My Lords, I believe that there is only one a priori formula, as the noble Baroness puts it, that we should have in our mind today, and that is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which gives children the right to be safe and protected and the right to a family life. We all agree that that right to a family life, where it is in the child’s best interests and safe to do so, should include an ongoing relationship with both parents. Unfortunately, in many cases the parents themselves feel that they cannot continue to do that within the same home, so they separate. I believe that it is the Government’s intention in this clause to give the child that right back and ensure that the child continues to have a relationship with both parents where it is safe to do so and in the child’s best interests.
Governments make their intentions clear in more than one way. The wording of legislation is one thing, but Pepper v Hart is another. I am hoping that, in his reply, my noble friend the Minister will make it very clear that what the media have been saying is not the Government’s intention. Indeed, my noble friend has made that very clear to probably all of us in this Chamber now in private meetings, but of course it has to go on the record for people to be able to rely on it, and I am very much hoping that he will be able to do that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, mentioned the media. I call on the media—indeed, I challenge them—to give just as much space and just as large headlines after today’s debate to the Government’s real intentions on what this legislation and any surrounding regulations really mean, rather than what they mistakenly thought that they meant, which caused an awful lot of concern and worry to families who can really do without that sort of worry when they are going through the stress of breaking up and wondering what they can do to
cause the least possible damage to their children’s lives while they do so. I very much look forward to my noble friend’s reply.