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Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: The Minister has given a very full and sympathetic response to the amendment which has covered all the situations mentioned in our brief debate. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Campbell of Alloway and Lord Astor of Hever, for supporting the amendment. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, still does not recognise legally the existence of other persons holding parental responsibility. However, I am comforted by the fact that the Minister takes a marginally different view on the matter.
There is an issue in relation to fathers who deliberately absent themselves from a relationship on the birth of a child so as not to damage the interests of the child and may be difficult to contact for that reason. I shall look very carefully at everything the Minister has said about the various means of contacting whoever might legally have responsibilities. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Astor of Hever moved Amendment No. 56:
- Page 14, line 18, at end insert "or 34(1) or (2)"
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 56 I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 60, 61 and 68. Clause 20(4)(a) relates to a placement order continuing until it is revoked under Section 23. Amendment No. 56 would require that it should be revoked either
when a child is returned to local authority care by the prospective adoptive family or at the will of the adoption agency. This would mean that the child's case is examined closely at the revocation. Otherwise, the danger is that the child comes out of an adoptive placement and drifts in the care system without a proper plan in place.The very fact of the placement coming to an end means that the child will have had a very difficult time. First there was the hope of a permanent family who would love and cherish the child; then a period of deep disillusionment when those hopes were going wrong; and then the finality of the relationship breaking down to such an extent that it had to come to an end. A child cannot come out of that unscathed. It is only right that the placement order comes to an end after which the child can be properly reassessed to ensure the best planning for his or her future.
Amendment No. 61 attempts to strengthen the right of appeal or review throughout the system. Clause 23(2) gives the right of an application to revoke a placement order to the child and the local authority but not to others—for example, the birth family or the adoptive family—without the court's leave. However, subsection (3) then cuts off the avenue of gaining the court's leave by saying that there has to have been a change in circumstances. The birth family might have wanted to revoke it from the start but would now have to prove some substantial changes in the lives of those affected. The removal of this section would allow the birth or adoptive family to ask the court's leave to revoke the placement without having to prove any change in circumstance. Amendment No. 60 is in line with Amendments Nos. 56 and 61.
Placement orders do not specify the putting of a child into a particular family. A child can be placed with any family that the adoption agency sees fit. This could in theory mean that a child with a placement order might not be in an adoptive placement but in a temporary foster placement awaiting an adoptive placement.
Amendment No. 68 attempts to redress that danger if—in the circumstances envisaged in Clause 34, where a child's placement for adoption breaks down—the child would return to care, and that is likely to be a fostering arrangement, and be in peril of drifting in the system. The amendment would force the authorities and the courts to examine the child's case, and if adoption still seemed appropriate for the child—it may not, as any placement breakdown is extremely damaging to all concerned—a new placement order would have to be sought.
If adoption agencies know that they would have to establish the case for adoption again, it is more likely that they would work harder to find the right placement the first time and ensure that they support that placement to the best of their ability. It would also encourage the proper giving of information to prospective adopters. The lack of this is a huge contributor to breakdown because, if people are not forewarned of the circumstances of a child's past, there is little hope that they will be able to plan for and deal
with that child. All this is very much in the interests of the child. Moves, placements, broken relationships and fractured trust are thoroughly harmful and result in long-term damage. I beg to move.6 p.m.
Baroness Andrews: As we have gone through this afternoon discussing the various amendments, I have been impressed by how deeply and seriously people feel about what happens to children before the process of placement, during placement and following the outcome. That is certainly reflected in this group of amendments with their expression of concern about drift and the implicit delay in what happens to children. It is to the credit of all noble Lords that we return to this issue time and again.
These amendments concern what should happen to placement orders when an adoptive placement is terminated, and they also cover the circumstances in which orders may be revoked. We are aware of concerns that authorities might not always act in some of these situations and that they might allow children to drift on placement orders. I shall try to address some of those points.
I shall try to describe the amendments as we understand them. Amendments Nos. 56, 60 and 68 concern what should happen in circumstances in which an adoptive placement under a placement order breaks down, either because the prospective adopters return the child, which can certainly happen, or because the local authority itself decides to remove the child from the placement.
The amendments address a substantive issue for the reasons that many noble Lords have already given. What we are trying to achieve in the Bill is security of placement. That is why we want to bring the process of negotiation with the birth parents further forward to an early stage where everyone knows the options and what is in the best interests of the child. We would expect the local authority to review this situation very thoroughly, and, when there is a breakdown, to determine whether they still believe that the child should be placed for adoption and whether there is an alternative. There may be something in the situation itself which contributes to the breakdown and means that adoption is no longer appropriate.
If the local authority concludes that the child should no longer be placed for adoption, it can discharge the placement order. That is a very powerful safeguard, especially when it is combined with the new independent reviewing officer system which is coming in with the amendments to the Children Act under Clause 117.
