Clause 10 - Establishment of LSCBs
Children Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Shadow Minister for Women, Family; Epping Forest, Conservative)
I accept what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I was just coming to that point. We have discussed CAFCASS in other forums in the House in the past few months, and there has been a good report into its workings, which we all welcome. I sincerely hope that, given the new arrangements that he has mentioned, CAFCASS will work more efficiently and effectively in the future.
The concept of CAFCASS is good, and it ought to be providing a necessary service to the families and children who are much in need of it. I hope that it improves and that, in six months or a year, we will say, ''Oh good, CAFCASS is doing this; it is all working really well''; but it might not. Therefore, we have tabled the amendment simply to insert after the reference to CAFCASS the words ''or its successor body''. Quite simply, if there is no change to CAFCASS in the future, and it is still there, including those words in the Bill will have done no harm, because they will come into operation only if CAFCASS is changed or replaced with another body. It makes sense to include those words now so that should that change occur in the future, this provision will still continue to work as we want it to. The point is that we thoroughly support the inclusion of CAFCASS in the list of board partners. It is essential that it should be there, but if there is no CAFCASS, we want to ensure that whatever is in its place continues with that important role.