Update on the progress of the civil partnerships Bill

Table of contents

• What are the key provisions of Tim Loughton’s Private Members’ Bill?
• What legal protections, if any, do opposite-sex cohabiting couples currently have? How would this change if civil partnerships were extended to all couples, regardless of sex or sexual orientation?
• To what extent is the Bill and its progress through Parliament likely to impact the ongoing litigation in Steinfeld v Secretary of State for Education, due to be heard in the Supreme Court in May 2018?
• What impression do you get about the government’s current attitude towards the Bill? For instance, has the government done a U-turn since the departure of Justine Greening, who publicly supported it?

Article summary

Family analysis: Following its Second Reading in the House of Commons, Maeve O’Higgins, partner and head of family law at Burlingtons Legal LLP, reports that the watering down of the Bill has come as a great disappointment to the many people who have been campaigning for the extension of civil partnerships.