by Tony Rucinski, Coalition for Marriage
Next Thursday, 7th May around thirteen million voters across Scotland, Wales and the English local authorities go to the polls. Marriage as an institution is in almost no manifesto. But marriage, the lifelong union of one man and one woman that the Coalition for Marriage exists to defend as the gold standard for families and society, is under pressure from policies moving through Westminster, Holyrood and the Senedd. So is the child’s right to a relationship with both biological parents that marriage most reliably protects.
At Westminster, three threads pull in the same direction. The Courts and Tribunals Bill announced on 7 March will repeal the presumption of parental involvement from the Children Act 1989, removing the legal starting point that a child generally benefits from a relationship with both parents. C4M has set out the case against the change in detail, framing it as treating parenting as a state privilege rather than a right, and as underlining exactly why marriage matters: marriage binds a mother and father to each other and to their children before any crisis. Secondly, the Government postponed the Law Commission’s surrogacy reforms in April 2025, but the proposals remain live: intended parents become legal parents from birth. And thirdly, the long-promised Ministry of Justice cohabitation consultation, due this Spring, will decide whether new cohabitant rights come by opt-in (a conscious choice) or opt-out (all cohabiting couples would be granted the same rights as those who are married).