Government to press ahead with plans for fathers to share maternity leave
Plans to allow fathers to share maternity leave and give then greater access to children after divorce are expected to be unveiled today as part of a major overhaul of the law on the family.
Measures to speed up adoption and end years of racial “matching” of would-be adoptive families will also be put before Parliament as part of the Coalition’s new Children and Families Bill.
Details of the package of measures will be announced to MPs today on the same day as they vote for the first time on gay marriage.
Together the two bills could transform the face of family life in Britain for decades to come.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, has championed moves to allow parents to divide up a year’s worth of parental leave between them insisting the current rules belong “in the 1950s”.
But businesses leaders have warned that the change will heap extra burdens on small firms.
Plans to require divorcing couples to operate “shared parenting” have also provoked opposition from legal experts.
Last year an official review advised against the move, arguing that a similar move in Australia had opened the way to a landslide of legal claims heaping further delays on child custody cases.
But ministers are determined to press ahead with the plan which will give both parents a legal right to spend enough time to develop a meaningful relationship with their sons or daughters.
The only exceptions will be if it is thought that a child’s well-being would be jeopardised by such a relationship.
Last month a committee of Peers criticised plans the Education Secretary Michael Gove’s plans to remove legal requirements for social workers to consider placing children with adoptive families from their own ethnic background.
Mr Gove, who was himself adopted as a child, has repeatedly criticised social workers for seemingly allowing a fixation with finding the “perfect match” to stand in the way of identifying stable and loving homes for children.
The committee chaired by Baroness Butler-Sloss, the former president of the High Court Family Division said they were not convinced that the current requirements were actively slowing adoptions down.
The Baroness has also been an outspoken critic of shared parenting.
Edward Timpson, the children’s minister, is expected to argue that the measures will help every young person fulfil their potential regardless of their background.
Source: The Telegraph
