Policy background Restricting parental responsibility when one parent kills the other
The Act requires the Crown Court to make a prohibited steps order (‘a PSO’) at the point of sentencing in cases where a parent has been convicted of the murder or manslaughter of the other parent.
	The prohibited steps order will prevent the offender from exercising parental responsibility in respect of any children they shared with the victim until the family court reviews the order. Parental responsibility refers to all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities, and authority which by law a parent or guardian of a child has in relation to the child and their property. Examples of exercising parental responsibility include protecting and taking care of the child, making school and health decisions, and taking the child abroad. Parental responsibility can also be exercised in a manner that can frustrate the activities of those trying to care for the child, for example in refusing permission for a child to obtain a passport, in how it is exercised to determine the child’s education and where the child goes to school or permission for medical treatment.
	The Act outlines that the prohibited steps order made by the Crown Court must make clear that the offender cannot take any steps in exercise of their parental responsibility without the consent of the High Court or the family court and that the prohibited steps order must remain in place until it is varied or discharged by the High Court or the family court.
	The Act allows for some circumstances where the Crown Court should not make a prohibited steps order. These circumstances are where a prohibited steps order that meets the requirements outlined above is already in place for the offender in question, or where it appears to the Crown Court that it would not be in the interests of justice to do so. The interests of justice exemption would only be available in circumstances where the offender has been convicted of voluntary manslaughter. An example of this may include a situation where a victim of domestic abuse kills their perpetrator.
	The Act places a duty on the local authority within whose area the child is ordinarily resident, or in the absence of such local authority, the local authority within whose area the child is present, to make an application to the family court to review the prohibited steps order made by the Crown Court within 14 days starting from the day after the order was made. The Act also requires the local authority to make an application for the family court to subsequently review the prohibited steps order where the affected parent is acquitted on appeal of the murder or voluntary manslaughter which resulted to the making of the prohibited steps order; as with the initial timeline this application must be made within 14 days after the verdict of acquittal was entered. The Act includes a power for the Lord Chancellor to amend either time limit by regulations.
	The Act includes a power for the Lord Chancellor to make regulations to amend, repeal or revoke any provision that is made by existing primary legislation and is consequential on the provision.