Children and Families Bill

My Lords, I must advise your Lordships that if this amendment is agreed to, I will not be able to...

Moved by

Baroness Hughes of Stretford

2: Clause 1, line 4, leave out “C” and insert “...

My Lords, may I welcome the Minister to the first meeting of his first Bill Committee? I thank hi...

My Lords, we have two amendments in this group. As we are starting in Committee, I begin by decla...

My Lords, I want to add a couple of comments to those of my noble friend Lady Hamwee, with whose ...

My Lords, I have two brief points. First, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I am concerned ab...

My Lords, I have three points. I begin by saying that I believe that legislation should enhance a...

I am reluctant to query the noble Baroness because I am aware of her huge expertise in this area ...

I, too, welcome the Minister to his first Grand Committee day of a Bill and thank him for his tim...

My Lords, I declare my interests. I, too, was a member of the Adoption Legislation Select Committ...

My Lords, I want to make a brief intervention. I welcome the Minister to his current position. He...

I am grateful to noble Lords for their kind welcome as we start our consideration of this very im...

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate on this important subject, many of ...

Moved by

Baroness Butler-Sloss

11: Clause 2, page 1, line 15, at end insert—

“(...

My Lords, I have a considerable number of interests that I need to declare, not all of which I ha...

My Lords, our Amendment 12 is on the same issue and a similar wording to that moved so eloquently...

My Lords, like many others, I see many good intentions in the Bill and, along with others, I welc...

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch made reference to the UN Convention on the Rig...

I too have my name to Amendment 11. It seems that these issues of religious persuasion, racial or...

My Lords, I would like to say something about where I think this all came from. We should remind ...

My Lords, the UN convention quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asks for respect for a chil...

My Lords, I would like to make two points. First, I agree with the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister ...

My Lords, I support the amendment. Living in Britain as a culturally diverse person can be very c...

My Lords, a number of moving contributions have been made to this debate, particularly by my nobl...

Six per cent of white children in care are adopted while 2% of black children in care are adopted...

I am sorry to interrupt. I just want to get this clear, because the Minister seems to be saying t...

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for enabling me to clarify this point. I am not saying that i...

Forgive me for interrupting, but I wonder if I could have the date of Elaine Farmer’s report.

The noble and learned Baroness will get that information in a second.

A study by Julie Selw...

My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken on this amendment with a unanimity of support for it....

Moved by

Baroness Hamwee

13: Clause 3, page 2, line 28, at end insert—

“( ) Dir...

This and other amendments in the group take us to Clause 3, which deals with the recruitment, ass...

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 14 to 17 in my name in relation to Clause 3, which, as we h...

My Lords, it really is important that we do what is best for the potentially adopted child or you...

My Lords, I endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said. I shall read out again one senten...

My Lords, for a number of reasons, I support my noble friends in their Amendment 13 and on clause...

My Lords, I have listened with great interest to this debate. I remember the last days of the pre...

My Lords, much of Clause 3 is perfectly reasonable. It would allow the Secretary of State to take...

My Lords, there are fundamental problems with this clause. As has been said, there is no appeal a...

I begin with the proposal to remove the clause, but most of what I will say is also relevant to a...

I have been accused of being rather unkind to the Minister in thinking that there might be some p...

Yes, I did say that Clause 3 provides for such a solution. It is not a solution in itself. As I s...

My Lords, it is quite distressing—in a Bill that, as noble Lords have said, by and large we welco...

Moved by

Baroness Hamwee

18: Clause 4, page 3, line 2, after “asked” insert “at any t...

My Lords, this is a small amendment but it concerns an important point. Clause 4 takes us to adop...

My Lords, we have two amendments in this group, Amendments 19 and 270. Amendment 19 is about the ...

My Lords, before I respond to the important points that have been raised, I should like to explai...

My Lords, on the “at any time” amendment, the concern in my mind is that local authorities are bo...

Moved by

Baroness Northover

20: Clause 4, page 3, line 44, at end insert—

“( ) ...

Moved by

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

21: Clause 6, page 4, line 27, leave out subsec...

My Lords, we have Amendments 21 and 24 in this group and I shall address them both. Amendment 21 ...

My Lords, I will speak first to Amendment 21, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lad...

I think I understood the Minister to say that the Government were taking the delegated powers poi...

Moved by

Lord Nash

22: Clause 6, page 5, line 9, at end insert—

“( ) On the occ...

Moved by

Baroness Hamwee

25: After Clause 6, insert the following new Clause—

“...

I am sorry that we are coming to this amendment late on the first day. I understand that we start...

My Lords, I put my name to this amendment. In paragraph 274 of our post-legislative scrutiny comm...

My Lords, I think that most of the points have been made, but I want to go back to the days when ...

I thank my noble friend Lady Hamwee, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the n...

I apologise to the Minister. Under this proposal, there is no suggestion that there should be any...

I assure the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that we are not seeking to be disinge...

My Lords, perhaps I may reinforce, if it is necessary because I think that it will be clear enoug...

I should be delighted to meet the noble Baroness. It seems to me that there is a clear misunderst...

I am very grateful for that and on that note I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

This may be a convenient moment to adjourn the Committee and to suggest that we meet again on Mon...