Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]

I have great sympathy with most of what was said by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney). I sincerely believe that we need to find a solution. Our starting point is the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, which states that a child has the right to direct and regular contact with both parents unless that is contrary to the child’s best interests. It is strange that we are struggling—by ““we””, I mean the majority of the House—to find a solution that will put something in the Bill without risking the safety of the child or undermining the child’s paramountcy. It is generally acknowledged to be in the child's best interests to sustain a full relationship with both parents, but obviously it will not be if there is a risk of harm, or in relationships involving extreme conflict, which can be immensely damaging for a child caught in the middle. I do not think that we should be too prescriptive. I shall be explaining an unusual proposal when I have dealt with the others. I genuinely believe that every case is different, but we need to have more in legislation than we have at present. Parents should be able to assume that contact should take place in most cases. I am sure all our surgeries have often been visited by grandparents in great distress. I should like the Bill to incorporate a provision applying in particular to grandparents and the extended family, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some comfort. A number of suggestions have been made today and we have rehearsed many of the arguments that were presented in Committee. What exactly is the problem? One of the conclusions of the Constitutional Affairs Committee’s fourth report of the Session 2004-05, entitled ““Family Justice: the operation of the family courts””, was"““We consider that a clear statutory statement of this principle would encourage resident parents to assume in most cases that contact should be taking place.””" Such a provision would set the scene, or the culture, to which we should move. The percentage of intractable cases is relatively small, but the outcome of some that are settled out of court is not ideal, and I would not wish to suggest otherwise. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said that a birthday card was not enough. Every time he makes that point it tears at me somewhat. I only wish that we had evidence of how often that is the case, and in what circumstances. Certainly, we hear of such cases, but we usually get only one side of the story and not all the details. New clause 4 contains the term ““legal presumption””. I made it clear on Second Reading and in Committee that that is a problem for us. The Select Committee considered the arguments carefully and it is interesting that Resolution—the new name for the Solicitors Family Law Association—suggested in written evidence that there should be a second, lower order, presumption, although part of that suggestion was retracted in subsequent oral evidence.