I appreciate that strong views were expressed to you on that aspect. However, I stress that the interim recognition scheme is, at its heart, about access to rights. If a couple stays in Scotland, they can still say that they are in a civil partnership—they can still use that terminology. The interim recognition scheme is not about telling them to change what they say and to talk about the fact that they are married; it is about the rights that they would have when they are in Scotland.
The options are as follows: we could provide for no interim recognition at all, so if people in a mixed-sex civil partnership were to move up to Scotland, their rights would not be recognised whatsoever; or we can, as we have suggested, provide that they are deemed to have access to rights by being treated in the same way as a married couple.
09:45
I note that there were suggestions during the committee’s evidence sessions that we could somehow act as if those people were in a civil partnership, and technical changes to the bill have been suggested to allow that to happen. However, I do not see how that could work in reality. Unless we have all the secondary legislation that goes alongside the primary legislation, we would not have a comprehensive body of law that would allow us to say that such people had the rights of a civil partnership. There would therefore be a risk that people would miss out on rights because we do not have that comprehensive body of law.
I absolutely appreciate that people who want to go into a civil partnership rather than a marriage will not find it at all ideal that we are saying that they should be classed as a married couple. However, I go back to my original point: it is about access to rights rather than about what people in a partnership call themselves. I hope that that provides a little bit of reassurance, and also reassures people that we have looked at alternative options, which I do not consider would give couples the access to rights that I think they would expect and hope to have.