Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Helen Grant

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

That is an offer I would find very difficult to refuse. I wish Ballymena United well in their cup match and I will certainly look at my diary to see whether we can work in a visit to the hon. Gentleman’s wonderful constituency.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to ensure that a cultural programme forms part of the first world war commemorations.

Adoption

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Helen Grant

Thursday 5th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Sheryll Murray]

I am sure that the Minister will respond to that when he winds up.

Of those children who entered care in England in the past year aged between 10 and 17, 80% were taken into care for the first time. Children of that age are hardly ever adopted. Adoptive parents mostly want to take home babies, and the slow pace of the process is ultimately letting down children who, as the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) said, could have been in loving and stable homes well before their fifth birthday. There is difficulty finding families to take older children, who often need extra support to overcome emotional and behavioural difficulties and provide much needed stability.

Although the number of children in care has been rising throughout the UK, there has been an overall decrease in the number of looked-after children placed for adoption. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that children in care do not have as good a start in life as children who were adopted out of care. Barnardo’s surveyed 66 young people aged between 16 and 21 who had been in care throughout their childhood: 80% had no GCSEs on leaving school and half had been in more than four care placements, and they were much more likely to be bullied or excluded from school. Although the survey tested only a small number of people, it still shows a worrying long-term trend for children failed by the extended bureaucracy of the adoption process.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing such an important debate to this Chamber. She is talking generally about delays, in addition to the bureaucracy and the unnecessary barriers, which she details so well. Does she agree that many local authorities are failing to perform properly and adequately—the percentage of children leaving care and getting into adoption ranges between 26% and 2%—and that that is unacceptable?

[Sheryll Murray]

I certainly do. I will mention local authorities later. As a Government, we should and will be doing more to help the children failed by the extended bureaucracy of the adoption process.

The trends are disturbing, because the Adoption and Children Act 2002 was made law purely to improve such statistics. The Act aimed to

“improve the performance of the adoption service, and put children at the centre”

and to align adoption law with relevant provisions in the Children Act 1989, to ensure that the child’s welfare is the paramount consideration in all decisions relating to adoption. The measures were underpinned by the Government’s programme to improve the performance of the adoption service and promote greater use of adoption. The 2002 Act placed a duty on local authorities to maintain an adoption service, and established a register to suggest matches between children waiting to be adopted and approved prospective adopters. The Act also includes measures intended to tackle delays in the adoption process—the register is intended to reduce delay in matching children with adoptive families—along with measures to require courts to draw up timetables for resolving adoption cases without delay and give directions to ensure the timetable is adhered to.

The figures I mentioned earlier clearly show that the 2002 Act has not been working as well as we would have hoped. The previous Government were trying to implement the policies in the Act, but were a little ineffective. However, the policies that were and still are entirely necessary are still relevant. Statistics show that the number of children placed for adoption fell by 15% in 2009-10. The Act is now 10 years old. We really should have seen improvement by now.

Communication between Government and local authorities also needs to improve. Local authorities need to make more use of voluntary adoption agencies with experience in finding families for difficult-to-place children, to help reduce delay and break down barriers in the system.

On 23 February, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education spoke about the Government’s action plan for adoption and explained the issue. He was concerned about

“Low adoption numbers, delays and bureaucracy in the assessment process”.

I welcome the Government’s recently published plan, which addresses many flaws in an overly bureaucratic process that has deterred many potential adopters from coming forward, and has not always worked in the best interests of the child. I am happy that the Secretary of State is in touch with the public’s concerns about the issue and is taking the necessary steps to tackle it.

The Government have been proactive in their approach and in tackling this social issue. Local authorities will be required to reduce delays in all cases and will not be able to delay an adoption for the perfect match if other suitable people are available. The ethnicity of a child and the prospective adopters will, in most cases, come second to the speedy placing of a child in a loving home. Currently, fewer people from ethnic minorities come forward to adopt children, so there is a shortage, particularly among the black community. Social workers have previously put high importance on placing children with parents of similar ethnic backgrounds, if possible, but this Government recognise that placing a child in a loving and caring home is of paramount importance.

[Mrs Grant]

With regard to ethnicity, does my hon. Friend agree that race should be no more important than any other factor in making that match? It certainly should not be used to deny a child a loving, caring, stable home.

[Sheryll Murray]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who has great expertise in this area.

Proposed changes to the legislation will make it easier for children to be fostered by approved prospective adopters while the courts consider the case for adoption. This will mean that they stay in one home with the same parents, who will be foster carers first and then adoptive parents if the court agrees to adoption. Furthermore, if a match is not found locally within three months of a child being recommended for adoption, local authorities will have to refer them to the national adoption register.

The Department for Education has published new adoption scorecards, which form part of the new approach to deal with delays in the system. The scorecards set performance thresholds that make clear the minimum expectations for timeliness in the adoption system. The previous system set targets and we all know where targets lead. Sometimes they resulted in people being placed in inappropriate adoption placements.

The Government will consult on a new six-month approval process for people wanting to adopt. I am pleased that a new Committee in another place will investigate the adoption process.

All these measures could have been implemented by the previous Government when the 2002 Act became law. The Children and Adoption Act 2006 covers some aspects of the adoption process, but the slowness of the process was not addressed. All the measures that the Government will set out now will be a rational response to a problem that should have been improved on years ago. I am pleased that the initiative to speed up the adoption process is now being taken.