The government has announced the date from which existing Civil Partnerships may be converted to marriages.
The provision – one of the outstanding items from the Same-Sex Marriage Act – will come into effect from 10th December. As yet it is not clear what the process or cost will be – there is widely expected to be some basic administration fee but there may be further requirements.
However, despite the recent consultation on mixed-sex civil partnerships, government minister Sajid Javid MP has now said that there will be no legislation to open up civil partnerships to mixed-sex couples.
It would seem unlikely that this can now happen before the 2015 General Election: while the Lib Dems have pressed for it as a matter of equality, most Conservative MPs remain opposed to the measure, and Labour blocked mixed-sex civil partnerships when they were in power.
