Reading the Runes: Conflict, Culture and “Evidence” in Law-making in the UK

Emma Crewe

doi:10.7227/r.20.1.3

Abstract

In public discourse the idea of “evidence-based” law-making implies that expert opinion consists of incontrovertible facts that can be turned into solutions, irrespective of politics. Laws about children are often conceived as if they are especially free from the contamination by politics. This paper will challenge such assumptions, relying on a contemporary historical and ethnographic study to demonstrate how evidence and politics are entangled when you have conflicts over cultural change. I followed one clause about parenting as it made its journey through the Westminster Houses of Parliament to be transformed from a bill into the Children and Families Act 2014, observing the rituals of the chamber and committees, and the more discursive private discussions with civil society, which led to changes to the parliamentary texts. I found a complex web of relationships behind the public performances and underneath these texts and meetings between Ministers, civil servants, Parliamentarians, activists, lawyers, social workers, fathers, mothers and children. Making law is more about negotiating between clashing interests and values and reading the runes than weighing up evidence and planning the future as if it could be predicted.

Highlights

Public institutions in the UK continue to be under pressure to base their new policies and laws on “evidence” and to rely on expert opinion or rigorous research to turn incontrovertible facts into solutions irrespective of politics
Maclean and Kurczewski describe four case studies of family law between 1985 and 2010 that range from superb to catastrophic, with the Children Act 1989 at one end and the Child Support Act 1991 at the other (2011)
The success of the Children Act 1989 is attributed to careful research and an absence of political interference while the disastrous Child Support Act was pushed forward by politicians against the advice of knowledgeable officials

Summary

Introduction

Public institutions in the UK continue to be under pressure to base their new policies and laws on “evidence” and to rely on expert opinion or rigorous research to turn incontrovertible facts into solutions irrespective of politics. The success of the Children Act 1989 is attributed to careful research and an absence of political interference while the disastrous Child Support Act was pushed forward by politicians against the advice of knowledgeable officials Their view is that haste, political interests and flimsy evidence harm law-making. To understand the politics of law-making, including what takes place behind the most public scenes and under the documents, I followed one 250 word clause for nearly two years as it travelled outside and through the Westminster Parliament (2012–2014). Clause 11 of the Children and Families Bill, or section 11 once it became an Act, was about parenting It began its life with the heading “Shared Parenting” and a provision requiring the courts to presume that children of separated parents would benefit by having both parents involved in their life, unless the contrary is shown. Tim Loughton MP and Minister of Children and Families, replaced by Edward Timpson MP Justice Select Committee undertakes pre-legislative scrutiny of the family justice part of the Bill Draft clause on parental involvement published

Family justice provisions become effective

The Culture of Making Law and Law Shaping Culture