New Clause 12
Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]
1:00 pm
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
The hon. Lady makes a key point. That was why I singled out the increase in the baby figures and the fact that we need to make the most progress in getting the hard-core cases, many of which are difficult and challenging teenagers who are not easy to adopt, out of the care system and into some form of permanent adoption if there is no way they can go back to their birth parents or other members of their family. That is where we are trying to get them. The hon. Lady makes a perfectly pertinent point, so I hope that the Minister will address those concerns in his reply. It is a genuine concern that we need to dispel, because it does no one in the business of adoption any good.