Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]

I want to respond to a couple of points that the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) made. She rightly said that 90 per cent. of people do not go through a formal separation procedure. That is because 90 per cent. of people do not turn to the courts in the first place. Two thirds say that they are content with their arrangements, which is not to suggest that her comments are frivolous—we need to consider the people for whom the system is not working. However, the purpose of the Bill is to try to keep people out of the courts and intervene, if possible, to take people out of the process. That is why the measure is so important. The amendments deal with the difficult but important issues of risk assessment and domestic violence. Although there is dispute about the proportion of contact cases that involve domestic violence, there is no doubt that far too many fall into that category. It is right to treat such behaviour with little tolerance, but we must also be cautious not to do anything that would deter people from making their genuine fears known to the courts. Amendment No. 20 and new clause 20 would, taken together, remove clause 7 and insert a replacement clause. As the hon. Member for Basingstoke will remember, in Committee she explained that she was concerned that ““cause to suspect”” might be too low a threshold, and would result in CAFCASS conducting risk assessments in cases where there was no need to do so. I agree that it would be wrong for risk assessments to be conducted unnecessarily. That would not only deplete CAFCASS’s limited resources, but cause unnecessary delay in many cases. However, I do not believe that it is necessary to introduce a higher hurdle, as the amendment would, to prevent CAFCASS from carrying out unnecessary risk assessments. As the hon. Lady acknowledged in Committee, CAFCASS officers are skilled people who are experienced at picking up signs of domestic violence or abuse. They will know when a risk assessment is appropriate. I would not want to second-guess those professionals. If we raise the hurdle for when it is permissible to carry out a risk assessment so that it may be carried out only when there are ““reasonable grounds””, we risk making CAFCASS unable to carry out risk assessments in cases when it feels that they are needed.