Oral Answers to Questions

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s analysis and about the importance of ensuring that all children, particularly those who have been trafficked who are probably the most vulnerable of all, have the protection they need within the care system. Our forthcoming revised statutory guidance on children who go missing from home or care will include specific advice on how to safeguard trafficked children. We are asking the Refugee Council together with the Children’s Society to carry out a review of the practical care arrangements for children in care who may have been trafficked, to identify the gaps in the system and to make sure that good practice is spread as widely as possible.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for the very constructive meeting we had before Christmas. I am sure he is aware of concerns about the new police definitions of “missing” and “absent” and their impact on effective child protection. I am sure he would agree that the key to protecting children from child sexual exploitation is a sharing of all data about vulnerable children, including absence figures at the local level? Will he therefore ensure that any future guidance from his Department about children missing from care reinforces that?

[Mr Timpson]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady not only for her chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for runaway and missing children and adults, but for her vital contribution to the work of the groups in the Department that have been looking into the issue. I hope that we can continue that dialogue in future.

It is crucial for us to improve data on missing and absent children at local level, in police forces and local authorities and more widely in other agencies, and we need to make that as effective as possible throughout the whole system. I look forward to discussing with the hon. Lady how we can do that better.

Personal, Social, Health and Financial Education

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

As parents, we want our children to be educated not only to achieve academic qualifications and skills but to make good choices in their personal relationships and lives.

Recent scandals, including the Rochdale and Jimmy Savile cases, have horrified people, but behind those scandals, and in other similar cases, we see the same picture. We find that sexual predators felt free to operate, partly because of institutional and cultural attitudes, whether in the BBC, the Church or agencies that were supposed to be protecting children, while children were left feeling powerless to complain. To meet that challenge we need a big cultural change in this country to protect the children of the future. One of the ways we can help to do that is with good compulsory PSHE in schools. The knowledge that PSHE gives children will help to prevent further Rochdale and Jimmy Savile scandals.

As well as giving children the knowledge to make better choices about their personal lives, PSHE gives them the knowledge to protect themselves against inappropriate relationships, whether from their peers or adults, and the confidence to speak out. Quite rightly, cases such as those of Rochdale and Jimmy Savile have led to strong public revulsion that such things happened to our children, and there is a public mood to ensure that we do all we can to stop it happening again. We must not miss this moment by downgrading PSHE in schools. I support the calls for PSHE to be made a compulsory part of the curriculum.

Schools have a critical role in keeping children safe by talking to them about issues such as sexual consent, sexual coercion and exploitation, and how to shape healthy relationships and respect for each other, as well as alerting children to signs of when they are being sexually groomed. The focus needs to be on both boys and girls. Boys need to be supported to form positive and respectful attitudes to girls, especially to counter the widespread availability of pornography—a point stressed by the recent cross-party inquiry into unwanted pregnancies.

Compulsory sex and relationship education in schools would give more children the confidence to speak out and reject inappropriate relationships—not only grooming by older men for sexual exploitation, but sexually coercive relationships with their peers. The issue of what constitutes sexual consent is important. Many boys watch pornographic sites in which there is often a violent element to sexual relationships, and it is not clear that they understand the nature of consent.

I pointed out in a recent Commons debate that one third of all 16 to 18-year-old girls have experienced groping or unwanted sexual touching in schools. In 2009, a Home Office opinion poll on violence against women revealed that one in five people think it is acceptable in certain circumstances for a man to hit or slap his female partner in public in response to her being dressed in sexy or revealing clothing.

I know the Government have indicated that they do not want to make PSHE statutory, but the problem with not doing so is that our children are subject to a random postcode lottery. Schools in some areas, like my own in Stockport, are delivering high-quality PSHE and sex and relationship education, but others, sadly, are not. Such education should be available to all children in all schools.

