Conservative MP Tim Loughton’s private member’s bill to extend civil partnerships to all couples has sadly failed to be passed by parliament. It has suffered the same fate as Richard Bacon MP’s recent bill to introduce no-fault divorce; a lack of government backing and parliamentary time.
Legislation was required because a legal challenge to the current law failed last year. The bill’s failure to pass leaves unmarried heterosexual couples in a position where, bizarrely, they do not have the same rights as same sex couples, who can choose to have either a marriage or a civil partnership.
It is heartening that both of these recent private member’s bills have been introduced by Conservative MPs. It belies the tendency that we have to view Tories as socially illiberal. Sadly however, this progressive Toryism does not extend to the government itself.
The government’s excuse for not backing this is that more time needs to be spent on working out the implications of extending civil partnerships. This is ridiculous. It is a no-brainer. The legal difference between civil partnerships and marriage is minuscule.
Huge numbers of couples choose not to marry. They are in a horribly weak legal position. Many people still believe that if you cohabit, you become a common law husband or wife, but in fact common law marriage was abolished in the eighteenth century. Many unmarried people find that if their relationship s ends they have no right to live in their home and that the court’s ability to divide assets between them is much more restricted than it would be in a divorce. It leads to many massively unfair and unjust outcomes.
There is, I accept, an argument that if you want to enjoy the rights of a married person, you should marry. Fair enough. But many people want to be able to show commitment to each other, but do not want to be “married”. Civil partnership would be a solution to this.
Governments always believe that marriage is a good thing. Marriage helps to bind our society together. Married relationships are more stable than unmarried ones. Given that the main difference between marriage and civil partnerships is one of terminology and the legal differences are so minute, it would make more sense for civil partnerships to be possible for all. I would argue that it should make no difference whether your relationship is legally described as marriage or civil partnership. One way or another, the result is the same. In effect you would be married, even if it is called civil partnership. More people “marrying” should be government policy.
It is clearly unfair for same sex couples to have the option of either having marriage or a civil partnership, but for straight couples to not have the same choice. How can that possibly be equal?
14 January 2017