Adoption

Baroness King of Bow Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness King of Bow]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the drop in the number of children being placed for adoption.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, adoption decisions have fallen by around 50% since September 2013 following two court judgments that have been misinterpreted as having changed the legal test for adoption. The Prime Minister has been clear about his commitment to ensuring that adoption should be pursued where it is in the child’s best interests. The Government are actively considering whether legislative change is necessary to ensure this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness King of Bow (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for the clarity of that reply. In the vast majority of cases where children are not being placed for adoption, they are instead being given special guardianship orders or placed in long-term foster care. The problem is that both those arrangements have dramatically higher breakdown rates than adoption. Given these facts, does the Minister share my sadness at hearing what a social worker told me last week? I have heard it from very many other social workers as well. The social worker told me not to advise a white couple to apply for adoption, because:

“In the last year we’ve stopped putting forward white children without severe complex needs”,

for adoption. The DfE warned that it would not hesitate to take action if placement orders fell. How and when will the DfE decide that the time for hesitation is over?

[Lord Nash]

I share the noble Baroness’s concern about this. I know that it is of particular relevance to her own experience. We have announced that we are making changes to the regulations governing how special guardianships are assessed to make it more robust. Our review of special guardianships has shown compelling evidence that they are not always assessed in a way that puts children’s interests first. We plan to publish the wider findings of that review before Christmas. As I said, the Prime Minister announced that we are considering legislative change to ensure that decisions are always made in children’s best interests, and to take proper account of the timeliness, quality and stability of placements. We will publish our thoughts in the new year and we will engage widely with the sector about this.