Children and Adoption Bill

I do not want to extend this discussion, but for 20 years I was a practising solicitor in the family courts and dealt with a great deal of cases that involved divorce and the care of children. My experience in those 20 years was that the two situations that the hon. Gentleman describes were very infrequently relevant factors in the cases in which I was involved. The law is clear, but the current systems for resolving disputes must be improved, which is what we set out to achieve with the Bill. There is clearly a need for specialist family services to provide support as part of the overall system with which I want to deal, and even for compulsory family services for some families, such as those in conflict, those with addictions and, perhaps, mental health difficulties, and certainly in cases of family violence. In general, in cases where disputes that involve children occur during the breakdown of a relationship between the parents, the first port of call should be mediation. We need not wait for a breakdown in communication before mediation takes place. It is a structured process, whereby a couple are helped by an impartial third party—the mediator—to negotiate their own decisions for the long-term benefit of their children. Research has shown that five hours of mediation can promote sustained contact and an ongoing relationship between parents and their children. A long-term study of outcomes in the USA was referred to in a briefing that we have received from National Family Mediation and which resulted in a book called, ““The Truth about Children and Divorce”” by Robert Emery, who says that, 12 years after the event, 30 per cent. of parents who had attended mediation were still in weekly contact with their children, as against just 7 per cent. who had been through litigation. Mediation should be, in the words of National Family Mediation, the routine method for resolving child contact disputes early if the family have not already reached their own agreement. I agree with the Grandparents Association that mediation should also be available to grandparents and other relatives who have been involved in children’s care. I asked a question earlier about the funding of mediation, because that is relevant if there are barriers to something that could be successful and save costs downstream. Publicly funded solicitors’ clients are required to consider mediation unless it is unsafe—for example, because of an allegation of domestic violence—before they can go on to receive further legal help with their court cases. In the past, they may have received legal aid. For those clients, mediation is free. No contribution is required from them, and there is no suggestion of a statutory charge being placed on their property after the case has finished.