Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]

We come to the guts of the main part of the Bill. In the absence of any signs to the contrary, I shall speak, first, generally to the thrust of the new clauses before going into detail. New clause 4 goes to the heart of the principle that we think should be set out in the Bill. If the Government agree to the principle that is enshrined in the new clause, they would, at a stroke, remove the major objections to why the Bill, in its current form, will not work and why it will prove to be a damp squib, as we have warned all along. The principle is clear: it is that a child’s welfare and interests are best served by both his parents being as actively involved in his upbringing as possible unless there are good reasons to the contrary that pose a risk to the safety of that child. That rider runs through every amendment that the Opposition have tabled to the Bill throughout all stages of its consideration. The new clause and the associated new clauses are not about parents’ rights. We have not once addressed the Bill in terms of parents’ rights. The new clauses are not about treating a child as some accessory or commodity whose ownership should be tightly defined and whose diary should be artificially prescribed on a rota basis between each of his parents. The new clauses are not about compromising the paramountcy of the welfare of the child as set out in section 1 of the Children Act 1989, some 17 years ago. That piece of legislation is as relevant and valued today as it was when it was when first debated in the House. Surely a child’s welfare is best served by maximising the time—preferably quality time—that is spent with both his parents. That is complementary to, and not contradictory to, the paramountcy of the welfare of that child. The new clauses represent none of the things that they have at times been caricatured to represent by the Minister and her predecessor, who was guaranteed to launch into a frenzy every time the issue of co-parenting was mentioned.