My Lords, all the contributions that have been made share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, that it is important that children have appropriate support and guidance as they go through life, and as they themselves become parents. I do not think that there is disagreement here, although I think that a number of noble Lords caveated their support for the noble Lord with the same doubt that I have over whether what he seeks to do is necessarily best done in primary legislation.
Still, a number of the points that have been raised colour this debate. I fully agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, among others, that the earlier we start educating children about the responsibilities they will one day have as parents, the better, and I think that sometimes we have been afraid of taking those messages into school and the mainstream of our education.
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I will certainly take the suggestion made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, about looking at family law in Scotland and how it deals with the matter. In my period in this job, I have been advised that “They do this better in Scotland” on a number of occasions. I must be careful that I do not influence decisions yet to be made, but a useful benefit of our union is that we can look at each other’s experiences, and I will certainly do that.
The running theme is getting the balance between rights and responsibilities and duties right. This House may perhaps sometimes seem fuddy-duddy to a younger
generation, but one of its jobs is to remind our citizens about their duties as well as their rights and responsibilities and it is in that mood that I respond to this debate. No one would disagree with the aim of this amendment, but there may be differing views on how best to respond to the challenge. Parental responsibility is a fundamental concept in the Children Act 1989 and refers to all the rights, duties and responsibilities of parents towards their children. Case law has established a clear understanding of what that means. A parent’s responsibility for protecting and maintaining their child is considered to be among the most important components of parental responsibility. So, too, is having contact with the child.
However, what parental responsibility means in practice, and how it is exercised in practice, will be linked to the circumstances of the individuals concerned. For example, a parent who for many possible reasons does not have contact with a child is unlikely to be able to exercise parental responsibility in the same way as the parent who lives with the child. Any further definition of what is meant by parental responsibility would erode the courts’ flexibility to determine what parental responsibility amounts to in individual cases in a way that moves with the times. No evidence has been put forward to suggest that the existing definition is problematic, and we have had no indications from the judiciary, which applies the definition routinely in family proceedings, that change is needed.
So, while I sympathise with the noble Lord’s objective, I am not persuaded that this is the right way to achieve it. Instead, I believe that the role of government is to provide information, support and advice to those who need it to help them to fulfil their role as parents and to understand beforehand what parenthood entails.
There are a number of ways in which we are doing this. I summarised them in a recent letter to the noble Lord, which was copied to others who spoke on this debate in Grand Committee. For example, we are providing grant funding to a number of organisations whose projects support parents and families in a variety of ways. As part of this, we are funding One Plus One to run a series of campaigns to promote relationship support targeting young people and new parents in particular so that they see accessing relationship support as a normal thing to do to strengthen their relationship, rather than at crisis points. The family nurse partnership programme, funded by the Department of Health, is a licensed programme for vulnerable first-time young mothers. It works with young parents on attachment, relationships and psychological preparation for parenthood through intensive and structured home visiting delivered by specially trained nurses from early pregnancy until the child is two.
I agree entirely with my noble friend Lady Tyler about the important role of schools. All schools are required to provide a balanced and broadly based curriculum which prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. In teaching sex and relationship education, it is a statutory requirement for schools, including academies through their funding arrangement, to have regard to the Secretary of State’s Sex and Relationship Education Guidance of 2000. That guidance states that secondary
schools should, among other issues, teach relationships, love and care and the responsibilities of parenthood as well as sex, to teach the taking of responsibility and the consequences of one’s action in relation to sexual activity and parenthood. As noble Lords may know, amendments have already been tabled to be debated later in the Bill on personal, social, health and economic education, PSHE, and on sex and relationship education —I think the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, has those amendments. That will come up on the fourth day of debate, so we will have a chance of discussing those aspects of it later in this Bill.
As I said, I think it is well apposite that Lord Northbourne has raised these matters. I hope that, both in our one-to-one meeting and in what I have said today, he can see that the issue that he is raising is very much on the Government’s radar. I think there is cross-party support and support around the House for his objectives; the only doubt is whether his amendment meets the needs of such a broad-based response to this issue. I hope that, in the light of this response, he will agree to withdraw his amendment.