It is now a year since the PSHE consultation closed, and the ongoing uncertainty, alongside the Government’s commitment to drive through the English baccalaureate, holds massive risks for the teaching of PSHE in schools. Evidence is emerging that important subjects that are not part of the baccalaureate are being squeezed out of the curriculum, which is worrying. A 2011 survey of 2,500 teachers by the NASUWT revealed that 43% of schools had axed or severely reduced provision of some subject areas as a result of the new baccalaureate. A reduction in the provision of art, music, religious education, citizenship and drama was reported, with an 11% decline reported in planned PSHE provision.

The proposed cut to PSHE provision could not come at a worse time, and not only for keeping our children safe, which is my main concern. We need a more holistic approach to education. Of course it is right that children achieve academic qualifications such as the English baccalaureate, but they also need to be given the knowledge to meet the challenges of an increasingly complex, global and risky world. We need to prepare children for the realities they will face. Most importantly, we need to give them the knowledge to keep themselves safe and healthy.

What is the value of a child getting a top English baccalaureate if he or she cannot recognise when they are being sexually groomed or bullied and are unable confidently to make good personal relationships? PSHE helps young people to cope with that world and will increase their confidence in being able to deal with it. Constructive and important work is already being done in many schools. The more information that children and young people receive in schools to prepare them for the world that they face, the better, but it is not being done everywhere, and it should be. The situation must not be allowed to get worse because of the move to a new baccalaureate that squeezes out all but core subjects.

[John Robertson (in the Chair)]

I thank colleagues for being disciplined, and I hope that the last two speakers will follow their example.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is right that free schools are being concentrated in many parts of the country where there is disadvantage and where traditionally the performance of the school system has been weak. That will ensure that many disadvantaged youngsters can attend schools producing an outstanding or at least good performance.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

The SK5 8 postcode in my constituency is the 162nd most deprived neighbourhood out of almost 32,500 in the UK. Children attend three different secondary schools where they significantly under-achieve, and not all are entitled to the pupil premium. The Brinnington educational achievement partnership set up in 2009 has helped to increase the number of children attaining GCSE A* to C from 33% to 75%—quite an achievement. Funding has now ended, but would the Minister look favourably on its bid to the education endowment fund?

[Mr Laws]

I am delighted to hear about the progress in the hon. Lady’s constituency, and she has ingeniously managed to keep her question in order. If she would care to write to me on that subject, I will certainly look at the issue further. In the light of what she has said about disadvantage in her constituency, I hope that she will welcome the pupil premium, which must be helping schools enormously in her area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend on that point. That is why I launched the progress report jointly with the deputy Children’s Commissioner, picking up what I believe to be the scandal of too many vulnerable children—almost half, as my hon. Friend said—being placed a long way from familiar environments. We have set up a task and finish group specifically to look at the problem and at how we can keep children closer to home and familiar environments when that is in their interests. The group will report back to me within the next few weeks and we will take specific action as a result.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

May I thank the Minister for including me, as chair of the all-party group on runaway and missing children and adults, on the working group on children’s homes? If we are to safeguard children in care from sexual exploitation, we need to improve the quality of care in some of our children’s homes. Does he agree that we need to move to more robust inspections that measure outcomes for children in terms of improving their well-being and safety?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is entirely right and I thank her for her work with the working group. I should also mention that she joined me at the joint press conference to give the useful and detailed findings of her report. The third task and finish group we set up—into which I very much hope she will have some input—is looking at the quality of residential children’s homes and the quality of the work force working in them, where I think we can do an awful lot better. Inspection needs to be better and more appropriate, and we need to ensure that any authority placing a child in a home is absolutely convinced that the quality of care is appropriate and the best available.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I share the view of my noble friend Lord Baker, who has been such an inspiration in respect of university technical colleges, that a key part of the offer should be apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds. Aston UTC, which opens this September, will offer those kinds of products for its students, and I expect many other UTCs to follow suit. We are doing what Rab Butler in 1944 asked us to do—delivering a vocational route as rigorous, as navigable and as seductive as the academic route.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

On behalf of my parliamentary colleagues and the very brave young people who came to our inquiry and talked about their personal experience in care, I thank the Minister with responsibility for children for his positive response to our report on children missing from care. Does he agree that we need to take urgent action to improve a care system that is failing to protect and keep safe vulnerable children who run away and go missing?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments, and I congratulate her on the first-class report, which was published today. I will speak about it more fully in about an hour and a half’s time, when it is officially launched. That report, together with the special expedited report from Sue Berelowitz, the deputy children’s commissioner, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State asked her to produce, will inform our progress report on the child sexual exploitation action plan, which we intend to publish in the next few weeks. That will contain urgent recommendations and details of action already under way to ensure that those vulnerable children are kept much safer than they are now.

