Katherine Zappone (Independent)

I move recommendation No. 2:

In page 16, to delete lines 16 to 20 and substitute the following:

" 'maintenance arrangement' means an order of a court under Part 5 or 12 of the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010, a rule of court, deed of separation, trust, covenant, agreement, arrangement or any other act giving rise to a legally enforceable obligation and made or done so in consideration or in consequence of (a) the dissolution or annulment of a civil partnership, or (b) such separation of the parties to a civil partnership as is referred to in section 1013A(2), and a maintenance arrangement relates to the civil partnership in consideration or in consequence of the dissolution or annulment of which, or of the separation of the parties to which, the maintenance arrangement was made or arises;".

I thank the Minister for his patience. This is my first experience of proposing recommendations and I am learning as I go. I also appreciate the context.

The intention of the recommendation is to extend the definition of maintenance arrangements for civil partners covered by the Bill. In the proposed section 1013 J to be inserted in the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 which is contained in the Bill as it stands, "maintenance arrangement" means an order of the court giving rise to a legally enforceable obligation. The maintenance arrangement refers only to that which is contained in an order of the court. The proposed recommendation extends the definition to include a maintenance arrangement that comes about by a deed of separation or a separation agreement between civil partners. I am putting forward a similar argument that the definition needs be extended to include a deed of separation to ensure equal treatment between civil partners and a married couple. As I pointed out on Second Stage, maintenance payments for a spouse in marriage attract tax relief at the time of a deed of separation or a judicial separation. In the case of civil partners, tax relief is not a possibility on maintenance payments until a statutory dissolution or an annulment. This takes considerably longer than the time it takes for a deed or an agreement of separation.

There exists in the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights of Cohabitants Act 2010 an implicit recognition that civil partners can be separate. I acknowledge the Minister's comments in this regard but I still believe, on the basis of advice I have received, that this may be the case and, therefore, it would seem there is no impediment within the Act to extend the definition of a "maintenance arrangement" to include that which arises by deed of separation and that these arrangements are legally enforceable.

An agreement providing for separation of married couples is typically enforceable. There is no reason to believe that a court would fail to enforce such an agreement between civil partners. In particular, there is no obvious public policy ground for the non-enforcement of such an agreement. Section 47 of the civil partnership Act allows the maintenance provision of such a separation agreement to be adopted as a rule of court. This allows the provisions of that agreement relating to maintenance to be enforced as if they were orders made by the court itself.

I ask the Minister to consider this recommendation in order that civil partners may avail of tax relief on maintenance payments for a civil partner at the time of separation.