Orders of the Day — Civil Partnership Bill [Lords]
2:21 pm
Mr Alan Duncan (Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, International Affairs; Rutland and Melton, Conservative)
No. I admit that there is not a massive difference, except in terms of the ceremony itself: in marriage, the verbal vow is the contract, whereas in a civil partnership it is the written signature. In that sense, there is a legal distinction. Although I want to stick religiously—if I can put it that way—to the geometry of my parallel lines, I acknowledge that they appear to get ever so slightly closer together in that respect.