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Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I support the amendment in principle because it is obviously important that most siblings who are parted should have the opportunity to see each other regularly. I am not, however, entirely happy about the way in which the amendment is intended to be slotted into Section 34 of the Children Act. The Act states: "““Where a child is in the care of a local authority, the authority shall (subject to the provisions of this section) allow the child reasonable contact with … his parents””." If we were then to insert ““and his siblings””, the separate matters of the welfare considerations of that child and the child’s siblings would arise. Whereas in a large number of cases it is highly desirable that children should see each other, there is a minority of cases in which it is crucial that they should not. Children are parted in certain cases by social workers for the best of reasons. One has therefore to allow for the majority of children who should see each other and the minority who should not. Consequently, if one were to insert the new paragraph, it would require something along the lines of, ““subject to the welfare considerations for the child and for the siblings””.