I will be brief.
I put my name to new clauses 10 and 11 in good faith. Opening civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples is something that I have campaigned on for years, so I am hugely disappointed to see such political games being played.
I put my signature to those new clauses because I want to promote equality. It is important to allow everyone—same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples—to enjoy a civil partnership or marriage as they choose. This is a question of equal love. It is not about asking for special treatment for gay couples or straight couples; it is about everyone enjoying the same rights regardless of their sexuality. It is worth noting that equal rights are already enjoyed in countries such as France, where many heterosexuals want and can get the legal security of a civil union if they do not want to get married. I do not understand why straight couples in Britain should not have that right, too. That is why, for several years,
I have been writing to the Government—for example, back in May 2011—and calling on them to support civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples. I have done so on a number of occasions, so this is not a new idea or one that has only just now come on to the agenda.
The Government have had time to consider the cost implications and should not now be using their failure to do so as an excuse for denying people equality, especially when the projections on the pension costs are so speculative—in the space of five days they have gone up from £3 billion to £4 billion. One gets the sense that they are being done on the back of a cigarette packet. If civil partnerships for mixed-sex couples really would generate £4 billion of cost liabilities and cause more than two years’ delay, let us see the evidence, but so far there has been none.
9.15 pm
Colleagues will be aware that there has been heavy briefing claiming that to support the new clauses would be tantamount to enabling the Bill to be scuppered by whomever. I do not know who is trying to scupper the Bill, but I do know that there has been heavy briefing to the effect that the Government would be happy for the new clauses to go ahead and therefore for the Bill to have less chance, perhaps, in the other place. My bottom line is that I do not want the chance presented by the Bill being scuppered. I do not want it delayed—I want it given a swift and safe passage—and if that means that I need to abstain on the new clauses, I will, but what an indictment it is of the political processes of this place, particularly of the Government, who are playing political games with an issue that matters hugely to my constituents and to many others up and down the country.
Surely, if the Government were really committed to equal marriage, they would not be implying that their support for the Bill was conditional. Ministers need to explain exactly why opening up civil partnerships would delay the implementation of gay marriage and why, for example, it is not possible to work on the basis set out in 2004, when some of the essential consequentials were put in place for civil partnerships. Of course, the issues for same-sex couples are different from those for opposite-sex couples, but I struggle to see how it could take two years or more, if the political will was there to sort it out.
Furthermore, the Bill does not allow employers and pension providers to award gay spouses and civil partners the equivalent survivor benefits payable to a partner in a mixed-sex marriage, hence my amendment on pensions and gay marriage couples, which we will be discussing tomorrow. That substantive inequality remains in the Bill, but could be considered at the same time as civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples.
There is no procedural reason why the new clauses on civil partnerships need wreck the chances of introducing legal same-sex marriage. As I say, I believe that the proposals are being used to play political games, but I do not think that my constituents want me to play such games; they want equality fair and square and they expect a Government who have stated their support for equal marriage to stay the course and to do so without creating new inequalities and in a way that provides for equal marriage and partnerships for everyone. This is about equality. Are we really saying that people are equal only if it does not cost us too much and if it is not too complicated? We need to meet those cost arguments
and other objections head on, rather than allowing them to undermine the basic rights to full equality for every couple.
In summary, we need to guarantee comprehensive equality for opposite sex and same-sex couples; to open up marriage and civil partnerships to all; to use the Bill to deliver the same pension arrangements for couples regardless of their sexuality or whether they are in a marriage or civil partnership; and to do all that without playing games with the lives of people up and down this country who care deeply about what is happening in the House and who are watching us tonight and cannot believe the kinds of games that it would appear are being played.