Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Lord Cormack

Monday 24th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

Does the noble Baroness not accept that we are not suggesting that where these other relationships exist a civil partnership is compulsory? Her whole argument is based on the assumption that it is compulsory.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, if there is to be a relationship recognised as an extension of the concept of civil partnerships for inheritance tax, it also produces a responsibility for mutual financial support called social security. The one goes with the other. The way around it is something that I think my Government should have explored, and that I hope the current coalition Government will explore; the noble Baroness, Lady Knight of Collingtree, was absolutely right about this. We should see a way of avoiding a survivor, particularly in the case of the two elderly sisters who went to the courts, having the inheritance abated on the first person and being rolled over to the second death. That seems to me to protect the position of the two sisters, which I think we were all deeply moved by, but would avoid the long-term problem of social security which would otherwise follow.