Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the light of the introduction of different-sex civil partnerships on the Isle of Man, they intend to issue a consultation on extending civil partnerships to different-sex couples in the UK.

The Government has already carried out a consultation on the future of civil partnerships in 2014, and has no plans to carry out another consultation on this issue.

Following the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, we carried out a full review of the operation and future of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, which included a thorough public consultation on potential changes to civil partnership. Views were invited on three options: abolishing civil partnerships; phasing them out; or extending them to opposite sex couples.

The review found that there was no clear consensus on the future of civil partnerships. A majority of respondents to the consultation were against extending civil partnerships to opposite sex couples and a significant number of stakeholders thought it was too soon to consider making changes to civil partnerships until the impact of extending marriage to same sex couples is known. Given the lack of any consensus, the Government has no current plans to make changes to the Civil Partnership Act 2004.