ONS won’t combine traditional and same-sex marriage statistics

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has decided not to combine marriage statistics with those for same-sex marriage.

The decision comes after a consultation revealed almost unanimous opposition.

Of more than 350 submissions to the ONS, 99.4 per cent of respondents called for the statistics to be presented separately.

‘Highly encouraging’

Had the change gone through, it would have become impossible to measure the differences in duration between marriage types, or calculate the divorce rate.

Head of Research at The Christian Institute, David Greatorex welcomed the move: “Traditional marriage and same-sex marriage are fundamentally different. Marriage between men and women works because it is God’s design. Same-sex marriage is not.

“Over time the evidence will reflect this, but merging the two sets of data would have hidden it.”

Traditional marriage campaign group Coalition for Marriage said it was “highly encouraging to see that our submissions can make a difference”.