Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Hughes of Stretford and Baroness Deech

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who knows more about children’s law than practically anyone in this House. There is one real problem after divorce, which is that fathers, for whom the door is open, do not come and visit their children. We cannot do anything much about that. The clause may give such absent fathers the notion that they have rights but no responsibilities. If there is one thing that our family courts have got right in recent years, it is the welfare of the child. I very much hope that the House will listen to the wisdom of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and will let the courts get on with the good job that they have been doing without resorting to a rather artificial notion as set out in the clause as it stands.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, to which I have added my name. We had a very good debate in Committee on Clause 11 about the status of the presumption that is enshrined in that clause. Concerns about preserving the overriding status of the presumption of the best interests of the child in the Children Act have been largely assuaged.

By definition it is very difficult for both parents and children when a family breaks up, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, has underlined, things can get very heated and parents can get very focused on coming out of that conflict with what they regard as the best arrangements for them.

As I made clear in Committee, I start from the position of sharing the Government’s desire to enshrine in public policy the principle of joint parental involvement in a child’s life, including after separation. I argue that for most children, the paramount principle of the child’s welfare, as enshrined in the Children Act 1989, cannot be fully met unless both parents are fully involved in the child’s life and have a continuing relationship with the child. Perhaps slightly differently to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I think that there is an issue to be addressed here, particularly for fathers. I agree with the Government that the principle of parental involvement needs strengthening.

However, if we agree—as I think we all do—that the paramount consideration is the welfare of the child, and that this principle should not be jeopardised or diluted, then we must also ensure that the presumption in Clause 11 is not misinterpreted and applied in ways that can be detrimental to children. Specifically, Clause 11 must not send the signal that parental involvement, which regrettably the Government initially called “shared parental responsibility”, is taken to mean that the child is divided according to some a priori formula, whether that is 50-50 or something else. Clause 11 gives a right to the child to expect continued meaningful involvement by both parents after separation. It must not be interpreted as giving a right to both parents for equal—or near equal as possible—time with the child. I know that the Government’s Explanatory Notes make clear their intentions. But there are a number of reasons why the Minister must take seriously the possibility, indeed the likelihood, of such misinterpretation.

First, the experience in Australia is that 65% of fathers interpreted “shared parental responsibility” to mean equal time. Litigation between parents increased as a result, and they had to change the system. Secondly, as touched on by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth: the clause, unless it is qualified on the face of the Bill in the way that this amendment seeks, could inadvertently increase the risk of harm to children, because only 10% of separating couples resort to the courts to resolve their contact disputes, with the majority of parents reaching agreements privately. There is concern that if it is the expectation of those parents that the law now says that the child’s time has to be carved up, then some parents may seek to use the new changes as a bargaining tool and put pressure on the other parent into making contact arrangements which are not in the best interests of the child.

Again, evidence from Australia suggests that similar reforms resulted in an increased reluctance for mothers to disclose abuse, for example, with many feeling that if there is a legal presumption of shared contact, there was little point in disclosing problems in the family. Given that the vast majority of cases do not go to court, if as a result of Clause 11 there is a common perception that having the child’s time shared out will be the norm in future, then even in families where there is no abuse or there are not problems we may still see the unintended consequence of nomadic arrangements, with a child moving between homes in a way that we would all want to avoid for obvious reasons. This would not be in the interests of most children.

Finally, and very significantly, we have to respond strongly to those parts of the media, which have promoted the interpretation which we are discussing now, despite the best efforts of the Government. I do not believe that any amount of communication or clarification can shift this now. This is why Amendment 14 is so necessary—the Government’s intention and interpretation would be quite clearly on the face of the Bill, and enshrined not in guidance but in law.

Last night we received a policy statement from the Government about Clause 11 and Amendment 14. This makes clear the Government’s intention—it is not to promote a particular division of time, but they feel that the most effective way of dealing with this is through a wider communication strategy to explain to parents what the interpretation is. This is wholly inadequate, for the reason I have just expressed; this view is already well entrenched, partly because of the initial nomenclature of shared parental responsibility and partly because parts of the media have triumphantly proclaimed that this means an equal proportion of the child’s time is to be spent with father and mother. That view is now so well entrenched that I am very concerned about the impact on expectations and, therefore, on negotiations between parents, particularly those not going to court. The most emphatic and unambiguous way of disabusing people of that false impression is to put the amendment alongside Clause 11 into the Bill. The Government will then have something in law that they can go to town about in communications, explaining Amendment 14 if it became part of the Bill.