My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on skilfully steering this Bill to Committee stage. I thank her very much, too, for communicating with the Government about the amendments and the thinking behind them; we are extremely grateful for that clarification.
The Government’s position was made clear at Second Reading and it would not be helpful to repeat that position at this stage. Since then, the noble Baroness has met my ministerial colleague, Simon Hughes, who has responsibility for this policy and is aware of the Government’s thinking. I will restrict my comments in Committee to one or two brief points about the amendments and leave it very much at that.
The first amendment relates to Clause 1 and the protection of children on divorce, and it is of course convenient to take Clause 6 stand part together with the amendment. Amendment 1 limits what was the repeal of all of Section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 to subsection (2) of that section, which contains the list of matters to which the court must have regard in deciding how to exercise its ancillary relief powers. This amendment leaves the other provisions of Section 25 in place and, accordingly, restores the court’s duty to give first consideration to children of the family in deciding how to exercise ancillary relief powers, retaining the list of matters to which the court must have regard in making specific financial relief awards in relation to children of the family. The amendment adds considerably to protection for children given in the Bill. As a result of this, the noble Baroness has indicated that she does not wish Clause 6, which contained the previous provision for children in the Bill, to stand part of the Bill. The Government welcome this improvement in protection for children.