I shall undertake to play nicely with the entire House today, because there are some really important components to the Bill and I feel hugely passionate about the inclusion of mothers’ names on marriage certificates—I do not, however, hope that my young daughter will be in a position to demand my name on her marriage certificate any time soon, but you never know, she is 20. [Interruption.] I doubt she would find a partner in that manner of haste.
I am very conscious that my hon. Friend’s amendment has the support of a large number of right hon. and hon. Members from across the House. We support the common objective of an early move to enable opposite-sex couples to form civil partnerships. We made clear our position and the reasons for our concerns about the amendment in a written statement laid this morning by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities.
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My hon. Friend made a point about the written statement being somewhat at the eleventh hour. I am going to play nicely, but I would gently chide him back by saying that his amendment was also somewhat at the eleventh hour, particularly as the Bill went through an intense Committee stage in which right hon. and hon. Members had the opportunity to debate it very fully. Of course, we would not want to be in a position where we do not have an opportunity to debate the amendment and consider the issue properly. None of us wants to still be debating the Bill at 2 o’clock this afternoon and not have the opportunity to make the progress that we want to make on other Bills further down the Order Paper.