Queen's Speech December 2019 - Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill

“My government will ensure...that the courts work better for all those who engage with them...”

The purpose of the Bill is to:

● Remove issues that create conflict within the divorce process to strengthen family support.

The main benefits of the Bill would be:

• ●  Ensuring that the decision to divorce is a considered one, and reducing family conflict where reconciliation is not possible and divorce is inevitable.

• ●  Bringing long-overdue reform that will directly benefit families by supporting the parties to focus on the future rather than raking over allegations about the past.

  The main elements of the Bill are:

• ●  Retaining the sole ground of irretrievable breakdown, but replacing the requirement to also make an allegation about the other spouse’s conduct or demonstrate a period of separation. Removing the possibility of contesting the decision to divorce.

• ●  Introducing a new minimum period of 20 weeks between the start of proceedings and applying for the conditional order , so that couples are encouraged to be as constructive as possible. (The six-week period between conditional and final order – currently called decree nisi and decree absolute – will remain).

• ●  Introducing a new option for a joint application in cases where the decision to divorce is a mutual one.

  Territorial extent and application

  ●

The Bill's provisions would extend and apply to England and Wales, with

some

consequential effects in

Scotland and Northern Ireland. Civil law is

reserved in the case of Wales, but devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

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Key facts

• ●  In 2018, the court received 118,141 petitions for divorce. People applying for a divorce must currently have been separated for at least two years or otherwise make allegations about their spouse’s conduct. Around three out of five divorce applications are based on allegations about the respondent’s behaviour or adultery.

• ●  Only around two per cent of respondents contest the divorce application. Of these, only a handful go on to contest (“defend”) the divorce at a court hearing.

• ●  Between 2011 and 2018, around two thirds of cases reached conditional decree within our proposed minimum of 20 weeks. This includes approximately one in ten cases within eight weeks, and four in ten cases between nine and 16 weeks.

• ●  The Government is committed to reducing the levels of harmful conflict between parents – whether the parents are together or have separated – through the £39 million Reducing Parental Conflict programme.