Clause 9 - Declaration of special restrictions on adoptions from abroad
Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]
10:45 am
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
As I said, we are starting with overseas adoptions. The clause deals with the ability of the Secretary of State to deem that people from the UK cannot adopt children from certain countries.
Amendments Nos. 41 and 43 are worded in the same way and would add an additional consultee from
“prescribed organisations involved in adoption”
to the other named bodies that the Secretary of State is required to consult before issuing such an order. Amendment No. 42 would ensure that once a decision is made it is reviewed regularly and not just forgotten about.
I shall talk generally about why the amendments are required and what I think that the Government are trying to do. We broadly support them in trying to firm up the law on abuses of inter-country adoption. The problem was brought into the public consciousness by the abuse of international adoption procedures in the wake of the tsunami, and by certain Cambodian adoption cases that have come to light. In July last year, Mr. Justice Munby ruled that the Government’s existing ban on adoptions from Cambodia was lawful, and mentioned concerns about possible child trafficking and improper payments in the Cambodian adoptions system. It was suggested that one way of dealing with elicit adoptions from Cambodia would be to take up the offer from British embassy officials, who recommended that a special official could be posted in Cambodia to investigate the background of children matched with British couples to ensure that they were being adopted legitimately and not by people whose intentions were far from beneficial for those children.
The situation in Cambodia is rather sad. In the last year for which figures are available, there were 670,000 orphans under the age of 18—more than 5 per cent. of the population. Some 30,000 of those were AIDS orphans under the age of 15. The UN estimated that as many as 300,000 Cambodian children would become AIDS orphans by 2005. That is a very distressing figure and shows the problems that many countries, particularly developing countries, have with looking after orphaned children.
It is worth pointing out that when we discussed international adoption in our proceedings on the 2002 Act, various measures were taken to tighten up the procedures by which children are brought into this country. Prospective adopters now have to apply through the local authorities or adoption agencies, receive certificates of eligibility, and so on. That Act tightened up the law, and the Secretary of State took powers to ban adoptions if they were “contrary to public policy”—I think that that was the wording.
At the time, the Minister who faced me during deliberations on that Bill—she is now the Minister for Schools—said, and we agree:
“We acknowledge that intercountry adoption can be an extremely valuable placement choice for some children. It is in line with international conventions to which we are a signatory.”
All of us recognise that overseas adoptions are beneficial in many cases, particularly where there are an awful lot of orphans who otherwise might be consigned to miserable existences. There is a problem, however, in that the number of overseas adoptions in this country is very low. The clause therefore appears to be trying to address a relatively small problem, and we do not want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Last year, there were approximately 25,000 adoptions internationally, of which 15,000 took place in the United States, which is by far the biggest adopter of overseas children. Other countries are some way behind that. France adopted 3,600 children from overseas and Norway adopted 600. Yet the figure in this country is only 300, and has been at about 300 for some time. As things stand, not many children from overseas are actually adopted by UK couples into the UK.
The reasons for that are numerous. One may be that we have a slightly better domestic adoption system than France, where there is not so much domestic adoption. Part of the problem, however, is that adoption from overseas is a bureaucratic, long drawn-out, cumbersome and costly process. It can cost up to £10,000 to adopt a child from overseas and the system is already very tight.
I understand that the Secretary of State already has the power to ban countries from the adoption list, but clause 9 and the following clauses seek to formalise that arrangement. We agree with that, but unlike many other countries the UK has no adoption agency, and that is part of the problem—we rely on the Secretary of State to make the decision, in consultation with the Welsh Assembly and other United Kingdom bodies, whereas in other countries it would be made by a specialist international adoption agency with all sorts of expertise and input from professionals working around the world. That is a weakness, and unfortunately the Government have not taken on board the idea of separating out the powers of the Secretary of State into a separate international adoption agency in this country.
For that reason, it is all the more important that, if the Secretary of State is to ban a country for adoption purposes, he should do so with the maximum information available to him and after maximum consultation with all the powers that be. For obvious reasons, that list of consultees must include the National Assembly for Wales and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland, as set down in clause 9(5)—we do not dispute that. Nowhere in the Bill, however, is the Secretary of State obliged to consult more widely.
In amendments Nos. 41 and 43, which could be termed probing amendments, we suggest that the Secretary of State should have an obligation to consult other named bodies that are skilled in adoption, and in particular international adoption. One such body is the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, with which all hon. Members are familiar, and there are other renowned, long-standing adoption agencies that have great experience of dealing with international adoption. They should be put on a list of bodies with which the Secretary of State should speak. We do not want a country put on a banned list just because some political furore blows up there.
Action should be taken purely in the interests of the child’s welfare. That is what adoption is all about. It is not about the convenience of the parents, nor about helping the political system of a particular country, but about promoting the welfare of a child who happens to be overseas, rather than here, if it is deemed that a loving, adoptive family from the UK is capable of providing a better home.
As I said on Second Reading, the figures for the countries from which adoptions are made are pretty lopsided. Of the total number of international adoptions—about 3,000 in the past 10 years—1,441 or approximately half have come from China. Some 98 per cent. of those 1,441 were baby girls, which is a comment on the value that Chinese society places on them. I also mentioned that the figure for China is way ahead of the figure for the country from which the next highest amount of adoptions come, which is India with 235. India is followed by Guatemala with 205, and the figure for Cambodia during the past 10 years is 67.
The amendments would ensure that the Secretary of State is absolutely convinced of his case before countries are put on the banned list. We must also be sure that if a country is placed on a banned list, whether it should stay on the banned list will be under constant review. At what stage will Cambodia, for example, be restored to the list of countries from which children may be adopted? The Minister might like to use that as a case in point, because Cambodia is the main country that has given rise to the proposed legislation. The situation applies also to Romania, although I think that Romania was banned by an EU decision rather than one instigated at home.
How much evidence is required to prove that the system is not working properly and that child trafficking, not genuine adoption, is taking place? Where will the burdens of proof be, and where will that information be found? It is slightly worrying that we need separate legislation to prevent child trafficking, because many other laws and regulations, which I hope are working, are aimed at preventing it. Border controls are better now, one hopes. Are they still not sufficient? I have serious qualms. The Conservative party tabled amendments to the recent Children Bill and to the Adoption and Children Bill about ensuring that minors who arrive at ports of entry unaccompanied by their parents or people with parental responsibility are looked at closely by immigration officials and local social services before being allowed on their way.
Gatwick airport is in West Sussex, and I am told by social services representatives there, who now work closely with immigration officials at the airport, that by far the largest amount of unaccompanied minors now arriving come from China. Too many of them then disappear into the system, ending up as goodness knows what—we do not know whether they are being trafficked or abused. A lot more must be done to ensure that those children are properly identified and that their subsequent journeys are properly logged.