Government accused of dragging its feet over marriage certificates

Campaigners continue to feel frustrated over the lack of progress over changing the format of marriage certificates.

Back in 2014, around 70,000 people signed a petition calling for mothers’ names to be added to the forms used in England and Wales.

The details which are deemed worthy of inclusion on the paperwork have not been updated since the Victorian era and there has been growing calls for the Government to change the law.

But despite a commitment from David Cameron himself to address the inequality and ensure the names of both parents are included, campaigners have yet to get the change they are lobbying for.

Tulip Siddiq, an MP who previously raised the matter at a Prime Minister’s Questions session, said: “Back in 2014, with a General Election looming, the Prime Minister pledged to end this inequality, in a speech given to the Relationships Alliance summit.

“He agreed that the centuries-old anachronism ‘clearly doesn’t reflect modern Britain’ and that ‘it’s high time the system was updated’.

“In light of the stark language he used, it is utterly perplexing that the Home Office has spent the past two years delaying a simple administrative reform that enjoys such broad consensus.”

The Government recently said that “a timetable will be confirmed as soon as there is an opportunity to legislate on this matter.”