Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380-399)
18 JANUARY 2005
BARONESS ASHTON
OF UPHOLLAND
AND RT
HON MARGARET
HODGE MBE, MP
Q380 Keith Vaz: I take the point about
delay?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
—about how the perceptions of bias would be there. I am
clear, and I know the judiciary in all their evidence to you have
been clear, that it is not about any kind of bias in the proceedings
that go before the court; and if one looks at the numbers of orders
that are given for contact, and so on, I think that is very clear.
The question is two-fold. I think, the underlying issue, because
particularly for fathers who feel, quite rightly, totally aggrieved
and distraught on occasions about what happens, we need to look
beyond what they perceive to what the practical realities are
of the problem that they are faced with in not seeing the children
who they clearly love and wish to see and should see. The answer
to that comes in the whole series of ways in which we try to address
it, and it is about delay, it is about enforcement; it is also,
if I might say, about the real cultural shift which we need to
make, which is recognising that fathers play, and should play,
an incredibly important role in the upbringing of their children
and that needs to be recognised in a societal way. If it has been
determined to be in the best interests the child to see dad, it
is completely unacceptable for another parent, unless there are
issues of harm, to refuse that. It is about the message getting
out from the courts, but also from all of us that this is a really
important statement, and the implications for children will be
entirely negative if that is not done.
Q381 Keith Vaz: I asked the President
of the Family Division if she had met the various groups, some
of them more moderate than others, and her response was that she
would not; she would obviously meet people she felt appropriate.
But, as politicians, there is nothing to stop be you meeting the
likes of Sir Bob Geldof and other groups to discuss these issues.
Presumably you have had meetings with Fathers4Justice, the Equal
Parenting Council, Sir Bob and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all, because
it informs you better about the subject that you are involved
in. Is that right?
Margaret Hodge: I have had meetings
with Sir Bob Geldof himself, in fact a lengthy two hour attempt
to see a coming together of views, and I have met the other main
fathers' groups. I have not met Fathers4Justice, and I think I
would not do so.
Q382 Chairman: Except in rather unfriendly
circumstances.
Margaret Hodge: They attempted
to meet me!
Q383 Keith Vaz: In the ministerial foreword
today obviously we have three cabinet ministers who will tell
us that they have 10 children between them, so they must have
some practical knowledge of dealing with children it says, "The
Government firmly believes that both parents should continue to
have a meaningful relationship with their children after separation
as long as it is safe and in the child's best interests."
This is not happening at the moment, is it?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
It happens in a great number of cases. I do not think we should
lose sight of how many cases are resolved out of court (90%) and
how many cases within court are resolved and work. Nor should
we lose sight of the fact that a lot of parents who do have prime
responsibility for children would love their children to have
more contact with a non-resident parent. I think it is important
to put it in context. Having said all that, which I know the Committee
accepts, there are cases where it does not work and where we have
a parent, quite often but not always the father, who feels quite
understandably aggrieved, and the work that we have done with
the fathers' organisations, who have been very important in the
work that we have now produced, has been to try and address what
I describe as the underlying practical issues that will make the
difference for them and enable them to see the children they love.
Margaret Hodge: The ONS study,
which no doubt your Committee is well familiar with, showed I
think this really interesting finding, that there are twice as
many resident parents who felt that there was not enough contact
with the non-resident parent than there were non-resident parents
who felt there was not enough contact with the child. I know the
statistics are far from perfect in this area, but that is an interesting
perception. Again, if you think about that in practical terms,
CSA issues and all that sort of stuff, there are too many fathers
who disappear from their children's lives, not because the mothers
try to stop them—the mothers want a continuing relationship—but
because they chose for some reason or other to do so. There are
lots of features and aspects to this issue, part of which you
are addressing in your inquiry.
Q384 Keith Vaz: But, going back to my
original question, if the resident parent digs her heels in—because
it would be more likely to be a woman than man on these issues
on the statistics that we have—there is nothing we can do
about it. Even though the foreword says, "In time it needs
to be socially unacceptable for one parent to impede a child's
relationship", it is one thing saying it should be socially
unacceptable, which means a cultural change, and another thing
about government action to try and do something to prevent this
happening?
Margaret Hodge: The draft legislation,
which we are deliberately putting through pre-legislative scrutiny
so that people have an opportunity to consider it properly,
is largely about the additional enforcement powers that we wish
to give the courts to ensure that there is greater contact between
children and the non-resident parent.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
And at speed.
Q385 Chairman: Would you like briefly
to describe those for us: the new powers that you are intending
to introduce in the new Bill?
Margaret Hodge: What will be in
the Bill?
Q386 Chairman: On this particular point:
enforcement?
Margaret Hodge: I think I am in
some difficulty. I am never quite sure about the protocols about
this issue.
Chairman: You gave an indication, certainly
ministers on the radio this morning gave an indication, that there
would be powers of enforcement, and I think we are therefore entitled
to know what they are.
