Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that harder-to-place children, previously matched through the statutory Adoption Register for England, are found adoptive families in a timely manner.

Finding stable and loving permanent homes for vulnerable children is a priority for this government.

Children continue to be matched with families, with adoption agencies using a variety of systems where they need to seek inter-agency matches.

Two thirds of local authorities are now part of a Regional Adoption Agency (RAA), which aim to deliver more efficient recruitment of adopters and faster matching of children and families. The vast majority of remaining local authorities are on track to be in a live RAA by the end of 2020.

The government has also invested £1 million in adopter recruitment during 2020-21, which will focus on generating an increase in people of all backgrounds, coming forward to adopt children who have ‘harder-to-place’ characteristics.