More Than 900 Civil Partnerships In Scotland

4 December 2006

More than 900 same sex couples registered civil partnerships in Scotland between December 5, 2005, when the Civil Partnership Act came into force, and the end of September, the Registrar General for Scotland said today.

The Registrar General, Duncan Macniven, was speaking as he published his
Quarterly Return, 3rd Quarter 2006. The report provides figures for births, deaths, marriages and civil partnerships registered in Scotland during the period 1 July to 30 September 2006.

In the third quarter of 2006, 284 civil partnerships (145 male and 139 female) were registered bringing the total number to 942 (533 male, 409 female) since the Act came into force last year.

This figure represents six per cent of the UK total of 15,000 for civil partnerships.

Other comparisons with the third quarter of 2005 showed that:

births fell slightly – by 43 to 14,183;
marriages were down by 1.3 per cent from 12,334 to 12,171;
deaths decreased by 1.1 per cent from 12,811 to 12,667;
the number of deaths from the three main causes all fell - cancer by 3.3 per cent, coronary heart disease by 9.5 per cent and stroke by 1.4 per cent.

Registrar General for Scotland Duncan Macniven said:

“By the end of September, more than 900 couples had registered civil partnerships in Scotland since the new legal status started last December. The number of civil partnerships has fallen slightly since last quarter, probably because long-term couples have already registered their partnerships.

On births, whilst there has been a slight fall in the third quarter of 2006, the total for the first three quarters of 2006 is still 1.6 per cent higher than for the same period in 2005, so the slight increase seen over recent years is still continuing.”

Note to News Editors

1. The Quarterly Return for 2006 and 2005 are available for viewing or downloading free of charge from this website.

2. The information on civil partnerships in the UK may be found on the Office for National Statistics website.

3. Media enquiries for this news release.