Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]

I want to say a few words in support of new clause 21 and amendment No. 10. As the House is now well aware, new clause 21 makes provision for the court to have an order for compensatory contact available to it as one sanction for the breach of a contact order. The primary advantage of that would be that it is only an order of compensatory contact that can give effect to the original intention of the court. Only when we can put right what has gone wrong will the court be able to see its original order being put into effect. That is important. The touchstone at the heart of everything that has been said in the course of this debate—rightly so—is that all of us in the House are concerned to make sure that the welfare of the child is the first consideration of all those involved in the court process. If that is so, and assuming that the court process operates as it should and as we would expect it to, the court could come to the conclusion that, in the best interests of the child and the child’s welfare, a certain provision should be made for contact with the non-resident parent. That must self-evidently be the case. The court’s view will be that, for a particular period of time, the child should have contact with the non-resident parent. The new clause would come into effect only in circumstances in which the contact arrangement that the court had decided was appropriate had not taken effect for one reason or another. That must mean that the child’s best interests are not being served—because contact is not taking place in the way that the court ordered that it should. I agree entirely with the point made by the hon. Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran) that what is to be avoided is the perception by the child, or anyone else, that parents are being punished, especially when that has a negative impact on the child. However, surely it must be right that, in order to look after the best interests of the child, the court has the option, at the very least, of being able to put the child into the position that it originally intended the child to be in. That is why I support new clause 21. The idea behind amendment No. 10 was discussed in Committee. The same mistake that was made in Committee has been made again. There should be an addition to the amendment to say that subsection (6)(d) on page 10 of the Bill should also be deleted. The effect of amendment No. 10, as it stands, is to delete subsections (7) and (8) of proposed new section 110 of the Children Act 1989, which would be inserted by clause 5 of the Bill. Subsections (7) and (8) deal with subsection (6)(d) of the proposed new section, which adds ““the child concerned”” to the list of people who are able to apply for compensation for financial loss. Of course, that is the substantial aspect of the measure that is objectionable to Conservative Members. Subsections (7) and (8) contain qualifications that deal with the child obtaining the leave of the court before making such an application, which will be granted under subsection (8) only if the court is satisfied that the child has the necessary ““sufficient understanding”” to make the application. It thus follows that amendment No. 10 should also delete subsection (6)(d). As subsection (6)(d) will remain in the Bill, the problem is straightforward. The touchstone of the entire Bill is that the welfare of the child is most important thing. It does not seem sensible or in accordance with that principle that a child should be encouraged to enter into an arena in which a discussion is held—perhaps a quite acrimonious discussion—about whether financial compensation should be made in one direction or another. Of course, that argument was made in Committee, when the Government said that it is perfectly in order for a child to be involved in the making of a contact order in the first place. That is of course right, but the process is fundamentally different from that involving compensation for financial loss. It is perfectly right to involve a child in decisions about contact because the court recognises that the views of a child about contact are important and thus includes the child as one of the people who can contribute to that process. However, when compensation for financial loss is being considered, blame is being apportioned for something that has gone wrong. That is wholly different in nature from the process of decisions about contact, so it is wholly inappropriate for a child to be involved in such matters. It is also hard to conceive of a situation in which a child would need to be involved in such a process. It is difficult to envisage a situation in which the financial loss would not be occasioned to one parent or other, both of whom would be able to make an application for compensation for financial loss under proposed new section 110. Amendment No. 10 would thus remove an unnecessary and possibly damaging aspect of that provision, so I commend it to the House.