Lord Meston (CB)

My Lords, I, too, have laboured long in the family courts. I think that we are all basically aiming in the same direction, but the detail is important. Family group conferences or meetings, as described in this Bill and in the amendments, are a valuable process, often best used as the pre-proceeding stage rather than after a formal application has been issued. I cannot help wondering whether there is not some lack of clarity in the drafting, at least of the amendment. The Bill as I read it is clear enough; it says that the local authority must include the offer of such a meeting in a letter before proceedings. That is entirely desirable in my view, whereas the amendment says: “When a local authority starts formal child protection proceedings”, which to my mind reads as if it means “Once it has actually issued the formal application”. In some cases, that may be too late. I think that there is a mistake, possibly unintended, in the drafting of the amendment. The general thrust of what the noble Baroness said—that the meetings should be initiated as soon as possible—is clearly right. These meetings are valuable for three main reasons. First, they enable family members to be informed of what has happened and why the local authority has intervened, as well as to learn what is planned or may be planned for the child or children concerned. Quite often one finds in practice that the parents have not told the wider family what is happening, sometimes out of shame or pride, so that the first the wider family learns of the proceedings comes from the social worker—and that can come as a surprise or, indeed, a shock. Even if the family knows what is happening, a formal meeting enables it to get an accurate first-hand account that is not filtered by the parents. Secondly, conferences enable the social worker and guardian, if one has by then been appointed, to form an initial assessment of the strengths, weaknesses and attitudes of the wider family and the possible realistic options for the support of the parents and any alternative arrangements for the children, either in the short term or in the long term. In the long term, if in reality adoption is going to be the outcome, the court will ultimately have to consider the relatives’ ability to provide a secure environment under the statute that governs adoption decisions.