Welfare Reform Bill

This has been a very interesting debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has taken the argument on a stage further, which has been very useful. She has opened up the debate considerably. It is a complex issue, and it shows how people’s motives in human relationships are complex and that it is very difficult to provide a legislative framework that is also just and truthful about what is actually happening. Last Thursday, my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale spoke to the first tranche of amendments to Schedule 6, which are tabled in our names. He touched on domestic violence, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, has now returned. Those amendments, as my noble friends made clear at the time, sought to probe the list of exemptions to the duty to supply information so that both parents of a child can be registered as such. In that sitting, my noble friend suggested that the exemption in the case of a mother who fears for her safety or that of her child should the father be contacted, while a highly commendable aim may be the wrong way to go about it. His point was that domestic violence ought to be combated using law enforcement and the social services, rather than hampering a child’s right to know the identity of both parents. The Minister responded that it would not be right for the state knowingly to put a mother and child into a situation in which they were at risk. Of course that is correct, but she went on to make the exact point that the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, are addressing. The Minister said: ""the birth does not have to remain sole-registered for ever. The father can still come forward independently and request that his details are included in the register, subject to the mother’s acknowledgement that he is the father".—[Official Report, 2/7/09; col. GC 152.]" This is the scenario that is worrying the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas. She has expressed the concern that where the father approaches the registrar to be registered as the father rather than being approached for confirmation, there is no protection for the mother should she feel that there is a risk to her or her child. She will simply be able to confirm or deny that he is the father. I agree that there is a loophole in the Bill; if the whole process is on the mother’s initiative, as it is under the Bill, she has the right not to give information, citing fear of violence as her reason. That will be enough to keep the father out of the process. However, the same is not true if the process is on the father’s initiative. There is a case for evening up the two approaches so that the outcome is the same. I hope that this debate has provided ideas about how we might improve this part of the Bill.