Courts will be put under a legal duty to ensure that both fathers and mothers are given access to children in divorce settlements, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph. Apparently if parents refuse to accept the orders they will be ‘in contempt of court and risk serious penalties or even jail’.

Tim Loughton, the children’s minister, told the paper: ‘Our vision is to establish that, under normal circumstances, a child will have relationship with both his or her parents, regardless of their relationship with each other.

The move would fly in the face of the recent proposals from David Norgrove’s family justice review.