Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this little debate. Noble Lords will not be surprised to learn that I was not at all surprised to hear the words ““resources”” and ““prescriptive””. Perhaps I should own up to being a little mischievous when I tabled three years, but it was for the purpose of having the debate. I had to put something. The principle that I am trying to get at is not the one addressed by the insertion of Section 11H into the Children Act 1989, because that refers only to situations where the court asks for monitoring. I would like to see some monitoring of all contact orders so that their smooth operation can be ensured. This links to Amendment No. 114, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, because unless one has that material, one cannot do research. There needs to be a body of evidence before any generalisations can be made to inform good practice. That body of evidence cannot be produced if one is only looking at situations where the court anticipates that there may be problems and therefore puts monitoring in place. We also need to look at contact orders that the court thinks will work well, because sometimes they do not and sometimes there are changes that the court might not have been able to anticipate in a thousand years. We need to know how things work out because we need evidence-based policy in all legislation and we will not get it unless we have evidence. I appreciate the explanation given to us by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, and I realise that what I was proposing would place a considerable extra burden on CAFCASS. Therefore, I was very pleased to hear the Minister’s say, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, that these extra responsibilities will be properly considered when the funding of CAFCASS is being decided. I shall withdraw the amendment, but I may come back at the next stage, perhaps in consultation with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, with something to put in the Bill that is not too prescriptive, but that ensures that there is a appropriate level of monitoring so that if things are going wrong with contact it can be picked up early to avoid an entrenched dispute between the parents and the child feeling let down. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 33 to 35 not moved.]