Explanatory note

These Regulations amend the Parental Responsibility Agreement Regulations 1991. They prescribe a form, C(PRA3), to record an agreement under section 4ZA of the Children Act 1989 (c.41) for the acquisition of parental responsibility by a second female parent. Section 4ZA is inserted into the Children Act 1989 by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (c.22) and provides for circumstances in which a woman, who is treated as a parent of a child by virtue of section 43 of the 2008 Act, may acquire parental responsibility for that child.

The notes to form C(PRA2) (Step-Parent Parental Responsibility Agreement) are amended to allow for the fact that parental responsibility might be held by persons who were previously in a civil partnership as well as those who were previously married or that a parental responsibility agreement might have been entered into previously by the child’s mother and a second female parent.

The amended forms C(PRA2) and C(PRA3) both now ask for the ‘gender’ of the child and for the sake of consistency form C(PRA1) has been similarly amended.