Meeting with the Rt Revd Paul Butler, Bishop of Durham, Ross Matthewman, Family and Childcare Trust, and Matt O’Connor, Fathers4Justice.

Fathers4Justice: We are pleased to report we recently met with the Rt Revd Paul Butler, Bishop of Durham and Ross Matthewman from the Family and Childcare Trust to discuss Shared Parenting and fatherlessness and the impact this was having on children and families. Ross kindly provided a copy of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Parenting and Social Mobility which contained positive findings supporting the involvement of fathers in the development of children. The document found that fathers were often sidelined when family services were developed.
The Rt Revd Paul Butler, Bishop of Durham, said that fathers matter and that the social tide was turning towards the greater involvement of dads in the lives of their children. He explained that there was acceptance there was an issue and that the role of fathers was increasingly recognised by government.
Matt O’Connor asked the Bishop and the Family and Childcare Trust to consider supporting his campaign’s call for a 50/50 rebuttable presumption of Shared Parenting, which had formed the basis for Early Day Motion 210 which was supported by 104 MPs from all parties along with George Galloway’s Respect Party and UKIP, who had included it in their 2015 election manifesto.


Matt argued that the Church of England, which hasn’t debated family breakdown since 1993 but regularly discusses the topic in wider debates, had a duty to address mass fatherlessness head on and speak out publicly about the cancer of family breakdown.

Matt also supplied copies of the Fathers4Justice Shared Parenting Briefing Paper.

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