Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has plans to update birth certificates to enable parents of the same sex to register the birth of their child.

The Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, and associated regulations, prescribes the information to be recorded in a birth entry in England and Wales. The information collected during a birth registration relates to the event as it happened at the time the child was born and includes information about the mother who has carried and given birth to them.

Same-sex female couples can register their child’s birth to include both their names, subject to certain conditions being met. There are no current plans to change the information relating to parents recorded in a birth entry in England and Wales, however same-sex male couples can obtain a parental order from the court to be registered as parents.