Clause 1 - Civil partnership
Civil Partnership Bill [Lords]
9:10 am
Ms Jacqui Smith (Minister of State (Industry and the Regions and Deputy Minister for Women), Department of Trade and Industry; Redditch, Labour)
We start our consideration this morning with the Government amendments that have been tabled to remove a series of amendments that were made in another place. The amendments that we seek to remove, which we discussed at some length on Second Reading, sought to extend the legal relationship of civil partnership to close family members who are over the age of 30 and have lived together for 12 years.
I greatly welcome the cross-party support that we have seen in the House for the Bill in the original form in which it was introduced early this year. I particularly appreciate the fact that the Government amendments that I will be speaking to have, in many cases, been supported, or even tabled, by Opposition Members. That is a real credit to the mature way in
which we choose to understand issues of equality in the 21st century.
As I suggested on Second Reading, we received a clear endorsement of the purpose of the Bill—granting legal recognition to same-sex couples, ensuring that the many thousands of couples living together in long-term committed relationships will be able to ensure that those relationships are no longer invisible in the eyes of the law, with all the difficulties that that invisibility brings.
We heard a widespread agreement from Members across almost all parties that the Civil Partnership Bill is not the place to deal with the concerns of relatives, not because those concerns are not important, but because the Bill is not the appropriate legislative base on which to deal with them.
The Bill is the culmination of a long policy-development process that has, from day one, been concerned with the disadvantages faced by lesbian and gay couples, whose relationships are not legally recognised. The process started in Government in November 2001, when my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), my predecessor as a Minister with responsibility for equality, made clear the Government's concern about the difficulties that lesbian and gay couples face because of their inability to marry.
A major review of the policy and cost implications of a civil partnership scheme resulted in the June 2003 publication of a consultation paper outlining the Government's proposal for civil partnership as a framework for the legal recognition of same-sex couples. A commitment to introduce legislation was given in the Queen's Speech in 2003. In March 2004, we introduced the Bill in another place. So, without referring back to previous debates, it is fair to say that this is a process that has involved a considerable amount of consultation for a considerable period and that has—at every single point of that consultation—received approbation and support from the majority of those who have responded to consultations and debates in this House.