Ministers condemned for spending £65,000 on 'indefensible' civil partnerships court battle

Ministers have been condemned for spending nearly £65,000 on an “indefensible” court battle to prevent heterosexual couples from having civil partnerships.

Newly released figures also reveal the government expects to “incur further costs” fighting a Supreme Court challenge from Rebecca Steinfeld, 37, and Charles Keidan, 41, who want legal recognition of their relationship without getting married.

The London couple, who have two children, have been embroiled in a lengthy legal battle because they believe the government’s refusal to extend the civil partnerships currently offered to same-sex couples to everyone is “incompatible with equality law”.

Tory MP Tim Loughton, who brought forward a private member’s bill to extend civil partnerships to straight couples, said there was a “pattern of throwing public funds at indefensible court cases” as he compared the battle to Brexit campaigner Gina Miller’s High Court victory.

“It should never have had to go to the Supreme Court,” the former children’s minister told The Independent.

Efforts to allow wider access to civil partnerships have stalled since the departure of Justine Greening, the then women and equalities minister, after a botched cabinet reshuffle earlier this year.

She was replaced by home secretary Amber Rudd, who then resigned from the front bench over the Windrush scandal, leaving a question mark over the issue.

Her successor, Penny Mordaunt, has now sparked fears the government might scrap civil partnerships altogether by commissioning research into whether demand is too low.

Mr Loughton hit out at the government for “dragging its feet” on further consultation, as more than 120,000 people have already signed a petition backing the move and there is cross-party support in parliament.

He said: “We just don’t need to spend any more time and money on consulting on something that we already know the answer on.

“Defending the case in court is just a further waste of public funds.”

Mr Loughton went on: “There is a specific place for civil partnerships in preference over marriage for same-sex couples and clearly that’s going to be the place for opposite-sex couples as well, which is why we have 3.2 million living as cohabiting couples, of whom a good chunk would probably go for a civil partnership arrangement.

“Abolishing it is not the answer. There would be a very severe backlash if they were going to go down that abolition route rather than that extension route.”

A spokesperson for the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign told The Independent: “The Government has committed to ending the current unfairness and the minister has given a commitment to Stonewall not to abolish same-sex civil partnerships, so extending them to all is the only option left.

“So why delay, especially when it is costing the taxpayer so much money?”

Home Office minister Victoria Atkins, who released the data in a parliamentary question, said: “Since the start of the proceedings in 2014, the government has spent £64,923 in legal costs as a result of this judicial review.

“The case is still ongoing, and so we are likely to incur further costs.

“The department has a central budget for legal costs, but does not allocate budgets to individual cases as the costs for each case varies.”

Civil partnerships were brought in for same-sex couples in 2004, as part of efforts towards legalising gay marriage, which was introduced in England and Wales in 2014.

Ms Steinfeld and Mr Keidan launched a judicial review in 2014 after being told they could not have a civil partnership because the law says only same-sex couples are eligible.

Their case was defeated at the Court of Appeal in February last year but they were allowed to take the case to the Supreme Court for a hearing earlier this month.