Adoptive Parents: Financial Support

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

This is a very important topic, as hon. Members have acknowledged. I was particularly struck by the specific impact of the financial regime that adopting parents face, as the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) described in the case of her constituent Kirsty. I was also struck by her general points, which were echoed by the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), about the challenges faced by adoptive parents, including the challenges that their children continue to endure having joined their family, as well as those of the adoptive family and their birth children.

As hon. Members spoke, I was reflecting on how much more we now know about the early development of children. I compare the experience of 50 years ago, when my parents adopted my sister, with the experience that my sister has had adopting her two young sons, and the difference is pretty stark. My sister simply arrived and that was that; the expectation was that all was now well and no further support was required. Indeed, I am glad to say that things did turn out very well for my sister. The support that has been offered to her as an adoptive parent, however, is far greater and more sympathetic, and shows much greater understanding of the challenges around child development than that of a generation or two ago.

I will briefly pay tribute to the former Government who, over the last 10 or 15 years, introduced some quite significant improvements to the system that adoptive parents face. David Cameron and Michael Gove both made it a priority to ensure that the regime around adoption was improved. I have just read a leader in The Spectator praising the last Government’s performance on adoption—I cannot think that that was anything to do with the editor of that magazine—but Michael Gove does deserve credit for the work that was done, such as the introduction of adoption leave; the pupil premium and the additional pupil premium that are available for adopted children; and the priority in school admissions.

I pay tribute to my former colleague, David Johnston, the Children’s Minister in the last Parliament, who introduced the adoption support fund that the hon. Member for Torbay mentioned. It is fair to ask why additional support is needed for adoptive families and adopted children. One could argue—and I think we should—that all families need support and help bringing up children.

As we have heard from hon. Members, however, a young child almost always reaches the destination of adoption after a long journey of disruption. It is wonderful that a settled life is now available to that child, but the challenge is not over when they arrive in their new family. We all know from experiences in our constituencies how much adoptive families have to work to ensure that their children are properly supported.

It is worth noting something that I am afraid still somewhat applies, despite the reforms I mentioned: while there is an expectation that fostering families will need ongoing support after the placement of the child, in the case of adoption, the expectation remains—as with a new child born into a family—that the child is almost exclusively the responsibility of the adoptive parents and support from the outside is not necessary. However, it is necessary.

I am grateful to be able to add my voice to what we have heard about the enormous benefits that adoptive parents bring to our society as a whole by, frankly, rescuing many children who faced years of potential neglect or abuse if they remained where they were, or simply faced inadequate care and upbringing if they remained in the care system. I think of former colleagues of mine who, 25 years ago, adopted quadruplet boys aged two who had been removed from a disgraceful, appallingly abusive family. Although it was very challenging for the family and the four boys over their childhood, they have all grown up well and are doing well. Their parents are rightly proud of them. I think of the likely trajectory that those children would have been on if that family had not stepped forward to look after them—four boys who experienced extreme abuse in their early years—and the cost that would have been imposed on our society, both financial and social.

A topic that is very much on our minds at the moment is the tragedy of grooming gangs. While it is complex and every case is different, what many of the cases had in common was the fact that the girls who were victims of those crimes had been in care. The clear obligation on us as a society—as the last Government and this one have both asserted—is to have more children leaving the care system and gaining the stability and support of a loving family. That means more fostering—we all need to do more to promote fostering opportunities and help people to become foster parents—and more adopting, as we have been discussing, as well as other ways we can support children to grow up in stable families. I support initiatives such as fostering for adoption, as well as Home for Good, which is a tremendous project.

I acknowledge the work of kinship carers, who are an important part of the economy of care. Thanks largely to David Johnston in the last Parliament, they can get significantly more support, but we need to go further to ensure that they too can access support around statutory pay and parental leave.

As the hon. Member for Hazel Grove said, there is clearly an anomaly for adoptive parents, and particularly for self-employed parents, who cannot get statutory adoption pay. Unlike self-employed birth parents, they do not get the equivalent of maternity pay. As she said, there are opportunities for local authorities to provide discretionary support, but most people are unaware of that, and it is, indeed, discretionary. I am not sure that it should not be discretionary—there is an important debate to be had about the degree to which we ringfence finance and impose obligations on local authorities—but there clearly needs to be far greater awareness among the public of the support available, and greater encouragement for local authorities to fulfil their responsibilities to adoptive parents.

We need a better funding arrangement for local government so that it can take on board and fulfil its social responsibilities. Most of all, we must recognise that families are the essential welfare system in our society. The more we can do to ensure that they can fulfil that responsibility and do that important work for children who desperately need the love of a supportive family, the better. I acknowledge that the Government want to do that, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister will do in the future.