Sexting and Sexual Grooming

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I welcome the Minister to this debate; he has a very strong commitment to safeguarding children.

I want to begin by supporting the excellent recommendations to protect children from online pornography that were contained in last week’s report on the independent parliamentary inquiry into online child protection, led by the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry). Today, I want to focus on one aspect that the online inquiry mentioned was of great concern to parents: the growing phenomenon of sexting.

Sexting involves the sharing of sexually suggestive messages or images electronically, primarily between mobile phones. According to Ofcom, about 50% of eight to 11-year-olds and 88% of 12 to 15-year-olds own a mobile phone. The speed with which children and young people are gaining access to the internet—accelerated with the advent of smartphones, enabling children to access the internet from their mobile phones—is unprecedented.

The problem is growing, according to the children’s charity Beat Bullying, which is very concerned that there is increasing peer pressure to send sexting images; and the age is getting younger. Its research, carried out in 2009, showed that 38% of children aged 11 to 18 had received a sexually explicit or distressing text or e-mail. Those figures are backed up by research from Plymouth university, which found that 40% of 14 to 16-year-olds said their friends engaged in sexting. In addition, a survey by Beat Bullying in 2010 revealed that more than 54% of teachers were aware of pupils creating and sharing sexually suggestive messages and images via mobile phones or the internet. In Manchester, each week two schools are turning to e-safety groups for help about sexting incidents.

I congratulate the Manchester Evening News and its reporter Amy Glendinning on recognising this issue. The newspaper’s excellent series about internet safety has examined the dangers that lurk online and the traps that children fall into, including sexting. The coverage included recommendations and advice from local police and schools. That is another example of public service journalism at its best from the Manchester Evening News and follows its groundbreaking campaign last year about children missing from home, which was of great interest to me as the chair of the all-party group on runaway and missing children and adults. In many ways, the missing people and sexting issues are linked, and charities such as the Children’s Society feel that sexting should be recognised as part of the sexual grooming process that many vulnerable, runaway or missing children fall victim to.

Our children’s lives, including their experiences at school, are very different from our childhood and experiences of school, but one aspect of childhood remains the same. Throughout the ages, as children have grown up, they have wanted to push boundaries at an age when they are more sexually and socially aware; they want to experiment and tread their own path to independence. That is normal. But what is different today is that, with new technology, the risk that children and young people are exposed to as part of that process has risen dramatically.

Today’s phenomenon of sexting involves children and young people taking pictures of themselves, perhaps to send to established boyfriends or girlfriends, to create romantic interest or for reasons such as attention seeking. There is often no criminal behaviour beyond the creation or sending of images, no apparent malice and no lack of willing participation by young people who are pictured. The problem is that, once the pictures are taken and sent, the sender loses control of them and they could end up anywhere, from being passed all around school to being viewed and passed on by paedophiles. In addition, children’s charities fear that young people are being coerced into providing explicit images online, which are then shared without their consent via phones and social networking sites—a process known as doxing.

According to Sherry Adhami of Beat Bullying, sexting has become an epidemic. She says:

“We are seeing it more and more—we’ve even seen it in primary schools. It is 100 per cent classless and this affects children whether they are in deprived or affluent areas.”

Beat Bullying says that sexting can be used as a form of cyber-bulling, when an individual or a group of people deliberately attempts to hurt, upset, threaten or humiliate someone else. That includes situations when a recipient of images or text is made to feel uncomfortable as a direct result of that content or is asked to do something that makes them feel distressed.

