---

Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

I have listened with great interest to what the noble Earl has said. It reminded me of an observation that I made in a private legal case. The judge said to the court, ““We want to move this on. We want to move it out of supervised, supported contact. We want to move it on so that they can see each other outside of any institution. We don’t want an artificial arrangement; we want it to be natural””. Having been reminded of that incident, I would like to observe that a lot depends on the judge or magistrate. The noble Baroness referred to David Burrows and his concerns about institutions. When I spoke with one judge who worked in the area, it was made clear to me that he felt that we were desperately short of judges who specialised in family law. There is a distinct lack of expertise in the area. I am sure that we will come back to the point, but I thought that it might be helpful to raise it now.