Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness has ranged much more widely than her amendment to look at the whole issue of the Family Resolutions pilots, which, as I said last week, are currently being evaluated. We believe that they will have very useful lessons and serve as models for how we take forward the contact activity set out in Clause 1. It is a matter of fact that the take-up on the pilots was less than we would have wished. However, we believe that we have a sufficiently large evidence-base to be able to make proper assessments and that they will inform the developments of contact activities under the Bill, including—I stress this again—information about mediation, which builds on a substantial mediation infrastructure built up in recent years which we believe will be of great benefit to separating couples and their children. The amendment would make it compulsory for courts participating in the pilot to refer all parties in a contact case to a court-appointed mediator. In turn, it would be compulsory for all parties to a contact case to accept referral to such a scheme. The amendment would also legislate for the use of parenting plans. As I have said repeatedly, there is a good deal to be said for mediation and we want to see its take-up significantly expanded. Information on mediation is a key contact activity, as set out under Clause 1. However, the amendment would constrain the court’s freedom to consider each case on its own merits. In particular, it does not take account of the fact that cases involving issues of harm, abuse or domestic violence would not be suitable for the pilot scheme proposed in the amendment, as it would not be appropriate for those parties to attend mediation. The proposed amendment could also leave the Government open to a charge of denying parties in a contact case their rights under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, because the amendment requires that the pilot activities take place before a court hearing can be had. For those reasons, the amendment itself is not desirable, but, in so far as the noble Baroness was seeking to probe our intentions on the use of mediation, I can, once again, assure her that we wish to see more extensive use of mediation and we believe that the Bill as framed would have that outcome.