I thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome intervention. I hope that that is indeed the case.
Some of this grows out of the time when it was very difficult to get divorced. It was expensive, and the legal system reflected a different era. This is about simplifying the options. It is also about same-sex couples. Sadly, for too many years they were denied the opportunity to have their relationships—often close, loving relationships that had lasted for many decades—recognised under the law, whereas an opposite-sex couple could quite easily get married purely for convenience or to avoid certain tax liabilities. We have rightly moved the law forward in that regard to give people options and opportunities. People now have a choice if they do not necessarily want to see themselves as married but want a form of legal recognition for their relationship.
Sadly, there have been too many cases over the past 30 or 40 years involving same-sex couples who have had a close and loving relationship, and when one of them passes away, the relatives have suddenly developed rather Victorian attitudes to such relationships when they realise that there might be a few quid in it for them. Those relatives often launch legal actions that the deceased
partner would certainly not have wanted to see, because they would have wanted their property dealt with in a very different way. We must get the message across that there is something about being married or being in a civil partnership that gives people legal recognition and puts their status and wishes beyond doubt.