Same-sex couples yesterday won the right to be treated as husband and wife in a landmark ruling for gays and lesbians under the Human Rights Act.

In settling a long-running legal battle, the House of Lords rejected an appeal by a landlord who claimed a gay man could not inherit the tenancy rights of his partner after he died.

Baroness Hale, in the lead judgment, said: "Homosexual relationships can have exactly the same qualities of intimacy, stability and inter-dependence that heterosexual relationships do."