Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

We return to two amendments which deal with an important issue: the qualifications expected of those involved in making contact activity directions and setting the conditions for them. I am speaking principally of those involved in the assessment process. In moving Amendment No. 54 and speaking to Amendment No. 59, I should also say that we on these Benches wholeheartedly support Amendment No. 55, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, which deals with the available supply of suitably qualified people to carry out these activities in different parts of the country. Our concern is that the Bill confers considerable extra work on a system that is already struggling to deal with its case load. We see nothing in the Bill that will reduce that work load in any way. However, specification of the types of contact activity directions is much more elaborate here than it has been under the existing regime. We are concerned that in this sometimes delicate decision-making process the legislation is unclear about the exact qualifications required. The Bill talks about providers being ““suitable”” but it does not specify exactly what that means. In speaking earlier today to previous government amendments, the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, spoke of the Government controlling the quality of the provision of such services by financial means—by restricting those whom they would seek to support in relation to public funds. That is an extremely powerful tool but it is a rather blunt instrument for controlling quality. As noble Lords will see, although these are probing amendments, they touch on an issue that lies at the heart of the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, spoke yesterday about skills and the need to ensure that those who are involved in these difficult situations, making decisions which can have profound consequences for the participants, are skilled and trained. We on these Benches believe that without the proper basis on which to work—and we have already discussed the limitations of ““reasonable contact””—the job will be even more difficult. There are very few precedents from which people will be able to work and, given the range of work which will be undertaken under this legislation, the number of precedents will be even smaller. There have been major problems with CAFCASS in the past. Although many of those issues have been addressed—I pay tribute to the noble Baronesses, Lady Howarth and Lady Pitkeathley, for bringing about those changes—we are in severe danger of setting up a system with an insufficient number of suitably qualified people to undertake that work. That will create a risk that some of the services provided will not be of a sufficient standard. I beg to move.