COMMONS AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 8 November 1989)

§ The Lord Chancellor

My Lords, I propose to move agreement of Commons Amendments Nos. 149 to 153 together. These amendments make changes to provisions in Clause 37 on extensions to emergency protection orders and applications to discharge emergency protection orders and deal with the question of appeals.

Amendment No. 149 seeks to remove an anomaly. An emergency protection order may be made for up to eight days. Subsection (5) provides that the court may extend an emergency protection order for up to seven more days if two requirements are met. One is that the court (on the information put before it) is satisfied that the child is likely to suffer significant harm if the order is not extended. The other requirement at present is that the court is satisfied that the person making the application for the extension is not ready to apply for a care order and has reasonable grounds for not being ready.

However, that second requirement could prevent the court extending the emergency protection order even though it was satisfied that this was necessary for the child's protection. If by chance the applicant could not satisfy the court that he had reasonable grounds for not being ready to apply for a care order—the case may have been badly mishandled or something may have gone wrong in connection with its preparation —the child could not be given further protection on an extended emergency order. As a result he might have to return to a dangerous situation. The only test for extending an emergency protection order should be whether it is needed for the avoidance of significant harm to the child.

Amendments Nos. 150, 151 and 153 are about applications to discharge an emergency protection order. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, voiced concern about the rules of court in relation to emergency protection orders on 19th January, in response to which I had the pleasure of writing to him on 13th March.

Clause 37(8) at present provides that the circumstances in which the child, parents and certain 791 other people may apply for discharge of an emergency protection order may be set out in rules of court. It was argued that the ability to apply for an emergency protection order to be discharged could be seriously curtailed by rules of court and that any intended restrictions should be set out in the Bill. We take the point that entitlement to apply for discharge of an emergency protection order should be stated more positively, and this group of amendments makes the necessary changes to subsections (8) to (10).

Amendment No. 153 places in subsection (10) the principal point that we would have wanted to provide for in rules of court under the original approach. This is that entitlement to apply for discharge of an emergency protection order would not apply where the person concerned was given notice of and attended the hearing at which the application for the emergency protection order was considered.

Amendment No. 152 prohibits appeals from the making or refusal of an emergency protection order and any directions consequential upon such an order. The child and a parent, and anyone else who has parental responsibility for him or with whom he lives, will be able to challenge emergency protection orders 72 hours after they have been made, under Clause 37(8) and (9) of the Bill. This will adequately safeguard the position of the child and those close to him. Given the short duration and emergency nature of these orders, no other provision is necessary. Indeed, a formal appeal procedure, with the added delay it would necessarily involve, would be singularly inappropriate. I beg to move.