Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), attended the Joint Committee on Human Rights with me last week, and he has gone into a great deal of detail on this matter. He and his Department have estimated that the potential liability could be some £4 billion. It might be less, but at the moment we simply do not know. The cost of the equalisation of survivor rights in contracted-in and contracted-out schemes could account for about £90 million. We would also need to look at the equalisation of the rights of widowers with the rights of widows, at which point the bill would start to rack up. It would not be right for Parliament to legislate when so many issues are outstanding.