Children and Adoption Bill

I take my hon. Friend’s point. The role that staff play in those situations, particularly for supervised contact, can be critical for the parents and children concerned. It is very important that they are as high quality as we can make them. I will certainly look at that matter. Where the court is involved, we have to ensure that whatever intervention we make does not entrench conflicts any further. The Bill will be critical in achieving that and in maintaining the focus on the child. It offers the court new powers to facilitate contact, and to enforce contact when that becomes necessary. Clause 1 offers the court the power to direct parties to participate in ““contact activities””, ranging from parenting classes to domestic violence perpetrator programmes, and explicitly including the power to require attendance at an information session with a mediator to explore the benefits of mediation. We believe that those activities will help parents to begin to face up to the difficulties, and the conflict, behind their disagreement over contact arrangements. That can be key to helping the court to reach a resolution without the need for fully contested proceedings.