Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

It is so helpful to have these arguments thrashed out. The noble Baroness said that ““reasonable contact”” is best. I shall not tire the Committee by giving all the good reasons why it is so important that children have contact with both parents—what it does for their self esteem; what it does if a daughter does not have contact with her father and never gets to know him. Perhaps I may just qualify what the noble Baroness said: there are circumstances where a child has experienced violence from his father in the past and has not been able to recover and forgive the parent for it; or where each parent tells the child each time he sees him how horrible the other parent is; or where the child has never really known that parent. A number of factors weigh against that. I am sure that the noble Baroness is cognisant of that, but I suspect that with this debate it is important always to highlight both aspects of that. I hope that what I have said has been helpful.