Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

My Lords, I agree with everything that my noble friend said. She has been a passionate advocate for grandparents throughout the passage of the Bill. I thank the Minister for her customary detailed and thoughtful reply, and I am most grateful for the way in which she has listened. Both the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, have gone to a great deal of trouble to keep us informed and for that I thank them. Although I am not supposed to, I also thank the Bill team. I am pleased that the Minister is commissioning research on contact and look forward to reading the conclusions. That will be very interesting. I do not doubt for one moment her commitment to ensuring that parents have a good, strong relationship with their children and for accepting that work needs to be done. In my Second Reading speech I said that the current arrangements risk the downgrading of the family and, above all, of fatherhood, and that we allow that at peril to future generations. But those are still my sentiments. Notwithstanding what the Government are doing, we still feel strongly that the best way to resolve disputes between warring parents and to protect the right of the child to a proper relationship with both parents is through presumption of co-parenting, reasonable contact, early intervention, mandatory dispute resolution and mediation and parenting time plans. However, I will not test the opinion of the House and I am sure that all this will be picked up in conversation when the Bill goes to another place. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.