Family Law Insights: Reform of the Presumption of Parental Involvement – A Fundamental Shift in Children Law

Amelia Bunce, Trainee Solicitor

Amelia has been supporting John Randle in the family team, dealing with all aspects of family law, specialising in high-net-worth divorces. She also works on contentious and non-contentious employment matters, and personal injury claims – including those arising in connection with historic child abuse.

The UK government has announced a major reform to the way family courts handle child contact cases. The proposed change would remove the long-standing presumption that children benefit from involvement with both parents – a principle that has drawn criticism for putting survivors and children at risk.

The Current Presumption of Parental Involvement

Under the current regime in England and Wales, family courts operate under a framework that prioritises a presumption of parental involvement in children’s lives after the parents have separated. Essentially, unless there are compelling reasons why not, it is taken as a starting point that children benefit from involvement in the lives of both parents.

In practical terms, this means that in many cases the burden falls upon one parent to persuade the court not to make arrangements for the child to see the other parent. This could lead to lengthy, adversarial proceedings, often where domestic abuse or coercive control is a concern for one or more of the parties.  For this reason, the presumption has been heavily criticised for placing children and survivors at risk.

What’s Changing: Reforming the Presumption to Promote a Safety-First Approach to Contact

However, this week, the government announced a groundbreaking reform to remove the presumption that children benefit from contact with both parents. The change follows years of campaigning from survivors, domestic abuse charities, and professionals who warned that the current system too often exposed children to harm.

Under the new approach, courts will no longer start from an assumption that both parents should have contact with the child(ren). Instead, judges must consider whether there is any risk to the child’s safety or welfare before making a contact order. This allows the court to prioritise protection over parental involvement, and to impose limited or no contact where appropriate.

The reform also strengthens existing safeguards,  as courts must now explicitly determine whether a child would be at risk of harm from a proposed contact arrangement/order.  

Why This Reform Matters

It has become increasingly clear that the presumption of contact is failing to safeguard children, with tragic and, in some cases, catastrophic consequences.

The 2020 Ministry of Justice Harm Panel Report found that family courts were “failing to protect” survivors and children, with unsafe contact arrangements contributing to serious harm. Removing the presumption directly addresses these findings by ensuring that safety, not shared contact, is the default position.

This reform has been hailed as a historic victory by domestic abuse campaigners, including Women’s Aid and Claire Throssell MBE, whose two sons were killed by their father during court-ordered contact. Throssell and other advocates have long argued that the presumption of contact created a “pro-contact culture” that prioritised parental involvement over child protection.

According to a Women’s Aid’s report dated June 2025, 19 children were killed by a parent who was a perpetrator of domestic abuse in England and Wales during the period September 2015–September 2024 in circumstances connected to unsafe child contact arrangements. 

The abolition of the presumption of parental involvement is a fundamental reform to children law. It reaffirms that a child’s right to safety outweighs any parent’s expectation of contact.

Whilst it will take time for Parliament to legislate to repeal the presumption of parental involvement, this reform will move the system closer to one that truly places children’s welfare at its heart.