Sexting becomes problematic when it leads to criminal or abusive behaviour, such as sexual abuse, extortion, threats, malicious conduct arising from interpersonal conflicts, or the creation, sending or showing of images without the knowledge or against the will of the person who is pictured, or if it becomes a tool for sexual grooming. Such grooming involves not just adults grooming children, but increasingly children grooming other children.

A Beat Bullying survey of 11 to 18-year-olds found that 45% of text messages were from their peers, but the problem is that young people are very vulnerable to suggestions from their peers. There is a fine line between young people voluntarily sharing images and their feeling under pressure to do so. The recognition that children and young people can be sexually victimised by other young people is reshaping our understanding of the issue.

It is part of the growing-up process for both girls and boys to decide what sexual behaviour they feel comfortable with. However, some young girls are particularly vulnerable to pressure—for example, girls with low self-esteem, those from dysfunctional families or those living in care. Such girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation, both by adults and their peers.

Sexual grooming happens when someone is enticed to do something that they do not want to do, and the link between sexual grooming and sexting is becoming increasingly apparent. The Children’s Society has told me that its practitioners around the country are finding that sexting is a growing method of sexually grooming young people. It has said of sexting:

“It becomes a tool of coercion, threat and power, as young people are encouraged to take pictures or videos of themselves, initially often for a financial reward or because they are groomed into thinking the person is their boyfriend. The sexting then becomes a tool of manipulation and the young person is threatened that the images will be shared with their friends and teachers. A key problem is that young people see these texts as harmless fun but they quickly lead to sexualised conversations and grooming.”

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate, which is very timely. She has hit on an important point. Young people, particularly vulnerable young females, quite often look at sexting as a fairly innocent, normal exchange of either messages or images, and they do not realise the seriousness of what they are doing and how others could use that material. That is what we have to concentrate on today, and I am glad that the hon. Lady is making that point. Does she agree?

[Ann Coffey]

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I am very pleased that there is a growing body of support among parliamentarians about the fact that we must address this important issue.

The Children’s Society has also said of sexting:

“Because it is not face to face interaction, young people will also behave in a different way without realising the risks that they are exposing themselves to, until it is too late.”

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children will publish further research into sexting next month. It gave me an extract from a ChildLine call from a girl aged 16, which demonstrated the risk and potential harm to young people from sexting. She said:

“I have been in contact with a man who is a lot older than me. At first, he was nice, complimented my pictures and we became friends on a social network site. I forgot my phone number was on there and he started texting and calling me, saying explicit things and sending me sexual photos. He wants me to…have sex and I’m scared. I really don’t want to, but what do I do?”

As I have said, today’s young people live in a very different world due to the rapid pace of technological change that we have seen during the past 20 years. It has given them unprecedented access to global communication and information. However, as I have outlined, there are accompanying risks as a result. Those risks range from private photos shared between two young people becoming public property and leading to humiliation, bullying and blackmail to the use of those images for sophisticated online sexual grooming.

I reiterate that I support the recommendations in the online child protection inquiry as a step forward in protecting children, and I welcome the child sexual exploitation action plan that the Minister published last year. Local safeguarding children’s boards need to be aware of sexting as a tool for sexual grooming, so that they develop strategies in their areas to help them to safeguard children.

What more can be done? Of course sending sexual images is a criminal offence. However, I support the guidance of the Association of Chief Police Officers, which says:

“ACPO does not support the prosecution or criminalisation of children for taking indecent images of themselves and sharing them. Being prosecuted through the criminal justice system is likely to be distressing and upsetting for children, especially if they are convicted and punished. The label of ‘sex offender’ that would be applied to a child or young person convicted of such offences is regrettable, unjust and clearly detrimental to their future health and wellbeing.”

I agree that, in most instances and depending on the circumstances, sexting should be dealt with under general safeguarding.

Children and young people need to be supported by their parents, teachers and peers to ensure that they are empowered to manage new technology. Charities such as Family Lives offer valuable advice and help to parents who are concerned about their children’s sexual behaviour. A lot of good work is going on in schools and police forces to raise awareness and to recognise sexting as part of the grooming process. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre provides an excellent education campaign called Thinkuknow and has produced a film about sexting. It is important that education and awareness-raising programmes focus on children who send images or exert pressure on other children to produce images without realising the extent of the damage that they can cause. Charities such as Beat Bullying have a great deal of expertise in that respect.

