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The Civil Partnership Act 2004 is an Act of Parliament passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 2004. It was announced in the Queen's Speech at the start of the 2003/2004 legislative session, and its full text was revealed on March 31, 2004. It received Royal Assent on November 18, 2004, and is expected to be activated in 2005.
The Act introduces the concept of civil unions into England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland law. Scotland's Parliament voted in favour of a Sewel motion allowing Westminster to legislate for Scotland in this Act. These civil partnerships will be available for same-sex couples but not for couples of opposite sex. After registering a civil partnership, partners will gain certain rights and obligations with respect to each other. For example, inheritance tax will be waived as it is with married couples, and there will be a right of succession for tenancy.
As a Bill it met with broad support from all of the UK's major political parties. However, it also faced criticism on several fronts — from people worried that marriage would be diluted by extending the rights of it to others, from people who feel the government should simply extend marriage itself, and from different-sex couples who wished themselves to have the right to enter into a non-marriage civil partnership.
In the debate on the Bill in the House of Lords on June 24, 2004, an amendment, seen by some as a wrecking amendment, to extend civil partnership to blood relatives who had lived together for a minimum period of time, such as children caring for elderly parents, was moved by Tory peer Baronness O'Cathain and approved. The House of Commons later removed this amendment and sent the revised Bill back to the Lords for consideration. The Lords decided to accept the Commons version on November 17, and the Bill received Royal Assent the next day.
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