Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Perry of Southwark

Monday 9th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have the other amendment in this group. Like the other members of the Select Committee, I agreed that certain characteristics of a child for whom adoption was sought should not be highlighted as if they overrode everything else. Like the other members, as the noble and learned Baroness has said, I was concerned that the wrong message might be taken from new legislation. In taking out a provision for due consideration—because that is all it is, not an overriding consideration—to be given to the child’s,

“religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background”,

Parliament would be saying that no consideration should be given. Like the noble and learned Baroness, I fear that guidance would not be enough in that situation.

I do not think we said this in Select Committee, but I am fearful about this. England would not be in the same situation as Wales. Wales will be keeping this wording. The fact that adoption is a devolved matter does not answer the concerns that I have. It would be seen as a very significant distinction. This swinging political pendulum has got to end up in the middle. As the noble and learned Baroness has said, it is not an overriding issue, nor something to be entirely discounted. In Committee I said there had been oversensitivity to what some parts of the media regard as political correctness. I know that the Minister’s concern is that minority-ethnic children are being short-changed. Sadly, the cohort that is being short-changed is the many children from all sorts of backgrounds who are waiting for adoption. The problem is the imbalance between their numbers and the numbers of prospective adopters. To adopt, one needs to be sensitive—to be understanding of the importance of religion, of racial origin, of cultural and linguistic background. It is not a matter of “being the same as”. People who are the same may not understand, and may not be sensitive enough. But that sensitivity, that openness, addressing issues which may arise—that is the matching which is important, not the direct same characteristics.

As the Government were not been persuaded in Committee, a different approach might appeal. My amendments would take out the references to age and sex so that the court and the agency should have regard to the child’s background and characteristics, because those cover everything. The Minister has said that background and characteristics must include ethnicity. He said that is a matter of plain English. Age and sex are also characteristics, so I hope that my plain English amendment might be helpful.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark (Con)]

My Lords, pendulums do swing; it is very difficult to find a middle way. We are all agreed that it was wrong that for a period of time there was too much emphasis given to a child’s racial and religious background, as the noble and learned Baroness has said. That has resulted in appalling waiting times for children of some ethnic-minority backgrounds, who wait to be adopted for three or four times longer than white children—their contemporaries—do. That is not acceptable in our society. But we are in danger of swinging the pendulum a little bit back in the wrong direction by trying to put in the words of,

“religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background”.

I am of the view, which I understand is also the Minister’s view, that any sensible person trying to interpret the “background” would include racial, religious, cultural and linguistic origins. There is no way that you can look at someone’s background without taking those into account, otherwise the word “background” is meaningless. What else could it possibly mean?

I turn to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I have a lot of sympathy with her wishing to take out the racial, cultural and linguistic elements as put forward by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, but I wonder whether we have not taken too much out there. It is a question of the pendulum swinging in all directions. Given all the various views that there are here, it seems to me that we all want the same thing: we want children of ethnic-minority backgrounds to be able to be adopted as quickly as their contemporaries; and we also want all their background to be taken fully into account. Given the efforts we are making to get the pendulum to hang in the middle, I think the Government have got it just about right.