Legislative Reform (Civil Partnership) Order 2011

My Lords, I thank all those who contributed to the debate. I will start by responding to the point on locally engaged staff. Yes, it is part of the FCO's business plan to slim down consular posts where possible and reduce costs by taking on more locally engaged staff. I take the point that there are some delicate tasks that locally engaged staff may need to be sensitised to with reference to a range of the issues that they have to deal with in consular posts. I promise to write to the noble Baroness on that issue. We all recognise that, on the whole question of civil partnerships, we have all been moving forward slowly over the past generation. If one goes back far enough, the law in Britain was pretty closed on these issues. A number of other countries are moving forward much more slowly or are further behind us on the curve. Our predecessors in Government—and we continue to do the same—have been pushing to encourage others to move further. My notes say, for example, that the posts that were unable to offer civil partnerships as a result of moving to locally engaged staff included posts in Japan, Australia, Portugal, Austria and Ireland. However, this is no longer a problem in Portugal, Austria and Ireland because, in the past 18 months, they have changed their domestic legislation so the problem no longer arises. As noble Lords have remarked, there are still other members of the European Union that have not got that far. The previous Government’s Europe Minister, Chris Bryant, wrote to Denmark, Germany and Slovenia, each of which has its own legal recognition on same-sex relationships but does not recognise UK partnerships. Denmark replied to suggest that, as a result, it will amend its legislation to recognise UK civil partnerships. Replies from Slovenia and Germany are still pending. He also wrote to all EU member states that do not have their own civil partnership legislation to ask for permission to conduct civil partnerships in our posts overseas where at least one half of the couple is a British national. Latvia, Cyprus and Bulgaria have replied to say that they do not object as long as their nationals are not involved. Estonia and Poland have said that they continue to object. We have not yet heard from Romania, Lithuania, Malta, Italy, Slovakia or Greece, but all are presumed still to object. We are currently consulting the Government equalities office on next steps. I have a note which says that the training given to local staff will be the same as is currently provided to Diplomatic Service staff. Staff guidance is also being updated so that staff have this additional point of reference. It may be of interest to the Committee to know that the figures I have on the countries in which civil partnerships have most often been registered show that Australian posts come out at the top, then those in Vietnam and then those in Japan. After that, for some reason, it is Colombia. Please do not ask me to explain in detail why it should be those countries; others may wish to investigate. Having said all that, I recommend this proposal for approval. It is a necessary and highly desirable change that will take this country a little further forward to the goal of becoming an open, liberal society. Motion agreed.