Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

In speaking to Clause 3, I shall speak also to Clauses 5, 6 and 7, and later my noble friend Lord Howe will address Clause 4. Although we oppose the Question that Clause 3 stand part, we support the idea of letting parents know the possible outcomes of a refusal to allow contact. We hope that knowledge will deter them from doing so. That is exactly what we are suggesting throughout our amendments, and it is why we on these Benches are advocating early intervention and compulsory dispute resolution. Perhaps we can prevent some cases going to court if the parents are told—““warned”” may be a better word—in a pre-court hearing that if they go down route X, they can expect outcome Y and the main loser will be their child, and if they are made aware of the baseline for reasonable contact. If the Minister can support the idea of warning notices on contact orders, can he not support this through early intervention? Clause 5—and I know that I am speaking about issues that we have not quite covered in detail—gives the court the power to order the payment of compensation for financial loss incurred as a result of failure by a party to comply with a contact order. Compensation would be ordered only after an application by a party to the contact order proceedings had been made to the court and only if the other party did not have a reasonable excuse for failure to comply. I invite the Minister to outline his response to the recommendations made by the Joint Committee on the draft Bill—namely, that it should be made clear that both resident and non-resident parents could apply for financial compensation under the proposed conditions. Without a clause stand part debate, I would not be able to congratulate the Government on taking this opportunity to make some alterations to family assistance orders, which they had failed to do in the draft Bill. Family assistance orders used correctly are a very important tool. The need for support for parents is critical, and the earlier the better. Our opposition to Clause 7 is consequential to our opposition to Clauses 4 and 5. In opposing the Question that Clauses 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 stand part of the Bill, I am reminded that, at a meeting last month, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, commented that we seemed to be opposing the whole Bill. That is because we are of the firm opinion that the Bill could have done so much more. It fails to reform the family law system; it fails to recognise co-parenting; and it fails to enshrine the concept of reasonable contact. It is all stick and no carrot. Noble Lords should see our clause stand part debates as the political equivalent of our tearing our hair out in despair. Clause 3 agreed to. Clause 4 [Enforcement orders]: