Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

: I always listen with great attention to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and I found a great deal of what she said very powerful. However, I am sorry to sound a slightly dissenting note in respect of some of what she said. I think that there are several difficulties with Amendments Nos. 67 and 88. Listening to the wishes and feelings of the child is nowadays accepted as a given in situations involving adoption, care proceedings or child protection. I have no difficulty with that in most circumstances—indeed, I have argued for it in the past—but in circumstances where two parents have separated the position is not so straightforward. To ask a child how he feels about his situation and about each of his parents is not a process that is likely to elicit an objective statement. A child who has been separated from one or other parent is subject to influences that are as numerous as they are subtle—sometimes the influences are not so subtle—and it is very difficult to expect a child to come up with answers and comments that do not in some way require interpretation by reference to a whole range of extraneous matters. It is the same if you ask the average child whether he wants to go to school. The child may well say that he does not, but that is not an answer which has much practical value. Just because a child says that he does not want to go to school there is no reason to say that going to school is the wrong thing for the child to be doing. You need to look behind the answers to see what has prompted them, and you need to look carefully at the child’s circumstances. So if you have a child who says that he does not want to stay the night with his father, that statement needs to be interpreted in the light of all kinds of prevailing factors; it is not a statement that should be accepted at face value. Therefore, in practice, asking the child how he feels about this or that is a recipe for delay—and that gets you very little further forward, at least not without a great deal of extra work. I have another problem with this. To say that the views of the child should be sought in all circumstances—no matter what the circumstances are and no matter how old the child is—is an ethically questionable proposition. I have a great deal of sympathy with the suggestion put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that we need more research in this area—I agree with him on that—but I am instinctively uncomfortable with the thought of involving children in legal proceedings unless the circumstances are such as to make this absolutely essential. There are situations where it is necessary to question a child on matters of fact—for example, where violent behaviour has been alleged. I fully accept that, but when the level of contact is being determined or, indeed, when an enforcement order is being applied for, to require a child to express an opinion to the court about one or other of his parents, which is effectively what Amendments Nos. 67 and 88 propose, seems to me to be a morally repugnant idea. I have put that in very strong terms, but I do not believe that a child should be put in that position unless there is a very good reason indeed.