-
Latest News
Latest News
October 20, 2020
Donate Your Civil Partnership
Are you having a civil partnership but don’t want to receive any gifts? Why not ask friends and family to donate to our campaign instead? You can celebrate your union by helping as many people as possible hear about and get the chance to have a mixed-sex Civil Partnership!
We will set up a JustGiving page for the first 5 couples who want to do this and send them a free ECP mug to show our thanks. Email us at hello@equalcivilpartnerships.org.uk with subject line DONATE MY CIVIL PARTNERSHIP.
For anyone else, it takes less than 10 minutes to set up a page at https://www.justgiving.com.
Or you can simply ask loved ones to go directly to our Go Fund Me page and leave a donation in your name.
October 19, 2020
Law Commission Consultation on Weddings Law
As we have previously reported the Law Commission are conducting a consultation on potential changes to weddings law (sic). Many of the proposals will affect civil partnerships, mixed and same-sex, and we have spoken to both the Law Commission and the General Equalities Office who have confirmed that there is an ‘assumed overlap’ between regulations for marriage and civil partnerships. The Law Commission are very keen to hear the views of the civil partnership community and have asked for our help in publicising the consultation.
After you have completed the opening obligatory segment https://consult.justice.gov.uk/law-commission/weddings/consultation/intro/ feel free to answer as few or as many questions as you wish. We think that couples wanting or who have had a mixed-sex civil partnership will be particularly interested in looking at the following areas.
Chapter 4 – Preliminaries – how and when to give notice https://consult.justice.gov.uk/law-commission/weddings/consultation/subpage.2020-06-25.9417192246/
Chapter 7 – Location, relaxing the rules on where registration can take place https://consult.justice.gov.uk/law-commission/weddings/consultation/subpage.2020-04-29.4120981016/
Q67, Chapter 11 – Special types of wedding, looking at how to manage in future national emergencies https://consult.justice.gov.uk/law-commission/weddings/consultation/subpage.2020-06-29.6847463031/
You might also be interested in Chapter 12 Fees https://consult.justice.gov.uk/law-commission/weddings/consultation/subpage.2020-05-01.5140518453/ and Chapter 13 Impacts https://consult.justice.gov.uk/law-commission/weddings/consultation/subpage.2020-06-30.0412691154/
We hope to send an ECP response on behalf of the campaign so do please let us know your views in any of the areas in which you feel strongly. Please email us at hello@equalcivilpartnerships.org.uk and mark the subject as Law Commission Consultation
October 7, 2020
Become a regular supporter of ECP and receive a gift from us
We have made no secret of the fact that, since the Bill completed its passage in 2019, making mixed-sex civil partnerships legal in England and Wales (shortly followed by Northern Ireland), we are no longer able to access grants or funding from charities.
The law has been passed but we continue to see the need for our support in the ECP community. We act as a help-desk to resolve queries; we act with the authority of a campaigning body to resolve issues on your behalf – with register offices or financial companies who do not recognise CPs as equal to marriage; we ensure a high profile in the media, continuing to educate about civil partnerships and secure their legacy; we operate the witness registration scheme which has proved so popular; we celebrate your civil partnerships and continue to build a supportive community.
Sign up today to give us a regular gift and you will receive some of our new ECP merch for free!
We do all this with one part-time paid member of staff. With funding low, we will arrive at the point where we cannot continue to offer these services.
If you value what we are doing, please help us to continue. We need your support to help us to continue to raise awareness of mixed-sex civil partnerships and to help couples to have the registration to which they are entitled.
Your chance to help other couples have the registration they want
We are asking supporters to sign up to commit a regular sum each month. If you have benefited or plan to benefit from what we do, please do consider a regular donation. In return we will send a thank-you gift of our specially branded ECP merchandise.
October 2, 2020
167 Mixed-sex civil partnerships on New Year’s Eve
It truly was #ADateToCelebrate! ONS figures for 2019 have confirmed that 167 couples formed a mixed-sex civil partnership on 31st December 2019.
The latest figures on civil partnerships for 2019, released by the ONS, reveal that the number of same-sex civil partnership has maintained a slight increase in popularity. Nearly 1000 same-sex couples registered their civil partnership during the year, an increase of 4% on 2018. We offer our congratulations to them all.
To our trailblazers, the lucky couples who managed to secure a New Year’s Eve registration, we give our hugest congratulations as a campaign. We celebrate with you all.
September 18, 2020
Law Commission Review
The Law Commission, at the behest of the Government is conducting a review of how marriages (sic) can be reviewed and modernised to reflect a changing world and to offer more choice.
There are three key areas which we have been given to understand will affect civil partnerships as well as marriages
- Giving notice
- Venue
- Provision in case of future national emergency
We’d love to hear the views of the ECP community so email us with your thoughts on hello@equalcivilpartnerships.org.uk
Giving Notice – suggestions for change include
- Requirement to be resident for 7 days before giving notice to be abolished
- Notice period to be started by giving notice on form and face to face interview to be carried out during notice period, not starting it
- Ability for face to face interviews to be carried out remotely.
