Vox Pop: Should both parents get legal rights to see children?

YES
Nick Woodall, head of policy and development, Centre for Separated Families

The lone parent model has failed generations of children. We need to move away from ideas of “care” and “contact” and recognise that children adjust better to the transitions that accompany family separation when they are able to maintain meaningful relationships with both parents.

This will usually mean that children spend significant quality time with each parent and that both are involved in making major decisions about their child’s life.

Alongside a change in the law, we need to provide support to help parents understand their children’s experiences of separation, and a workforce – including Cafcass, social workers and the early years – that works from a whole-family support model and protects children’s relationships with both parents.


NO
Elspeth Thompson, national committee member, Resolution; and partner, David Gray Solicitors

While government proposals to change the law to strengthen relationships between parents and children after separation are commendable, the devil is in the detail.

Some child and family law experts have concerns about using legislation. Shared parenting can easily be confused with shared time, and the focus can shift from children’s wellbeing to adults’ rights. The Children Act 1989 already places children’s welfare at its heart.

Most parents agree arrangements for their children outside court, but for the highly conflicted minority who litigate, any legislation that creates a false expectation of shared time could be very damaging for them and their children.


YES
Adrienne Burgess, joint chief executive, Fatherhood Institute

Too many separated mums and dads end up in protracted arguments about how they organise looking after their children, and who pays for what. Too many court orders are breached, resulting in damaged or broken relationships between children and their parents. Sometimes those orders don’t reflect the need for children to have substantial time with both parents.

Children do better when both parents are positively involved – and those children whose parents share residential parenting do as well as, or better than, those who live with one parent.

The Children Act should be amended to include principles that children should normally have substantial time with both their parents post-separation, while leaving the courts room for flexibility in individual cases.

NO
Patrick Ayre, senior lecturer, Department of Applied Social Studies, University of Bedfordshire

Having worked in child protection for 35 years, I find the proposal that courts should assume that access to both parents will benefit children both naïve and potentially very damaging.

That the vast majority of parents love their children and wish to do the best for them is obvious. That a small minority see their children as encumbrances or playthings to be used and abused is no less obvious to anyone with experience in this field.

The right of contact should belong to the children and their best interests must continue to be the sole determining factor, to be assessed without preconceptions in each case.