Government to consult on cohabitation reform

Reform of the law on cohabitation could come sooner than expected after the government confirmed it will consult on the issue this year.

Labour pledged in its 2024 manifesto to strengthen the rights and protections of women in cohabiting relationships.

Asked by the House of Commons justice select committee for a timetable on reform, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, the minister in charge of family justice, marriage and divorce, said that a formal consultation will be issued this year ‘to build public consensus on what cohabitation reform should look like’.

The minister said the current government did not share the previous administration’s view that cohabitation reform must wait until existing work on marriage and divorce law have concluded.

‘Protecting those who would benefit from cohabitation reform is of utmost importance, and I would like to assure both you and the committee that we have no plans to delay our progress on delivering cohabitation reform because of our work both in relation to marriage law and divorce law (including responding to the Law Commission’s recently published scoping paper on the law of financial remedies on divorce),’ Ponsonby said.

The news will be welcomed by family lawyers, who have long called for family law reform to better protect unmarried couples.

Family law group Resolution has previously said the current ‘unfair’ cohabitation laws consign too many families to misery and dire financial hardship.

The House of Commons women and equalities committee urged the previous government to improve legal protections for cohabiting couples by introducing an opt-out cohabitation scheme proposed by the Law Commission in its 2007 report on the financial consequences of relationship breakdown, which would protect eligible cohabitants who are economically vulnerable.

The number of cohabiting couples has increased from around 1.5 million in 1996 to now over 3.6 million.