Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 19:"Page 2, line 5, after ““that”” insert ““—" (i)   ”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 20 standing in my name, before my noble friends Lady Gould and Lady Thornton move their amendments on the same issue. We now seem to have reached a point of peace and harmony in our debate. I therefore hope that it is appropriate for me to come on to the scene. We have reached the important subject of domestic violence, which occupied a good deal of our consideration in Grand Committee, when we agreed that, in seeking to make contact arrangements, no subject was more important than proper and effective arrangements for addressing allegations of violence and safeguarding children. One of the issues raised repeatedly was that of contact activities and the concern that contact activities should include domestic violence perpetrator programmes. I promised to look at that further. Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 make crystal clear the contact activities that the court may require people to undertake through directions or conditions under Clause 1, which may include domestic violence perpetrator programmes. It was always our intention that that would be the case—it was a recommendation of the Joint Committee that considered the Bill in draft. We are concerned that there should be no doubt whatever that this is indeed the case, least of all in the minds of the courts. These amendments put the policy on the face of the Bill explicitly. I beg to move.