Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 33:"Before Clause 14, insert the following new clause—"    ““REGISTRATION OF PRIVATE FOSTER PARENTS    For section 69 of the Children Act 1989 (power to prohibit private fostering) substitute— ““69   REGISTRATION OF PRIVATE FOSTER PARENTS (1)   Every local authority shall keep a register of persons who act as private foster parents within their area. (2)   A local authority shall not register any person as a private foster parent unless it is satisfied that he is fit to act as a private foster parent. (3)   The Secretary of State shall by regulations make provisions as to the considerations to which a local authority is to have regard in reaching a decision as to whether to register a person as a private foster parent. (4)   A local authority shall cancel the registration of any person under subsection (1) if— (a)   it appears to them that the circumstances of the case are such that they would be justified in refusing to register that person as a private foster parent; (b)   the care provided by that person for any privately fostered child is, in the opinion of the authority, inadequate having regard to the needs of that child; or (c)   the premises in which any privately fostered child is or would be accommodated are not suitable for that purpose. (5)   No person shall act as a private foster parent unless he is registered under subsection (1). (6)   A person who contravenes subsection (5) shall be guilty of an offence. (7)   A person guilty of an offence under subsection (6) shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months, or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both. (8)   A person aggrieved by the refusal of a local authority to register him as a private foster parent may appeal to the court in accordance with paragraph 8 of Schedule 8 to this Act.”””” The noble Earl said: My Lords, Amendment No. 33 returns briefly to an issue which we have debated a number of times over the past three or four years, most recently during the passage of the Children Act 2004. The issue is private fostering. This Bill quite properly tightens up the current legal provisions relating to inter-country adoptions, and it does so with the purpose of protecting vulnerable children from exploitation. But there is another group of children whom one could argue were equally vulnerable to children adopted from abroad, namely children who are the subject of private fostering arrangements. It seems to us that anyone who wanted to get round the procedures associated with inter-country adoption could opt instead for private fostering, where the regulations are, to put it mildly, a great deal looser. That is the justification for our having tabled this amendment. The numbers of children who are privately fostered are probably considerable. The best estimates are that about 10,000 children in England and Wales are fostered privately and some studies mention as many as 15,000. Between 80 and 90 per cent of them come from West Africa. At the moment, private foster carers are required only to notify local authorities of the arrangements that they have made: in other words it is up to private fosterers to own up. That is not the kind of process which is likely to expose to the daylight those foster parents who may pose a danger to children. When serious problems occur it is often too late. There is a tighter alternative to notification, which is to make all private fosterers subject to registration. That is the alternative which we have consistently proposed to the Government on a number of occasions and which they have, with equal consistency, rejected at least in practice although there is provision in the Children Act to go ahead if the Government believe that that is right. We all acknowledge that a registration scheme would be more bureaucratic than simple notification, but it would also have a number of advantages. One of them would be that local authorities would be able to bring a private fostering arrangement to an end if they thought that it was undesirable. They cannot do that at the moment, or at least not without a great deal of difficulty. Another advantage would be to ensure that private fosterers were approved in advance as being suitable. People often object that this is none of anybody’s business if the arrangement is purely private. But with the tragedy of Victoria Climbié still fresh in our minds, my own view is that many of these arrangements should be vetted in advance; and at the very least the child’s individual needs should be assessed and provided for. Notifying yourself as a foster carer is not at all the same thing as being approved, but in the minds of birth parents overseas, it can look like the same thing, and that can lead to a false sense of security. I should be grateful if the Minister could take this opportunity to say how the Government’s thinking has developed since we debated the issue last year. What have been the results of the enhanced notification system thus far? What criteria are they using to decide whether the current system is or is not satisfactory? The last time that the Government collected figures in this area was 1991, so the up-to-date statistics will be quite revealing—perhaps in a way that may not be fully anticipated. I beg to move.