Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I shall speak briefly, following the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, who is about to follow me as chair of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. I speak as someone who has dealt over many years with some of the families who are in greatest conflict and need. The Minister will know that, of the families who separate, 10 per cent go to court. Those 10 per cent are the most difficult families. Often they are very close to families who come through public law, which are the families who really have child protection issues. However, we find in assessment that many of the families who come through private law divorce proceedings may well have these issues. I agree that there is some need for reform. I welcome the money being put into relationship work and hope that some of that will find its way to CAFCASS, which does a great deal of that work with those difficult families. There is a proportion of families, though, where it is clear that the level of conflict between the families is detrimental so continued contact with both parents—judges have said this—may well not be the answer for those few children. I am interested, as the noble Baroness is, in who is going to make that assessment and at what point the mother—it is usually a mother, although occasionally it is a father—will know that she is not going to have to continue to engage with an extremely aggressive and often destructive person who has damaged not only her own relationship but that of her children, and when she will be able to bypass all those procedures and be sure that she can actually get maintenance. The likelihood of the man giving her maintenance is slim, but she needs to be able to get by the procedures.