Child and Adoption Bill published

Courts will be given the power to order separated parents to
attend “contact activities,” such as meetings with a
counsellor or parenting classes, as part of a bill published today,
writes Simeon Brody.

The Children and Adoption Bill will also grant courts the power
to impose community-based “enforcement orders” or award
financial compensation to either party if a contact order has been
breached.

The government has withdrawn proposals included in an earlier
draft bill to electronically tag parents who breach contact orders
or impose curfews on them.

But it rejected a call from a parliamentary committee
scrutinising the draft bill to enshrine the welfare of the child as
the paramount consideration for the court where a contact order has
been breached.
 
In taking enforcement action, the court is only required to
“take into account the welfare of the child
concerned”.

The bill also gives the government power to impose restrictions
on adoptions from other countries it there are concerns about
adoption processes there.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldbills/010/2006010.htm