Petition Enact schedule 6 of the 2009 Welfare Reform Act on Joint Birth Registration.

S.111 of the Adoption & Children Act 2002 demonstrated a turning point in Family Law, permitting unmarried fathers to obtain parental responsibility if their name is registered on their child's birth certificate. However, responsibility for registering the birth still lies mainly with the mother.

More details

In England & Wales every year around 7% of births are solely registered by mothers meaning upto 45,000 children do not have their father named on their birth certificate. Research shows that fathers' impact on their children is central to the child's healthy development. With rapidly changing social infrastructures there is a growing trend away from marriage and towards cohabitation. JBR will reinforce the important role fathers play in their children's lives, both practically and symbolically.

This petition is closed This petition ran for 6 months

41 signatures

Progress of the petition towards its next target: 41 of 10,000 signatures required to get a government response

Show on a map the geographical breakdown of signatures by constituency

10,000 signatures required to get a government response

Date closed 8 March 2017
Get petition data (json format)

About petition data

The data shows the number of people who have signed the petition by country as well as in the constituency of each Member of Parliament. This data is available for all petitions on the site. It is not a list of people who have signed the petition. The only name that is shared on the site is that of the petition creator.