Welfare Reform Bill

I shall speak to Amendments 178C and 178D, which seek, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said, to rule out the entry of the father on the child’s birth certificate if the mother makes a declaration stating that she has reason to fear for her safety or that of the child if the father acquires parental responsibility. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for tabling the amendment because it provides an opportunity to debate the importance of engaged fatherhood to the well-being of children in almost all cases and the need to avoid risk to a child, while at the same time ensuring whenever possible—I repeat, whenever possible—that a father is engaged with a child from birth. Of course I agree with much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, has said, but I shall try to put a different point of view which I think is an important perspective. We need to consider the considerable social consequences of the loss of engaged fatherhood for the child and the importance of the registration process in ensuring the involvement of services where that is necessary to deal with problems where possible, or to go through the courts if absolutely necessary in order to deal with a father who has irreparable problems or problems that cannot be resolved through the involvement of services. Article 7 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that each child has the right as far as possible to know his or her parents. The best way to ensure compliance with Article 7 is to ensure that the child has a record of who his or her parents are on the birth certificate. I suggest that only in the most extreme circumstances should this article be breached. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is looking extremely worried. However, I think that it is important to be conscious of the fact that there are different perspectives on the role of fathers.