Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness said somewhat firmly to me that I had asked the question on reasonableness. I asked it in absolute open-minded faith. However, the reply I received from the noble Earl, Lord Howe, startled me and made me write, ““Look at Hansard and think more about this””. His reply made me feel more concerned about what ““reasonableness”” would mean in law—and I, not being a lawyer, would need to think about it—than the point I was reaching before that interpretation. So I asked the question in an absolutely open position. It is a non sequitur to say that it follows that if parents have a right to access to their children, it fundamentally affects the children’s rights regarding their parents. I would always take it the other way around: that the children have rights regarding parents. They are not packages to which parents have a right. I think that that is where we differ. I come from the position that every child should have as much access as possible to parents who have their best interests at heart. Let us remember that very often we are talking about a narrowly defined group of extraordinarily difficult and contentious people, who cannot see their children and whose anxieties override anything that might be called love and care and concern. Those anxieties are about their own position in a very broken relationship. So I have concerns about ““reasonableness””. It was an honest question when I asked it, so I ““gently”” rebuke the noble Baroness, which I think is the word we are supposed to use. The Domestic Violence report from Her Majesty’s Inspectors begins by talking about the presumption of contact in domestic violence cases. Again I say that one of the issues we have concerns the definitions of safety in the range of domestic violence. To actually use those words—and I think that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, pointed this out—as a generalisation is very difficult. I come from a violent household. If anyone had attempted to take away my father I would have been destroyed. Families are very different. I do not often talk about my personal circumstances, but I think that it puts in context my view that assessment of the situation a child finds himself in is absolutely crucial because that child may not be removed from that home, he may continue to stay. Again, I think that that is to do with assessment and practice and the things that can be written in guidelines. If we accept this amendment, I should be very anxious if we did not accept it together with all the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, about adding the whole of the emphasis. But what really counts is how that legislation is heard and what it does to change culture. The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, and I have struggled to change a culture in an organisation which has done huge amounts of good work, but which is not perfect by a long way. The Bill is extremely important in setting that cultural context, both for the CAFCASS service and the court service as a whole because it is a matrix and you cannot move one without the other. So I have great concerns about the word ““reasonable””, simply because—and now I am sure from what the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said—it has other legal connotations which might be unexpected. I also think that what you are saying has an emphasis which takes us down a road that puts some children in greater danger—not all, but some.