My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response but after almost an hour of debate, we have made little progress. I think it was my noble friend Lord Hunt who said that the Minister does not seem to get the opposition to Clause 15. It is not just from these noble Lords but across different parties and the Cross-Benchers as well, who have expressed very strong views as they did in respect of Clause 9 last week. Many of the same sentiments have been repeated here today. There is deep-seated resentment and opposition to this and it will not go away through the amendments in this group just being withdrawn or not moved today.
A lot of noble Lords asked the Minister to give us some rationale as to what is driving this and the purpose behind it. The only specific thing I was able to note down in what he said was that it was to improve the provision of services to children. I think that everyone in the Room—noble Lords, the officials of the House or the department, and even the visitors in the public seats—would throw their hands up to that suggestion. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, encapsulated it when he said that introducing best practice is the way to improve things, not by regulation. I urge the Minister to bear that fundamental point in mind.
I welcome the fact that we are to have a meeting and that the Minister will also speak to CoramBAAF. That is important but there are a number of organisations and if he has not already done so, I think that some of the adoption and fostering agencies would like to meet him because, as I said, there is deep-seated opposition to this.
I do not want to rehearse the arguments and will not do so but I need to say to the Minister that, unless something in Clause 15 changes, he will be riding for a fall on Report. I hope that he will bring forward some sort of meaningful amendment that takes the sting out of some of the arguments that have been advanced over the last hour. They are very strongly felt and there is no political point-scoring here at all. If the Minister wants to make progress with this aspect of the Bill, we need to see something different when we discuss these issues in the Chamber in some weeks’ time.
The response to the amendments is nothing other than disappointing but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. I mean it when I say that I look forward to returning to this subject on Report.