More needs to be done, however. I want the mobile phone industry to do more to highlight some of the dangers of its products, in the same way as the gambling and alcohol industries provide help for people who encounter problems arising from their products. The gambling industry provides funding for education and the treatment of problem gambling and the drinks industry funds the charity Drinkaware.

The mobile phone industry has a great responsibility, given the profits that it makes and its targeting of young people to buy its products, to set aside money to inform young people of the dangers of sexting. The industry should provide an information and advice leaflet with each new mobile phone, warning of the dangers of sexting. It should also pay for advertising on TV and in the press and for the promotion of helplines, such as the NSPCC’s ChildLine. The leaflet with each new mobile phone should explain how, at the click of a button, an image intended for private use can lead to public humiliation and even fall into the hands of sophisticated sexual predators. I should like retail sales people to be trained to discuss the risks of sexting when selling phones to young people or to adults buying them on their behalf.

The UK Council for Child Internet Safety, which the Minister jointly chairs and on which charities and some mobile phone operators sit, has been involved in debates about online safety for some time, so I am sure that something is being done to make progress. However, I hope the Minister will take my specific ideas about how mobile phone industries can do more and raise them at his next meeting with those industries.

As I have said, what can be seen by young people as the relatively harmless activity of sexting can lead to quite serious consequences for the young person involved. It is important to prevent that, and I feel strongly that by giving more information and increasing awareness among children and young people, we may prevent further harm coming to them, whether from bullying, blackmail or sexual exploitation or grooming. We must do what we can to educate and inform children and young people about the risks of sexting, so that their choices are based on an understanding of the consequences of their actions. The mobile phone companies must take their share of responsibility to help safeguard children and young people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s comments. He has taken a great interest in this subject and brought constituents to meet me about it. He is right that part of the process is to ensure that the public are better informed about the virtues of becoming a foster parent or adoptive parent. For that reason, earlier this year we set up a website, “Give a Child a Home”, on which there is all sorts of information. We will add to and improve that to encourage more people to come forward as prospective adopters. It is a big ask but a wonderfully fulfilling thing to do.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

Children placed for adoption often have very complex needs, and the love and care that adoptive parents offer is sometimes not enough. What more can be done to support adopting parents to ensure successful adoption outcomes?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is right; she also has great personal experience in this area. It is important that we ensure that more children for whom adoption is a likely destination are considered for it. Equally, though, we have to ensure that parents who come forward as prospective adopters are given proper training and support before, during and after the adoption process. I am particularly keen to encourage adoption agencies to work on adoption support services—we are looking at social impact bonds with a specific focus on that—to ensure that that help is there and that the adoption is permanent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I was tempted to say, “Come up and see me sometime.” My hon. Friend and I should meet, because Teach First is expanding and it is expanding nationwide. We have tripled the funding for that admirable charity and the organisation received plaudits from all three major parties in their election manifestos. We want to ensure that schools that serve very challenging areas, as that academy does, benefit from the superb work done by the organisation.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

Students who have taken the English baccalaureate and been successful do not understand why they cannot have some acknowledgment of that success in the form of a certificate. The Department for Education website states:

“We are not currently issuing certificates. We are examining possible arrangements for issuing certificates and will confirm decisions in due course.”

