Civil Partnership Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill

Robert Halfon Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 13th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on introducing this Bill. He said that this was the first time that he has been able to speak on a private Member’s Bill—[Interruption.]

[Tim Loughton]

On my own.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

On his own. Given that this is about civil partnerships and marriage, I congratulate my hon. Friend on losing his virginity with this Bill.

My hon. Friend talked about the 2014 consultation, which ran during the time that same-sex marriage was introduced. There were 11,500 respondents, 76% of whom opposed extending civil partnerships. The Government’s position is that we want to see what happens and to look at the data before taking any further decisions on the matter.

My hon. Friend also said that marriage has patriarchal and religious associations, but the concept of marriage has moved on from when women were considered chattel. Civil marriage ceremonies are available to all couples and contain no religious element. In fact, when I got married a few months ago, we had the “The Wizard of Oz” playing and a tin man in the registry office. Civil ceremonies can be personalised by the couple, which is exactly what we did, to include non-religious words and vows. There is no requirement for a couple to take vows to honour or obey each other. The only requirement is that the marriage takes place in the presence of witnesses and that the ceremony includes the statutory declarations and contracting words. It is no longer for everybody a religious and patriarchal way of making a commitment.

The Government have rightly taken great pride in championing equality for all. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act was passed in 2013 and during the passage of the legislation the question arose of whether, if marriage was available to same-sex couples, civil partnerships should be open to opposite-sex couples as a matter of equality. My hon. Friend pointed out that the Government considered the issue at the time and decided that it would be a mistake to rush to amend the Civil Partnership Act 2004 owing to the unknown, untested effects on myriad legislation spanning areas such as pensions, devolution, international recognition, gender recognition, adultery and consummation. At the time, the House recognised that to invite such risk would be irresponsible and that the unforeseen issues that may arise, as with all issues that come from great legislative change, will take time to identify, understand and account for, lest we burden the public with expensive, ineffective laws.

I mentioned the consultation and the number of people who responded to say that they wanted no change to civil partnerships. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), who introduced his brilliant Bill, as the Minister for Digital and Culture said, with real panache earlier, also asked about civil partnerships. There has been an 85% decrease in the number of civil partnerships since 2013. In 2015 there were 861 civil partnerships, compared with 5,646 in 2013.

[Tim Loughton]

I understand what the Minister is saying, but all the potential legislative implications of my Bill are no less than, and no different from, the implications of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act itself for laws that had to be changed. Those changes were rushed through in a space of months, whereas we have had several years to think about this. It is almost three years since the consultation, and I repeat that there was a big consultation before the Act was introduced in which the majority said that they wanted civil partnerships to be extended to opposite-sex couples. How much longer will we have to wait?

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend and other hon. Members will know that there are ongoing legal proceedings. I am sure he would agree that it is right for the Government to wait to see the Court’s judgment. It is fairly reasonable to say that, as the Court is considering this issue, the Government should wait to see what happens. His Bill would amend the Civil Partnership Act so that opposite-sex couples can form civil partnerships. As has been highlighted, he has tabled the proposal previously, and in response the Government tabled their own amendment to require formal review of the operation and future of the 2004 Act in England and Wales once marriage became possible for same-sex couples.

One reason for the Government moving their own amendment is that the impact on demand for civil partnerships caused by the extension of marriage to same-sex couples could not be predicted. When civil partnerships were introduced, there was a peak in the first year, and it took only a couple more years before the numbers started to stabilise. The coalition Government said at the time of the 2013 Act that we expected an early rush to marry for same-sex couples from 29 March 2014, when the Act came into force, and for there to be a similar initial peak in the number of same-sex couples wishing to convert their civil partnership to a marriage from 10 December 2014.

The coalition Government also believed that some couples might take much longer to decide between civil partnership and marriage if they wanted a legal relationship or, in particular, to decide whether conversion to marriage was a step they wished to take. Even now, it is still too early to tell whether that will happen in practice.

That is not the only reason why the Government now believe that my hon. Friend’s proposals would require significant further work. I will take each reason in turn: the legislative complexity introduced by a change to the law; the difficulty in estimating the size of the challenge in successfully making such a change; complications introduced by marriage being a devolved matter; treatment of other overseas relationships; the reaction of religious communities and stakeholders; and finding parliamentary time during this Parliament.

[Tim Loughton]

I understand that every single one of those considerations applied to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act, which was taken through Parliament in a matter of months. Three years on, why is that an impediment?

[Robert Halfon]

There is always the law of unintended consequences, as I am sure my hon. Friend would acknowledge, and it is right that the Government make sure that all these avenues are carefully looked at before making any further changes to the law. That is not an unreasonable position.

My hon. Friend will know that marriage law is an inordinately complex landscape. References to marriage and civil partnerships are peppered through the entire body of law in this country. If we were to change the Civil Partnership Act to amend the definition of a civil partnership so that the term, wherever it appears in legislation, means a relationship between both same-sex and opposite-sex couples, we would need carefully and methodically to assess the impact of the change on all other relevant legislation where the term appears. We would need to check every position in all relevant legislation to ensure that the legislation still works as intended and, if not, to provide for consequential amendment of that legislation.

Let me give the House an indication of the complexity of this task. Policy decisions would need to be made by a number of Departments on issues such as pensions and benefit entitlements of same-sex couples entering into civil partnerships, the dissolution of civil partnerships for same-sex couples and the rights of same-sex couples in relation to assisted conception. In each case, the question would be whether—