Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am sure that the Minister is listening closely with respect to the correspondence entered into by her constituents. In Committee, we did not have as long as we would have liked to debate the issue of grandparents’ rights and the diminution of those rights in respect of the family court, so you will forgive me if I put the importance of new clause 19 into context, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Again, this is a debate about the value society places on people who do a fantastic job in caring for their family, whose love is unconditional and who feel excluded from the decision-making processes in family courts in particular. Let us make no mistake: grandparents are role models and good carers. They are a bridge between the past and the future. The case for reform in relation to the issue raised by the hon. Member for Stafford is compelling. How can it be right that many grandparents, often on low incomes, in or near retirement, become the sole carers for their grandchildren, but, in taking on that vital role as foster parents, do not have the same rights as unrelated foster parents in terms of their income, benefits and allowances? That issue was brought to our attention by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries). The issue is not party political in that respect. I repeat that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has done an excellent job in keeping the issue at the top of the agenda with his studies and the reports that he has produced about grandparents in his constituency on the Wirral and the difficulties that they have making ends meet as foster parents. I commend to the House a report produced by the families and social capital group at London South Bank university last summer, called ““An Evaluation of the Grandparent-Toddler Groups Initiative””, which shows the positive impact that grandparents have on very young children and the work that they do in saving the state significant amounts of public money. Again, the obsession with the paramountcy principle is being used to block reasonable access by grandparents. I do not believe that that is right. I cannot believe that the Government have not made a more compelling argument against getting rid of the requirement to seek leave of a court to apply for a contact order. I read the reports of the Standing Committee and the Second Reading debate and I could not find a coherent argument against that from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston. The Government seem to have decided that no amount of argument—even by people as eloquent as the hon. Member for Stafford—will prevent them from carrying on as they are now, which means continuing to be unfair to grandparents vis-à-vis non-family carers. When I say grandparents, I mean extended family carers as well. The irony is that primary legislation is not needed. The measure could have been enacted by secondary legislation two or three years ago. There is a consensus across the House. I would like the Minister to look at that point and to make the case for why the measure has not been enacted. We face some key challenges on the question of grandparents, although I think that the argument is coming our way. People realise that it is wrong to discriminate financially. It is wrong that the 1989 Act has not been implemented properly in respect of the financial circumstances of grandparents and the presumption that grandparents and the extended family should be considered as carers before others. I am thus delighted to support new clause 19, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Stafford. I am proud to be associated with the campaign of the Grandparents Association and others. They have done an excellent job. Let us work on a cross-party basis. I will be delighted if the Minister says that the power of my rhetoric and my eloquence and soaring oratory has convinced him of the right thing to do. We would need not a new Bill, but good sense and the political will to right a profound wrong. I hope that he will make my day and that of the hon. Member for Stafford by agreeing to do that—[Interruption.] I notice that the Minister for the Cabinet Office, the former Chief Whip, has not moved on to new pastures and is still heckling from the Front Bench. However, I conclude by repeating my support for the new clauses that I have mentioned.