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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. What I am about to say must be heard in the context of my very great respect for him and the level of real concern which he himself has about many of the issues we are discussing. It is a weak argument to say that, because some other factors might need to be listed, this crucial factor should not be put in the Bill. Surely it would be more convincing for those of us on this side of the Committee who are trying to support him and respond positively to his position if he were to say, ““I do not find this amendment helpful because of that danger, but I will go away and think of some generic wording that will cover this and other possibilities””. Off the top of my head he might suggest wording such as, ““The court must take into account all the appropriate needs of the child””; or if he does not like the word ““needs”” because it sounds soft, ““The court must take into account all the relevant factors of the individual child before deciding what to do””. Just to reject what everybody can see is highly relevant because there might be some other things which are highly relevant is not really a very satisfactory position.