My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. I found the introduction given by the noble Baroness so powerful that I hope—depending on whether the Minister can answer three questions that I want to ask—that I will not have to move my Amendment 46D, which will save the Committee quite a lot of time. It has the same essential aim as the amendment moved by the noble Baroness.
I would have been handicapped in moving my amendment in any case, because I do not have Answers to three Written Questions, which I tabled on 5 June and which should have been answered by last Wednesday, 19 June, at the latest. I hope that the Minister can answer them now. Those Written Questions seek to update the information on the scale and cost of the injustice being done to blood-relative, sibling or family partnerships, sometimes known as “the sisters”. I think that, after this debate, we all know who we are talking about.
5.15 pm
The first question is: how many civil partnerships have so far been registered and what is the Government’s estimate of their impact on tax revenue? I have in mind inheritance tax and some elements of private pension arrangements which other noble Lords have mentioned. The second question is: what estimates have the Government made of any additional effect of same-sex marriages in these areas; that is, tax, income and so on? I would think that it is rather little. But the third question is the really important one: how many blood-relative, sibling or family partnerships exist? How much do the Government estimate those partnerships save the taxpayer in care costs, and how much would it cost to give them the same advantages that are currently enjoyed by civil partnerships and soon will be by same-sex marriages? It is important that we have the answers to those questions so that we can understand the scale of what we are dealing with. I have heard it estimated that blood-relative partnerships save the taxpayer some £3.4 billion per annum in care costs. Can the noble and learned Lord confirm what the latest figure is and can he also now answer my other Written Questions?
Noble Lords who oppose this amendment seem to think that the problem can be solved only by the extension of civil partnership rights. Surely this injustice is so great that, if necessary, another form of legislation can be dreamt up as a result of the review—the amendment asks only for a review—which would put right something that has gone on in the wrong way for far too long. I am really saying that there does not have to be sex in it, does there? Why cannot these really good people in these really long relationships be recognised? I would remind noble Lords that sex is not all that reliable.