Meeting of the Parliament 10 January 2023
I congratulate Fulton MacGregor on securing the debate. I also acknowledge the work of Shared Parenting Scotland, which helps parents to work together despite their differences, to share the care of and responsibility for their children, and to provide them with the stability that they require.
It is inevitable that children will face difficulty when their parents part, and there can be a great deal of animosity between parents when a relationship breaks down. The children can feel that they are being pulled in different directions because of that. Therefore, sensitive handling can ease their distress and reassure young people. It is, therefore, important to support parents to make the right decisions for their children and to reach amicable solutions that put their children first. We see cases in which parents put aside their personal hurt and anger in order to ensure that the children’s relationship with the other parent continues.
We also need services that recognise the importance of shared parenting—for example, in relation to access to housing. Both parents need access to adequate housing in order to provide a home for their children. Too often, when they share parenting, we see the mother being given access to adequate housing, while the father is not housed adequately to allow the children to come to live with them.
In the majority of cases, the best outcome for the child is that both parents are involved in the child’s life and future. However, there are exceptions. It is clear that abusive parents, for example, should not have an automatic right of access to their children. Far too often, family courts are used by one parent to continue to perpetrate domestic abuse of the other parent. I have many cases in which abusive fathers use access to their children to identify where the mother is living in order to continue physical abuse. That is absolutely unacceptable—and neither is it acceptable to place the onus on the child to keep that information secret.
I also have constituency cases in which abusive fathers use the system to continue to exercise control—even when no physical abuse is involved—by making arrangements to see the child only to cancel at the last minute when they become aware that their ex-partner will be doing something else while they have the child. In such cases, they cancel the arrangement or return the child early in order to scupper those plans and to exercise continuing control over their ex-partner.
Parents who use their children as weapons should not have access to them, and parents should also not have access to their children when they cause damage and there is an abusive relationship. We know that the life chances of children who are brought up in abusive households are severely impacted. It has an impact on their ability to learn and on their self-esteem, which goes on to impact other significant aspects of their lives. Such problems are a direct result of domestic abuse. Abusive parents should not have access to their children until they can prove that they are no longer abusive and that the wellbeing of their children will come first. I hope that the minister will address those concerns and advise how she will prevent abusive parents from continuing to damage the lives of young people even when the relationship has broken up.
I would like a system in which such parents go through a process of training and acknowledgement of their wrongdoing in order to ensure that they no longer continue to perpetrate abuse. They should have to complete that process before getting access to their child. In that way, we would protect young people.
For far too long, I have been seeing in my casework the impact of domestic abuse on families, and how children are abused and used in such situations. We should not allow that to happen, so I look forward to the day when family courts no longer allow themselves to be used as a weapon in domestic abuse cases.
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