My Lords, I rise with some trepidation to speak very briefly to Amendments 54 and 55. I welcome the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who both recognise that there are times when fathers are locked out of contact with their children. I applaud the Government for recognising that the involvement of both parents in a child’s life, all things being equal, will further the child’s welfare. No one would question that the child’s welfare has been and must continue to be of paramount importance. There is no question about that, but there have been times when that has been lost and the feeling has been that as long as a child has a mother, perhaps that is okay. That is my
concern. I fully recognise what my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss said about the research. I am not suggesting here that there have been wholesale miscarriages of justice but every single miscarriage of justice in terms of parenting one’s own children is a personal tragedy and we therefore need to take these things extremely seriously.
This is being made worse in the modern world because fathers are often intimately involved in their child’s upbringing from birth. In my day it did not happen. Father was a long way away for quite a long time so the big bonding went on with mother, not with father. Often parents are genuinely sharing the parental role. At times a father will be the primary carer—I cannot remember fathers being primary carers in my day—or maybe a better parent than the mother. On occasions a mother may be neglectful, selfish and unloving. They may even emotionally abuse their child. Of course, all these things can apply to fathers, except that fathers, instead of emotionally abusing their child, will tend to hit out. That has been one of the big problems in decision-making on parenting, separation and childcare. As a former social worker, I can say that we found it quite easy to see a bump on someone’s head but found it very difficult to identify and to codify emotional abuse of children.
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One of the things I want to put on record is that I agree that it has been a difficult area and will probably continue to be so, but it does not make it any more okay for the father to lose out. I am aware of cases where it has taken inordinate amounts of time for the system to record that it was the mother who was the abusive and disruptive parent. There was an enormous amount of upset and disruption to the children in that long process. In the end they get there—I am sure the research shows that they get there—but I am not sure that the research has looked at the costs of the whole process and at the difficulty for people of getting to grips with emotional abuse and trying to avoid the much simpler assumption that perhaps the child can be with the mother and that will be all right. It is a little worrying.
I humbly suggest that we need a small cultural shift to reflect the revolution, as I see it, that has come about in family dynamics in our country. Fathers in many families are playing a much greater role and bonding with their children at a very early age, which is relatively modern. Having said that, I realise that there are many traditional families and many bad fathers—there is no question about that—and it is incredibly difficult for the people with the exceptionally tough job of deciding what to do in such situations. I do not pretend that this is straightforward.
I want to put on record that I would regret any watering down of Clause 11. However, I would not have the audacity to challenge my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss, or indeed her eminent co-signatories. I merely urge that the Minister and those who have put their names to Amendment 54 find a way to preserve undiluted the objective of Clause 11 while enabling judges to do their job. Of course, this will need to reinforce the presumption that
the welfare of the child is pre-eminent. I feel that Clause 11 does that, but then again I am a lay person. That is my excuse.
My only concern with Amendment 55 is the reference to indirect involvement. I hope that there is no intention to make it easier to relegate fathers to an indirect role in their children’s lives.