Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

I shall speak to my amendments in this group, which are probing amendments. The courts draw very heavily on psychological expertise in what they do. When I have listened in private cases, judges have said that they wish the child to have contact with both parents because of what psychologists or psychiatrists have discovered. That type of input is very important to these sorts of proceedings. At this point, perhaps I may express slight disappointment that at the information gathering stage for the Select Committee in the other House on family court proceedings, no psychiatrist was called to be a witness—not even those who provided guidance on standards in this area. I know that the Select Committee on the Draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill was quite hurriedly put together, but was any evidence taken from a psychologist or psychiatrist? I would appreciate it if, possibly in guidance, there is more encouragement and support for courts to make possible access to mental health services and to CAMHS for families going through that procedure. Currently, courts are quite limited in what they can connect families with. I would appreciate it if the Minister would look to see whether there might be more support given to courts in order to make that connection. In that regard, it might be helpful to remind Members of the Committee what Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss said to the Joint Committee:"““We do not have those resources. We also need resources for therapy . . . the money is crucial to the success of this Bill””." We will come to that part. She also referred to,"““CAMHS, which is marvellous””." She emphasised heavily the need to connect with mental health services, a point which I wish to make in regard to this amendment. We all recognise that by the time the children in question enter court proceedings, they have already been harmed and damaged by the conflict between their parents. Of course we will have that in mind. The point of the amendment is to highlight that and to encourage thinking about appropriate measures. We talk about support for the parents in contact activities, but perhaps we should think about support for the children in order to make it possible for them to sustain meetings with parents, which is why I cited child psychotherapy in particular. Amendment No. 25A may have been mostly covered by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, but it gives me the opportunity to go back to the question of mediation. People working in the field point out that different families are at different stages. There is a point at which they are very raw and they need the help of a health professional. There is also the point at which they need the support of lawyers to negotiate the best deal. One needs to think in terms of mediation. The amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, gives that flexibility to move between those specialties; the negotiating speciality and the therapeutic specialty. Perhaps I shall also take the opportunity to hear further from the Minister about the Family Resolutions pilot project. I am glad to hear that he is studying carefully the evidence produced. One of my concerns about the Bill is that such a lot of it depends on the first part, the contact activities, and if they are not in place we might be encouraging people to go to court and then not putting in those processes to get them out again as quickly as possible. If the Minister can give any further detail on the Government’s commitment to something very like the Family Resolutions pilot project, that would be helpful. Amendment No. 116 covers assessment prior to contact order, and most of those points have been covered, including the gatekeeper role. I look forward to the Minister’s response.