Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 1:"Before Clause 1, insert the following new clause—" ““POWERS OF COURT    In section 37 of the Children Act 1989 (c. 41) (powers of court in certain family proceedings), in subsection (1) omit ““family””.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I rise to move Amendment No. 1. Your Lordships will recall that at Report we moved another amendment about Section 37 powers, which are the vehicle in the Children Act 1989 by which children in private law are brought into public law when there is concern about possible harm to them, and the protection system then rolls into action. We asked for guidance to be published to ensure robust and consistent application of those powers in the family courts. The Government assured us that the courts were operating these powers well, and we now accept that. However, during our research on the matter, another element came to light. There are situations in which judges in other kinds of proceedings—not family cases but criminal proceedings—uncover situations in which children are in danger, and they believe that they do not have the powers to invoke Section 37 simply because they are not hearing a family case. I call to mind one case described to me by a district judge, who sits both in family cases and in other kinds of proceedings, in which a father was up on a charge relating to drugs. It emerged that both parents were chaotic drug users and had a young child who was being appallingly neglected. The local authority did not even have the child on its ““at risk”” register, and the judge wanted to act immediately to protect the child. If she had had Section 37 powers, she could have invoked them right away and the child’s situation would have been properly assessed as a matter of urgency. However, she believed that she did not have such powers. Amendment No. 1, by the simple device of removing the word ““family”” from Section 37, makes the same powers available to courts in all cases in which a child protection issue emerges during any court proceedings. That strikes me as sensible; naturally, you would expect judges to operate the powers in the same sort of way as they are operated—successfully, according to the Government—in the family courts. Will the Government either accept the amendment or guarantee to go away and look at how judges in other proceedings can use existing powers to do the same thing and, if the latter, ensure that a practice note is issued to ensure that they know what powers they have? If the Government believe that judges already have the power, clearly some of them do not know it, so a practice note is appropriate in that case, too. I beg to move.