Howard allows Tory free vote on same-sex partnerships
Michael Howard is to allow Conservative MPs a free vote on the recognition of same-sex unions.
The Queen’s Speech on Wednesday is widely tipped to include a proposal for a Civil Partnerships Bill, which would permit same-sex couples to register their partnerships with the state.
A year ago, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith triggered a revolt within the party by ordering MPs to vote against proposals to allow homosexual couples to adopt children.
John Bercow – now the shadow International Development Secretary – left the front bench in protest.
The move by the Howard leadership is being seen as a key indicator of the Party’s willingness to adopt the agenda of the ‘modernisers’ – such as Michael Portillo and Francis Maude – in an attempt to maintain its hard-won current unity.
Furthermore, the Conservatives’ only openly gay MP, Alan Duncan, will take responsibility for the legislation.
The Constitutional Affairs spokesman added that the Conservatives would also consider extending the arrangements to non-sexual unions, such as sisters sharing the same house.
Speaking on BBC 1’s ‘Breakfast with Frost’ programme yesterday, the former Archbishop of Canterbury George (now Lord) Carey admitted that there was a case for same-sex partnerships.
‘As long as we don’t call it marriage, because marriage for me and for many people is a relationship between a man and a woman for life. It is not to do with same-sex relationships. But there may well be a case for looking sympathetically at civil partnerships’, he insisted.
