advice re. 'premise of shared parenting and pre existing contact order.

[Labro]

I saw a programme on Channel 4 on Tuesday which was about a review of the Childrens Act and that in family law there is now going to be a clause added that there will be a premise of shared parenting in all cases unless there is sufficient reason to prevent this.
Does anybody know if this will affect pre existing defined contact orders? I've been divorced 8 years and ds is 10. If ex H were to decide to apply for a variation of the current order for example, would this premise be appkied or am I worrying about nothing abd it will only apoly to new cases?

I think it will make very little difference in practice, even if the amendment goes through. Residence and contact orders will still reflect arrangements prior to separation. New legislation is not a good reason to apply for a variation of an existing contact order which is working well.

I saw the programme you're talking about. Please don't worry about it - it was extremely biased. It was noticeable that it gave very little time to the views of the authoritative Baroness Butler Sloss near the end.

You can read more about what she had to say here - and see that the actual wording of the amendment only actually talks about ??to presume that a child?s welfare will be furthered by the involvement of each of the child?s parents in his or her life, unless it can be shown that such involvement would not in fact further the child?s welfare.?

It does not require a child to spend half their time in both parents' homes to achieve that!