Q387 Ross Cranston: It is at paragraph
98 of the document.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
As you will know, it is quite difficult when you look at enforcement
to ensure that in doing enforcement you do not, in a sense, act
against a child's interests, so we have considered issues to do
with whether you had a custodial sentence or whether you fined
a parent. In the end those are questionable in terms of whether
they are acts for the child, so the areas we are examining are
the question of community service, looking at whether we can make
parents go into parenting classes to understand the implications
of what they are doing, and to look at areas such as curfew, because
one of the things that is raised is that there will be a dispute
between—. Let us put mum and dad in the stereo typical view.
Dad turns up for a visit. Mum does not answer the doorbell. Dad
goes back to court. Mum says he never came. He says, "I came,
but you were not in", and so it goes on, so trying to enforce
the person being in the house available for when the child goes
on the visit. Those are examples of the areas that we want to
look at in pre-legislative scrutiny.
Q388 Chairman: You have not quite decided
yet whether you want to take these powers?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
We are going to take powers. The issue in terms of the pre-legislative
scrutiny is are these the most appropriate enforcement opportunities
to give the courts a range of possibilities, again, so they can
look case by case and try and enforce it? I do not want in any
way to suggest that the cultural change is not what I think ultimately
has to happen, but I would not want Mr Vaz, in particular, to
feel that we are not also backing that up by saying it is unacceptable.
The other question is the speed with which it comes back to the
court: because one of the issues around delay is that if months
and months go by and dad does not see the child, the status
quo in a sense is that the child has not seen him, and if
the child is quite young it is a long time in the child's life.
Q389 Keith Vaz: Yes, but, as the Chairman
as said, it is not just about contact: because you can get these
orders, but if they are not enforced— I have had many examples
of fathers in particular who have come to my surgery to complain
exactly describing the situation that you have described. We also
had the President giving evidence to us telling us that she felt
it was wrong for people to clock-watch, but I have some fathers
who come and plead with me and they say, "She did not open
the door for 10 minutes, so I have lost 10 minutes." Those
10 minutes, if it is one visit every fortnight, are absolutely
crucial, and unless parents believe the courts are going to act
to enforce, since there are no other measures that we can adopt
to increase contact if there is not an order, then there is going
to be no confidence in the system?
Margaret Hodge: Cathy has mentioned
a range of the community service based orders. There are others.
I can give you another instance. There is something about a big
heavy fine on a poor mother which seems inappropriate, does not
appear to serve the interest of the child. However, for example,
fining a mother for the cost of the travel. If the father travelled
and was not able to see his child, fining for the cost of a holiday
that did not happen. Those sorts of things are the community-based
orders we are looking at. Can I make another point? This is a
CAFCASS point. If a court makes an order, at the moment nobody
does anything, and, if the order does not work, one of the parties
has to come back to the court. What we would like to see CAFCASS
doing over time, and it is clearly part of this refocusing and
reconfiguring of their work, is part of their job ought to be
that the order is implemented; so you ring up.
Q390 Keith Vaz: But some of them are
very proactive; they actually check whether the access has taken
place. They ring up on a Monday morning?
Margaret Hodge: Quite. The earlier
you intervene the better you can do it, the more you can conciliate,
the more you can mediate.
Q391 Peter Bottomley: Early intervention
is a good idea?
Margaret Hodge: Early intervention
is a good idea. I have to say to Mr Bottomley—that might
have been said in facetious way—we have always said early
intervention is a good idea.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
Can I add one other thing to Mr Bottomley on that? One of the
other issues I am sure you have had from parents in your surgery
as a constituency MP is where children simply refuse to come on
an access visit because they have been told that dad is impossible,
and this that and the other. One of the things we are going to
look at—I do not have any solutions to this, but I did not
want you to think that we have not got this under consideration—is
what advice and support we can give to children in that context
so that they do get impartial support to deal with those issues
and not feel, again, that they are having to make the kinds of
choices that are inappropriate for them to have to make. That
is an important issue as well.
Chairman: I think Mr Soley wants to come
in.
Q392 Mr Soley: One question and part
observation. First of all apologies for missing the earlier part;
I had an appointment. This issue of the perception of fathers,
which actually is very important because the perception is real
even if there is not actually legalistic discrimination, how much
have you considered this: that it is partly the role of the man
in our society where it is almost an expectation, though it is
not totally, obviously, that they get to be the ones who leave
the home? The representation of the issue of the resident parent
being in a stronger position anyway, that is compounded by it.
I also ask you this: are we not under-estimating the feelings
of the child on this, because the child will often be angry or
dismayed as a result of the parent who leaves the home and may
also find that more difficult to cope with in terms of the parent
coming back to see them. Is it not right that the three factors
that come together here that we have to give more attention to
is obviously the issue of delay and clearly also the issue of
enforcement, because that allows manipulation by the resident
parent, but the other factor is the CAFCASS work plan paying more
attention to this very difficult area of the frustration of the
child about the person who has left the home?
