Civil Partnership Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill

Rupa Huq Excerpts

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

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I rise to support the Bill on behalf of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition. The Bill has genuine cross-party support. It is backed by colleagues who voted on both sides of the argument on same-sex marriage in 2013, including the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). He made a very powerful case. Indeed, he has nicked many of the points I want to make in my speech. Over 72,000 people have now signed the online petition—I think he has slightly old figures.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Martin Loat and Claire Beale. They are my constituents—they live in the next road to me in Ealing—and, as he pointed out, they were the first people in the British Isles to enter into a civil partnership. However, they had to go to the Isle of Man to do that. I am sure the Isle of Man is a lovely place, but if the Bill is passed, no one will have to make that journey again. [Laughter.] Let me say, before people write to me from the Isle of Man, that I am sure it is lovely. I have never been there. [Interruption.] I am going to crack on, because my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) is going to speak about workers’ rights, we hope and pray.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the London Assembly, and its unanimous vote in favour of this move. Early-day motion 619 expresses genuine cross-party support, from Democratic Unionists as well as the usual suspects. This is clearly a matter of public interest that the Government ought to revisit.

As has already been pointed out, it is a matter of equality. Civil partnerships currently exist only for same-sex couples in the United Kingdom, but in a democracy, all people should be equal before the law. I am proud to say that my party has authored much of our anti-discrimination legislation: the Race Relations Act 1976, the equal pay legislation, the legislation that abolished the heinous section 28, and the Equality Act 2010. The Bill seems to me to be a logical next step.

Civil partnerships were a new Labour creation in the first place. They were ground-breaking at the time, allowing LGBT people to have their loving relationships recognised by law and to enjoy the same benefits as married couples. The present anomaly is, I think, an unintended consequence that was necessary on the long and winding road to equal marriage, and it needs to be rectified now. Although civil partnerships represented a huge step forward in 2004, that was 13 years ago, and it is now time to open them up to all.

As we have heard, that could easily be done. The Bill is very short: it consists of only a couple of lines. All that we need to do is delete the words “of the same sex” from the Civil Partnership Act 2004. No new law is necessary; this would merely be an extension of what is already on offer. The Equal Civil Partnerships campaign estimates that 2.9 million people are in partnerships and, for whatever reason—a long list of reasons has been given today—choose not to marry, although the figure may be higher, and that 39% of them have dependent children.

When same-sex marriage became legal, many gay couples in civil partnerships had an upgrade, “trading up” to full marriage. Here we have the opposite case. We are talking about people who want to take a leaner, modern, 21st-century option, affording their families the same legal protections. Fairness, consistency and equity in legislation: who would disagree with any of that?

Back in 2013, my party tabled an amendment stating that the Government should consult on allowing all couples access to civil partnerships as soon as possible following the passing of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. Since then, however, the Government seem to have found all sorts of pretexts for not granting access to civil partnerships for all, or even revisiting the issue in a serious way. They have argued that the results of their consultation were inconclusive, and that they must await the outcome of pending legal action before they can possibly reopen the issue. To the outside world, all that sounds like excuses.

We can look further afield to other jurisdictions. A French case has been mentioned. When I was an international student in France more than 20 years ago, the term was “concubinage”. The French thought it was completely normal, and could not understand why we did not have it here. I could go into all the complexities of international law, but there are academic papers out there that people can google. Articles 8 and 14 of the European convention on human rights—thankfully, we are still in it, and it seems likely that we will not be leaving in any great hurry—promise equality in the application of the convention and freedom in relation to family life. It could be argued that the current law contravenes those provisions. Case law shows that our Government have been on the wrong side of the convention on previous occasions. We do not want a repetition of the waste of public expenditure and time that featured in, for instance, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v. M.

I shall not eat up any more time. In short, this is the right thing to do. As my constituents Claire and Martin put it,

“Imagine two houses: one says marriage and one says CP on the front. All couples are allowed in the first house, but only gay couples are allowed in the second. Now heterosexual couples like us just want to be let in to the second house, too.”

For the sake of fairness, equality, the tangible benefits that would flow from it and the right of couples to choose the type of partnership that best suits their needs, faith and aspirations, we support the Bill and urge the Government to revisit this matter without further delay.