The Government is to recommend that children are given legal rights to maintain relationships with both parents after they separate, in its response to the Norgrove review of the family justice system published on Monday.
If the proposed recommendations go ahead it would allow children the right to see both their mother and father after they divorce or separate.
Ministers say that the guiding principle should be that the interests of the child should always come first.
The Government is also providing £10 million for mediation services to encourage more couples to settle disputes out of court, which it says is a faster way of resolving arguments about assets and care for children than the family courts.
For the ten per cent of cases that end up in court, the Government wants to make it clearer that it is vital that children continue to have a relationship with both parents, unless there are concerns about the child’s safety and welfare.
Currently, in the vast majority of divorce cases, family courts side with the mother, meaning that one in three children, around 3.8 million, are living with their father absent from their lives.
The Government’s proposals, to be published on Monday, will reject the main finding of an independent official review into family justice by former civil servant David Norgrove last November, in which he concluded that ‘shared parenting’ could do more harm than good.
Children’s minister Tim Loughton, said, ‘Where (divorce) cases do end up in court, we believe it is important that children don’t lose contact with their parents, unless there are concerns about safety or welfare. But there is a familiar picture in the UK of parental separation leading to thousands of children losing meaningful contact with the ‘non-resident parent’ – usually the father.
"It is right that we consider all the options to help ensure that children can continue to have an ongoing relationship with both their parents after separation. This issue affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and it would be negligent not to. It is also right that we continue to encourage fathers to take responsibility as equal parents and to be fully involved with their children from the outset.
‘The concept of "shared parenting" after a break-up often gets confused with the idea of equal time that a child spends with each parent. A change of law in Australia designed to promote shared parenting fell into this trap and caused delays to the resolution of custody disputes, which was manifestly not in the best interests of the child.
He added, ‘Quite clearly, ordinary living and working arrangements make an equal division impossible, and undesirable, in all but a small minority of cases. In all of this, the most important thing remains the principle that the child’s welfare is the paramount consideration and this must not be diluted.
‘The state cannot create happy families, or broker amicable break-ups. But if children are having decent, loving parents pushed out of their lives, we owe it to them to change the system that lets this happen.’
Ministers say that the guiding principle should be that the interests of the child should always come first.
The Government is also providing £10 million for mediation services to encourage more couples to settle disputes out of court, which it says is a faster way of resolving arguments about assets and care for children than the family courts.
For the ten per cent of cases that end up in court, the Government wants to make it clearer that it is vital that children continue to have a relationship with both parents, unless there are concerns about the child’s safety and welfare.
Currently, in the vast majority of divorce cases, family courts side with the mother, meaning that one in three children, around 3.8 million, are living with their father absent from their lives.
The Government’s proposals, to be published on Monday, will reject the main finding of an independent official review into family justice by former civil servant David Norgrove last November, in which he concluded that ‘shared parenting’ could do more harm than good.
Children’s minister Tim Loughton, said, ‘Where (divorce) cases do end up in court, we believe it is important that children don’t lose contact with their parents, unless there are concerns about safety or welfare. But there is a familiar picture in the UK of parental separation leading to thousands of children losing meaningful contact with the ‘non-resident parent’ – usually the father.
"It is right that we consider all the options to help ensure that children can continue to have an ongoing relationship with both their parents after separation. This issue affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and it would be negligent not to. It is also right that we continue to encourage fathers to take responsibility as equal parents and to be fully involved with their children from the outset.
‘The concept of "shared parenting" after a break-up often gets confused with the idea of equal time that a child spends with each parent. A change of law in Australia designed to promote shared parenting fell into this trap and caused delays to the resolution of custody disputes, which was manifestly not in the best interests of the child.
He added, ‘Quite clearly, ordinary living and working arrangements make an equal division impossible, and undesirable, in all but a small minority of cases. In all of this, the most important thing remains the principle that the child’s welfare is the paramount consideration and this must not be diluted.
‘The state cannot create happy families, or broker amicable break-ups. But if children are having decent, loving parents pushed out of their lives, we owe it to them to change the system that lets this happen.’