Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, with reference to the command paper, Future operation of Civil Partnerships, Cm. 9606, published in May 2018, what specifications her Department issued on the opinion polling to be conducted when appointing an organisation to undertake opinion polling on demand for extending civil partnerships; and for what reasons the Office for National Statistics was so appointed.

This survey is intended to help us understand how many unmarried people in an opposite-sex relationship may enter into a civil partnership if the option was open to them.

Creating a new survey mechanism to ask a small number of questions would have been disproportionately time-consuming and would not have been efficient, so it was decided to use an existing polling structure.

The ONS Opinions and Lifestyle survey offered the only regular omnibus survey of the general population using a random sample, rather than drawing on pre-screened panels.