Who Has Parental Responsibility?

This article explains whether or not you have parental responsibility and what to do if you don't have it.

Who Has Parental Responsibility?

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Do I Have Parental Responsibility?

If you are the biological mother of the child, then you will have parental responsibility automatically as soon as your baby is born.

Fathers have Parental Responsibility (PR) if they are:

  • Married to the child’s mother at birth or conception
  • Named on the birth certificate (by either registering the birth with the mother, reregistering the birth with the mother’s permission to add his name to the birth certificate, or if the court orders that he is the father and the birth is then reregistered to include the father) for births registered on or after December 1st 2003.
  • If they have a parental responsibility order from the court
  • If they have a parental responsibility agreement with the mother.



Births That Are Registered in England and Wales

If a child is adopted jointly by a couple or if they are married at the time of the child’s birth, then they both have PR.  This PR remains even if the parents divorce later on.

Unmarried Parents

If you are a father who does not currently have PR, you have 3 ways in which you can gain it:

  • By registering the birth jointly with the child’s mother from December 1st 2003.
  • Asking the mother to sign a parental responsibility agreement.
  • Asking the court for a parental responsibility order if the mother refuses to sign an agreement.

Births That Are Registered in Scotland

If the father is married to the mother at the child’s conception or if he marries her thereafter then he automatically has PR.

From 4th may 2006 if an unmarried father is named on the child’s birth certificate at any point, he has PR.

Births That Are Registered in Northern Ireland

If the father is married to the mother when the child is born, then he automatically has PR.

If the father married the mother after the child is born then he has PR as long as he lives in Northern Ireland when the marriage occurs.

From 1th April 2002, if an unmarried father is named on the child’s birth certificate, he automatically has PR.

Births registered outside the UK

For any births that occur outside the UK and the child is brought to live in the UK then it depends on the country of the child’s birth as to whether or not the father has PR.


Same-sex parents

Civil partners

Both parents in a same sex relationship have PR for the child if they are in a civil partnership at the time of conception for example when IVF treatment occurs or at the time of donor insemination.

Non-Civil Partners

The parent who gives birth to the child will automatically have PR as above however the second parent will need to get parental responsibility by:

Applying for PR if the couple agree to sign a parental responsibility agreement.

Becoming a civil partner of the other parent and then reregistering the birth jointly with the other parent or making a parental responsibility agreement.

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