Margaret Hodge: I agree with everything
that you have said. I think one of the reasons that this is an
issue that we are all thinking about at present is the changing
nature of the family—and I do not under-estimate that at
all—in two regards: first of all, that more children are
going to experience separation and divorce of their parents—it
is a third now of children who will go through that, so it is
impacting on a large number of children—and, secondly, there
is a change in the role of fathers. In my lifetime, from when
my kids were little to now seeing my grandchildren, you see a
fantastic difference. When I used to go to the primary school
there were not any men there. You now go to a primary school and
there are a growing number of men picking up their kids. Even
as I go round Sure Start centres, which I spent a lot of time
doing, and they did not exist 20 years ago, but you would not
have seen dads there and now you see a growing number of dads
with their very little babies who have care of the babies. That
means that the demands of society and the legislators and all
the agencies working with children and families has to alter to
have regard to that, and I have no doubt—it is one of the
interesting things—we will to return this again over time
as the nature of the family changes. If I look at it now, I think
a sort of legislative framework putting the interests of the
child first, an emphasis on mediation and conciliation and getting
it outside the courts and then a tougher armoury around the enforcement
area is the appropriate response in society as we know it today,
but all the social workers I talk to, all the CAFCASS workers,
all the lawyers, the judges, all the solicitors are all beginning
to think through the changing nature of the family. If you had
gone to a solicitor 20/25 years ago, they would have said, "Mum
will get the child", and actually that is no longer necessarily
true, which is why these allegations that the courts are gender
bias are false. I think over time that will evolve and it may
require a different legislative settlement in five, 10 years'
time.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
Can I add to that. One of the issues, though, again talking about
children, is continuity for the child. What happens in so many
families in the tragedy of family break down is that parents will
try and think about keeping the child with its familiar lifestyle—its
home, its school, its friends, and so on—and that, almost
by definition, has an implication about where the child will stay,
not necessarily with whom, but where, and I think we need to make
sure that we do not lose sight of that as being a critical factor
in how children develop. It is certainly a factor, we know, in
what happens to looked-after children when they not only lose
their family, which may be for very good reasons, but they then
get moved away from the things that they need, which are their
family and their friends, which I think goes back to the point
Mr Bottomley was making about children's homes as well, where
children get moved away and lose all of that and have to start
afresh, which is incredibly difficult if not impossible in some
circumstances.
Q393 Mr Soley: But that also compounds
the problem for the parent who has moved away, because all the
other things in the child's life stay constant—school, friends
and so on—the one thing that is not constant is the parent
who has gone, man or woman, and that creates a problem for the
child in understanding why that is and why they cannot come back.
We all know the tear-jerking statements you get in situations
like that. I do not think we draw any grand conclusions about
that. I think it is important to put it in the perspective of
understanding why the non-resident parent is in a much more vulnerable
position than the resident parent in terms of dealing with that
stress.
Margaret Hodge: Yes, and the worst
thing for the child is that the child does not want to get engaged
in conflict. It is bad enough having the separation. If the child
is in some way then asked to take sides or is used as a football
in some way in that relationship, the distress that they are feeling,
the difficulty of relating to the parent who has left the home,
is exacerbated.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
But there are some wonderful examples where parents make it work
as well, and there are some fantastic examples where children
love having what often turn out to be two bedrooms, two homes,
two stereos, two this, and it can work. I do not think we should
under-estimate that children, given love and care, will make it
work for themselves as well as long as parents can act in a proper
and reasonable manner. There are lots of children all over the
country for whom this works because parents do it well.
Mr Soley: I agree with that.
Q394 Ross Cranston: I would like to ask
a series of questions about courts. I, for one, certainly welcome
your commitment in the paper to back improved case management.
You mention at paragraph 76 target times, and I was wondering
how they are going to be developed and what they might look like.
Is that going to be you or the Court Service or the judges?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I am sure you have seen the President's work this morning as well.
Q395 Ross Cranston: Yes.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
What the President is outlining—because it will be for her
to work on it, it will be for the judiciary in this context—is
that we will have first hearings within four to six week is her
ambition, and this deals with the issue, as has been already noted
by the Committee, of delay in getting that initial hearing in
place, and she goes on to talk about other aspects of the Court
Service in terms of continuity of the judiciary, and so on. So
that is the ambition for that.
Q396 Ross Cranston: So it is her statement?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
Yes, it is.
Q397 Ross Cranston: Which you are supporting?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
Yes.
Q398 Ross Cranston: You also mentioned,
and you foreshadowed this earlier, the improvements in terms of
enforcement, and, again, I for one would welcome that, and you
have mentioned draft legislation. When is that going to be available?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
That is for the Department for Education and Skills.
Margaret Hodge: Very soon.
Q399 Ross Cranston: Good. We might hold
you to that one.
Margaret Hodge: Yes, do.
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