Lobbying

In the Scottish Parliament

S2M-4706 Mr Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) :

Equal Access to Children — That the Parliament believes that separated parents should each have an equal presumption of contact with their children, so that both parents can continue to parent their children and that children are able to benefit from being parented by both parents as well as from contact with any grandparents and extended family members able and willing to play a role in their upbringing, and urges the Scottish Executive to replace the word “contact” with “parenting time” and ensure that parenting time orders can be and are made and enforced by the courts, save where the child’s safety would be at risk.

Supported by: Donald Gorrie, Rob Gibson, Mike Pringle

Lodged on 14 August 2006; current

Meeting with David Blunkett

On 25 May 2006 David Blunkett organised a meeting between the Lord Chancellor, the new Minister for Children (Parmjit Dhanda MP) and FNF. He had previously advised FNF that we would not get shared parenting into the Children and Adoption Bill currently going through Parliament, and that we should press for a separate Bill in the coming session.

The meeting was, as they say in the blander press statements, constructive and friendly. Our team was John Baker, Sue Secker and Craig Pickering. We put the case for legislation, drawing on overseas experience, especially in the US, and emphasising that we wanted shared parenting, not increased contact. And we wanted an expansion of what was meant by the paramountcy principle, not to set up a competing principle.

David Blunkett weighed in on our side, at one point saying that if Ministers did not respond reasonably to our approach, they would be encouraging the “more extreme elements in the fathers’ movement”. He was also strong on the theme that judge-made law often departed significantly from what Parliament had intended when passing legislation.

The Lord Chancellor did most of the talking for the Government side. He agreed with FNF and David Blunkett that much more needed to be done to encourage shared parenting, to ‘change the culture’. But he was not convinced of the need for legislation, since it might create difficulties ‘in a few cases that were difficult’. But he agreed with David Blunkett that better guidance to the judges might be useful.

Finally, David Blunkett suggested FNF meet DFES and DCA officials to discuss the case for legislation, so officials could write a report to Ministers. The two Ministers agreed. We’re seeking dates from officials and will keep you posted here.

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