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Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

As the chair of CAFCASS, I remind the Committee of the situations in which my colleagues are attempting to resolve these appallingly difficult issues. They are situations in which the parents involved do not understand the meaning of the word ““reasonable”” or ““meaningful”” because the situation between them has become so intractable that—although they may not set out to—they end up using the children as weapons against each other. In those circumstances, attempting to find a definition of ““reasonable”” to add on to the other issues that workers in such situations are trying to resolve, is, in practical terms, very difficult. They have to start always from the paramount concerns of the child; and we must remember that those concerns are different in the many different situations—and would that many of the children that CAFCASS officers dealt with had any opportunity to have a room of their own in their own house, let alone in the house of the non-resident parent. So I hope that we can bear in mind, as we make progress with the Bill, the practical aspects that people have to deal with.