Senior judge stresses importance of liaison between Family Court and First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)

The Senior President’s comments came in a case where the Court of Appeal allowed an appeal over care and placement orders made in respect of two children.

The two children and their parents are not British citizens and their immigration status was described as “precarious”.

In F (Children: Placement Orders: Proportionality) [2026] EWCA Civ 990 (29 July 2026), Lord Justice Peter Jackson, with whom Lord Justice Dingemans and Lord Justice Edis agreed, concluded: “I have not found this an entirely easy appeal. On the one hand, the judge directed herself correctly in law and, reading the judgments as a whole, she identified, to a greater or lesser extent, the relevant factors for the welfare decision.

“The strictures against unjustified interference by this court must therefore be kept well in mind. Only if the decision is so plainly wrong that the judge must have given far too much weight to a particular factor is the appellate court entitled to interfere: Re J (A Child) [2005] UKHL 40; [2005] 3 WLR 14, [2005] 3 All ER 291; [2005] 2 FLR 802, per Baroness Hale at [10-12]. To like effect is the statement of the Supreme Court in Re H-W (Children) [2022] UKSC 17; [2022] 4 All ER 683, per Dame Siobhan Keegan at [49]:

"In a case where the judge has adopted the correct approach to the issue of necessity and proportionality, the appellate court's function is accordingly, as explained in In re B, to review his findings, and to intervene only if it takes the view that he was wrong. In conducting that review, an appellate court will have clearly in mind the advantages that the judge has over any subsequent court - see Lord Wilson in In re B at para 41 and the earlier decision of the House of Lords in Piglowska v Piglowski [1999] UKHL 27; [1999] 1 WLR 1360."

“An appeal can therefore only succeed if it has been shown that the judge's welfare evaluation and proportionality assessment was inadequate or wrong in the senses described.”

He continued: “On the other hand, while the outcome in every case will depend on its facts, this was not an obvious case for adoption. Well-attached children in families without many of the main markers for harm (such as addiction or mental health issues, neglect, criminality) are not usually adopted on the basis of findings of this intermediate level of seriousness.”

Lord Justice Peter Jackdon concluded: “Ultimately, the current decision does not in my view satisfy the very strict requirements for severing these children from their family. That is either because the proportionality assessment was not undertaken effectively (as held in Re H-W) or because the judge's conclusion was wrong (as asserted in Re B), or for both reasons. I would therefore allow the appeal and set aside the care and placement orders. In consequence, the interim care orders will revive. The judge's unappealed threshold findings, as recorded in the December judgment, are preserved and are not open to challenge by the parents.”

The parties were agreed that the matter should be remitted to the Family Court for a final welfare determination and be listed for an early case management hearing before the Family Presiding Judge, Mrs Justice Morgan.

Agreeing, Lord Justice Dingemans emphasised the “importance of liaison” between the Family Court and the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber), where a person's continued presence in the United Kingdom might be in issue.

He said: “There are protocols on communications between judges of the Family Court and the Immigration and Asylum Chambers of the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal signed by the President of the Family Division and Senior President of Tribunals dated 19 July 2013, and a Form EX660 for communications between the Family Court and the Home Office pursuant to a protocol agreed between the President of the Family Division and the Home Office issued on 16 May 2018.

“It is apparent that the possible outcome of family proceedings may be relevant to decisions in the Immigration and Asylum Chambers, see generally RS (immigration and family court proceedings: India) [2012] UKUT 218 (IAC), at paragraphs 1 to 3 of the ruling and directions. It is also, however, apparent that the outcome of proceedings before the FTT(IAC) may be relevant to the Family Court.

“As Peter Jackson LJ has noted in paragraph 2, the immigration status of the parents is precarious. For example, if the father in these proceedings did not have a right to remain in the UK, that might be a relevant factor for the consideration of the Family Court. The need for speedy hearings in cases such as this is obvious, but there are statutory provisions about to come into force requiring the determination of certain proceedings in the FTT(IAC) within a short period of time. It is not always the case that proceedings in the FTT(IAC) should await the decision in the Family Court.”

Lottie Winson