My Lords, the Minister has indicated that this matter will come back on Report, so I do not intend at this stage to deal with the arguments that have been advanced by those who are not in favour of the amendment. I am very grateful to those who have supported it, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who put the point as clearly as possible that if there is a doubt or a serious possibility then the balance should come down in favour of protecting the child. That is all that I am concerned to do.
Over and again, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, referred to the case where one or other of the parents might have inflicted harm, and asked how on the basis of that it could be said that the threshold was passed. That is not the case that we are discussing. We are discussing a case where the harm is certainly inflicted by either the mother or the father. To say in those circumstances that it might only have been the mother is not enough; it is clearly a serious possibility, at the very least, that it was the mother on the one hand or the father on the other, and that serious possibility is enough to trigger the threshold on the clear wording of Section 32(1), which refers to “likely”, which in turn has been held to mean a serious possibility. That is all I will say at this stage, but I will certainly come back.
One other thing: the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, referred—I do not know with what propriety—to two people who had advised her that they were on her side. I could have quoted two others, equally eminent, who were on mine. At this stage I do not think that we should count heads; that is not the way to do it. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.