Grandparents: Legal Rights

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, with some family experience, I am concerned that a Minister of Her Majesty’s Government was talking about presumptions for grandparents to have contact with their grandchildren. I would hope that that would not go any further, because presumptions are highly undesirable in the law, but it would be useful to review whether grandparents are finding it unusually difficult to get access to the court when they wish to be in touch with their grandchildren.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, with regard to access to the courts, the number of applications for child arrangement orders has generally been in the region of 2,000 over the period since 2011. They have varied slightly, and the number of applications has increased steadily from 2015 to the current year, where the figure is in excess of 2,000. I have certainly not referred to presumption, and various issues would of course arise if we were to consider such a move because, if you contemplate a presumption in favour of grandparents, you are in a sense intruding on the rights of the parent.