We have had a useful debate on the amendments. I hope that I shall be able to help the Committee by explaining briefly why the Government have neither included a mandatory spoken declaration nor replicated the declaratory and contracting words used in the civil marriage ceremony, as is proposed in amendment No. 14 and amendments Nos. 16 and 17 respectively.

This is an area in which there is a justifiable difference between the civil marriage process and the process proposed for civil partnerships. A decision was made that the registration procedure for forming a civil partnership should be a written procedure. To that end, we have designed the registration provisions so that it is the signing of the civil partnership document that is crucial to the legal formation, rather than the speaking of any words. We therefore need to be careful to be clear that spoken words could not have—and we would not want them to have—a specific legal significance. It is important,

notwithstanding what I will go on to say and what I suggested earlier that the Government intended to do with Government amendments Nos. 23 and 25, that we are clear about the legal basis.

In a civil marriage ceremony, the parties become married at the point at which they have exchanged their spoken vows. Registration subsequently records the marriage, which has legally already taken place. The words exchanged are a solemn and important aspect of the marriage ceremony. As I have explained, the Bill establishes a different procedure for the formation of a civil partnership. The administrative registration process does not require words to be spoken by, or exchanged between, the proposed civil partners. In a civil partnership, it is the signing of the civil partnership document that marks the moment of the formation of a civil partnership and the parties' change of status to civil partners.

We believe that that is simple and clear, and that it is all that is legally necessary. To add to that statutory steps to require a spoken declaration would therefore alter the emphasis of the procedure and would also risk introducing confusion into the registration procedure to the extent—this is the risk with amendment No. 14—that the legal trigger for entry into civil partnerships would potentially be unclear.