My Lords, I welcome my noble friend back and commend him for his bravery. We came into the House at the same time, and he is a source of constant inspiration to us all; I have endless admiration for him. I apologise to the House for having omitted to declare my interests when I spoke for the first time on Report on Tuesday. I refer to my entry in the register of interests, and in particular to the fact that I work with the board of the Dispensing Doctors’ Association. I am also a patron of the National Association of Child Contact Centres and a co-chair of the All-Party Group on Child Contact Centres and Services.
I again commend my noble friend the Minister for summing up and assessing the mood of the House and tabling the amendments today; I am grateful to him for that. I also support the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and her Amendment 59, which is very appropriate. I hope my noble friend will look favourably on it, and I pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness. One of her remarks earlier on Report which struck a chord with me was about the shortage of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, particularly for those in the age group affected by these amendments.
I endorse and support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Farmer. He refers in particular to the family hubs, and I make a plea to the Minister to recognise, as part of a family hub, a child contact centre. Centres are usually manned by volunteers, and they do fantastic work—not necessarily in keeping families together, because, unfortunately, their role largely comes into play when families have broken, but they play a fantastic role in maintaining contact with the absent parent.
Obviously, in these constrained times, the budgets of all organisations come under increasing scrutiny and pressure, so I urge the Minister to use his good offices to speak to those in the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Education to ensure that the budget for child contact centres will be renewed not only for two years but for three years—the period promised earlier. Those centres do fantastic work, under great constraint, and I am proud to be associated with them. I wanted to use this opportunity to support the amendments and to urge my noble friend the Minister to use his good offices in this regard.