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Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I had not intended to speak to this amendment but, having heard what the previous speaker said, I thought that I should say that I feel strongly that an extremely good solution is being proposed by the noble Baroness. It is one that does not demonise fathers, because that is certainly not the intention, but I am afraid that those of us who have dealt with families in courts—I was the chairman of a juvenile court for more than 25 years—have too many examples of the sort of experience that we are talking about. This is a very moderate and, more to the point, very effective amendment. The NSPCC made its case extremely well in the briefing that it sent to us and I warmly support the amendment.