Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness need not apologise for raising this issue. The welfare of children taken out of the United Kingdom for the purpose of intercountry adoption is of paramount importance to us in deciding their future. This is an unusual situation because the noble Baroness is calling for us to regulate less than we do at present. I fear that I am in the position of saying that we think that the public interest requires us to keep this regulation in place. We accept that the number of cases is small and that this will appear burdensome to some individuals who are clearly very suitable to take on the role of adopter in the way that the noble Baroness described. I shall explain our thinking on this matter. Our position on intercountry adoption is consistent with our obligations under international law; that is, that intercountry adoption should occur only where it is in the best interests of the child. Intercountry adoption must never be the first or only option considered for children who can no longer live with their birth parents. Rigorous procedures are undertaken before children are placed for adoption within the UK with which we are all familiar. In the case of adoption outside the UK, we need to have constant regard to the fact that, once a child has left the UK, he no longer has the protection of the authorities in this country. If an intercountry adoptive placement does not proceed as planned in the other country, we can imagine that the consequences for the child would be very serious. Moreover, there is also a strong possibility that we in the United Kingdom would not know that such an unfortunate situation has occurred. So in deciding to authorise a person to remove a child from the United Kingdom, the court needs to be completely satisfied that the prospective adopter is able to meet the child’s needs throughout childhood and beyond. When the Adoption and Children Act 2002 comes into force on 30 December this year, it will require that the prospective adopter obtains an order of the High Court in the way that the noble Baroness described. An application for such an order cannot be made until the child has lived with the prospective adopter in this country for at least 10 weeks. I know that the noble Baroness thinks that this duration may be burdensome, but the law currently in force—which is pursuant to the Adoption Act 1976 and will be repealed by the 2002 Act when it comes into force in December—requires the child to have had his home with the prospective adopters for six months, so there is already a significant move in the direction that the noble Baroness wishes. We believe that to reduce this important period further still would hinder the availability of relevant information to the courts when they make their decision on adoption. This amendment, if agreed to, would effectively remove the requirement for any trial period if the High Court were to give leave. I fully accept that whether to do so would be the decision of the court, as the noble Baroness has said, but we think that that would be a deregulation too far. It could create a substantial obstacle in how the courts properly determine that giving leave is appropriate and in the child’s best interests, because it would mean there was an absence of meaningful information about the proposed arrangement. We fully accept that some of these cases we are discussing involve relatives adopting a member of their extended family. Indeed, in some, but by no means all, cases, a relative may have had more regular contact with the child than the parent. However, as the Committee will appreciate, contact with a related child, no matter how frequent, is very different from being that child’s legal parent for the rest of his life. Such a change in situation must continue to be subject to appropriate scrutiny before it is cemented by law or by circumstances. Therefore, we believe that the continuation of the degree of regulation that will come into force in December remains appropriate.