Closed petition: Allow reregistration of births to remove a parent from the birth certificate

Closed on 29 January 2026

We urge the Government to amend current birth re-registration rules to create a right to remove a parent from a child’s birth certificate, for example in circumstances such as abusive relationships, neglect, and long term absent parents.

Currently, the law is that you can re-register a birth under certain circumstances:
-the natural father’s details were not entered at the time of the original birth registration
-the child’s parents have married after the original birth registration.

We believe there should be more options for birth re-registrations than what is available at present. We believe there may be reasons why a parent might want to remove another parent from a birth certificate, such as but not limited to abusive relationships, neglect, and long term absent parents.