Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their kind wishes to my noble friend. I will certainly be passing all those on as soon as possible. I thank all noble Lords for contributing to this debate—including the Minister. However, I will point that in his closing comments he repeated several times, “Do not commit the crime”. But the child we are talking about here has not committed any crime. It is the future of the child’s whole life and family life that we are talking about—focusing not on the criminal but on the child. I thank particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for raising a very important point about the well-being of children. We are focusing not just on those children but on the public interest. The future of our children is the future of all of us. The noble Baroness made a very useful point by noticing how often the unity of the family is brought up in public debates but then seems to be excluded from certain parts of the conversation. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, made a really important point in the context of our current national debate for those who would see us withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. It is actually a very flexible instrument, which reflects why these amendments have been tabled. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, asked why these amendments were needed and said that it is all there in Article 8 judgments. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said that we can set the guardrails; we can say what Article 8 means and that is what these amendments seek to do. None the less, we have had a useful debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned Skype families. That is an issue I have been working on for a very long while. I think we might have to get a new term—maybe Teams families or Zoom families. It is important to think about the reality. Let us think of a child of seven or eight who knows they are never going to be held in the arms of a parent again. How does the other parent, if there is another parent there, explain that to the child? I am sure my noble friend will be looking very closely at this debate and taking on board all the comments so, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.