Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Meston Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, it is good to be back scrutinising the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill after what seems like a long break. But noble Lords will remember that, while I think all sides of the House supported the approach of family group conferencing or a family group decision-making meeting, as described in the Bill, a number of points required clarification. I think those are still outstanding and I hope the Minister will be able to cover them in her response today.

Amendment 1 seeks to clarify what the Government really intend to implement. We have been told that the introduction of family group decision-making is based on the success of the pilot sites in the Families First for Children pathfinders, but the evaluation published in July is clear that family group conferencing, not family group decision-making meetings, was used in the pilot sites when children were on the cusp of care proceedings. Which approach is it and if it is not family group conferencing, what is the evidence base?

I suppose I am concerned that the Government are not actually committed to following the evidence-based family group conferencing model, but a slimmer or stripped-down version that we might call “FGC light”. The evaluation published in July did not have any outcome data and was largely a process evaluation, because of the stage the pilots are at.

Amendment 2 aims to press the Government for a commitment to no dilution of the model. The Bill talks about a meeting while the evaluation talks about the importance of careful preparation, including pre-meetings, and that being followed by funded support through the family network support package. Again, can the Minister be clear that the Government are proposing that the evidence-informed model is followed?

Turning to Amendment 3, we questioned in Committee whether it was necessary to have a duty to offer family group decision-making in statute at all, and in particular at the point of care proceedings, when there is already an expectation set out in the statutory guidance to the Children Act that this should be offered. Our amendments in Committee included a focus on using family group conferencing at different points in the safeguarding process, and it seems that the evaluation published in July agrees with this. On page 58, it recommends that:

“The timing of the offer of”


family group conferences

“needs to be explored in greater detail to establish clarity around the pros and cons of offering it at different phases in the family’s journey”.

Amendment 3 would require family group decision-making or family group conferencing to be offered at the point when a child who has been in care returns to their original family, something that occurs in over a quarter of cases. This is an obvious point at which additional support would be helpful and could avoid a second care placement, as happens all too frequently—in about a third of those cases. It does not take much imagination to appreciate how traumatic and damaging it is for children and their parents for that to happen.

Finally, Amendment 5, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who brings great personal experience to this topic, introduces the idea of a kinship support plan. As we will come to in a later group, we believe that the Government need to take action to increase the number of foster and kinship carers beyond what is already proposed. The idea of a kinship support plan is to increase the resilience of a kinship care placement by offering additional support, either from the local authority directly or from wider community resources. I wonder whether the Government are considering anything of this type, which would increase the chances of successful kinship placements.

These are cases where the threshold of significant harm will have been met, and therefore it is reasonable to offer additional support to carers and right-touch oversight of the safety and well-being of the child in their care. I beg to move.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, we should be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for returning us to this important topic of family group conferences and for the refined amendments she has now presented, including Amendment 3, to which I have added my name. They would embed what is now established as good practice into legislation. I also welcome the noble Baroness’s request for clarification of what lies behind the differing terminology.

The Government, to their credit, recognise the important role of family group decision-making meetings. The arguments for such conferences are strong, enabling family members to be informed about local authorities’ concerns and proposals, including the wider family members, who may have been kept in the dark or given an incomplete version of the problems from just the parents’ perspective, perhaps coloured by a negative view of the local authority’s intentions. They are a good opportunity to maintain focus on the child or children while listening to and respecting the views of the family, particularly if the family has otherwise been marginalised.

As well as sharing information, conferences allow social workers to explore and assess what family members might have to offer, and what support might assist them to help divert cases away from legal proceedings. There is no doubt that family group conferences secure considerable financial savings for local authorities and for the courts. I emphasise the point that the noble Baroness has made: proper preparation for them is essential.

Ideally, such conferences should take place as early as possible, and at the pre-proceedings stage that we discussed in Committee. However, Amendment 3 would also require such a meeting to be offered when it is planned that the child will be returned to the care of family members. Again, that would be a good opportunity for informed discussion to clarify the expectations of the local authority for the future care of the child, and to discuss any difficulties that may have to be confronted. I hope, therefore, that the Government will use these amendments as an opportunity to build such points into the legal structure.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, while welcoming the Government’s amendment to ensure that the child’s voice is heard in family group decision-making, I add my support to the amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran.

As we discussed in Committee, family group decision-making is a broad, generic term—without clear principles and standards—about what families can expect. Indeed, the Explanatory Notes for the Bill themselves state that

“FGDM is an umbrella term”.

As a result, concern remains, unsupported by evidence, among charities and organisations supporting vulnerable families that FGDM approaches may proliferate at a local level as a result of the lack of specificity in the Bill. As my noble friend highlighted, that is despite clear evidence, both in the UK and internationally, that family group conferences in particular are a successful and effective model for diverting children from care and supporting them to remain in their family. If the Minister is unable to accept Amendment 2, I hope that in her response she will be able to provide strong reassurance that, in the regulations and statutory guidance, it will be made clear that local authorities will be expected to follow the principles and standards drawn from the robust national and international research findings on the efficacy of the group conference approach.

