Children’s Access to Parents

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Ms Osborne. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who has expressed the feelings of millions of people throughout the country in what he has said. As ever, his speech contained an enormous amount of research and interesting facts.

I will speak for only a minute or so, because other hon. Members want to speak. I want to talk about just two things. First, there is a father in my constituency of Harlow, Mr Colin Riches, whose children have been denied access to him. It is a tragic case, which shows why the law must change. Secondly—this relates to what my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) has said—I am campaigning on behalf of the Grandparents’ Association, whose headquarters is in my constituency. We are asking for children to have the legal right to letterbox access to their grandparents. Put simply, that is the right to send and receive cards at birthdays and Christmas.

I have worked with Mr Colin Riches to table an e-petition—No. 23102—and I have raised his case many times in Parliament with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and others. The crux of his e-petition is this:

“Shared parenting should become the natural position in the UK. It’s in the best interest of the child. The law should be there to protect children’s relationships with both parents. It needs to show children that both their parents are treated with equality. So that children who have been cared for by both parents and grandparents do not suffer the pain of a living bereavement.”

I welcome the fact that the Government are looking into this matter, most recently through the family justice review, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover. That review was a ratchet in the right direction, because it accepted this point:

“More should be done to allow children to have a voice in proceedings.”

However, although I welcome some of the review’s contents, it does not go nearly far enough to help families such as that of Colin Riches.

I have had a very positive letter from the Minister—by chance, it arrived today—regarding my constituent, Mr Riches. In that letter, the Minister mentions that the review stops short of recommending a change in the law, because of the risk that a change could both encourage litigation and compromise the key principle of the Children Act 1989. As has been said, however, the law is clearly balanced too far in one direction—it is weighted against fathers and grandparents—and we need a change in the law to redress the balance.

I am nevertheless grateful to the Minister for his sympathetic response to my letter. He says that the Government will

“explore possible options for strengthening the expectation that both of a child’s parents should continue to be involved with the child’s care, post-separation”.

Will the Minister meet me and Mr Riches to discuss these issues more fully?

Secondly, I want briefly to ask the Minister about the work of the Grandparents’ Association. Last Thursday, I joined my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole at No. 10 Downing street to hand in a petition with more than 7,000 names calling for children to have the right to letterbox access to their grandparents—the right to send and receive cards on special occasions. That is a very small but symbolic thing, especially in the run-up to Christmas. Sadly, throughout Britain today, thousands of children are denied any access to their grandparents, even on birthdays and during the holiday season, which is often caused by family conflict.

Again, to be fair, the Government are considering the issue. I had a very positive response from the Leader of the House last week, when I raised the matter at business questions, but if the Minister could give a clear commitment to examine the issue, it would be hugely welcomed by grandparents in my constituency, the Grandparents’ Association and millions of grandparents up and down the land. It would be a tiny gesture, but it could transform the lives of many families. Ultimately, this is about the right of children to know who their family are and to have a chance to communicate with them. In the context of what the Government are doing to support the family, surely that is the right thing to do. Both the issues that I have raised fit with what we said in opposition, so I very much hope that we will be able to do something in the months and years ahead.

[Andrew Percy]

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