Civil Partnership (Miscellaneous and Consequential Provisions) Order 2005

We supported the Civil Partnership Act and therefore we support any orders designed to complete the implementation process. However, I want to raise a couple of points. The Minister pre-empted one of my questions, but I want to explore it a little further. We dealt with orders in July and we have more now. Some were affirmative and some were negative orders. The question is: when will it all end? The Minister said that he was not certain, but although five more departments are producing orders, today’s orders complete the task of the DWP. How do the four negative resolution orders which appeared on the Order Paper last Thursday relate to what the Minister has said today? Was he confining his remarks only to affirmative orders, or are there many negative orders to come forward? That is important, because we need to give certainty to the body of law which deals with civil partnership. I have sympathy with officials who are coping with the Government’s legislative programme, which is large and often rushed, and overlaying the complex civil partnership legislation on to already complex social security and pensions legislation. We shall have the opportunity to return to the latter, of course, when Adair Turner produces his report in a little over a month’s time. We now have a second round of orders, the Government having recognised that they did not get the implementation right in the first round. What process have they undertaken to ensure that all the necessary areas have been covered for the complete implementation of civil partnership? That is particularly important because in today’s mail I received an invitation from Stonewall to celebrate the implementation of the Civil Partnership Act. I would very much like to attend, but in the full and certain knowledge that we have a complete body of law to implement it.