I turn to Amendment 3. As was highlighted during our discussions in Committee, reunification is the most common way for children to leave care but, sadly, too many reunifications break down due to lack of support. There is currently no strategy by which to support reunifying families, and 78% of local authorities admit that what they provide is inadequate. In winding up our previous debate on this issue, the Minister said that she had some sympathy with the objective of including this measure in the Bill, not least because of the challenges of reunification, and the need to ensure that it is supported. I hope, then, that even at this late stage, the Minister might look favourably on accepting this amendment, as it could make a real difference to the stability of a child’s return home.

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Moved by

[Lord Meston]

27: After Clause 4, insert the following new Clause—
“Child contact centres(1) All child contact centres and child contact organisations that offer child contact services must be accredited in accordance with national standards for safeguarding and preventing domestic abuse.(2) The accreditation in subsection (1) must be granted by the National Association of Child Contact Centres.(3) The Secretary of State must by regulations made by statutory instrument specify the standards and accreditation procedure under subsection (1). (4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, is unable to be here and has therefore asked me to lead on this amendment. It follows on from that moved by the noble Baroness in Committee on 22 May last year. As I have said, the noble Baroness regrets that she is unavailable, but I want just to take a moment to recognise her dedicated support for the work of child contact centres and her wish to maintain and raise the standards of such centres, standards which are already high if accredited by the national association.

This is a more straightforward amendment than that moved in Committee. It would simply require all contact centres and organisations to be accredited in accordance with national standards for safeguarding and preventing domestic abuse, with such accreditation to be granted by the National Association of Child Contact Centres.

There can be no doubt about the value and effectiveness of child contact centres, as they have evolved, since the first was set up in the late 1980s in Nottingham by a family court magistrate to help those separated parents who could not arrange contact for themselves. The centres allow parents and children to adjust to child contact in a safe and neutral environment.

The use of such centres, when court-directed, has been reinforced since 2000 by judicial protocols, the first of which was endorsed by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, when president of the Family Division, and was later updated and revised by her successors. One of those was Sir James Munby, who sadly died earlier this month. In a speech in 2018, he said:

“Everyone in the family justice system knows just what a vital role is played by Child Contact Centres and the contact centre movement. Child Contact Centres enable contact which otherwise might not occur to take place and they play a central part in maintaining, and if necessary restoring and rebuilding, the child’s relationship with parents, grandparents and other relatives”.


He went on to say:

“NACCC and the whole contact centre movement are a distinguished example of the voluntary sector at its very best and of civic society operating as it should”.


Sir James, for those who knew him, was never given to understatement, but in that he was completely correct.

It is the experience of all of us who work, or have worked, in the family justice system that such centres are now essential in enabling courts, Cafcass and those advising parents, but also unrepresented parents and marginalised grandparents, to manage contact problems and disputes. They facilitate supported contact and, for those cases requiring more vigilance, they can provide supervised contact.

Typically, use of a centre is a fairly short-term measure—a temporary solution on the way to more normalised arrangements. It is certainly the experience of all judges that it is very gratifying to see contact arrangements progress in a way that moves the arrangements away from the centre, perhaps after six months or so, with the use of a well-run centre having reassured, typically, an anxious mother and/or a suspicious and resentful father, that contact can proceed away from the centre and in the community.

The strengths and potential weaknesses of contact centres were shown in the recent report by Cordis Bright, published in 2023. This amendment builds on that. Its emphasis is on the use of

“national standards for safeguarding and preventing domestic abuse”.

Those who refer a family to a centre should already be required to inform the centre of the relevant background history and, in particular, any violence, abusive behaviour or conflict, so that the more profound problems can be screened out and conflict avoided.

Those working in centres need training to identify and deal with the risks. Having accreditation, as proposed in the amendment, which would require all centres to work to the same standard, will be important in helping centres deliver their services. It will underpin the confidence of those using or thinking of using such centres and will further safeguard the children concerned. It is on that basis that I beg to move.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with every word of the noble Lord, Lord Meston. One of the rather sad aspects of a minority of families who cannot get on and separate is that they so often do not recognise that the children love both of them. It is all too common for one parent to say, “The child won’t want to see daddy; she can’t stand him”, or for daddy to say, “I know that I won’t be allowed to see her; that woman can’t bear me”. This is, I regret to tell your Lordships, absolutely typical.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

No, and this was the point I was accepting when I said I would ensure that our noble friend Lady Levitt is informed about it from this debate. As I have said, I am sure we will want to give more thought to how the labelling, almost, of the accreditation that does exist for the vast majority of contact centres can perhaps be made more obvious to courts in the sorts of circumstances that my noble friend identified.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the contributions to the debate on this amendment. It seems to me that the debate has exposed two possible problems. First, there is no sanction for the creation or use of an unregistered contact centre. Secondly, there is a gap in the knowledge of what is available, whether registered or unregistered. The Cordis Bright report was aware of that gap, and I suggest it is a worrying gap. It may well be, as Cordis Bright reported, that there is only limited evidence as to the prevalence of non-accredited centres, but it is still a small number, which could do quite a lot of damage.

That said, I think it is important to understand that the courts, when ordering contact, will always apply the protocols that are laid down by the president of the Family Division. I am also reassured by the Minister’s indication that mediators and indeed, possibly, others who have responsibility for guiding people towards contact centres, will be required to use only accredited centres.

We are not working from a blank page; there is already an excellent network of centres. On that basis, and because of the work that the Minister has been good enough to indicate is being undertaken, particularly by the Ministry of Justice, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 27 withdrawn.