Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to extend civil partnership to opposite sex couples.

The government is proud to have introduced marriage for same-sex couples.

We continue to keep the matter of civil partnerships under review. The government has consulted on the continued operation of civil partnerships and there has been little consensus. It is right that we evaluate the demand for civil partnerships before we make changes to the law. We are assessing the demand amongst both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. We believe it is still too early to judge how the law should be changed.

There was a Judicial Review of our decision not to extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples and the claimants have recently been granted an appeal to the Supreme Court.

As this is an ongoing legal case, we are unable to comment further at this stage.