Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

The noble Earl will be reassured to hear that balancing of rights and responsibilities remains absolutely central to our philosophy in implementing the Bill. However, on the specific issue of whether the sanction should apply to 16 to 18 year-olds, our thinking is this. First, there is an issue of principle, but it is not an overriding issue; there are also practical considerations. The issue of principle is that the Bill adds to the provisions of the Children Act 1989. That Act, along with family proceedings in general, defines a child as a person under the age of 18. We are not seeking in any way to alter the fundamental principle of the Children Act. Therefore, although we are using the mechanisms of the unpaid work system as set out in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which has an age of 16, we felt it right to modify the provisions of that Act to fit in with the principles set out in the Children Act and therefore consider 18 a more appropriate cut-off point in principle. However, in practice—which is the crucial argument for us—we need to consider what would happen to children of that age who are also parents, who are an extremely vulnerable group of children. In an ideal world, we might wish that they were not parents at all. The aim of the provision for unpaid work in the Bill is to give the courts a realistic recourse to address the behaviour of adults who refuse to follow orders of the court made in the interests of their children. We are here discussing children who are parents themselves. Our view is that, with parents who are themselves only 16 to 18, it would not be proportionate to impose unpaid work on them when what is far more likely to be needed is education and support about the role that both parents should play in a child’s life. The powers provided by the Bill to require participation in contact activities apply to children who are also parents—those aged between 16 and 18—and they seem to us much more appropriate as a range of sanctions and obligations on them, rather than making them eligible for criminal sanctions and unpaid work requirements. That was not an easy decision to make, because one could argue that one regime should apply to all parents in that condition, but I think that the Committee will accept that parents aged between 16 and 18 are themselves in an extremely vulnerable position and that proper attention to their education and to measures that will promote their own sense of responsibility and development are likely to be more efficacious than criminal sanctions on them. That is why we make the distinction that we do and I hope that that gives the noble Earl sufficient encouragement to withdraw his amendment.