National Surrogacy Week 2025
National Surrogacy Week is back this year in the UK, being celebrated from 1-7 August 2025. This week has provided families with the opportunity to celebrate their journeys and to open up the conversation on the topic. Isabelle Blumenthal a Solicitor in the Family team, recently attended the Resolution Modern Families Conference earlier this summer where there was much discussion around surrogacy arrangements and the legal complexities which might arise.
Families are often complex and with developments in technology, families are becoming more diverse than ever before. Here at FSP we are proud to support all families whether that might be through advising on parental orders, surrogacy agreements or advice on childcare arrangements. We recognise that every journey to becoming a parent is unique in their own way, but some journeys require more support than others.
We were disappointed to learn in Spring of this year that the government will not be taking forward the Law Commission’s proposed bill for surrogacy reform. Therefore, if you are seeking to enter into a surrogacy journey, it remains crucial that you receive the appropriate legal advice prior to beginning your journey in order to avoid additional stress and increased costs further down the line.
In order to proceed with a surrogacy arrangement by way of parental order, at least one of the intended parents, or the sole intended parent, must be genetically related to the child, either through the egg or the sperm. Without this biological link, the intended parents must go through an adoption process following the birth of the child, rather than applying for a parental order.
Following the birth, the surrogate will automatically be the child’s legal mother at birth. If the surrogate is married or in a civil partnership, their spouse or civil partner will be the child’s second parent at birth, unless they did not give their permission to the surrogacy. Therefore, in order to become the legal parents of the child, the intended parents must apply for a parental order six weeks after the birth of the child and within six months of the birth. The intended parents must also have the child living with them and be residing permanently in either the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man.
Statistics released by CAFCASS show that between 2014-2023, more than half of UK parents through surrogacy have had an international surrogacy arrangement and it is expected that this high percentage of international surrogacy arrangements will only increase through time.
Recent caselaw on the topic of surrogacy highlights that a large proportion of legal issues relating to surrogacy are linked to immigration issues. Often these issues are resolved through the UK courts bending over backwards, using their discretion to ensure that the children involved are not left in a precarious position. However, it has been made clear by the judges involved in such cases that this should not be the standard and that intended parents should research the international implications of their surrogacy arrangement at the outset of the journey to avoid facing these significant challenges in the first place.
We are proud to offer both family and immigration teams to help ensure that your journey to becoming a parent can run as smoothly as possible by assisting you not only with obtaining legal parenthood but also with organising a plan so that you can obtain entry clearance and travel back home from abroad safely as a family.
If you are seeking legal advice at any point within your surrogacy journey, our Family and Immigration teams would be delighted to assist.
