Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

My Lords, I very much appreciate the comments made by my noble friend Lord Adonis. They run very nicely with my own amendment and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. We appreciate the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, adding her name to the amendment. Amendment No. 27 in this group relates to risk assessment. Amendment No. 34 is a consequential amendment, which I understand is necessary to ensure that Amendment No.  27 is within the scope of the Bill. In Committee, my noble friend Lord Adonis felt unable to accept the proposal for the risk assessment checklist as had my noble friend Lady Scotland previously. It is therefore necessary to find some other means to persuade my noble friends on the Front Bench that a risk assessment can and should be built into the legislation. Everyone agrees—and it has been repeated throughout today’s debate—that it is desirable for children to maintain contact with both parents following a separation. That requires not only quantity but quality of contact. Of course, shared parenting is desirable if the circumstances for it are right—circumstances that guarantee the safety of the child or children involved. That means that the welfare of a child must be paramount in family proceedings. I do not want to reiterate all the points that were raised in Committee, but it is important to put on the record once again why this amendment is necessary. Some of the points have already been heard as the debate has progressed. The link between domestic violence and child abuse is also not questioned. The reality is, as cited in the Green Paper on parental separation, that there are concerns about the safety of the child in 35 per cent of cases. Again, using the Government’s own evidence, nearly three-quarters of children on the at-risk register live in households where domestic violence occurs. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth said on 11 October that,"““Some 66 per cent of the caseload of a CAFCASS officer concerns domestic violence””,—[Official Report, 11/10/05; col. GC12.]" but the courts still fail to recognise that that is the reality. The guidance for the courts on how to deal with contact applications, The Private Law Programme makes it clear that the judiciary regard cases involving safety concerns as ““exceptional”” and that is reflected in court practice. In 2003, 67,000 applications were made for contact under Section 8 of the Children Act 1989. Only 601 cases were refused—less than 1 per cent of all applications, which when taken alongside the figures of domestic violence and child abuse represents a significant institutional failure to protect. Nothing has changed, in spite of the introduction of gateway guidelines. In 2004, the courts granted 70,169 contact orders and refused contact in only 504 cases—again less than 1 per cent. Even when evidence is available, it is sometimes disregarded. Women’s Aid reports that in 2003, a survey involving 178 refuge organisations found that 6 per cent knew of cases where contact orders had been granted to Schedule 1 offenders, and in some cases unsupervised contact was granted so there was no protection for the child at all. Dame Butler-Sloss said at the hearings of the Select Committee on Parental Contact:"““We do not always know that they are Schedule 1 offenders at the time””." This evidence shows that the family justice system does not have adequate proceedings for identifying high-risk cases and assessing and managing risk to ensure that contact is safe. That will not do. I was very interested to hear my noble friend earlier talk about looking at the system to see what is happening in the courts. That will be enlightening and interesting information. In Committee, I referred to the cases where some judges now insist CAFCASS should not do checks where the domestic violence box has been ticked, if it does not have prior consent of the parents—in other words, parental rights are taking precedence over children’s rights and safety. I hope that this amendment will change the court system and help to eliminate these practices along with other examples of domestic violence being ignored by the courts. This is a very straightforward amendment, which will require CAFCASS officers or Welsh family proceedings officers in Wales to carry out a risk assessment whenever they are involved in private law proceedings where an issue of harm is raised. The first part of the amendment provides that the section is engaged whenever a CAFCASS officer is involved in any proceedings where the court can make an order under Part 2 of the 1989 Act, including, for instance, all contact and residence orders, or any function in connection with such an order or where a question with respect to such an order arises. The second part of the amendment provides that if, in the circumstances described above, the CAFCASS officer is given any cause to suspect that there is a risk of harm to the child concerned, the officer must carry out a risk assessment and inform the courts of the results. Taking these two clauses together, the amendment imposes a wide duty on CAFCASS officers to carry out risk assessments. Such assessments will have to be applied consistently whenever there is an issue of harm raised in private law proceedings in which CAFCASS is engaged. That is important because each case must be considered individually with the focus on the well-being of the child. I appreciate that the amendment places greater burdens on CAFCASS officers, but as my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley said in Committee, anything that enables those working with families to have more clarity about how they proceed is bound to be helpful. I hope that she, our Front Bench and the rest of the House find this amendment helpful, and I hope that it will be a part of their new CAFCASS domestic violence policy and toolkit. As others have said, the resources will have to accompany this extra duty. I also appreciate that this amendment is not the total answer, and I have no doubt that when the opportunity arises we will return to the issue, but I believe that it is a major step forward and I hope that the Government will feel able accept it. It is clear that the present position is not robust enough and that providing guidance is not enough. Risk assessment has to be built into legislation. It is crucial to ensure that contact is safe before it is imposed.