Britain should "welcome and applaud" the collapse of the nuclear family, the most senior family judge in England and Wales has said.

In a speech Sir James Munby, the president of the High Court's family division, said the modern British family was "complex" and "takes an almost infinite variety of forms".

He said that "whether through choice or circumstance", many people "live in families more or less removed from what, until comparatively recently, would have been recognised as the typical nuclear family.

"This, I stress, is not merely the reality; it is, I believe, a reality which we should welcome and applaud."

Listing the ways in which the family had changed, he said: "People live together as couples, married or not, and with partners who may not always be of the other sex.

"Children live in households where their parents may be married or unmarried.

"They may be brought up by a single parent, by two parents or even by three parents. Their parents may or may not be their natural parents.