Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

My Lords, I last spoke on this issue during the passage of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. I started my remarks then by apologising to noble Lords who lived through the passage of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, saying that they might experience a sense of déjà vu about what I was about to say. Partly in echo of the remarks made by my noble friend Lady Gould, my remarks today will be a case of déjà vu, déjà vu. The issues that I want to raise today concern children’s safety during contact procedures. In common with many noble Lords, I welcome the commitment made by the Minister from the outset, including in Clause 1 of the Bill, that the welfare of the child is to be the courts’ paramount consideration. Indeed, I congratulate the Joint Committee on its very serious consideration of that issue. But I am worried that the fine objective expressed at the beginning of the Bill is not reflected throughout. I am not alone in that concern; it has been expressed here today by other noble Lords, and, I have to report, by many children’s organisations with which I am in contact, and by Women’s Aid. It is children’s safety-proofing that I and others will seek to bring to bear in the Bill as it progresses through your Lordships’ House. I am particularly concerned that in Part 1, in Clause   11E(2) of Children Act 1989 the words ““and safe”” are not included in relation to contact and the active direction of it. There are many other places in this Bill where the inclusion of really very simple words—and similar words—would do a great deal to ensure the safety of children and parents. There are still children, and sometimes parents—usually mothers—who are being harmed and even killed during contact arrangements. We know that that is a very small number, and a small number of a small percentage—that is, 10 per cent—who find themselves before the courts. But the death of even one child at the hands of a violent parent is one too many. If Women’s Aid and the NSPCC are still expressing their concern that children have been harmed or abused as a result of contact arrangements after several years of attempting to deal with this issue, I suggest that we still need to take it very seriously indeed. During a hearing of the Select Committee, on parental contact, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was asked about judges allowing Schedule 1 offenders to have unsupervised contact with their children. She replied:"““We do not always know they are Schedule One offenders at that time””." That is not good enough. It is totally unacceptable that the family justice system still does not have reliable procedures for checking properly whether or not a parent is likely to be a risk to their child and for assessing and managing that risk. I am also concerned that there seems to be no UK research into the reasons for non-compliance with contact orders, so the proposed measures seem not to be evidence based and therefore must beg the question, will the measures be beneficial to children? Indeed, as many noble Lords mentioned, why are children’s views still not being sought at the outset? As has been said by several noble Lords, I am afraid that that is probably a question of resources. That really will not do. During the course of the Bill’s passage I shall address in detail issues concerning promises and commitments made by the Government over the past three or four years. For example, how effective are the   new family court applications? What effect do measures to monitor Section 120 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 concerning the safety of children’s contact with violent parents have? In 2003 the Department of Health stated:"““At least 750,000 children a year witness domestic violence. Nearly three-quarters of the children on the ‘at risk’ register live in households where domestic violence occurs””." Three years ago, in the Adoption and Children Act the Government recognised the damage that witnessing violence does to children. This Bill takes us a further step along the road to ensuring that contact should be made safe, but I believe that it does not yet achieve that. That is the task before us during the course of this Bill.