Debate on the Address

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is a passionate campaigner on behalf of grandparents. When grandparents are constructive, they can make a powerful contribution, but a balance inevitably needs to be struck. Some grandparents like to interfere and meddle, and they can be really annoying. All parents know that some grandparents are not quite the saints that my hon. Friend suggests. Nevertheless, if grandparents play a constructive role in a child’s life, there is a lot to be said for them. My hon. Friend has been a passionate and trenchant campaigner in the cause of constructive grandparents—as opposed to destructive grandparents, who we could all do without. We all know people who know them—I hope my hon. Friend understands where I am coming from on that point.

We need more availability of nursery places and deregulation of the system. The figures show that dads are more involved in children’s lives than ever before. Father is no longer sitting behind a newspaper at the breakfast table, oblivious to the world: instead, dads are deeply engaged in children’s lives. So when it comes to separation, the question is what is in the interests of the children. What best serves the child’s welfare? I think that it is stability and the continuation of what they have known. So if a parent who has been heavily involved in the child’s life—as they are in the overwhelming majority of families—suddenly disappears off a cliff edge, it makes no sense. That is why the Government are right to enshrine in legislation the principle that children have the right to know and have a relationship with their parents. The way in which modern families live indicates strongly that that is what best serves child welfare.

I recognise that the judiciary and the legal system are, as always, about 30 years out of date and are astonishingly weak-kneed when it comes to ensuring the rights of children to know both their parents. That is wrong, and we need to send a clear legislative message, not just to anti-dad social workers but to the court system, that society has changed. We in Parliament get that society has changed. We get that we need stability for our children and that child welfare is best served by having minimum disturbance to that which they have been used to. If we send that message, real and positive change could be made.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned that in some way the status quo might be maintained. Does he agree that in fact there is evidence that one parent is often excluded from the life of the child by the parent with care, and that therefore the status quo may become a pattern of one-parent family life as opposed to two-parent? Does he therefore agree that the Government should say that children have an absolute right to life with both their parents unless that is unsafe?

[Charlie Elphicke]

Yes, I do. If I understand her correctly, the hon. Lady refers to the concept of shared parenting. I am personally a fan of that, but it is a difficult argument to advance at the moment because the Norgrove report looked into what happens in Australia and managed to become completely and utterly muddled about the difference between quantity of time and quality of time. Every parent knows that quality of time is what counts. In Australia, it seems to have become an issue of quantity of time and an insistence on 50:50 time, but that misses the point altogether and, therefore, misled the entire Norgrove report. Before the report was published, I spent an hour putting that case passionately to members of the panel, but they published it anyway. It will therefore be difficult to persuade the legislature that shared parenting is the right way to go, but the social changes in modern families will mean that it is almost certain to end up that way in five years’ time.

For now, the best win that can be had is to ensure that children have the right to know, and a right of access to, both their parents. If the parent with care tries to subvert that, they are not having a go at the parent without care but undermining their child and attacking the rights that their child should have. If we frame it that way, parents with care will more quickly understand that they need to think about their children, rather than themselves.

[Tessa Munt]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree, therefore, that the courts have the ultimate solution in that, if a parent with care prevents a child from accessing his or her other parent, the care can be taken up by the parent who is excluded, and that that is the ultimate sanction and might encourage parents to stick to the rules and ensure that their children have absolute access to both parents?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. May I remind the hon. Lady of Mr Speaker’s announcement at the beginning of the debate about parliamentary convention for this Session and the need for interventions to be brief, not substantive speeches or long points, interesting as they may be?