Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, if she will take steps to amend same-sex marriage legislation to allow couples to convert civil partnerships to marriage.

We are proud that we legislated for the introduction of marriage for same sex couples.

It is already possible for same sex couples in a civil partnership to convert their civil partnership to a marriage in the parts of the United Kingdom where same sex marriage is legal.

There were 7,732 couples in England and Wales who chose to convert their existing civil partnership into a marriage between 10 December 2014 and 30 June 2015 (just over six months of data).