Domestic Abuse Bill

Of course, there will be an opportunity—we discussed this this morning—for organisations representing disabled people and others to engage in the review, and naturally we will want to discuss the details of the review with the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. I will confirm something that I said this morning: we will not just do a series of round tables. I agree with her that data is absolutely key to underpinning some of the work that might need to go forward. The review’s intention is to address the concerns raised regarding the adequacy or otherwise of the current protections and the support for victims of carer abuse. I hope that, with the discussion that we had this morning and the undertakings this afternoon, the noble Baroness and indeed the House will be content to support the Motion and not insist on the amendments.

I should be grateful if all sides of the House would strongly support and engage with this review. I hope it will not keep anything off the table, including further legislative protections if necessary. I hope that the review will commence as soon as possible. Of course, I shall be chasing it and look forward to working with the Government and especially with disabled people’s organisations.

Carer abuse—as evidenced throughout the pandemic and during earlier debates and pre-legislative scrutiny—must not continue unchecked. Disabled people deserve to have equivalent protection—no less.

Further to that, Jacky Tiotto, the chief executive of Cafcass, has responded to my letter to her confirming that she will write to all Cafcass operational managers and family court advisers, reminding them of the importance of the memorandum of understanding. While she is unaware of any evidence to suggest that Cafcass staff are not complying with the requirements, she emphasised that Cafcass is committed to working effectively with the NACCC to ensure that every child receives the best possible service.

That is in relation to private family law. I turn now to public law family cases where children are in the care of the local authority. Comprehensive statutory provisions are already in place determining how local authorities should discharge their duties, including in relation to meeting statutory requirements to maintain contact between a child and their family.

In that context, Section 22 of the Children Act 1989 places a general statutory duty on the local authority in relation to children looked after by it to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. Section 34 of that Act establishes the presumption that there should be continued contact between the child and their family while the child is in the care of the local authority. It places a duty on local authorities, subject to certain provisions and to their duty to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare, to allow contact between a child in care and their parents. Details of contact are set out in a child’s care plan, which is governed by the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010. Those regulations set out the role of independent review officers to ensure that contact is supported. They will consider whether contact commitments in care plans have been implemented and whether the child is happy. In 2015, the Department for Education published guidance on care planning, placement and case review; further statutory guidance was published in 2018. That is the statutory architecture.

I turn now to the safeguards in place before each contact between a looked-after child and a parent is made. Whenever contact is arranged by a local authority, the social worker should undertake a full safeguarding risk assessment, meeting the requirements of the guidance for the assessment of contact produced by each local authority. A broad range of factors is looked at: the risk of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, including domestic abuse, and neglect; the risk of abduction; whether there is a history of violent or aggressive behaviour and whether the child or supervisor is at risk; and the parent’s ability to prioritise the children’s needs above their own. In outlining all that, I seek to reassure the House that there is already adequate statutory and regulatory provision in place.

I have spoken about private and public law proceedings. In addition, I should mention that parents can self-refer to contact centre services. NACCC officials themselves have suggested that very few parents actually do that, so any concerns that parents may be self-referring to non-accredited centres are not borne out by the evidence, and certainly not to any significant scale.

What is the essential argument behind the amendment? Those supporting it argue that there are large numbers of unaccredited child contact centres and services, posing significant risk to children and parents around safeguarding and the risk of domestic abuse. The NACCC provided some initial data on the number of unaccredited contact centres, but the current evidence base is insufficiently robust to support legislating on the issue. While I am grateful to the NACCC for compiling the data, I have to note that some of the “unaccredited” contact centres initially identified by it in fact turned out to be regulated by Ofsted or the Care Quality Commission. There is plainly more work to be done to understand the issue. The Government remain ready to work with the NACCC in this regard, but outside this Bill. In particular, I am ready to explore further whether there is a case for ensuring that there are appropriate arrangements in place for anyone who seeks to set themselves up as a provider of child contact services to be subject to criminal record checks.

I can therefore assure your Lordships’ House that the Government are committed to ensuring the highest levels of care and safeguarding where circumstances have necessitated involvement with the family justice system. However, given existing mechanisms within private and public family law, and the extensive regulatory environment which I have set out, without further evidence of a problem we do not believe that this amendment is warranted at this time.