Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]

I concur with everything that the hon. Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran) said. It is easy to be led along other routes, but she rightly brought the debate back to focus on the interests of the child. She made some very powerful points indeed about the benefits for both the child and the parents of taking the child’s wishes on board. Her argument is not just emotional, as it is backed by clear evidence from the National Youth Advocacy Service and others. That should be our starting point, as we are here to do what is best for the child. I support amendment No. 21, although we have proposed an alternative in amendment No. 18. Hon. Members who served on the Committee will recall that we had a long debate about the fact that the principle that the child’s interests should be paramount was not maintained in clauses 4 and 5, which caused some of us a great deal of concern. The hon. Member for Luton, South and I approached the issue from different directions, only to realise that we were saying the same thing. The hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) made a powerful case, in which she pointed out that the child’s interests were taken into consideration when the contact order was made. I remained uneasy, however, about the fact that, under clause 4, someone may offer a reasonable excuse for failing to comply with a contact order. It could be a straightforward matter of an urgent hospital appointment, but I cited a constituency case in which a contact order stipulated that the father was to visit the child at the mother’s home. The mother is petrified of those visits—there are no two ways about it—and, although measures have been taken to return to court, that will take a worryingly long time. Alarm bells therefore rang when I saw the provision for reasonable excuse, as I believe that the court must consider the primary interests of the child. The hon. Member for Stockport made a cogent argument in which she said that that had already been considered, but there was a strong case for restating the paramountcy principle. The hon. Member for Luton, South reminded us that in Committee we were told that the welfare checklist applies, but the NSPCC says that it does not. There is therefore a fundamental difference in opinion—either it does or it does not—so we need a clear statement in Hansard about the absolute truth before we move on. In many ways, I prefer amendment No. 21 to our amendment, because it makes open reference to"““the wishes and feelings of the child””.However, they both aim to achieve the same objective. I have put my name to amendment No. 16 because it makes an important proposal, which was first included in the Adoption and Children Act 2002. Time has passed since the introduction of that measure, so it is strange that it still has not been implemented." It seemed to me that there was an absolute belief that the measure would be implemented. It was then deferred while the Department for Constitutional Affairs commissioned research, but that research has now been published and recommends that the separate representation of children is appropriate and beneficial in some cases. I cannot understand why one Department is saying one thing and, if the new clause is not agreed to tonight, another Department will be saying something different. It should be of concern to us that in this critical area, Departments are not saying the same thing. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that he is working closely with his colleagues in the DCA and that measures will be introduced to enable section 122 of the 2002 Act, at long last, to be implemented, because separate representation could be very beneficial in particularly difficult cases. That idea has clearly been accepted for a long time and caution has been exercised. As the hon. Member for Luton, South rightly said, this is one area in which the research has been completed, although it is very poor that more research was not carried out, given that the consultation process started five years ago. The research was carried out by a Government Department, rather than a think-tank that could perhaps have been criticised for starting from a particular perspective. In essence, the Government recommended such an amendment, so if they do not agree with the precise wording of ours, I hope that the Minister will show us clearly the way forward on the important issue of separate representation.