Clause 7 - Co-operation to improve well-being
Children Bill [Lords]
8:55 am
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
As the sun peeps through the steely south London sky, it is a great pleasure to welcome you once again to the Chair, Mr. Benton. I intend to gallop through these amendments, but if I leave anything to the imagination, I am happy to take interventions.
Amendment No. 210 would ensure that when parents separated, children's services authorities would take account of the wishes of both parents in relation to any decisions taken about the children. I
shall give two examples of how that would have made my life, and those of some of my constituents, easier in recent months.
The first example relates to school choice. There is no guidance to local authorities about whose choice of the child's schooling they should take account of when parents are separated. In my constituency, there was a family whose parents did not live too far apart, and the child shared access to both parents. One school was conveniently situated between their homes and another was well away to one side of the home of one parent and so much less convenient for the other parent. If the child had been educated at the second school, it would have been more difficult for them to have access to the second parent.
The form for the parent to indicate a choice of school went home with the child when they were staying with the first parent, who chose the school further away from the home of the second parent. That made it difficult for the second parent to be involved in the schooling of the child to the extent that they would have wished. The local authority could say only that, because it got the form from the first parent, it could not take account of the choice of the second parent, because only one choice could be exercised for each child. I would like to amend the clause to require public authorities to take account of the wishes of both parents in such circumstances.
The second example is of a child living hundreds of miles away from my constituency with a parent who is separated from her spouse. In that case, the second parent is unable to obtain information about the child's schooling, because the school has been told that he has no parental rights—it has not inquired of him whether he has any parental rights—and it has refused, for example, to pass on letters from the second parent to the child, and to pass on reports to the second parent.
I see the Minister of State shaking her head as if to say that those things should not happen. I accept that they should not, but sadly they do. It may be unnecessary to amend the Bill in the way that I propose to take account of the second case, but it is helpful to underline the issues. On the first example, there must be an explicit requirement for the local authority to take account of the wishes not only of the parent who happens to reply first, but of both parents.
Amendment No. 221 would place a similar requirement on children's services authorities in respect of parents having access. The placing by one parent of impediments to the other parent's access to the child is one of the gravest concerns surrounding separation. The amendment would require a children's services authority to
''take all reasonable steps to facilitate the implementation of any court order . . . or in the absence of such an order the child's access to each parent.''
Of course, that would apply not where parental access and responsibility had been denied by the court but where it had been permitted.
Amendment No. 222 would require the judiciary to have regard to the needs of children. It includes the judiciary in the bodies with responsibility for making
arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. That relates in particular to my new clause 44, which simply says that the courts should have regard to the desirability of a child having appropriate access not only to parents but to siblings and grandparents. I say ''appropriate'' access because clearly the extent of access to siblings and, in particular, grandparents may be less than that which is appropriate for parents. None the less, it is now recognised as important that children should have access to their grandparents where that is reasonably practicable.
I tabled the new clause because in recent adoption proceedings the interests of the child who was up for adoption were, rightly, paramount, but the courts appeared to have no regard to the needs of his sister, who remained with the original family. I have read the judgment—which I understand I should not have done—and it is clear that it did not refer to the needs of the sibling. That is wrong and something that we should take account of in the Bill.
New clause 42, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), would establish
''the presumption that a child's welfare is best served through residence with its parents''
and the presumption—it is a presumption only, but it is a starting point—that a child should have equal access to each parent. That is not unreasonable. The new clause does not in any way insist that a child be divided between each parent, but it says that a child's interests are well served if he has access to both parents.