---

Column 565

the experience of his daughters, not least, of the difficulties involved, in all too many cases, in securing a medical report. My hon. Friend has more up-to-date information than I about the position in Romania, but there is movement there. Senior Department of Health officials have made a second visit to Romania. They are trying to help the Romanian Government to develop their control and regulation of inter-country adoption. Once it is appreciated in most countries that a significant number of children are leaving, it is understandable that there should be a domestic reaction and that pressure should be put on the Government to ensure proper safeguards and regulation. The Romanian adoption committee has made it clear that it does not anticipate that it will be able to agree to inter-country adoptions before March of next year.

My hon. Friend referred to the Fowler family. They have written to me and I have responded to their letters. I regret that I can add nothing to what I said in my latest letter at the end of November. The Romanian Government are committed to ensuring that proper arrangements are in place before they are prepared to

---

Column 566

embark on any further inter-country adoptions. I shall continue to look carefully at the case to see whether there is any further advice that I feel able to offer.

I believe that very considerable progress is being made in an area of great sensitivity and growing significance. We live in a world where increasingly it is becoming the concern of us all that children throughout the world should be offered a safe, stable and happy home. None of us accepts that children should grow up in institutions, particularly those of the nature that my hon. Friend described. Where inter-country adoption is appropriate, it must be effectively regulated, with proper safeguards.

Parents cannot be said to be entitled to a child. Nobody has the right to a child. However, wherever possible, children have the right to a safe and happy home. I hope that we can continue to work closely with my hon. Friend, and those organisations which in many cases he has established and certainly befriended so effectively, in order to ensure that the high standards of child care and adoption practice to which we are accustomed in this country are developed and modified properly to incorporate the growing work of inter-country adoption. Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at two minutes past Eleven o'clock.

---