Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Women and Equalities

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-10-17.

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, if she will bring forward proposals for a consultation on extending civil partnerships to heterosexual couples in England and Wales.

Caroline Dinenage

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.

The Isle of Man is a self-governing crown dependency. We are not required to carry out an assessment on their legislation.