We are also trying to avoid being too rigid in primary legislation, simply because of the variety of circumstances. That is one reason why we have advocated that there should be the concept of placement without a placement order. It comes back to the arguments we had at the beginning of the Sitting. There may be a great deal of difference between a case in which the adopters decide to return a child—it may be a very difficult child; there may be all sorts of
reasons—and a case in which the local authority decides to end the placement because it has made a bad judgment about the prospective adopters.It may be that the local authority is clear that the child should still be placed for adoption and that it is a question of finding the right family. In that case, it would be neither helpful nor in the interests of the child to require the local authority to return to the court. It is a part of the argument for delay, but it can also be argued that we need flexibility to allow the agencies to reconsider some of the options that they have which do not involve the court process.
I take the points made earlier by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, about the variable practices in local authorities as regards the specific provision made for young mothers and so on. However, in their role as adoption agencies—the National Adoption Standards will help in this regard— properly regulated and performance-managed, with the raft of measures in Clause 1, to which my noble friend Lord Hunt referred, they will have the appropriate skills and scope to undertake the detailed management of adoptive placement and to decide what is best for the child.
We should show some confidence in that capability and not require them to be second guessed by the courts. It will be very undermining, not to say demoralising, if at the back of every decision the local authority makes is a sense that the court will come to the rescue. It inhibits best practice, if anything.
That balanced approach is taken in the Children Act—again, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones is not in his place to hear me say the word "balanced"—and it is appropriate in this legislation.
Amendment No. 56 would require that an existing placement order is automatically discharged when a child is either returned by the prospective adopters under Clause 34(1) or where the decision has been taken to remove the child. Amendment No. 60 would, in the same circumstances, require the local authority to apply for another placement order if it still considered that to be the right choice for the child. Amendment No. 68 is linked and would require any existing placement order to be discharged either when the prospective adopters decided they wished to return the child or the agency decided for itself that it was not satisfied with the adopters and it notified them that the child must be returned.
The net effect would be that where the child was placed for adoption under a placement order and it broke down, the existing placement order would automatically be discharged and everyone would go back to the court. That would reduce the flexibility of the Bill.
As it is currently drafted the Bill provides for local authorities to do what is in the best interests of the child and allows them to consider all the options. We would expect the agency thoroughly to review the case and to consider whether there are options other than adoption.
If the child has been placed for adoption under a placement order and the authority considers that that is still the best option, it can then act swiftly and use the same authority and the same placement order to place the child in another setting; it does not have to go back to the court, with the associated delay and distress. It is a very distressing business for a child to know that, whatever decision has been taken, he is once again involved in a trip back to the court. Even if the child is quite young, he will be aware of its significance. We should bear that in mind.
The general authorisation to place, given by placement order, was widely welcomed in the detailed consultation on placement conducted by the previous administration. The responses were strongly in favour of general rather than specific placement orders because they give additional flexibility. The purpose of placement orders, therefore, is for the court to decide that placement for adoption is in the best interests of the child. The judgment is that while the quality of the placement is absolutely essential, the identity of the prospective adopters need not be absolutely satisfied, either when the child is already placed or possibly where a suitable match has provisionally been identified. The court is being asked to take a decision in principle that the child ought to be placed, not with whom the child should be placed. That is the focus of the placement order.
These amendments create an additional, unnecessary inflexibility, and I hope that I have made the arguments clear to noble Lords.
I turn to Amendment No. 61, which deals with the related issue of the conditions that have to be met before an application may be made by anyone other than a child or the local authority to discharge a placement order. Clause 23 provides for placement orders to be revoked on application to the court. The local authority can apply to revoke a placement order at any time. That is to allow for all eventualities which might arise when the local authority considers that the child should no longer be adopted, circumstances having changed.
A child, or someone acting on his behalf, can also apply at any time for a placement order to be revoked. That adds considerable flexibility. Otherwise, an application to revoke a placement order may be made only with the leave of the court, and if the child is not yet placed for adoption. The court may grant leave only if there has been a significant change in the birth parents' circumstances since the order was made. Anyone may apply for leave, including the child's birth parents.
Amendment No. 61 would obviously remove the test that there must be a significant change of circumstances before the court could grant leave to apply to discharge a placement order. The requirement that there must have been a change of circumstances before the parents or others might apply is intended precisely to prevent the court from being invited simply to repeal the deliberations that have taken place. The considerations will have been mulled over at different stages of the process.
It seems unfair to us to expect that decision to be reversed unless there is a significant change of circumstances to which people can point and say, "A decision is justified on those grounds".
In making the placement order, the court will already have been obliged by Clause 1 to consider all the alternatives and to take account of the views of the child's relatives and their capacity to provide a stable and secure environment. The placement order will reflect that.
We believe that it is right in the interests of promoting the security of the child, that the court should consider whether those circumstances have changed before it looks at whether or not to reverse that decision. The alternative would be that at any stage after the making of the order, before the child was placed for adoption, the parents or anybody else would seek leave as if nothing had changed. It would merely cater to whim.
As we are concerned about disruption, I believe that that would be needlessly disruptive. The provision is a way not only of minimising that, but also of collectively saving time and resources, and having regard to the processes that are gone through, and particularly the impact on the child. One of the main aims of the process is to try to increase security.
Despite the thoughtfulness of the amendments, I hope that Members of the Committee will understand why we are not minded to think that they are an improvement to the Bill in that form.
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