A small but important practice point. I remember drafting lectures on the BVC, and being told that precision was really important. It never hurts to remind ourselves of that, even when working in so-called “woolly” or “law free” areas like children.

Care must be taken about accurately recording the FULL name of all children named in s8 orders, including middle names. It’s no big deal for most purposes, but it can come back and bite a resident parent who later needs to obtain a passport for a child whose name does not match that on the birth certificate. Care must be taken to name both parents in any residence order.

Imagine, the situation. Resident parent not named. Child’s middle name omitted. The applicant for the passport purports to be the resident parent of the child named in the order, but presents a birth certificate that does not match the order. Result? No passport. No holiday.

Easy enough to correct under the slip rule if you spot it in time AND have the consent of the other parent. But not so easy if you realise the problem not long before your holiday date or can’t afford the issue fee that the court would no doubt wish to charge.

The moral of the story must be always to put in full names of children and the names of Mum and Dad to avoid difficulties at the Passport Office. We were all taught this as pupils and trainees – it really does matter.

Perhaps this is something that might be incorporated into Mostyn J’s templates project? This is not hypothetical. I am writing about it because I know this scenario has arisen – it may no doubt arise more in future as there are more litigants in person, so whilst I am no fan of standardisation perhaps this is one situation where it would be helpful.