A change in the law came into force on 10th December, giving couples in a civil partnership the right to convert this into a marriage.
Four heterosexual couples are to go to the European Court of Human Rights to argue that the UK Government is discriminating by restricting the right to enter into a civil partnership to homosexual couples, reports the Telegraph.
The Office for National Statistics has recently published a statistical release showing that there were 723,913 live births in England and Wales in 2011, increasing slightly (by 0.1%) from 723,165 in 2010.