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Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Bill
Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border): I beg to move amendment No. 9, in page 8, leave out lines 17 to 22.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 10, in page 8, line 20, leave out from 'knowledge' to end of line 22.
Mr. Maclean: The amendments are small but potentially important. Clause 14 is in the miscellaneous and supplemental part of the Bill and will insert into section 56 of the Adoption Act 1976 restrictions on people bringing children into the United Kingdom for adoption, contrary to any regulation that may be prescribed by the Secretary of State. The amendments do not deal with those regulations. Leaving aside whatever requirements the Secretary of State may prescribe in those regulations, it is important to have penalties for anyone who breaches the restrictions in clause 14.
My concern is with subsection (4), which says:
It is worth while probing these matters to ascertain the views of the Minister and of the promoter, the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten), on the reasons for the provision of three years. I appreciate that there cannot be an indefinite period. Clearly that would be an injustice. However, when the Minister was last in his place on a Friday we were debating putting people on the so-called black list in the context of the Protection of Children Bill. I cannot remember the time limits for backdating offences in that Bill or for saying that people could be put on the register even if their paedophiliac activity or their abuse of children happened many years ago. I think that the time scale in that Bill was much longer than three years.
Nevertheless, we are talking not about child abusers but those who have adopted a child, or who wish to do so, who have committed an offence by bringing somebody into the United Kingdom for adoption. They have done that not because they wish to abuse the child but possibly as a result of a misguided sense of loyalty or a misguided decision that they can help the child, or possibly for
wrong and selfish reasons. They may not wish to comply with the law or may not comply with it, but they wish to breach the law to adopt a child illegally.
In those circumstances, we should be sending out a slightly stronger signal. A bar after three years perhaps sends too weak a signal. If an offence has gone undetected for three years, those concerned will know that they will get away with it. If we conclude that it is wrong in any event for people to commit such an act, we should not put a three-year bar on their being prosecuted for the offence.
I cannot remember what the usual bar on criminal prosecutions is. Is there a limit of seven years? The period is different for many different offences. However, three years seems to be a highly restrictive period within which to bring a prosecution once there is evidence that a crime has been committed.
Amendment No. 9 would remove the obligation on a prosecutor, on discovering that a crime has been committed, to act within six months of his feeling that there is sufficient evidence. That is slightly too restrictive. Do we need to have a time limit? I think that there is an obligation on the Crown Prosecution Service in any case to move as speedily as it can, and there may be good reasons for it taking slightly longer than six months to commence proceedings.
Inevitably, in circumstances involving the illegal adoption of children or of bringing children into this country to adopt them improperly, people will have behaved deviously. The facts will possibly be difficult to ascertain. The prosecutor might need more time to put together a case that will stick in court. I cannot see that there will be a fundamental injustice to the accused person, or the person who may be accused, if proceedings are not commenced within six months.
I agree, of course, that there should not be a ghastly sword of Damocles hanging over someone's head, where they are told that proceedings may be brought against them and it takes years and years before any prosecution is or is not brought. That is not appropriate. However, we either need a period that is longer than six months or we do not need a period to be prescribed; the matter can then be left to be dealt with under the normal rules and subject to the obligation that already applies to the CPS to bring prosecutions as speedily as it can provided that it has sufficient evidence.
We must examine carefully the bar after three years. In many cases evidence may come to light only when the child has started school. In some cases it may come to light only when the child has come of age, has applied for a national insurance number, or has a health problem and is taken to a doctor when aged five, seven, nine or whatever. In those circumstances the doctor or the health centre may discover that the child was adopted improperly four, five or six years before. The authorities should then have the right to prosecute. If this is regarded as something for which there should be a penalty, I suggest to the Bill's promoter that we should not have too short a cut-off period, as that would prevent the prosecution taking action against people who should be punished but who committed an offence five, six or seven years earlier.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley (South-West Surrey):
I appreciate the opportunity to contribute at this late stage to the debate on this important Bill, especially on amendments Nos. 8 and 9. As I served as chairman of the
Undoubtedly, amendments Nos. 8 and 9 relate to the area that has caused most pain and suffering. They concern a vexed and sensitive question, because introducing criminal offences in child care matters is always a serious step. Too often, families felt provoked into abusing the rules and the system because of the resistance and insults that they received from local authorities and adoption agencies. I was greatly perplexed that, at a time when so much effort was going into creating new fertility treatments with in vitro fertilisation and other such steps, there was so much resistance and prejudice against intercountry adoption.
Of course it is a profoundly serious step for a child to leave its natural country and live in another land, butfor those who saw the alternative--frequently, institutionalisation without health care, education, nurture or love--the opportunity to give a child a loving, caring home in this country proved irresistible. Too often, those families who tried to go through the proper channels found themselves rejected and resisted at every turn.
No one could condone taking a child from one country to another without using the proper processes, but I ask the Minister and the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten)--the Bill's promoter--whether there will also be a countervailing power to take action against local authorities that simply refuse to co-operate with intercountry adoption. I accept that many have changed their tune. To hear the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I remind the right hon. Lady that we are considering a specific amendment, which is far narrower than the points that she is making at the moment.
Mrs. Bottomley:
I stand corrected, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I hope that the House will understand the relevance to the amendments of what I am saying. My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) is discussing the issue of the six months and the three-year maximum. I believe that legislation should be passed only if it will be perceived as reasonable and will be acceptable to families and to those implementing it. The present unreasonable state of affairs has caused many people to feel affronted and provoked.
"Proceedings for an offence under this section may be brought within a period of six months from the date on which evidence sufficient in the opinion of the prosecutor to warrant the proceedings came to his knowledge; but no such proceedings shall be brought by virtue of this subsection more than three years after the commission of the offence."
The amendments in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) would have one of two effects. Amendment No. 9 would delete the whole of subsection (4), and as an alternative, amendment No. 10 would delete the last part, which is the bar on prosecution more than three years after the commission of the offence.
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