Children and Family Relationships Act 2015

The Children and Family Relationships Bill was enacted on 6 April 2015.

The purpose of the Children and Family Relationships Act is to:

• modernise the law regarding children living in diverse family forms
• establish that the best interests of the child are paramount in decisions on custody, guardianship and access
• set out how parentage is to be assigned in cases of assisted reproduction
• extend automatic guardianship to non-marital fathers who have lived with the child’s mother for at least 12 months, including 3 months following the child’s birth
• enable civil partnered or cohabiting couples to be eligible jointly to adopt a child
• allow civil partners, step-parents, those cohabiting with the biological parent and those acting in locoparentis for a specified period to apply for guardianship and custody
• enable members of the wider family to apply for access to the child
• enable a donor-conceived child, born through assisted reproduction, to trace his/her identity. A mandatory national donor- conceived person register will be established. Hospitals and clinics will be required to provide details of donors and of donor-conceived children born through assisted reproduction

Anonymous donations will be prohibited.

Read the text of the Children and Family Relationships Act.

Read the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 (Commencement of certain provisions) Order 2016.

The Regulatory Impact Analysis for the Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015 is available at the following link: Regulatory Impact Analysis for the Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015