Press Release

Draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill

The Joint Committee of the House of Lords and House of Commons on this draft bill has added its voice to calls for the law to formally require courts to have regard to the importance of children sustaining a relationship with their ‘non resident’ parent.

'This idea is wholly welcome,' said FNF chair John Baker 'although we would want such a provision to be better worded. The courts should have regard to the children's need for a relationship with both parents and their wider family. The wording should be inclusive of family members generally and not label one parent as 'residential' and the other 'non-residential'.

Mrs Hodge, currently Minister for Children and Young People is quoted as saying that this mention would 'muddy the waters'.

Far from it, it would make clear a need that is currently obscure, and on which practice is highly variable.

In other respects the report is less robust.

In FNF's view, when a court has ordered that a child should be allowed to have a relationship with both parents, there must be no question that the child is allowed to have that relationship. This report seems to support this idea in principle. However, it is less forthright than it should be about the means of enforcement. Too many loopholes remain to enable a parent opposed to contact to either prevent or delay a child enjoying that contact.

There are certainly problems with all sanctions to ensure compliance with a contact order. But problems with any particular remedy should not interfere with the central objective - to ensure that children are allowed a proper relationship with both parents, unless there are child-centred reasons to the contrary.