My Lords, as I have come to expect with this Bill, the amendments are thoroughly debated and raise some fundamental problems, which I promise to take on board as the Bill progresses.
My response gives me the opportunity to explain a number of measures aimed at promoting the positive involvement of both parents in their children’s lives. In many ways, I am sympathetic to the noble Lord’s intentions in tabling this amendment. When we come to make decisions on this Bill, we will all have to consider deeply whether some of the responsibilities that have been raised in this debate are most sensibly written into this legislation, or elsewhere, or addressed by other means. However, I certainly do not doubt that there is an issue—which the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has rightly raised—about how we get the required level of parental responsibility. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred to the knock-on effects of the problems of single parents, particularly in families without fathers. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, emphasised the importance of early intervention, while the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, lent her support to the idea that it is sensible to set out those responsibilities in the Bill.
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I was very interested in what the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, had to say about the Teens and Toddlers programme, and the assurance from the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, that it is still going. It is quite some time now since I have had constituency responsibilities, but when I did, what worried me the most about teen mothers was that so often they became mothers in order to have someone to love and who in turn gave them a sense of worth. I think that that may still be a factor in this.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Armstrong, and other noble Lords asked what the Government are doing to support new parents. The Government are committed to ensuring that all families feel well supported and every child gets the best start in life. That is why the level of relationship support funding, £30 million over 2011 to 2015, marks a significant increase on previous funding levels. We know that support services for couples at key transition points such as moving in together, getting married and becoming parents, are vital. We are funding key voluntary and community sector organisations such as Relate, Marriage Care and Pace to deliver relationship support services at these important transition points. We are also funding One Plus One to run a series of campaigns to promote relationship support. This will target young people and new parents in particular, so that they see relationship support as a normal way of strengthening their relationship rather than just at crisis points.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, made an interesting point about the changing nature of fathers’ responsibilities. It is a long time ago, but I remember when growing up in the 1950s that fathers would not push the pram, never mind anything else. This will come as a shock to the Committee, but on Saturday I was at my local gym—not over-exerting myself—and I noticed that a babies’ swimming lesson was being held in the pool. I saw a father with his baby in the pool teaching it to swim, all without any self-consciousness. It is true that there is a sector of young men who perceive themselves as being outside of any sense of social responsibility, but there is a more positive side. I see a whole range of young men with positive attitudes towards shared parenting and responsibilities. That is quite different from what their fathers, and certainly their grandfathers, would have seen. The picture is not all dark.
We recognise the importance of high quality PSHE, and we will be dealing with that in more detail when we come to the second amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. We also want to take up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, on supporting new parents in learning about what parenthood entails. Children’s centres act as a valuable hub to help families access key services, including health visitors, early education, childcare and parenting support. Children’s centres frame their activities to identify and help those families most in need. I have also noted what the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said about play therapists, and I am sure that that is true. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, spoke in support of some kind of codification of responsibilities, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, referring to the Scottish experience.
Obviously the amendment has been a probing one. The noble Lord quoted the Children Act 1989, which sets out the meaning of “parental responsibility”. I shall just quote it again:
“‘parental responsibility’ means all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and his property”—
that is, his or her property. This concept of parental responsibility encapsulates all the legal duties and powers concerning the child’s upbringing that exist to enable a parent to care for a child and to act on its behalf. It relates to all the obvious concerns, such as the child’s material needs and healthcare, the manner of his education, religious upbringing, legal representation and administration of property.
As the noble Lords will know, there has been much debate in this House in the context of children’s legislation about whether parental responsibility should be defined further in legislation. No evidence has been put forward, however, to suggest that the present definition causes any difficulty. Indeed, the Law Commission report on guardianship and custody, on which the Children Act 1989 was based, indicated that the meaning of “parental responsibility” would need to change according to changed circumstances. This is not in my brief, but I am well aware that that was in 1989 so we are talking about a conclusion reached nearly 30 years ago.
In addition, the new clause may cause difficulties as it may be interpreted to mean that the duties of parents are limited only to the factors set out in the recommended clause. In practice, though, a parent’s responsibility for protecting and maintaining a child is considered to be among the most important components of parental responsibility. So, too, is having contact with the child. At the moment, the Government are not persuaded that a more detailed statutory definition would serve a useful purpose, and no evidence has been put forward that demonstrates that to be the case. However, what has become clear in this debate is that early and focused intervention on specific problems works and should be supported.
The amendment was a probing one. I cannot give the noble Lord more encouragement than to say that he has initiated an extremely full and thought-provoking debate, and I will take that away with colleagues. In the end, it comes down to the balance between those who think that if you write it down in a Bill, that makes it true—I know that he does not believe that. Whether the Bill should be burdened by having some of the issues that were raised in this debate put on its shoulders is one of the matters that we will have to ponder. In the mean time, I thank him for the debate that he has stimulated; he must be very pleased with the range of well informed support that he got. For the moment, though, I ask him to withdraw his amendment.