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The failure by parents to register the majority of children born through surrogacy agreements has created “a ticking legal timebomb”, a high court judge has said.

Addressing a conference on the rapid expansion in the number of surrogate births, Dame Lucy Theis said that without a court-sanctioned parental order and improved international legal frameworks children could end up “stateless and parentless”.

It is estimated that as many as 2,000 children a year are born to surrogate mothers – mostly overseas – before being handed over to British parents. Last year, however, according to the government’s child protection agency, Cafcass, only 241 applications were made for parental orders.

“My concern is about the people who are not making applications,” Theis, a judge in the family division, told a conference organised by the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and the London law firm Charles Russell Speechlys.

“There’s a ticking legal timebomb that might arise later on through [the parents’] deaths, testamentary [inheritance] issues and through parents splitting up – or even simply if passports need to be renewed.”

Unless the child’s status...