Clause 3 - Formation of civil partnership by registration
Civil Partnership Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Mr Alan Duncan (Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, International Affairs; Rutland and Melton, Conservative)
Is there not a problem of read-across here? In retaining the distinction between marriage and civil partnership—if that is what we are doing—and recognising that in a civil partnership the contract is the signature rather than the spoken word, the hon. Gentleman is taking the contract from a marriage ceremony and asking for it to be said in a civil ceremony. The point is that asking about just impediment is in the written contract rather than the spoken word in the civil partnership, and he is mixing the two in an increasingly awkward way.