My Lords, whatever I do, I hope that I will do it gracefully. We have had an excellent debate because we knew before we started that there would be a variety of views. It has been a very constructive debate from which a great deal of consensus has emerged and become evident. We are all agreed that the welfare of the child should be paramount and that this principle should not be diluted. We are all agreed that continued involvement of both parents in a child’s life is desirable, indeed essential, to the child’s welfare, unless there are reasons to the contrary. We are all agreed, or at least will accept, that a change in the law of one kind or another to put greater emphasis on parental involvement would be acceptable; and we are all agreed that parental involvement should be determined from a child-centred point of view—that is, reference to the child’s experience and not any particular division of the child’s time. I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that our reference to indirect involvement is not intended to suggest that, say, three letters a year would be all right at all.
Some differences of opinion are evident, particularly around whether the courts and professionals do enough at the moment to promote contact by fathers and whether there is an issue there. I feel that there is an issue there, and not just as a result of cases from when I was an MP. I take the point of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, about that. None the less, when as a Member of Parliament you get a large number of cases such as that, it behoves you to ask whether things are working properly. That is what you are there for.
I also cited the recent Court of Appeal judgment, which was very strong on the fact that many courts in that case had issued 82 orders and none of them had resulted in the contact that they had sought the father to make. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said that there is no evidence of bias. Of course, we do not get information from family courts about their individual decisions but there are certainly concerns among fathers themselves. I do not think that many people can top the noble and learned Baroness but in relation to Fathers 4 Justice I think I can, because they actually handcuffed me. However, as your Lordships can see, my wrists are so slender that I was able to slip out of it, much to the man’s consternation. However, I talked to some other very reasonable fathers’ groups over many years when I was Minister for Children. They testify to having difficulties and we have to take them seriously.
Having said all that, I am not sure whether we are any further forward because it depends on the Minister’s contention that the paramountcy principle cannot be overridden by a rebuttal presumption, which is that in Clause 11. So that we do not rehearse these same arguments at Report, I suggest to him with respect that he could arrange some meetings and further briefings so that we could have a discussion in a smaller environment to see whether we can find a way forward before Report. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.