in the Bills leading to the four major Divorce Reform Acts of 1857 1937 1969 and 2020 in England and Wales. (The first article described the background details of the study: the sources of information; how the issues were identified; and the coding of the information.) 27 issues were identified and each debater’s speech was coded according to whether they had or had not raised each issue. The frequency of raising each issue is taken as a measure of its relative importance which has been related to its likely effect upon the resulting reform legislation. The analyses presented include: the most frequently raised issues in each Act and the pattern of change from one reform to the next to see whether certain issues had risen fallen or persisted in relative frequency. The analyses are briefly discussed in the light of the historical context and the prevailing legislation. The third article (forthcoming)...