My Lords, I have a considerable number of interests that I need to declare, not all of which I have to say I can remember. I am a
governor of Coram, a patron of BAAF and of PAC, a patron—I think—of TACT and a patron of the Grandparents’ Association. I am very involved with Barnardo’s, the NSPCC and probably many others. I was also chairman of the pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny committees.
I strongly support the Government on the Bill, which in principle is an excellent one. There are, however, as one would always imagine, certain points that need both elucidation and change. Perhaps I may also add how delighted I am with the extra resources that have now been offered by the Government toward the adoption process and post-adoption support. There is an area about which I wish to speak in this debate and that is Clause 2 of the Bill, where it is intended to repeal Section 1(5) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002.
The opinion of the adoption committee that I chaired was that it was right to start with the removal of the words from subsection (5). This is an issue of ethnicity—an issue of race, culture, religion and language. In Clause 2, the Government are removing it entirely from the 2002 Act. That is a step too far. In paragraphs 57 to 83 of the adoption report, we said—putting it shortly—that we agreed that the Government were right to take it out as a separate subsection of the 2002 Act. It was given too great prominence. The evidence that we received as a committee was to the effect that there was a time when social workers elevated subsection (5) to inappropriate heights and therefore they were trying to match in colour in particular where it was not appropriate and moving children from very good families who were not of the same colour, race or background. However, we also had evidence, both from social workers and from the adoption agencies, that that problem had largely receded; it had been far less obvious in recent times and there was a counterdanger that, if it were taken out altogether, the social workers who cared too much about it when it was in would care equally when it was out. They would say, “Now that it’s not in, we have to disregard it. We must not consider race, ethnicity, language, religion or culture”. That is an equally important danger. We had evidence from the social workers and the agencies that there are social workers and other people out there who might take that view. It is a danger and one that must not be disregarded.
We also had informal evidence from children; we had a group of children who had been adopted and a group of children who were looked after who came to talk to me and one or two other Peers at the request of the then Children’s Rights Director. They were extremely interesting groups of children, ranging in age from about seven or eight to about 19. The young ones were very vocal, and at least two of them said to us that the question of ethnicity was extremely important to them, and they were worried about being placed—or the possibility of being placed—with someone who would not understand their background. To me, this was very powerful evidence from the horse’s mouth. I am very concerned about the Government keeping this clause in the Bill, when in fact we made it very clear in our report how concerned we, as a committee, were. Our proposal was that it should not be set out on its
own, where it has too important an effect, but in among other matters that have to be considered under Section 1(4) of the 2002 Act.
If my amendment were accepted, Section 1(4)(d) of the Act would require the court or agency to have regard to, “the child’s age, sex, background, religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background and any of the child’s characteristics which the court or agency considers relevant”. It is neatly packaged into a number of other matters.
As I understand it, the Government are saying that “characteristics” includes that. It does in a sense but, unless you highlight the relevant points somewhere, there is a great danger that they will be overlooked. If you look at subsection (4) it is interesting to see the various points that are spelt out because a great many of them could be covered by one word or sentence, but the legislators of the day thought it necessary to explain some of them. I urge the Government to think very carefully about including, neatly packaged in subsection (4)(d), those words as part and parcel of a larger package of what the social workers should be looking at. I beg to move.