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Welfare Reform Bill

This amendment and those grouped with it are technical amendments necessary to effect new Sections 2B, 2C and 2D in the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953. These sections cover the processes to be followed in cases where unmarried parents are acting separately because they cannot or will not register jointly in the usual co-operative way. The need for these amendments came to light as we worked through the detail of the process with the General Register Office and practising registrars. The amendments take us back to our original intention that the changes in the Bill to the registration process should not be onerous. Under the joint birth registration provisions, most parents will register together, as they do now. However, in exceptional cases, parents may provide information separately because they cannot or will not register the birth together. In some of these cases, the mother will give the registrar her required information in advance of the father providing his details. At this time she will also give details of the father to the registrar so that the registrar can contact him and require him to co-operate with the registration process. The amendments ensure that the mother will not be required to return to the register office to sign the register once the father has been contacted. Instead, she will discharge her duty to sign the register by signing a declaration when she first attends. Therefore, when the birth is registered, once the father’s information has been obtained the entry will be considered to have been signed by the mother. It is important that no unnecessary steps are built into the joint birth registration provisions. That would undermine the policy intention of removing barriers to joint birth registration. We wish to ensure that we do not place any unnecessary burdens on either registrars or parents, and these amendments fulfil our intention to make the exceptional processes for joint registration as streamlined as possible. I beg to move.