Can the Secretary of State tell me when that decision is likely to be made, because students in Stockport would welcome the opportunity to have a certificate?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful for the hon. Lady’s support for the English baccalaureate. We are talking to schools about how we can best recognise those students who succeed in the baccalaureate and generally.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

There are few greater champions of apprenticeships or learning in this House than my hon. Friend, although I notice my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) sitting next to him, and he is just as worthy a champion. Just this week I will meet banks to discuss exactly what my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) proposes. It is right that apprenticeships are seen as a route into the professions, and we will make them just that.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

Stockport council estimates that it is notified of only 60% of looked-after children placed in the borough by other authorities. This is not a problem specific to Stockport and, as the Minister will appreciate, it is very difficult for authorities to plan the provision of resources that will achieve better outcomes for children in care without adequate information. What more can he do to make local authorities meet their obligations?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is right to raise this subject and it is a problem in many parts of the country, especially when children from London boroughs are placed in areas such as my own part of the country. I issued new guidance that came into effect last April, which made it absolutely clear that local authorities have a responsibility to keep children for whom they are responsible for caring as close to home as possible. If children are placed further afield, there must be a good reason, and local authorities must ensure that they maintain the responsibility to monitor how the child is doing. In too many cases, they do not notify the host authority, and I plan to ensure that every authority is reminded of its responsibilities.

Adoption

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)]

It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Davies. It is my privilege to be able to bring this debate to the Chamber. The issue of UK adoption rates is topical and extremely important. Last week was national adoption week, and the issue has caught the public imagination. There is much to be said about the adoption process in the UK.

I must declare an interest as a family law barrister who has represented, over the years, parents, children and local authorities, in the child protection arena, since qualifying about 10 years ago. That has given me an insight into the many strains and pressures on those who work in child protection, and how those factors impact on the adoption process in the UK. I hope to set out some context, showing the different complexities that need to work together to improve the adoption process. However, I also consider the debate a perfect platform from which to encourage prospective adopters to come forward and be assessed, and to thank those who have stepped up to the mark and are now parents. The attendance at today’s debate shows that it is of interest across the parties.

The recent figures on adoption levels in the UK should cause alarm bells to ring. In the past year, of the 3,660 children in care under the age of one year, only 60 were placed for adoption. Those figures are a matter of concern, but they continue a trend that has troubled the Department for Education since the formation of the Government last year. For those of us with an interest in that area, the commissioning by the new Government of the Norgrove and Munro reviews, and the appointment of Martin Narey to review the adoption process—among other things—was most welcome. I know that the Children’s Minister, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), and the Secretary of State have taken a real interest in the subject matter.

I read this week a moving account by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education of his experience of childhood after being adopted.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

I was looking at the adoption statistics, and it seemed to me that the decline in the number of adoptions is associated with an increase in the number of special guardianships being granted. When those are combined, the absolute numbers, in terms of giving permanence to a child, have increased since 2006. Does the hon. Lady agree that special guardianship orders, as well as adoption orders, can give the permanence that we seek for children?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Lee]

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend said. I reiterate that there is a real momentum—within Government, across parties and across the country through The Times and other publications—to raise the profile of this issue, so we really must do more.

There are many threads and complexities to this issue, but at the heart of this debate is a wish to raise the profile of adoption, to encourage adoptive parents to come forward and to point out how rewarding and valuable adoption of children can be. Like any life-changing decision, it will not be without its challenges and ups and downs, but from the many, many discussions that I have had with adoptive parents I know that their lives have been enriched by the decision to open their homes and to care for children.

As politicians, what we need to focus on now are the real challenges of making the system of adoption as streamlined and as efficient as it can possibly be.

[Ann Coffey]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate, and she is making a very thoughtful contribution to it. Does she agree that although we must of course have more adoptions, we must also have more successful adoptions? The research indicates that about 11% of adoption placements break down and that is heartbreaking, both for the adopted child and the adopting parents. Does she think that the Department for Education could take more of a lead in commissioning research into adoption breakdowns, so that we have a better perspective on what goes wrong and can secure more successful placements in the future?

[Jessica Lee]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. In my view, the Department is doing exactly that; it is examining the entire process of adoption, root and branch, in detail. So I am confident that those points are being considered. Her point about the need for post-adoption support is a good one, and it needs reflecting on. Perhaps it takes us back to the points that I made about the role of the independent reviewing officer in reviewing case plans and reviewing the position of children.

I conclude by saying that better outcomes for looked-after children should be our goal. It is attainable; I feel that the momentum towards achieving it is there, and I ask everyone to do their bit to improve the adoption system.