My Lords, I support Amendment 2 and should like to comment briefly. What is strange is that it seems we are all in agreement. On the substance of the matter, there is not as much disagreement in this debate as I thought there would be when the Bill was published, which is interesting. To some extent, what we seem to be debating this evening is: what is the best way in legislation to give that message to people whose lives will be affected by what we decide?
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I want to add two points to that. The first is about perception. Throughout the implementation of this Bill, one problem will be not so much with the legislation but with how it is seen out there by people who have to interpret it. This is about changing culture. As far as this matter is concerned, the perception of people outside this Chamber is not that there is wide agreement across the political spectrum about the need to take these matters into account, but that this legislation intends to move the position to the other end from where it has been in the past. For me, the challenge is: how do we have something in law that clearly gives the message that it is all right to take into account a child’s ethnic background? Many people out there think that what this legislation is about is that it is not all right to consider a child’s ethnic and cultural background when making a decision on adoption.
I ask myself which of the two alternatives available to us—statutory guidance or something in primary legislation—will most strongly give the message about where this House wants to have the legislation. It has to be in the Bill; that is my non-expert interpretation. It would be unwise not to take the advice of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who is paramount in her expertise in this area. If I have to come down on one side or the other, I will go for that of the noble and learned Baroness, not the Minister. In the run-up to the Bill, the spin that the Government gave was that they were moving away from taking into account a child’s ethnic, cultural and linguistic background. That is where people in the wider world think they are. To get the pendulum back to the middle, we clearly need something in the Bill, and so far I have heard nothing that argues against that. To give that message and to get this new legislation to have a fair and good start is better served by putting it in the Bill. I support Amendment 2.