Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]

New clause 20 is an attempt to tie down some of the detail about when risk assessments are used, and I want to discuss three elements of it. First, the trigger for a risk assessment is important. The trigger in new clause 20 specifies"““grounds to suspect that the child concerned is at risk of significant harm””." Secondly, we all agree that risk assessments should have regard to the best interests of the child, which is why new clause 20 allows reasonable contact with both parents, unless there are good reasons to the contrary and safety is an issue. That point reflects the detailed discussion conducted by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) earlier this evening. Thirdly, new clause 20 contains a tighter definition of what constitutes a risk of harm to the child, which includes a physical threat to a child’s safety and sexual abuse. The concept of a risk assessment was originally introduced in the Lords to ensure that domestic violence and child abuse could be properly assessed as soon as they were raised as part of court proceedings. Our objective this evening is to make sure that the Bill is in the best interests of the child and that safety is uppermost in our minds. In Committee, it was highlighted that risk assessments are not always in the best interests of a child, because they can delay court proceedings and stop contact between children and non-resident parents, which is why it is important that we get the detail right. Quite a bit of research is available, particularly from the Department for Constitutional Affairs, about issues surrounding court applications. It was interesting to read that one third of court applications are because of a breach in orders laid out by a court. Some parents do not adhere to court orders, and we need to make sure that that problem will not cause problems with the risk assessments in the Bill. New clause 20 will protect the interests of the child and make sure that the best interests of the child are uppermost in everyone’s minds when risk assessments are considered. In Committee, there was a great deal of debate about this aspect of the Bill. I am sure that the Minister will point out that the threshold detailed in new clause 20 is too high for CAFCASS to carry out, which would lead to far fewer risk assessments being undertaken and could impact on the welfare of a child. I do not think that that issue should prevent us from including new clause 20 in the Bill. As I have said, the trigger for using the risk assessments is important. It is important that risk assessments are not used when they are not needed, because they will, by definition, lead to a loss of contact with non-resident parents and a disruption in the relationship between children and their parents. We have already heard this evening that the majority of hon. Members feel that contact with both parents is important, and this is just another issue within that argument. We must get the provision right, because it is not in the interests of the child to experience a break in contact, which could be the result of a risk assessment. Safety is always paramount, and new clause 20 does not take away from the safety of the child—indeed, it adds to their welfare.