Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

I shall speak to Amendment No. 27. I have already discussed my detailed amendment on dispute resolution, which involves mediation, so I do not want to go over that ground again. Without the significant changes to the Bill that we should like to propose, why does that important tool seem to have been neglected in a situation to which it seems so very suited? The amendment seeks to remove that exclusion and to allow for the activity directions to require a parent to attend mediation. Given the views of Relate and others on the benefits of mediation, can the Minister explain why that option was excluded? I rather suspect that the Government’s argument might be that you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. I hope that the arguments that I put forward, and also those put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, go some way to shooting down that argument. Even if the noble Lord remains unconvinced, I point out that the exclusion of mediation means that you have not even shown the horse where the water is. Surely mediation is a highly suitable activity that promotes contact—by which we mean reasonable contact—with the child concerned, and it provides a forum where parents can speak to each other rather than through a courtroom, even if it is for just an hour. Sometimes you just need to put people in a situation where they have to face their issues. Although they may not want to discuss things in detail, they might be forced to think and to look at their behaviour in a way that is beneficial to their children.