Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]

I wish to speak to new clause 4, which I tabled with my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), before touching on new clauses 13, 16 and 19. I will resist the temptation to say that it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), and merely observe that the Liberal Democrats are Olympic medal winners in sanctimonious and patronising equivocation. At the election, the Conservatives will expose their cynicism and duplicity in every constituency. We are not playing politics, as we want to make local undertakings and do something completely different when the votes come in. New clause 4 deals with the presumption in favour of co-parenting and reasonable contact. We all believe that the child’s welfare is best served by residency with their parents or, if they do not live together, residency with one parent. Reasonable contact allows both parents to be fully involved in parenting. Having participated in the lengthy proceedings on the Bill, I believe that there has been too much heat but not enough light. I broadly support the Bill with some important caveats, but it is a missed opportunity. It could have united children’s charities and Families Need Fathers; it could have united parties from all parts of the House. However, after the trench warfare of the past year or so in the other place, in Standing Committee, and on Second Reading, consensus has been lost. The Government have set their face against concessions, and are guilty of intransigence, inertia and discrimination, particularly against non-resident parents of both sexes. New clause 4 does not undermine the paramountcy principle—indeed, it enhances it. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has a strong record in extolling the virtues of co-parenting and the importance to the future of children in this country of having—if at all possible, and with the caveat that the safety of the child is always paramount—both parents involved in their upbringing. The Government are using the paramountcy principle as a rock on which all appeals to flexibility and logic, and the experience of real life, are smashed. The paramountcy principle is an opaque panacea; it is not set down in legislation and it is used by Ministers and Back Benchers to stop any discussion, even of the hierarchy of paramountcy. This issue is about human rights, fairness and equity, and equality of gender. I will not take any lectures from the Liberal Democrats because, like many Members in all parts of the Chamber, I know from my surgery casework how this issue affects and undermines families. It is important that we bear it in mind that we are talking not about dry, dusty, arcane legal principles, but people’s lives and futures, and their children. Frankly, I cannot understand why parents who were fit and proper parents when they were married, or together in a non-married relationship, are deemed suddenly to cross a line and to become unfit parents, and are therefore not permitted to see their children—under the auspices of family courts or otherwise. No Minister has explained that to any of us. Why are they any less good, loving, caring parents? Ministers need to address that issue. Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, one of the pre-eminent experts in family law in this country and president of the family division, recently said:"““There is, of course, no doubt that some parents, particularly mothers, are responsible for alienating their children from their fathers without good reason and thereby creating this sometimes insoluble problem. That unhappy state of affairs, well known in family courts, is a long way from recognised syndrome requiring mental health professionals to play an expert role.””" Baroness Ashton stated in a letter of 14 July 2006 to Baroness Morris of Bolton:"““We accept that in many cases this””—" the presumption of co-parenting—"““is true and indeed this position is supported by case law, which states that children generally benefit from a meaningful relationship with both parents after separation so long as it is safe and in their best interest.””" In further case law, the judge ruling in the 1997 case R v. B said that"““to deprive a father who bona fide wishes to have contact with his child of that contact is a drastic step. The court’s general policy is clear: contact between a child and its natural parent is something which should be maintained wherever this is practical””." So Ministers are clearly setting their faces against case law, which raises the important and apposite question of why they are doing so. But is it case law in respect of reasonable contact? It is probably not, because reasonable contact is not enshrined in current legislation; only contact is. That is of relevance to an important point that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham made earlier. A postcard every month or every year, or a telephone call, is not reasonable contact. The Minister should address that issue in his concluding remarks. It might be appropriate at this stage to refer to the comments made in the briefings of children’s charities such as the National Children’s Home and Barnardo’s, and in particular the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. As I said on Second Reading and in Committee, I deprecate their comments because they are based on an unfair analysis, they are complacent and partial, and they support the discrimination inherent in the Government’s position. Let us make no mistake: the Government’s approach to the family law system is failing non-resident parents—men and women—as well as extended family members. I quote Sir Bob Geldof, who, as Members know, has written on this subject. In ““The Real Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name: A Sometimes Coherent Rant””, he wrote:"““Upon separation, the system is slow and delay occurs immediately. This allows the status quo to be established. As the process labours on it becomes impossible to alter. This is unfair. It is nearly always possible for the resident parent (let’s face it, the girl)””—" not very politically correct, but they are his words—"““to establish a pattern. It is then deemed in the child’s interest not to break this routine. But at the cost of losing sight and touch of their father, we must really examine all our assumptions without fear. Then we can move to building a more equitable system benefiting all equally.””" The paramountcy principle is not stated anywhere and is used with impunity to defend the current situation. A key institutional issue is that certain vested interests would be challenged by changes to the current system. It is not only children’s charities that have such vested interests; so, too, do the National Association of Probation Officers and some elements in the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. New clause 4 would strengthen, rather than weaken, the paramountcy principle. Throughout the Bill’s passage—in the different stages in the other place, in Committee and in the Chamber—I have yet to hear one convincing, coherent and persuasive argument against such a new clause, and certainly not from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), whose presence on the Front Bench is much missed. The arguments advanced are based on myths. Child abuse is just as likely from a stressed sole parent or their partner as from a non-resident parent. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran) makes faces from a sedentary position, but that is the case. Recently, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents concluded, in an analysis of children’s injuries, that more malicious injuries were inflicted by mothers than by fathers. Indeed, an NSPCC report published in 2000, which that charity currently conveniently disregards, entitled ““Child maltreatment in the United Kingdom: a study of the prevalence of child abuse and neglect””, stated that"““most violence occurred at home (78 per cent.) with mothers being primarily responsible in 49 per cent. of cases and fathers in 40 per cent. of cases””." When this matter was debated at length in the other place, Lord Northbourne made some key points that bear repetition about the success of co-parenting and maximum conflict resolution—the subject of new clause 22—and the early intervention parenting plan, with which new clause 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, deals. In Florida—for which we could equally substitute Canada, Australia and other states in the United States—the system, which uses the attributes proposed in our new clauses, is working. Families are staying together, children are safe and we are seeing reasonable shared parenting and reasonable contact—without casting aside the paramountcy principle and the safety and welfare of children. The provision is about gender equality and the rights of children to enjoy the love of both parents, as long as it is safe for them to do so. I look to the Minister to rise to the challenge and talk about the paramountcy principle and the paucity of the arguments that were used by the Government at all the stages of the Bill.