Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of CAFCASS. I have only a little to add to the magnificent input from my deputy chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, but some things bear repeating. We must remember that 90 per cent of all parents who separate make their own post-separation arrangements. Of those, research shows that 82 per cent of resident parents are satisfied or very satisfied with the arrangements that they make and 88 per cent of non-resident parents are satisfied or very satisfied. So when cases can be easily resolved in the ways perhaps implied by the amendment, they have already been resolved—by lawyers, mediators, friends or the people involved themselves. If we could guarantee that all separating parents, however much bitterness there had been between them, would act in a safe, sensitive and intelligent way, I would not have any problems with the amendment—but we cannot guarantee that. An increasing number of private law cases such as the ones that CAFCASS deals with have the characteristics of public law cases, in that there are alcohol and drug abuse, anger management problems, domestic violence and personality disorders. All those are common in the cases that our officers in CAFCASS have to deal with; they are difficult enough and we have to approach them in a very open way, for the sake of the children—as the noble Baroness said. We do not have to be constrained by a set of legal presumptions, which would make it harder to get parents on the specific actual situation, faced by individual children, which needs a much more tailored and personalised approach. After all, in a great deal of public policy we are moving away from the idea that one size fits all towards a more individualised approach, which is very welcome. The children that CAFCASS deals with deserve nothing less. In summary, the reason I oppose these amendments is that only 10 per cent of separated families approach the court with contact disputes, but those families have the highest level of conflict between the parents and the highest level of other problems. As your Lordships will know, there are relatively high levels of allegations of domestic violence among the parents approaching the courts, which means that concerns over the safety of the children and/or the other parent may mean that direct contact cannot take place, particularly given the lack of supervised contact centres. Contact is refused in only a small number of cases where there are grave and justified concerns about the well-being of the children. I would be concerned that adding a presumption of the right to contact would lead to an increase in litigation, because we have to move away from parents thinking that litigation can solve these problems. On a practical level, as other people have said, introducing a presumption of contact would mean changing the Children Act 1989, and therefore would have far-reaching results. It is, therefore, to be avoided.