Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of legally recognising humanist marriages.

In July 2019 we invited the Law Commission to undertake a wholesale review on weddings law in England and Wales. As part of that review, the Government invited the Law Commission to make recommendations about how marriage by humanist and other non-religious belief organisations could be incorporated into a revised or new scheme for all marriages that is simple, fair and consistent.

The Law Commission report was published in July 2022 and contains 57 recommendations for extensive legislative reform. The Government is carefully considering these recommendations, and a response will be published in due course.