Question: You are trying to move a bill through Parliament to provide for a civil registration of two people who are co-habiting. Why is there a need for this?

Jane Griffiths: The law has not moved with the times. A great many people live together as partners: one in four adults at any given time live together as partners and are not married, for whatever reason, and there is no protection for people in that position in terms of, for example, if one of the partners dies suddenly, the other one can be made homeless, is subject to inheritance tax in a way that married couples are not, and there are no pension rights in most pension schemes. And it's time that that was changed.

Question: Why don't they simply get married?

Jane Griffiths: People marry for all sorts of reasons but they marry for emotional and religious reasons and it shouldn't be that people are forced to get married for purely financial protection reasons. But in any case, the fact is that for whatever reason people choose not to get married, and of course there are others who can't legally marry, those people remain unprotected and don't always realise that that's the case.

Question: What would you say to someone who said that a cohabiting heterosexual or cohabiting homosexual couple - shouldn't enjoy the same rights as a married couple?

Jane Griffiths: Well they don't in fact and my bill wouldn't intend to give them those rights. My bill is not about marriage in any way. It's about insurance, inheritance, pensions, and to some extent, immigration, and it's about legal protection for people who may be in vulnerable positions not of their own choosing.

Question: What happens to co-habiting couples who've been living together for many years but don't bother to register under your scheme? They won't have any legal rights - so why don't you propose a de facto rule which means that if you've been living together for say one year you automatically qualify for these rights?

Jane Griffiths: Yes, I've thought about this quite hard and talked to a lot of people about it but decided that really people should choose to register. With rights comes responsibilities and it's something that people do consider, after all, when they're in a relationship they choose a point at which they make some level of commitment to each other. With a lot of people that's where they decide that they want to live together and that could well be the point at which people would decide to register their partnership because they've made that commitment. A lot of those people might choose to marry later on, I certainly did that myself and that's very common and quite normal nowadays.

Question: What would be the financial implications of this bill - as you say, pensions, insurance - surely there's a huge financial cost?

Jane Griffiths: Well no not at all, it would be more or less neutral in terms of finances. At the moment most pension schemes in the private sector do make that provision - if people are not married they can name another individual that will benefit from their pension should they die. Most public sector schemes don't do that. My bill, if it became law, would oblige the public sector to do it, and after all, Members of Parliament voted for exactly that provision for their own pensions and it seems rather hypocritical to say that others shouldn't be able to do that.

Question: Why do you think ministers haven't moved on this and why haven't public sector pensions followed the private sector on this?

Jane Griffiths: I think it's probably inertia. The Police Federation is very much in support of my bill and they've been trying to lobby the police forces to do exactly this, and it may be that they will do it but they haven't done yet. And they are in support of my bill because they'd like a legal obligation to make the public sector schemes move.

Question: Do you believe the Government is sympathetic to this argument of yours?

Jane Griffiths: Yes I do very much, certainly from conversations that I've had with ministers. Now we'll have to see what happens when the bill gets its second reading but this is really just the start of a process towards bringing our law in to line with how our lives are in the twenty first century.

Question: I know you can't name any names but have there been any Cabinet ministers who support the bill?

Jane Griffiths: Well I couldn't name names but yes there has been support from Cabinet ministers.

Question: What's at stake if the Government ignores these demands for cohabiting couples?

Jane Griffiths: Well this issue will simply continue to grow momentum and sooner or later it will become law. This is a campaign which has a lot of momentum and a lot of support from organisations like the Law Society and as I said the Police Federation, and many others. And we shall continue and we'll make it law sooner or later.

Question: Do you think it adds to people's disattachment to politics that these sorts of issues aren't being led by the Government?

Jane Griffiths: Well I think perhaps it does a bit, yes, and judging by the letters and messages I've had from all over the country, I mean indeed other countries in the world since I introduced the bill, there's been a lot of enthusiasm for it and quite a lot of strong views as well from people who really didn't think they'd ever bother writing to MPs but on this issue they are doing.Question: Can you see the Government adopting the GLA's civil registration ceremony for same-sex couples, and expanding it nationally?

Jane Griffiths: Well that's effectively what this Bill would do. Now local authorities can do exactly what Ken Livingstone has done in London and have a partnerships registration scheme, and several have decided to do it, and that's pleasing, but of course it doesn't give any legal status to those partnerships - it's simply a gesture that those partners can make.

Question: Do you believe the Treasury may be an obstacle to this?

Jane Griffiths: There's no reason why they should be and I've not picked up opposition to this because there is not going to be any significant revenue costs to the Treasury if this bill becomes law, though there are complex issues to be looked at and that is being done at the moment. I'm not seeking a massive injection of public spending at all for this and there's no reason why the Treasury should object.

Question: What support have you been promised by your colleagues on the backbenches, and have you been approached with any support from the Conservative and Lib Dem benches?

Jane Griffiths: A number of Conservatives did vote for my bill. None of the Conservative front bench did, but a number of Conservative backbenchers did. The Liberal Democrats, it's their party policy. They voted overwhelmingly for it, including their leader Charles Kennedy, and huge numbers of Labour backbenchers voted for it, and the ones who weren't present at the time have since written to me saying that they will be there on the second reading and they will be supporting it.

Question: Finally, you say this isn't about marriage but what will be your response to family and religious groups who will strongly oppose it?

Jane Griffiths: Well I think they are misguided- they have no reason to oppose it because it's got nothing to do with marriage. It's not talking about marriage and where legal measures like this have been introduced in other countries in Europe there have been studies done on the effects of marriage, i.e. on the rates of marriage, whether fewer people get married, and there has been no effect at all. In France and Germany, where they've had this legislation in the last few years, the numbers of people marrying have stayed exactly the same.