Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)

I slightly question the noble Lord’s assumption that inspection would be required at the level that he has outlined. Very often, you have a very caring parent who is extremely worried about the welfare of their child or children, who is then having contact with another parent about whom there has been a great deal of concern. If that very caring parent finds that the contact centre to which they have been referred has not had mandatory training—and I would expect them, in this day and age, to look up on the internet details about the contact centre on its website—they are likely to raise a complaint early, and waiting until there is a formal inspection may be too late. The problem is that, if we do not require training and set some standards, it becomes extremely difficult for a court determining what is to happen to a child to be able to go in-depth and know whether its recommendation and judgment are going to be in the best interests of the child. So I respectfully slightly challenge the noble Lord over that and suggest that other people, such as grandparents and aunts and uncles, who are very concerned too about what will have been a tragic situation in their family, would be very likely to check out whichever contact centre it is and would want to know the standards that should be there—because they can see whether they are happening or not. A bit like the Care Quality Commission doing spot checks on hospitals, that is how they will get the data: not through a formal inspection. So identification of problems could emerge if this is written into the Bill.