December 5, 2024

Mixed-sex CPS reach five year milestone

Civil Partnerships for mixed-sex couples are five years old in England and Wales. How has this changed things?

We will soon (December 2024) mark five years of the institution of civil partnerships being possible for all couples – opposite-sex, gay and mixed-gender – as an alternative to marriage.

In December 2019, after a long legal, parliamentary and social action campaign, it became legal for opposite-sex couples in England and Wales to enter into a formal civil partnership for the first time. Previous to this law change, only same-sex couples could enter into civil partnership. Northern Ireland and Scotland followed suit soon after. 

Five years on, how has this new form of legal union fared for the thousands of couples who have struck a civil partnership over the period? Has it made a difference? What do the numbers look like?

Nearly 6,000 opposite-sex couples registered for a civil partnership in 2022 according to the ONS (the latest year for which figures are available). We think around 20,000 couples have gone down that path since it became an option some five years ago.

The law change was the result of a very focused campaign, spear-headed by the Equal Civil Partnerships Campaign.  The campaign ran on legal, political and popular fronts. The ECP supported Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Kiedan, in their legal battle with the Conservative Government. They won a resounding 5-0 Supreme Court verdict in 2018. Later a Private Member’s Bill finalised in Parliament in 2019 pushed through the law change necessary. All the while thousands of supporters signed petitions and made their voices heard on social media.

Many of these supporters have gone on to actually form a civil partnership, when they could not do so before. Why? What was wrong with marriage for them? What did it mean to them? How has it affected them and their families? 

If you have a mixed-sex Civil Partnership or are planning one, join the celebrations. Use the hashtag #ADateToCelebrate5 to share your story & photographs or add to our celebration wall – send us a photo and details about you & we’d love to include you.