Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

My Lords, I think I have lost the plot as well. I am with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. I apologise if that is the case. Let me explain what I am having trouble with. I apologise that I was grimacing at the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and therefore put off the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. I do not like to grimace at the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, because I usually agree with her, but not always. The difficulty that I have with this amendment is that it is suggested that the Secretary of State should come up with a default contact arrangement, presumably in the form of some kind of list that says—I am guessing—““If a child is eight years old and has these parents who live 50 miles away, the arrangement may look like this, but if they live 120 miles away, it may look like that””. I am not quite sure how many variables one would have to build in to that. I therefore have a problem with lists, and I cannot work out the variables; namely, that if the child is six months old, it is like this, and if it is two years old, it is like that. That is not because I am against giving parents advice and support. That is what the parenting plans are meant to do. However, I have difficulty with trying to establish it by reference to problems for children of different age groups. Age is only one factor in a myriad of different matters that need to be taken into account in regard to contact with children. We then go on to say, ““That has been agreed unless you agree something else””. Therefore, in the case of violent and abusive parents who disagree, it is suggested that unless they agree to something else or the court decides otherwise, it will be deemed to have been agreed. We therefore end up with the parties going to court and the court not having to take into account these default arrangements at all. It can simply override them. In the case of a bullying partner who says, ““I want this, according to the law, I get this, I am not going to court and I am not going to let you go to court, so these are the arrangements that follow and I am going to intimidate you into agreeing them””. I cannot quite work out how it will work. I am not against the idea of giving parents a good deal of information. Before the noble Baroness was in her place, we were talking about the need to do more before cases reach the courts. I agree wholeheartedly that parents should receive information that explains that the courts act in a child’s best interests and that, in the absence of a valid reason to the contrary, both parents can expect to have good contact with their child. I do not disagree with the end; the Bill negotiates the means. However, I have a problem with trying to set this up in the particular way suggested, both because I think that the criteria will be complicated to work out and because we are saying, ““That applies unless the court tells you otherwise””. If the court was not involved, how would you know whether it applied? How would you know that that was what you should do? It moves us away from the guidance and support for families that states, ““You may want to think about these different issues, you may want to think about how close you live to the child, whether the child plays football on Saturdays”” and so on, which is a parenting plan idea. It takes us a little too dangerously close to a principle that I would not want to invoke. It does not allow for the fact that, because they will be in real dispute, families should have advice that states, ““You can expect that if your child is four years old, the arrangement should look like this””. We are not taking account of the danger in that for dysfunctional families that are out of control and are relying on the courts to put matters right. That is my problem with this amendment. Perhaps we have misunderstood it. I am certain that the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, is not trying to do what I have just suggested, but that is the effect of the amendment as I read it and according to the advice that I have received. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment. Meanwhile, perhaps we can have a conversation about what lies behind it, which fits better with what the parenting plans attempt to achieve.