Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for their support. The first point to make to the Minister is that paragraphs 2(b) and (3) of this amendment deal with precisely the kind of case that involves violent and abusive parents. This amendment seeks to ensure that parents who have split up are encouraged by seeing the law, without having to dig out parenting plans, good practice and case law, which says, ““It is likely that in the case of your child the court may come to the following kinds of arrangement. You both have the power to vary that, in the best interests of the child as you see fit, but that is what is likely to happen””. That gives a basis on which, where there is no issue about violence and where there is agreement, parents themselves can go ahead and make those arrangements at that very early point. That is crucial, in that it sets patterns of behaviour for later. The noble Baroness asked what kinds of variables there are. There are many: how old a child is; where the parents live; whether the child goes to school; whether the child has extra-mural activities on certain days or particular interests. We would know about all those issues because they are contained in the parenting plans. I therefore do not believe that there is a problem about that. The first part of the clause refers to establishing a range of contact arrangements. It tries to set a normative framework under which people who have to deal with such issues can begin to agree arrangements. I do not accept the noble Baroness’s analysis that people in violent relationships will be forced into that situation. If she reads the amendment, she will see that, as with the rest of the Bill, there is within it provision for safety. We have not yet reached the amendment tabled in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Gould. When we do, it will have our utmost support. It is not about compromising safety in any way. It is about encouraging that group of parents we have already identified during the course of our debate, who probably want to come to an arrangement and who, in all likelihood, once they have been through the court process, will wind up coming to an arrangement that perhaps could have been predicted from the start. It encourages them to do that from the outset, thereby avoiding much of the disruption to children’s lives where one, usually the resident, parent holds out contact as a means of settling other issues involved in the process of splitting up. It also releases the time of the courts, and that of CAFCASS, to get on with the necessary work in other cases. That is what this amendment is about. I would like the noble Baroness to re-read it. I very much welcome the opportunity to discuss it with her, because I believe that this amendment will enable us to achieve what we are striving for; namely, to enable people to come to arrangements without in any way establishing principles and putting children’s interests at a lower level. It does not do that.