Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)

That last intervention from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, was very interesting and useful in helping us through this amendment. There is absolute agreement about the need for contact centres, given the very important work that all noble Lords recognise they have done, also to be able to safeguard in the sorts of circumstances that she outlined. The question is whether that is most appropriately done through the provisions in this amendment, which would require all child contact centres to be nationally accredited and regulated by the Secretary of State and all staff to undertake specific training on safeguarding and domestic abuse. I hope I can provide some reassurance and outline why it is not necessary in this case for the Secretary of State to undertake the regulation and accreditation in the way that the amendment—if not the way it has been introduced—suggests. We recognise the enormous importance of child contact centres in enabling children to spend time with a non-resident parent in a safe environment and the important work of the National Association of Child Contact Centres, which accredits centres across England and Wales and ensures high standards among its members via its national standards, which cover points such as risk assessments, safeguarding and hearing the voices of children. As the noble Lord, Lord Meston, identified, Research into Safeguarding Processes in Child Contact Centres in England, commissioned by the Ministry of Justice and completed in 2023, identified limited evidence of unaccredited centres. In other words, most centres are accredited by the National Association of Child Contact Centres. Here we come to the crux of whether there are ways of ensuring that children can be safeguarded in those circumstances. Since the 2023 review and report on child contact centres, which some noble Lords have referenced, the Ministry of Justice has worked with the National Association of Child Contact Centres to consider where action can be taken. The national association has now introduced a mandatory coercive control training course for its members and has reviewed and updated its national standards to take account of the findings of the report. It has also revised materials such as its risk assessment template. Additionally, the Ministry of Justice has established a child contact centre forum with representatives from across the family justice system to discuss the issues facing the sector and its role within the system. In addition, as we have heard, in private law cases judicial protocol guidance, endorsed by the President of the Family Division, encourages judges and magistrates to refer families to NACCC-accredited centres only. This limits the extent to which unaccredited centres are used. We are becoming increasingly confident that NACCC accreditation delivers the protections that people rightly want to see and that there are very few unaccredited centres. This amendment, however, would mean that there could never be any unaccredited centres. It is worth saying that there are limited circumstances in which unaccredited centres might be used. This could include, for example, unaccredited centres for specific and short-term purposes because of the individual circumstances of the case. One example might be when a child has a foster care placement some distance away from the nearest accredited contact centre; rather than requiring the child to travel a significant distance to undertake contact, the local authority might assess it to be in the child’s best interest to remain at a location closer to their home. However, in doing that—when considering child contact with parents and children—the local authority must ensure consistency with safeguarding and promoting the child’s welfare.