 Hello and welcome to my latest policy review, my reading of the Forbidden 2020 Manifesto, by far the best manifesto in the country. Today I want to talk about family law. And this is something that I've always been really interested in and I feel very strongly about. And this is a really interesting part of our manifesto. Now family law is the area of law that I wanted to practice. Had I gone on to have a legal career, which I'm glad I didn't. But when I finished my law degree and then I did the next academic stage, which is called the LPC. After that I started, I spent a couple of years clerking and power legaling around the law courts in London. And it was a great experience. Nothing quite, there's no quite experience quite like hanging out in the courtrooms and it was very interesting, very exciting. I did a lot of criminal law, I did family law. I worked in planning actually for a while when I worked for the government legal service. But yes, I'd often be willing, they don't do this, it's so much anymore because of computers, but back then you would have suitcases of files and hauling these from courtroom to courtroom. But one of the area I wanted to go into at the end of all that was family law. And it's actually a really multifaceted area of law. You've got finance because you will be involved in the separation of assets on divorce. That included, would include trusts. You've got a crossover with criminal law in abuse cases. And, but I think the most common work that crosses a family lawyer's desk, certainly in my experience, involves child custody and arrangements with children after a divorce or separation. It's, it works a certain way. The process, so if you, first of all if a family can't agree between themselves only then really will the courts get involved. So at the initial stages of this what solicitors would always do is encourage the family to sort out their arrangements amicably, if that doesn't happen. And it's quite often the case because you've got a breakdown of a marriage or breakdown of a relationship. There's often a lot of ill feeling. There's a lot of emotions running very high. So it can often be difficult to get people to agree and stick with agreements and be fair to each other and to put the child or the children for us which is what the law insists that we do. But if you cannot get through mediation if personal agreement won't work you may end up in front of the courts and the court will decide who the child or children are to live with and what the arrangements are to be. And case law has developed tests for courts to apply. A statutory law and case law have developed tests for courts to apply. Checklists, if you like, for courts to apply in deciding how, because the guiding principle is that every act is to be in the best interest of the child. So that guides every decision. But how do you decide what's in the best interest of the child? And the courts have developed lists and explanations for what's in the best interest. Among them are that the child should experience as little disruption as possible. So the child should remain in the family home. The child should remain in school. If this is achievable, it's for the best. And another aspect of it, another thing deemed to be for the best for a child is that they live with what the law calls primary carer. And the primary carer will essentially be the person who gets the kids out of bed, gets them their breakfast, gets them to school, gets them from school, gets them their dinner, homework, bath, bed, et cetera. The person who looks after the child who spends most time with the child is deemed to be the primary carer. And both traditionally and today, there is a huge assumption towards placing the mother in the role of family carer. Now that may be justified. It may well be that mothers spend more time with children than fathers. But if that's because fathers are working long hours to keep the family, then that's hardly seems fair that he is punished for it. But in any case, this has inadvertently created an advantage for mothers in questions of child custody and family law. And this needs to be addressed to my mind. To my mind, we need to be making fathers more valued in families and not less. They are often left out in the cold, treated as insignificant in the life of the child. It's simply not fair. And there's a story behind how this ended up why we have this section in the manifesto this year. And that was one of our activists, one of our members who contacted me to tell me his own story and the difficulties he was having. And something that he said actually that really touched me and stayed with me was he said, you know, men kill themselves over this. And you know, we talk about high suicide rates among men. These are the kinds of reasons men are treated as unimportant. And particularly so in the family. So I think that needs addressing. And I'm proud that we have specifically addressed that in our manifesto this year. As with other videos I'll read from the manifesto, pretty short, I'll read directly what the manifesto says and what our proposals are. So family law, the area of law that deals with divorce and child custody is in urgent need of reform. It most certainly is. If parents cannot agree regarding child custody issues or other matters involving children between themselves, these decisions are made by the courts following divorce or separation. At present, the Children Act, which governs the primary legislation in this area, the Children Act demands that the interests of the child must always be paramount in any decision regarding his or her living arrangements or other matters. The welfare checklist has been developed by the courts to determine the factors they will use when deciding upon the future of a child. Case law has also developed the concept that it is partly in a child's best interests to continue living with their primary carer. This is very often deemed to be the child's mother and as such inadvertently places mothers at something of an unfair advantage. Furthermore, fathers often have little recourse without great expense if a mother unilaterally decides to prevent access to the children. According to one for Britain member who was denied access to his children, court orders for