Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, for tabling this amendment and for the work he has done in this area for many years now. I join him in expressing deep concern about what has happened to those five Catholic adoption agencies. The previous Government and this Government are well aware that voluntary adoption agencies have the best outcomes for children. They provide the best stability and the longer term support for those children and their families to see that those children do well. It is a matter of very great regret that those five agencies have closed. Will the Minister assure me that the guidance makes clear that the principles in the Children Act 1989 and the Children Act 2004 are paramount, that the interests of the child are paramount and that where it is considered that it is in the best interests of children not to be placed with same-sex couples, agencies can do so? I believe it is a perfectly tenable position. I have worked in this House on child welfare for 12 years now and, in my view, it is not generally in the child’s best interests to be placed in that situation. I may be wrong in that view, but there are many professionals who share it. It is not proven that it is safe or in the best interests of children to place them in such settings. I think Professor Golombok—I hope I have her name correctly—has done the most work in this area, but she looks only to the age of 18 and the sample of families examined is quite small. I should be most grateful to the Minister if she could assure me that the guidance will be clear about the paramountcy of the welfare of children, about agencies’ ability to decide where that interest lies and that we will not be seeing a repeat of what happened with those five Catholic adoption agencies.