Big drop in civil partnerships

JUST 13 couples in East Midlands entered civil partnerships last year, a 90 per cent drop since equal marriage was introduced.

According to the latest ONS figures, there were 33 civil partnerships in 2013, the last full year before the first same-sex marriages took place on March 29, 2014.

This works out at 90.1 per cent fewer civil partnerships compared to four years ago.

In Leicester, there were only two civil partnerships in 2016, the biggest drop locally since 2013.

That year, there were 30 civil partnerships.

Derby saw the second biggest drop locally, down 89.5 per cent, from 19 in 2013 to only two last year.

In Nottingham, the number of civil partnerships dropped by 83.3 per cent from 36 in 2013 to six.

In East Midlands, there were more civil partnerships between men, five, than between women, one.

There were 890 civil partnerships formed in England and Wales in 2016.

This is an increase of 3.4 per cent compared with 2015 and the first annual increase since the introduction of equal marriage, when there were 5,646 in 2013.

More than two-thirds (68 per cent) of all civil partnerships formed in 2016 were between men.

London continued to be the region where civil partnerships were most common, with 38 per cent of all formations in England and Wales in 2016.