Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Faulks

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, first and rather belatedly, I welcome the Minister. I can tell him that he missed a lot of very interesting discussions in his absence, but I am sure that he is well acquainted with where we have reached with the Bill. We look forward to working with him on these issues in the future.

Our names were also added to the amendment in Committee and on Report, so we feel we have a little ownership of it. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, put it very well: there seems to be an established procedure that our wording can never be quite good enough and that it has to be corrected. We accept that the current wording is marginally better in terms of tidying up, so we are grateful for that. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, have said, the important thing now is how this is communicated because there was some miscommunication before. We are grateful to hear the plans that the Minister has for publicity because we would stress how important it is to get the message out there by whatever means necessary. Having said that, we are pleased to support the amendment.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Howarth, and to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for their contributions. Nobody claims exclusive possession of this amendment. It has been very much a joint effort and I include the Opposition in that. We take on board what has been observed about the importance of the message getting through. We will undertake to share the information with Families Need Fathers, both for accuracy and tone so that there can be no misunderstandings. The information will also be made clear to parents at the mediation stage in identical terms. I accept that the dissemination of this information is crucially important so that nobody can be under any misapprehensions, as were discussed in earlier debates on the Bill.