Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many applications for decrees nisi there were in 2018 in which the grounds for divorce was two years separation.

A decree nisi is the provisional decree of divorce pronounced when the court is satisfied that a person has met the legal and procedural requirements to obtain a divorce. The sole ground for divorce is that the marriage has broken down irretrievably. Currently, the law requires a person seeking a divorce to satisfy the court of one of five ‘facts’. One fact requires that the parties of the marriage have lived apart for a continuous period of at least two years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition for divorce, and that the respondent consents to a decree being granted.

In 2018 there were 118,355 divorce petitions, of which 32,297 (27%) cited the two-year separation fact. Following a divorce petition, further applications are required for the decree nisi to be granted and then for it to be made absolute, bringing a legal end to the marriage.