My Lords, my support for this amendment comes without the personal experience of the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, or the legal expertise of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. Like him, I hope that this amendment is unnecessary in reality. I cannot proceed without paying tribute to the noble Baroness for her unstinting efforts
to ensure that alienation of children by one parent against another is accorded its proper place in discussion of the Bill. Her efforts and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, have been inspirational.
My concern throughout is for the protection of children and intervention in abusive situations at as early a stage as possible to ensure that their life chances are best fostered. It is well understood by psychologists that perpetrators of controlling and coercive behaviour will often try to separate their victim from outside contact—from friends, family, religious or social groups and even by preventing the means of communication necessary to seek help. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, perpetrators are often the most confident, plausible and convincing of people. Their victims, by comparison, are often confused, anxious and timid. Both may have deeper attachment issues.
Here we are concerned with a different direction of travel, namely conscripting the innocent as proxies to alienation as part of a contest with a partner. There are doubtless many versions of this, commonly using a weak or compliant adult proxy, but there is one type that warrants special attention and that is the deliberate enmeshing of the children of a relationship by one party as a tool or lever against the other. No other identifiable category so conveniently presents itself as a vehicle for this leverage; no other proxy is so trustingly vulnerable to exploitation or so readily damaged, both in the short and long terms, by such actions.
It may be a self-justification of the perpetrator that it is for the better protection of the children from the other partner, and it merely invites retaliation by precisely the same means. I have mentioned before the perils of a wholly adversarial and corrosive no-holds-barred approach to sorting out these domestic contests. The resident parent is clearly in a strong position to influence, and issues such as access to children and much else may hang on this. The very presence of children may, paradoxically, prevent the sort of clean break that some might wish for. Typically, the children are and remain the biological offspring of both partners. What they receive from ancestors may influence what they pass down to their own offspring in turn. The toxic adversarial circumstances of a relationship breakdown of adults seems capable of rendering them particular harm. Children, as minors, are entitled to the protection of their parents and, where that fails, to the protection of society. In my opinion, society is bound to take note of those impacts on them that might lead to perpetuation of abuse in future generations.
I have been surprised by the degree of antipathy that I have experienced following the parental alienation amendment in Committee. I did not think that this was in the least bit controversial, nor worthy of such sustained criticism. But I have been heartened by the comments of many others—from male and female viewpoints—and I thank them all for the trouble they have taken to write to me.
The first criticism is that parental alienation is not defined, but it is accepted that alienating activity does exist and has long been recognised, so I take it that the use of children as proxies in the process suffers, in this instance, from a liability to multiple interpretations.
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Until recently, what we now know as domestic abuse was referred to as domestic violence, so the process of definition and refinement of terms is ongoing work in progress and affords no grounds for inaction. Absence of definition may be a factor for campaigning organisations and in legal circles, but my impression is that psychologists are very clear what it is, how to recognise it and how those involved can be helped. This ties in with the views of those who feel that psychology and judicial process should work more closely and effectively.
Secondly, I was accused of being an apologist for the work of Dr Gardner, who apparently first coined the phrase “parental alienation”. I believe that things have moved on in the last 40 years; the concept of parental alienation has been substantially refined and research by psychologists has moved on accordingly. I feel that that criticism was long ago superseded.
The third criticism is that parental alienation is simply part of a larger category of coercion and controlling activity, a point made in a briefing by the Victims’ Commissioner. However, the particular circumstances of deliberately enmeshing children as proxies in an adult battle are relatively self-contained. There are special parental and societal responsibilities towards, and particular vulnerabilities associated with, this category of young person. Parental alienation has the potential to cause great damage to children’s life chances, and it is identifiable and, in many instances, preventable. I do not see this as another manifestation in the generality of coercion and control, but something much more specific.
The final matter is that parental alienation is used as a tool for abusers to get back at their partners, with potentially significant outcomes. It is not for me to comment on the twists and turns of clever advocacy in the courts or on any perceived deficiency in the way decisions are reached in the best interests of the child. But I hope that in future, progress will be aided by the excellent work of Cafcass, whose resources might usefully be enhanced.
The Ministers were kind enough to arrange a meeting on this matter a few days ago and I thank them for that. I say again what I said then: the matter having now been raised, as was inevitable, doing nothing may be as detrimental as detractors suggest agreeing to the amendment would be. Inaction risks leaving this specific evil in limbo, the subject of further legal battles and causing yet more damage to young lives.
The Government need to act, if not in this Bill then in guidance, so that we identify and name this particular type of alienation for what it is—a form of domestic abuse—and that we furthermore signal that this is no longer a lever to be used in an adult conflict. I finish where I started by saying that I hope that, in the end, it will be found that this amendment is unnecessary.