It would be extremely regrettable if the Family Procedure Rule Committee were to refuse to embark on this exercise, particularly in the light of the comments made in the House today and in the other place. It is clearly something that should be done. That is as far as I can reasonably go at the Dispatch Box. That is essentially our position on Amendment 91: let us take it down the route of the Family Procedure Rule Committee.
Amendment 83 brings us to Jade’s law and Clause 16. This is where one parent murders the other. It is a very specific situation, because you have got only one parent left. In all other situations that we are discussing, you have two parents. Amendment 83 concerns where the parent who has committed the murder is a victim of domestic abuse. That is the purpose of this. The Government’s position—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Meston, came quite close to saying the same thing—is that this is effectively already dealt with in the existing Clause 16. It does not suspend parental responsibility for an offender convicted of voluntary manslaughter where it would not be in the interests of justice to do so.
We are talking here about a Sally Challen-type case, if I may use that expression. The “interest of justice” test is one with which Crown Court judges are familiar in the context of sentencing guidelines. Engaging the test is a matter for judicial discretion, but certainly in those cases where the victim has lashed out after years of abuse, they are very likely to fall within this exception, and that is why we have provided for voluntary manslaughter.
It does not seem to the Government that we need any more formal provision in the existing Clause 16 to take account of the situation where the murderer has suffered domestic abuse, because that is already implicit in the clause. If it were the case that, for some reason, Clause 16 was nonetheless to bite, it does, as has been pointed out, provide a pathway for review by the family court. The family court is not going to take away parental responsibility from a mother who has lashed out, if I may use that expression. The Government’s view is we do not need Amendment 83: it is already fairly well covered. I take these points quite shortly because I think it is important to keep this debate fairly short.
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Amendment 92—and the situation where we have both parents still alive—seeks to remove the presumption of parental involvement where a child or a parent is a victim of domestic abuse as defined by the Bill. I caution against trying to amend family law in the context of this Bill. The presumption of parental involvement is central to family law: we already have protections under the Children Act 1989 and a forthcoming review is about to be published by the ministry. We have the Family Procedure Rules, and we have practice direction 12J, which deals with all the protections for children.
The important point is to strike the right balance between the benefits a child receives from the involvement of both parents and preventing harm to the child. Those are challenging things, but we should leave it to the individual circumstances of each case and work with the judiciary, with careful consideration and without, in this context, changing what is effectively the foundation
of the Children Act 1989 in relation to the law on presumption of parental involvement. The Government would caution against going down that that route.
We had an important debate on this last night, in a Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, about the importance of the involvement of both parents in children’s lives and the work of the new pathfinder courts in dealing with these cases. Let us not divert all that good work by trying to review and amend family law in the context of this victims Bill. We are dealing only with victims in this case. That is the Government’s position on Amendment 92.
Amendment 80 seeks to extend the automatic expansion of Jade’s law to those who have been convicted of a sexual offence against the child, and that is linked to Amendment 84. Again, this is quite an important extension of the principle. As drawn, the amendment refers to “the child” and another child and “a sexual offence”, which could be a very wide concept as it includes lesser offences, as well as serious ones. The Government’s position is that, once you start to go down the road of Jade’s law, you have to be a bit careful about where the stopping point is to give the criminal court power to remove parental responsibility.
The Government’s position is that, in the case of child rape, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler- Sloss, said, the issue would be very clear. We propose to move an amendment in another statutory vehicle for the automatic suspension of parental responsibility in cases where an offender has been sentenced for the rape of a child, which will mirror the approach taken in Clause 16. There will be a review by the family court and so forth.
Beyond that, I caution this House against going further at this point. This is an important and novel change to the law around parental responsibility; we must go very carefully and understand the impact on the children and families of perpetrators. Adding a wide range of offences under which this mechanism would be triggered would put significant pressure on the family court and be quite difficult operationally. In the Government’s view, one should not go as far as the present amendment does. However, we are prepared to move an amendment in another Bill on the specific case of the rape of a child. The Government respectfully suggest that this is a sounder response than this very widely drawn amendment.
Government Amendments 81 and 82 clarify certain technical points about the operation of Clause 16, which I do not think I need explain in more detail.