Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans his Department has to introduce statutory adoption pay for self-employed adoptive parents; and what plans he has to enable self-employed adoptive parents to receive the same benefits as other self-employed parents.

The Government recognises that it is crucial to the success of an adoption placement that an adopter takes time off work to care for and bond with their child. This is why employed adoptive parents have broadly the same rights and protections as birth parents.

So far, the Government has focused on supporting employed parents as they do not generally have the same level of flexibility over their work as self-employed parents do. But we recognise that affordability may limit the time away from work that some self-employed adopters can take, and this is why statutory adoption guidance says that Local Authorities should consider making a payment - equivalent to Maternity Allowance - in cases where adopters do not qualify for any statutory payment because of their self-employment. Prospective adopters are also entitled to an assessment of their family’s needs and can benefit from a range of support including discretionary means-tested financial support, advice, information and counselling, and support services.

We are not ruling out providing further support for self-employed parents in the future and we continue to keep differences in treatment between self-employed and employed people under review. Since 2010, we have taken significant steps to equalise the state benefits provided to the employed and self-employed, including giving the self-employed access to the full rate of the new State Pension for the first time.