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Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley: the message that we send to parents is of huge importance, and that message will not get through if it is buried in case law.

I added my name to Amendment No. 1 because I believe in the principle that, wherever possible and safe, both parents should continue to be as fully and equally involved as possible in the parenting of their child. The object that we all want to achieve—in Grand Committee there was huge agreement about the outcomes that we wanted, although there was significant disagreement on the means whereby those outcomes were to be achieved—is that a child's family life and his trusting and loving relationship with his parents should be as little disrupted as possible. As we all know, that is most likely to happen if future parenting arrangements are worked out, where possible, amicably between the parents. In order to achieve that, not only do the courts need to be clear on what they think and what they mean, but separating parents also need to be clear about what the courts mean and what they are likely to do.

I have one reservation on Amendment No. 1—the words "the presumption". I should like to be assured that that presumption does not in any way intrude upon the paramountcy of the welfare of the child as set out in Section 1 of the Children Act 1989. In that context, I should like to quote from the Solicitors' Family Law Association, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred, because I think that it is extremely relevant. In a report dated June 2004 entitled Practical Steps to Co-Parenting, it states:

"The Association was in favour of a legal presumption of contact for both parents, but with the proviso that the child's best interests should remain the paramount consideration in any dispute:

'A presumption, enshrined in law, that children should have an on-going relationship with both parents unless this would not be in their best interests. This should make it crystal clear that a child's relationship with a parent is not dependent on the wishes of the other parent. The child's best interests should remain the paramount consideration in any dispute. This principle is fundamental and should not be diluted by pressures to deliver rights for either parent' ".

That is all that I need to say on Amendment No. 1.

Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I understand absolutely the sentiments behind the amendment. I believe that all sides of the House have the interests of children securely at heart, I simply think that we come at the issue from different positions. I shall outline why I cannot support the amendment.

First, let us remember that we want all children to live in stable, loving families with both parents. We all want that to happen. When problems arise, we want them to have access to help that brings them back to that stability and contact when that breaks down. We want to think about the difference between safety and
 
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safeguarding. I know that we shall be talking about safety later on, but I want to talk a little about safeguarding.

Safeguarding is to do with the whole development of the child. A presumption that a child's welfare is best served through residence with his or her parents and the concept of equal involvement in the difficult situations we are dealing with is unrealistic, unhelpful and in my view potentially dangerous. That, if you like, is at the other end of the spectrum when we are talking about safety.

Many of the problems that I see regularly in the court do not necessarily involve reasonable adults talking about safety, but unreasonable adults. All of us can be unreasonable, so there is nothing strange about people who find themselves in such situations, when powerful emotions are evoked. The most powerful emotions can be felt when people who said that they loved each other and have had children split up and face all the difficulties involved in breaking up. Noble Lords who have had that experience will know the power of those emotions, and those who have not will know what it is like to have normal household rows and what sorts of emotions are involved.

In such situations, we are often dealing with families who also have other difficulties. Research has shown that they are families at the end of the spectrum—not all of them, but many of them—where there are other difficulties. Let us remind ourselves that most families find a solution to contact themselves. Most families are able to find help if they actually need it. Of the ones who come to court, CAFCASS can often find ways to solve the problem before the case goes before a magistrate or judge. A number of our projects are proving extremely successful throughout the country in doing that. However, 1 per cent of cases end up with no contact, and I see many of those cases.

The child's needs must remain paramount, and our courts and staff should put them first. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, talked a lot about the rights of parents. Yes, I believe that parents have rights, but the matter goes above and beyond the rights of parents who have decided to separate and have got themselves into such difficulties and have not decided that sticking together for life for the sake of their children is what they intend to do—there are many families who decide to do that, and I admire them. Those rights are not the ones that we should consider. The paramount responsibility and right at that moment is the need of the child who comes before the court. As I said, I believe that the child's needs are met by contact with both parents when possible. In terms of their development, even when children are not at risk in a technical sense, there will be times when contact will be very difficult to decide on. I have had CAFCASS officers and judges distraught because they can see the need but find some cases difficult to take through.

I should point out again that we are not talking about situations in which a contact order has been made and then broken or that we believe that the resident parent is being unreasonable. In those situations, we are dealing with the provisions
 
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about enforcement. Again, I know personally and professionally situations in which there are unreasonable parents—very often mothers but sometimes fathers—who, for their own reasons, not for the value or needs of the child, do not wish the child to see the other parent. That is when we need enforcement; that is when judges are asking us to take further action. But that relates to another part of the Bill; it does not relate to the part that we are discussing.

A massive amount of scarce professional time, including court time, is used when judges and CAFCASS practitioners try to reason with parents who are hostile to each other. They must at the end of the day be able to focus on the one thing that matters and not be distracted by other issues such as terms like, "reasonable contact" or "the presumption of contact". We have seen in the report from Her Majesty's Inspectors that that can affect the judgment of staff—and I believe that that happens. I welcomed enormously the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, whom I have always seen as a champion for children. It was heartening to hear her talking about the paramountcy of children's welfare. I hope that she does not believe that it is because of staff attitudes that there are difficulties. The staff are seriously influenced by the culture that we create legislatively, in our newspapers and for certain groups who have made their life misery. That has been the difficulty.

3.45 pm

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, does the noble Baroness accept that I do not so believe?

Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I do indeed, as I know the noble Baroness too well to think otherwise. I was simply commenting on her being a children's champion.

Over the past few weeks, I have spoken to judges, magistrates and our own staff, who all consider that such an amendment would simply lengthen the court process when we are working hard to shorten it. People would then begin to debate what was reasonable or a presumption, and we do not want that to happen; we want the court process to be shortened. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, that if she looks more closely at the research she will see that when fathers contribute to their children, they are usually fathers who are having more contact. Contact and pay for support go together, but often the fathers who do not want to continue to pay their support are the ones that walk away. In fact, we have indications that fathers walk away because of some of the pressures of building a new family and the finances involved in all that.

In conclusion—I recognise that it is not a Second Reading debate—I encourage us continually to keep it in mind that, unless we have the paramountcy of the child at heart, not only will that be unfortunate for children but it will affect how people in the courts and the other professionals view how they go about their job. We see ourselves as influencing people; that is why we have legislation and why we have such debates. Let
 
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us influence for good and ensure that everyone has clearly in their sights the interests and paramountcy of the child. Therefore, I would be unable to support the amendment.

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