COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 8 November 1989)

§ The Lord Chancellor

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 101. Clause 29 is important in that it deals with contact by parents and others with children in care, on which matter the present law is inadequate. It embodies the major reforms promised in the White Paper at paragraph 64, including in subsection (1) a presumption of reasonable access for the child's parents and others specified.

Amendment No. 101 is a minor drafting point. It is established in Clause 75(1) that a child who is in care has been placed in the care of a local authority under a care order. This amendment changes the reference in Clause 29(1) to adopt the simpler terminology which appears throughout the Bill. Clause 29(1) lists those persons who, subject to other provisions in the clause, are to have a presumption of reasonable contact with a child in care. These are the parents and other persons who have a certain legal status in respect of the child.

Amendment No. 104 recognises these cases by extending the presumption of reasonable contact to persons who, immediately before the care order was made, had care of a child under the High Court's inherent jurisdiction.

Amendment No. 103 is a drafting amendment to accommodate Amendment No. 104. Amendments Nos. 105 to 110 are intended to shorten and simplify other provisions in Clause 29, which has become long and complicated, and to deal with certain defects which have been raised during discussions.

Amendment No. 105 provides the court with a general power to make such orders with respect to contact as it considers appropriate: and, on an application by the local authority or the child, the court may make an order authorising the authority to refuse contact between a person mentioned in subsection (1) and named in the order. Amendment No. 105 allows the court to make such order as it 763 considers appropriate even though no application has been made, if it considers that the order should be made.