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The Telegraph last night reported that the government are set to reject the recommendations of last year’s Family Justice Review and provide parents who divorce or separate with a legal right to see their children. The article claimed that, should legislation be passed, then courts will be required to ‘ensure’ that both a child’s mother and father will be afforded contact when ruling on divorce settlements. Both Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and the Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith have endorsed the proposal and it is believed that the Conservatives will also add their support. The Family Justice Review, published in October of last year, advised against creating legislation that ‘creates or risks creating the perception that there is a parental right to substantially shared or equal time for both parents,’ but the children’s minister Tim Loughton seems to have rejected this proposal, claiming that the government wants to ensure that all children are afforded a relationship with both of their parents following a divorce, adding that every effort must be made to improve the family justice system in order to give children the best chance of ‘growing up with two loving parents.’ It is understood that this legislation could be introduced via either an amendment to the 1989 Children’s Act or the government could instead choose to advocate a backbench bill, currently led by Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, which is due to be discussed in parliament later this month. Campaign groups are believed to welcome the plans, with Nadine O’Connor, the campaign director of Fathers4Justice, having said that the introduction of such legislation would represent ‘a massive step forward.’ Recent research has shown that approximately 3.8 million children do not live with their fathers as a result of divorce or separation. Other proposals outlined within the Family Justice Review, such as the endorsement of DIY divorce and the creation of parenting agreements which would determine how the children of a marriage would be cared for following a divorce, are set to receive government backing.