Clause 1 - Contact activity directions and conditions
Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Maria Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Children and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Liverpool, Garston, Labour)
I had not realised that I looked quite as bad as the hon. Lady suggests. None the less, I am grateful to her for wishing me well.
The hon. Lady may be aware that we have committed ourselves to commissioning the research that she asks for, and to investigating how courts approach contact cases, so that we can get a fuller picture and can consider whether any further change is necessary, in the law or elsewhere. That research has been commissioned, and we expect the body to report. When it does, we will, no doubt, publish it so that people can see the implications.
I was trying to argue that amendment No. 46 would make the definition of “contact activity” rather too narrow. I listened to what the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said about the shortcomings of particular parties, and I have some concerns about it. I understand that he is trying to promote contact orders that are relevant and pertinent; one hopes that a sensible court and judge would not order contact activities that were neither. I hope that they would use their common sense to make sure that contact activities assisted in sorting out the problem, and were not irrelevant to it.
Aside from the potential delay caused by holding finding-of-fact hearings, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is really convinced that identifying specific shortcomings in one party would assist in the resolution of what, after all, are very complex contact cases, where relationship breakdown has led to a lack of understanding between the adults involved. Having the court point fingers about significant shortcomings in one of the adults is hardly more likely to lead to an easy resolution than the wider wording currently in the Bill. Although I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, I do not believe that his amendment would assist.
I really appreciate the intention behind amendment No. 2, which is to ensure that the court does not order activities that may take a long time to set up or that may require the party’s involvement for extended periods. I reassure Committee members that those concerns are dealt with in the Bill, and by existing provisions of the Children Act. For example, proposed new section 11E(2) requires the activity that a court proposes to be appropriate to the circumstances of the case. I hope that that will also go some way toward dealing with relevancy and pertinence, which the hon. Gentleman raised in respect of amendment No. 46. It means that if the contact activity provider were unable to provide the activity for some time, or the activity required attendance for a long period, the court would have to consider whether the resulting delay to the outcome of the case would outweigh the benefit to the parties attending the activity. The Children Act requires the court to ensure that delay in proceedings is minimised—the hon. Gentleman knows that very well. Obviously, the court will apply its mind to that when making contact activity directions.
New section 11E also stipulates that the activity provider must be suitable to provide the activity, which would go to the question of the availability of the activity concerned, and that the activity should be provided in a place that the person undertaking it can reasonably travel to. Those provisions mean that the court would have to be convinced that an activity was particularly necessary before making an order that would cause delay in the way that the amendment envisages.
It is important to bear it in mind that the court will order contact activity conditions at the same time that it makes an order for contact. Therefore, it will often be the case that contact activities and contact take place in parallel, so any delay caused by going on the course or the contact activity will not necessarily prevent ongoing contact in suitable cases with the child or children.
As part of the process of referring parties to contact activities, the court will take account of available local provision and will make an assessment of who is best placed to provide which courses. In that respect, the Bill also provides that the court may ask a Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service officer or a Welsh family proceedings officer to provide such information as it requires on such matters. I hope that that will give some reassurance in respect of amendment No. 2.
The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham and the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) referred to resources, which of course are important. The predecessor of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families made it clear that we would not commence the Bill unless we were convinced that the available resources were such that it could be properly commenced.
The hon. Gentleman referred to £7.5 million that was recently made available for contact centres and suggested that it was intended for doing them up. The money is intended not for doing up child contact centres but to support child contact services, including those provided in child contact centres.