Adoption

Claire Perry Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Lee]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s point. At the moment, all public law cases automatically go to the family proceedings court. They may then be transferred to higher courts, such as the county court or even the High Court. However, when we are dealing with strict time limits and concerns to create outcomes for children, every extra court date is time not best used. It is a waste of the child’s time, and we must improve the situation. I would support any proposals that allocate cases more efficiently and directly to the correct level, so that they can be properly managed by appropriate judges.

The Norgrove review proposes a limit of six months in which to complete proceedings. That is certainly a good aspiration, but if that is to be achieved, it will require the coming together of many aspects of how the courts function. I realise that the report has only just been published, but I ask the Minister for any preliminary response to it, and what the time scale is for a detailed Government response to that important document. Six months is a reasonable period in which to make an assessment. A court’s primary and first consideration and hope is that a child may be returned to their birth family and stays with it. Following that is an assessment and consideration of the parents and any other family members. We need to speed up the availability of court time.

Judicial continuity is important. If a judge is charged with the responsibility of a case from the outset, they will have a much better understanding of the dynamics, personalities and initial concerns of a social worker. They will have a grip on the background and chronology of the case; they will have seen it through. It is much more difficult for a judge to step in halfway through a case and make important and life-changing decisions for a child. I am sure that many judges would wish to have judicial continuity throughout cases—they aspire to that as well—so I hope that can be achieved over time.

Once the court process has been exhausted and a placement order made, allowing local authorities to match a child with prospective adopters, there are further hurdles and challenges. A local authority has to consider the pool of adopters within its authority. Again, one has to think about the cost and other complications of looking further afield from the outset. However, is that a sensible, child-centred approach? Surely, we need a more straightforward structure in which adoption teams across the country can consider as wide a pool of prospective adopters as possible from the earliest opportunity. That could save months when matching children with prospective carers.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I apologise for arriving late to this extremely important debate. I have considered adoption. I am 47 years old and have successfully brought up three children. I know that there is a big question over whether MP mothers are fit people to adopt, but I am also considered too old to adopt because of some absurd guidance on the age spread between the adopted child and the adoptive parents. Surely it is time to stop that insanity and allow these vulnerable children to be placed in loving homes regardless of ethnic background and age. We need a return to common sense.

[Jessica Lee]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Of course we need a common-sense approach. There are thousands of children in care who are waiting to be placed, and we must do all that we can to help them.

The issue of concurrent placements is important. Foster carers who are caring for children throughout the court process—the care proceedings—can also become the adoptive parents without having to be assessed all over again. The advantage is that children are in their prospective home and able to form those important attachments from an early stage. That is surely desirable and needs to be encouraged. Organisations such as Coram are skilled and successful in implementing such an approach, and authorities, including the London borough of Harrow, have championed it.

Of course there are consequences to such an approach. We are asking foster carers to make an emotional investment, and yet they are often left for months on end waiting for the outcome of the assessments of everyone else to see whether they can keep the child for the longer term, so it is not for the faint-hearted. None the less, there are many advantages to the concurrent placement approach. I hope that the Government will consider increasing the number of concurrent placements and also how they are undertaken across the country.

Another aspect of the adoption debate is the question of how important it is to secure a cultural and ethnic match between prospective parents and the child. In my experience, this is a debate in which feelings can run very high, and professionals and parents hold a variety of views. Of course there are many who have a greater knowledge and insight into this issue than I, but for what it is worth my view is that we have taken a step in the right direction with the recent change in the legislation that says that a culturally appropriate match is desirable but is by no means a prerequisite or a deal-breaker.

It is easy to be simplistic about this topic, but it is difficult to accept that it is better for a black and minority ethnic child to have to remain in care for all of their childhood instead of being placed in a loving home because there is not an ideal ethnic match.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I want to make a few points to give the Northern Ireland perspective. I commend the hon. Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee)— I am sure that my pronunciation is totally wrong, but that is by the way. I hesitated to mention her constituency, because I was not sure it would come out right. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) on his heartfelt contribution. He has walked that road and knows it well.

I am a great believer, as I have said in other debates, in the importance of family life. Family is the core of society, and we build society around the family. I am fortunate enough to have come from a good family environment, from my point of view. I have three boys and am a grandfather to boot. I see the importance of family life in giving children stability and ensuring that they do well in life.

In my position as an MP, I have had the opportunity to meet many constituents who adopt and foster, and who give love and meaning to those who need help. Many wish to adopt, and I will make a couple of points relating to them. Some of those points have been mentioned, but I want to put on record the situation in Northern Ireland and the importance of family life to those who find themselves on their own.

I have seen many products of adoption and the good work done by foster parents. I know a family in my constituency who have adopted or fostered numerous children over a period of years. I remember one young boy; I mind well when he was adopted, and I have watched him grow all the way through the process. He started as a vulnerable young boy, and found parents who gave him an opportunity in life. Now he is a young man. I have watched his progress from a child seeking adoption to his present employment. He is stable, kind, well-mannered and a credit to both his parents and his foster parents.

Northern Ireland had 2,660 children in the care of the authorities in March last year, to give some statistics. Their needs included short-term care as well as long-term adoption and fostering. The breakdown is that 50% were boys, 17% were between the ages of one and four, 30% were between five and 11, 31% were between 12 and 15 and 19% were 16-plus. They all have their own unique needs.

Fostering and adoption are absolutely important, but in Northern Ireland, only 61 of those 2,660 young people found adoptive parents that year. That is a minuscule drop in the ocean. I have spoken to fostering authorities and organisations in Northern Ireland, and they have indicated some of the problems with the process. A better way is needed through the paperwork and bureaucracy that we have all mentioned and know about. I made a comment earlier about people going overseas to adopt children. It is not that children from across the water should not have the opportunity for adoption. It is not only celebrities who adopt them but people such as my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann, who wanted to give children a home, as do many people I know, who have looked at photographs in the paper and read stories on TV and in magazines about multi-millionaires who go overseas to adopt children. Such people give young people stability and opportunity.

The process worries me, because it takes so long. One key factor that other Members have mentioned is that the process can take anything from two to two and a half years. For those who are starting the process and are anxious to enable quick fostering or adoption, we must do something about that.

[Claire Perry]

I wonder what the hon. Gentleman would say about a case in my constituency involving an officer returning from Afghanistan. He and his wife had been trying for five years to have a child and decided to adopt. He was a smoker and was told that he had to give up, that he could not then restart the process for a year and that it would take another two years, by which time he is likely to be on deployment again. Surely we should do better and make the system more streamlined.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for that example. We are all frustrated by the process, which does not deliver when needed but adds anomalies, in this case in relation to smoking.