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Children and Adoption Bill

It is for the NSPCC to explain its interpretation of what it has put out in its briefing. The position that we are taking does not imply a qualitative different judgment about the safety or otherwise of the non-resident parent. We must trust the courts to make individual decisions. It is important to understand—I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman does—that a statutory presumption in law is something that the courts must follow in all but exceptional circumstances. Therefore, a statutory presumption starts to fetter the discretion of the courts and makes a fundamentally different model that would compromise in law the principle of paramountcy.