Civil Partnership (Amendments to Registration Provisions) Order 2005

I have a confession to make. There has been a possible serious failure of parliamentary scrutiny on these Benches. When I was, literally, burning the midnight oil last night, studying the ninth of the orders with which I am dealing, my attention flagged a little and I am not sure whether I have fully understood all the implications of the detailed points made. I obviously returned to the charge this morning with a fresher mind but I am not sure that I am much the wiser. None the less, we support the order in principle. In response to the noble Baroness’s unfair comments about the DWP, I believe that the issues which arose on some of the earlier orders on the PPF and the FAS were considerably more substantial and it is perfectly reasonable that the full DWP team was deployed. There are two idiot questions, if you like, that I should like to ask on the order. First, why is the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer involved at all? The Chancellor of the Exchequer ruling on these matters does not appear to have much to do with the Treasury. Can someone explain to me why this is a Treasury matter? Not wishing to spoil a good party or a good civil ceremony, my second question is why, in the new liberal age, do we have the restriction of eight o’clock until six o’clock?