Venue – Suggestions for change include
- Removing restrictions on venues so that, in theory, they can be allowed anywhere
- Specific areas mentioned are homes, gardens, outdoors, on inland waters, in the air
- Removing current restriction that venue has to be regularly available to public (eg hotel, museum)
Provision for future National emergency – Suggestions for change include
- Removing the 12 month expiry of notice period until after the end of the emergency so couples do not have to pay/give notice again
- Giving notice and/or Registration being able to be carried out remotely
- Use of venues cited in the venue change section to offer safer environments (eg outside)
We’d love to know what you think! Send us your views on these proposals to hello@equalcivilpartnerships.org.uk
August 23, 2020
Become Regular Supporter of ECP with Direct Debit Scheme
Whilst the right to have a civil partnership for mixed-sex couples has been gained, the campaign continues. We continue to fight to ensure that register offices recognise and treat registrations as a separate but equal relationship to marriage and to tackle organisations on your behalf to ensure legal and financial parity with marriage.
We rely solely on donations now to continue our work and are grateful for any financial support that you can give. To enable us to plan in the longer term and to know that we have a secure funding stream, we have set up several direct debit options which allows supporters to commit to a regular monthly sum.
July 27, 2020
Witness Registration Scheme Open
Provision of witnesses is a question that frequently comes up on our channels and before lockdown we were able to help some couples to find witnesses from our community. As civil partnerships can once be registered, we have created a witness database so that we can more quickly match people to location and availability as needed.
We know that many couples planning a civil partnership only want the simplest registration and for many reasons choose to have civil partnership supporting ‘strangers’ rather than having to select from family and friends. We have frequently received messages wishing that provision of witnesses could be done by the register office itself. It can’t – but we can help!
If, for any reason, you would like us to help you find one or two witnesses for your registration, please send us details of your request.
If you are able to help and would like to be on a witness database, please provide us with details of your location and normal availability. You don’t need to have had or to be planning your own civil partnership as long as you are sympathetic! Let us know whether you are normally able to provide one or two witnesses.
As ever, we are only able to continue to provide these services through the generosity of our supporters. If you benefit from our witness registration scheme, please do consider donating any sum you are able to.
July 8, 2020
New way to donate to campaign
We absolutely hate having to ask our supporters for donations but the simple truth is that we no longer have access to the grants which, together with generous contributions from you all via GoFundMe and CrowJustice, have sustained the campaign for the past few years.
As we move forward, embedding mixed-sex civil partnerships into the fabric of UK life and ensuring our supporters enjoy the registration and the legal security they want, we do need continued financial support to keep the campaign running.
That is why we have created an additional method for supporters to donate easily and regularly. If you are able to commit to a monthly donation of £10, please consider using our new direct debit option – sign up here
If you prefer to make a single donation, please donate here.
However and how much you donate, be assured we are very grateful as are all the couple who have been able to have a mixed-sex civil partnership so far and all those who plan to in the future.
July 6, 2020
Welcome, Amy, new campaign lead
Equal Civil Partnerships are delighted to introduce Amy Grant as our new member of the team in the role as Campaign Lead.
Amy, working as a volunteer, joins Martin Loat, Campaign Chairman and Anni Johnson, Campaign Manager, to take the campaign through to its next phase, establishing mixed-sex civil partnerships within the UK and supporting all our couples on their journey to legal recognition.
Amy, with her partner, Ben has supported the campaign since the start and is a familiar face, having generously allowed us to use their story to publicise the need for mixed-sex civil partnerships and having spoken to traditional and online media, including the BBC, the Guardian and Huff Post, on behalf of Equal Civil Partnerships.
Read Amy’s plans for the future of the campaign and just why it’s so important to her on our home page http://equalcivilpartnerships.org.uk/
May 4, 2020
Allow Digital Registrations during Lockdown
These are strange and worrying times and the first message I have for you all is the fervent wish that all in our civil partnerships community together with your loved ones stay safe. We know from our social media feeds how supportive the community is and we are grateful for it at times like this.
As an organisation we have had a lot to do with register offices and the General Register Office over the last few months! Again, we have nothing but sympathy and respect for registrars trying to keep staff safe as well as dealing with the tragedy of increased death registrations.
Many of you have had the disappointment of having your civil partnership notice or registration cancelled. We are aware that this isn’t merely a happy occasion you’ve had to forego for the time being. You have had to also postpone the opportunity to form a registered relationship and the knowledge that financially and legally you and your family are protected should the worst happen.
We asked for stories of why this affects you and we have been inundated. We know that many of you are key-workers, including in healthcare and want to ensure your partner and children have financial peace of mind as you are risking your health to care for others. We know that many of you are older or have compromised immune systems making you worry that you are in the at-risk groups.
This is why we are campaigning for the introduction of digital registrations (via video call platforms) during the period of lockdown. New York State has managed to achieve this and our fervent hope is that we can do the same here. We have set up a petition on change.org – Please do sign and share it.
Thank you and best wishes to you all from myself and the rest of the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign team at this difficult time.
Martin Loat
Chairman, Equal Civil Partnerships