Parents Could Face Fines, Benefit Cuts or Jail Over a Child's Offence
Parents in England and Wales whose children commit crimes could lose benefits, face fines and be jailed, youth justice minister Jake Richards has said.
Richards, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice and Minister for Sentencing and Youth Justice, set out the position in comments reported on 19 September. He described proposed changes to parenting orders in England and Wales as a "carrot-and-stick" approach, pairing help with the threat of punishment. Jail would be reserved for the most extreme cases. Custody or a cut to benefits would be for a judge to decide. The Guardian
The government plans to strengthen and expand parenting orders. Parents or guardians would be required to attend counselling sessions, including residential courses where they stay overnight, or face a fine of up to £1,000.
A parenting order is a set of instructions from a court telling parents what they must do, like attending guidance sessions. Courts must consider issuing one where a child under 16 has been convicted of an offence. For 16- and 17-year-olds, they can consider one if they think it would help prevent further offences. An order must not last longer than 12 months. Breach of an order, meaning failure to follow it, is a criminal offence with a maximum £1,000 fine, according to the Sentencing Council.
Use of the orders has fallen from more than 1,000 in 2009/10 to 33 in 2022/23, government statistics show. In May 2026, then justice secretary David Lammy said he expected the power to jail parents to be used "very, very rarely".
The September comments follow a run of youth justice announcements. In May, the government published a youth justice overhaul stating that parents and carers will face tougher accountability when children offend. UK Government In July, it launched a pilot to identify children with a parent in prison earlier and connect them to support. UK Government A day before Richards' remarks, The Times reported that reducing benefits is one option on the table to hold families to account for young offenders. The Times Richards was reappointed to his Ministry of Justice post on 22 July 2026.
The broader context here is enforcement of a power courts already hold but rarely use. The proposal does not make parents legally responsible for the offence itself. It tightens the penalty for not following a court-ordered intervention, with custody as the backstop rather than the starting point. The open questions concern thresholds for breach, what evidence is expected about parenting capacity, and how judges in different youth courts will use their discretion.
Looking at what this means for implementation, two tensions will shape reception. The first is between compulsion and engagement. Residential counselling depends on active parental participation. Fines, benefit reductions and custody may secure attendance. They can also add strain to the household stability that work to stop reoffending relies on. The second is administrative. Reviving an instrument down to 33 uses a year will require court time, probation and youth justice capacity, and consistent criteria for when an order is sought. Without that, expanded powers risk uneven application.