access to the children are often given in the father's favor, but when the mother refuses to honour it, there is no option but to return to the court and start proceedings again. Now, this is something that I did see in my time in the family law courts quite a lot, actually. And it takes up so much time, money, effort, disobeying orders that have been made by the court. So you've got to give custody at this time every week, visitation at this time every week, and then one or other party doesn't stick to the plan and you end up back going through it all again. And it really, it's, there's got to be some fallout from this, right? You can't be okay to use the courts in this way and to mess around with the courts in this way. The law currently states that parents do not have a right to see their children, rather that children have a right to see their parents. And that's a really crucial point. And family lawyers would understand how significant a change it would be. And this, it would completely transform how these decisions are made. If the introduction of the parents' right to see their child. Currently, because the driving principle in these is the best interest of the child, it is the child who is deemed to have a right to see their parent. So it will be deemed in their best interest to see the parent. But you can see the subtle difference as to it's the child's right rather than the parent's right. What we are talking about here is introducing a parent's right to see their child. It's a significant, significant change. For Britain believe that children have a right to see their parents, but also that parents have a right to see their children. One that should not be dependent upon the whim of the other parent. This right should only be revoked if a parent has been abusive to the child or the other parent, engaged in serious criminal activity, or if their right to access was deemed to place the child or the other parent in danger. For Britain also believes in shared parenting. This is, you know, this should be all common sense stuff and it should be happening already. There's a major need for reform here. There needs to be clarity in parenting. There needs to be clarity as to what a parent is expected to do and what the rights of that parent are. We need a, I'll go through actually the list of proposals, the short list of proposals. One, introduce the legal assumption of shared parenting. Now, what the legal assumption is is a starting point. Our starting point is shared parenting, not advantage or disadvantage. Introduce grandparents rights. Now, back when I was just a post grad law, I worked in a few different charities and I worked for a children's rights charity and I did a lot of preparation of documents and legal advice, et cetera. And this is something that comes up quite a lot and is grandparents. Often you'll have a scenario where the parent is simply incapable. It might be drug addiction, alcoholism, whatever it may be. They're incapable of giving this child a decent life. The grandparents, however, perfectly capable of giving the child a decent life and want to give the child a decent life but find themselves up against all sorts of legal brick walls. So it's a very complex area and it's largely because the grandparents just don't have fundamental rights. I think that has to change. Introduce a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for Parents. This would impose legal penalties upon parents who maliciously refuse access to the other parent as well as oblige both parents to provide support to children, including emotional, financial and educational support. This is part of the clarity I mentioned a moment ago. We need, listen, I know that most parents are wonderful people doing their absolute best and I'm not a parent so I have no idea how difficult this must be, that responsibility. It must just completely be the very centre of parents' lives. And no one really, there's no handbook, no one's really there to help them through this. It must come up with all sorts of difficult decisions. It's a really, my admiration for people bringing up children is truly immense. But there are parents who are falling short and we need to, I feel a little bit uncomfortable even mentioning this now because it's such a heavy topic and such a topic of emotion, heated emotion. But there are issues with parenting in many, many, many cases and I think that needs to be tightened up a little bit. As for the legal penalties upon parents who maliciously refuse access, that goes back to what I mentioned earlier, what our member mentioned earlier when he said court access, court orders are often given, but the mother refuses to honour it. They have to go back to start proceedings all over again. This can't be without, this can't be without consequences. We must have, this must be tightened up, it must be regulated. This shouldn't be just allowed to go on and we shouldn't be handing parents a tool to beat other parents with. This entire thing has got to be reformed and that brings me to the final point which is conduct a public inquiry into current injustices in the family law system with a view to complete overhaul in favour of equal parenting rights. It's, none of that is going to be easy but this is a crucial topic, a crucial area of life. It has enormous impact, enormous effect on people and it needs looking at and there are real injustices. Various fathers groups, for example, have sprung up over the last couple of decades protesting about this exclusion of fathers as unimportant from families. I think we ought to be going in the other direction and shared parenting I think actually is the future and it's a brighter future. Okay, so that's family law. I'll be back soon with pensions and yes, my live stream, my live stream from this Monday, six o'clock. I will give you full details over the next couple of days where to tune in from that. But Sunday, six o'clock and then every day at six o'clock. I'll be reviewing what's gone on during that day, what is happening with coronavirus and anything else that might be happening, although it seems that there isn't much else going on in the world at the moment. I shall see you then Monday at six and I'll be back soon with more policies, so take care.