Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]

The hon. Lady knows that I am talking sense, despite her heckles. New clause 10, on reasonable contact, seeks to amend the Children Act 1989. At the moment, as I said, we have contact set down in legislation, but not reasonable contact. If hon. Members do not like the word ““reasonable””, they may prefer ““meaningful””. The words are interchangeable. The new clause requests the court to have regard to the issue of reasonableness, but it is important to make the point that inserting the concept of reasonableness does not fetter the discretion of the court. Despite the debate in the other place and in this House, we are not talking about something that is necessarily wedded to a time-bound formula. We are talking not about equal being 50:50, but about equal being fair. We have some lawyers here today. The concept of reasonableness is easily understood by lawyers and it would be practically understood in the family courts. I cannot understand why the Government should disregard our new clause. In 2004, Lord Justice Wall, as quoted by Lord Adonis in the other place, said:"““Unless there are cogent reasons against it the children of separated parents are entitled to know and have the love and society of both their parents…the courts recognise the vital importance of the role of non-resident fathers in the lives of their children””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 2005; Vol. 674, c. GC6-7.]" The Government pay due regard to case law, the position of Ministers and the settled opinion of a wide variety of groups that are stakeholders in the debate, but they cannot go that final step in accepting the reasonable amendment of inserting the word ““reasonable”” in the Bill. We have to ask ourselves whether the Children Act really meant contact to be a postcard, a snatched telephone call or a trip to McDonald’s for 30 minutes? When we enacted that landmark legislation under a Conservative Government in 1989, did we really mean to enshrine in legislation that level of contact? The answer is, no, we did not. Surely it is right that the family courts should be predisposed towards reasonableness and that the burden of proof should lie in favour of more reasonable contact. There is one thing on which I will agree with the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke). [Interruption.] Steady on. There is a human rights issue in respect of our obligations to the United Nations. At present, the United Kingdom is de facto in breach of the UN convention on the rights of the child, because it can be argued that it prevents reasonable access to children’s parents. I will talk briefly—I hope—on grandparents’ rights, which is the subject of new clause 19. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) for his reasonable, cogent and well argued new clause. I am sorry that, in some respects, it looks as though the Government are going to ignore that and ignore the huge welter of evidence from our postbags and surgeries that an injustice needs to be righted with respect to grandparents.