Bereaved Parents: Birth Certificates

Jen Craft Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Sarah Sackman)]

I thank the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for securing this debate on an important and emotive subject. I start by saying how sorry I am for the loss that she and her family suffered, and how much I admire her resilience in coming to this House to share her story. That takes a huge amount of courage.

The circumstances in which the hon. Lady and others have lost co-parents are heartbreaking indeed. The Government are determined to ensure that the justice system is better able to support children and families, and particularly mothers who have lost the father of their child.

The hon. Lady helpfully outlined the current process for registering a parent’s name on a birth certificate when that parent has passed away, but it is important to set out precisely how this works. Under section 55A of the Family Law Act 1986, in situations where a child is born to unmarried parents and the father is deceased prior to birth, a declaration of parentage must be issued by the court for paternity to be established. It is right that a fee is attached to this application, but it is important to say that there are mechanisms in place to support those who cannot afford the fee.

The help with fees scheme considers a range of factors, including an applicant’s income, their savings and whether they receive any benefits, so that the fee can be waived in certain circumstances. Once a declaration is issued, the birth can then be re-registered to include the father’s details or, to put it another way and as we have heard, to fill in that blank space.

To recognise the challenges that mothers face when seeking a declaration of parentage, a key intention of the provisions in family proceedings is to make the process as simple as possible in the most difficult of circumstances, while at the same time ensuring that the court has the means to establish parentage if one parent is deceased and is not, of course, able to convey their views themselves.

That process, while we have to emphasise simplicity and ease for those going through the toughest of circumstances, is an important one. It is important because in some cases the process can bear on significant financial implications for others, such as children from previous relationships, and can bear on issues such as nationality and others that touch on the best interests of the child. While ensuring the process is clear and simple to support bereaved parents, the courts must therefore have a process that instils confidence in the important details that a birth certificate contains.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

I want to add my congratulations to the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this incredibly important debate.

The Minister has spoken well on the process involved. If a couple are married when the father dies while the woman is pregnant, it is a relatively simple process to register that person as the father of the child. It is a much more complicated matter for people where the couple are not married. I suggest, and I hope my hon. Friend agrees, that legislation might not have kept pace with societal change and with the reality of how couples now choose to live when they plan families.

Violence against Women and Girls

Jen Craft Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

I begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood). Her speech was incredibly courageous and brave. In recent days, like most women Members of this House, I assume, I have received online abuse, but her courage and bravery inspire us all, and give us the confidence to stand here. I give her my personal thanks for sharing what she did with us.

Violence against women and girls is nothing short of a national emergency. In my constituency of Thurrock alone, 317 sexual offences and 1,841 incidents of stalking and harassment were recorded in one year. Behind each of those statistics is a woman or girl whose life has been impacted by some of the worst crimes, but those figures are just the tip of the iceberg—the sharp end of unrestrained misogyny and hate directed towards women and girls—so I strongly welcome the Government’s commitment to halving violence against women and girls in a decade, and the measures that have been outlined so far to deliver justice for victims of these awful offences, and to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable.

We must tackle the root cause of this epidemic of violence—more often than not, male violence—towards women and girls. The societal attitude that women and girls are second-class citizens, and are less worthy of respect and value, and expectations of the “perfect victim”—these all need to stop. Young boys and girls are exposed every day to a virulent mix of misogyny and sex-based hate crime online. It cannot be right for children to view strangulation as a standard practice in sexual intercourse, or for there to be any question around when no does not mean no.

To bring the meaningful change needed to end this scourge of violence, we need to tackle these issues at root. We need to educate and empower boys to show respect and call out misogyny in their peers. We need to encourage and support men to identify and speak out against all forms of sex-based hate, challenge their peers on what is and is not acceptable, and reflect on where the communities and spaces that they are in can do and be better.

We need to support women and girls who have experienced the worst of our society through male violence. SERRIC—the South Essex Rape and Incest Crisis Centre—in my constituency is a pioneering rape and abuse support service. Set up by women determined that rape victims would not be left unsupported, it provides specialist support, built up through years of experience, to victims of rape, sexual abuse or violence. It allows survivors to reclaim control over their life, understand the impact of what they have lived through and move forward.

SERRIC is keen to highlight that for all victims, a criminal justice outcome alone is not enough to repair the harm done. Indeed, for some victims, a criminal justice outcome is not the desired or best approach. Retraumatising victims in the criminal justice system by forcing them to repeatedly retell what happened to them needs to be minimised, and support needs to be prioritised, but that will require a cross-Government effort. Health services need to be equipped to recognise the signs of physical and sexual abuse, and to provide support for victims that is not purely focused on gathering evidence for prosecution. Specialist support services such as SERRIC need to be funded to deal with referrals from health services, particularly community therapy services that will not treat a woman who has been the victim of sexual violence or rape.

There is no statutory framework for specialist rape and sexual violence support services, so specialist support is often under-supported, compared to more generic provision. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to developing a strong and sustainable model that ensures that specialist services are protected, and I request that she meets me and SERRIC to make sure that we do not miss out on its valuable input on amplifying the voices of victims of male violence against women and girls.

To conclude, with the spotlight on this issue—as a woman, I know that it very seldom is—we have an opportunity to tackle the causes of male violence against women and girls at root, to implement the recommendations of IICSA, and to listen to the voices of victims and provide the support that they need to rebuild their life. I hope this opportunity is not squandered by those who seek to put their political ambition, or spreading misinformation, insinuations and division, ahead of making real change.