Clause 4 - Enforcement orders
Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]
1:15 pm
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
The right hon. Lady will hope in vain. Her performance both before and after lunch was exceedingly frustrating but highly illuminating. Before lunch, she seemed to be hurtling head first into the great crevasse of her own argument. She seemed to say, if I understood her clearly—that is quite a tall order, because there was a lot of legalese—that she agreed that the number of contact orders has increased substantially. Her case, with which I do not disagree, was that that increase, particularly repeat contact cases, was because contact orders had been breached, and that the problem was therefore with enforcement rather than with the way in which the courts operate in the first place. However, when I asked her why she thought contact orders were being breached, we had a rather circular argument. The reason is surely that one side does not regard the order as reasonable. That is why it is so essential that a test of reasonableness be inserted into the steer that we are trying to give the courts. She cannot have it both ways, which is why I began by saying that the Government’s solution has been to come up with penalties for the system not working rather than to try to get it working. We believe that the amendment and new clauses address that fundamental problem.
I think that at one stage the right hon. Lady grasped what we were trying to do, but she accused us of wanting to turn the system upside down. That is exactly what I was proposing, because we should be addressing the system and tailoring it to deal with the 99.2 per cent. of parents who are deemed worthy of continued contact with children. Whether that figure is 99.2 per cent., 99.1 per cent. or whatever, the presumption is that the vast majority of parents are capable of continued contact and that their children would benefit from it. For goodness’ sake, let us ensure that it is reasonable contact rather than judge everybody on the basis that they are a potential threat as represented by the 0.8 per cent. That is why it was absolutely pertinent when I challenged the Minister. If we are to apply the welfare checklist, it should be applied to parents who are in a relationship, too. Why do we metamorphose into potentially bad parents the minute that we split from a partner? I just do not see why that happens.
For some people there is some sort of metamorphosis, but the vast majority are still good parents after splitting—they still want to play as active a part as possible in their children’s upbringing. I repeat the point that I made this morning: family breakdown is not the children’s fault in most, if not all, cases. However, the Minister seems to take the view that the minute a couple break up, the non-resident parent loses his status as an obviously decent parent. We are trying to preserve that status quo: the vast majority of parents are decent parents and the vast majority of children do best when they are brought up by both their parents. That should be fundamental to the law as it stands.
That is not contradictory to the paramountcy principle. Every time that this challenge arises you can bet your bottom dollar that the usual twaddle will come back, “Oh but that this will undermine the paramountcy of the welfare of the child.” Of course it does not. The welfare of the child is augmented and enhanced, unless there is a case proven to the contrary, by reasonable contact, maximised as much as possible, with both parents, one with custody and one without.