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Earl Howe: That is a helpful reply, and I am grateful to the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Earl Howe moved Amendment No. 64:

Page 16, line 28, at end insert "or sibling"

The noble Earl said: In moving Amendment No. 64 I shall also speak to Amendment No. 121. As we have discussed already, Clause 25 contains very important provisions about contact. Amendment No. 64 is quite simple. It adds siblings to those who can apply for a contact order under this clause. Siblings are defined by Amendment No. 121—uncontroversially, I hope—as full or half brothers or sisters.

The current provision in subsection (3) allows the child or an adoption agency to apply, as well as the parent or guardian of the child and some others, and the court can grant leave to others to apply. However, brothers and sisters are not mentioned.

I am sure that the Committee will be aware that one of the difficult aspects of placing children for adoption is that brothers and sisters have to be split up. It is very often important for children that appropriate arrangements for contact should be made. Of course, I am not suggesting that responsible agencies or authorities do not have in mind the needs of full or half siblings. However, this amendment gives those siblings a little more recognition in the process leading to contact orders being made. I beg to move.

Lord Northbourne: I support the noble Earl. This is an important amendment. As it may save time at

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Report stage, may I ask the Minister, when he replies, to consider the possibility of grandparents also being allowed to apply?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I agree that this is a very important matter. Siblings are very important to the child who may be being considered for adoption.

Amendment No. 64 would give siblings the ability to apply as of right for an order under Section 25 for contact under placement. Amendment No. 121 is consequential and provides a definition of the term "sibling" for use in the Bill.

I want to make it clear that the Government are committed to promoting links between siblings in adoption. Indeed, the National Standards make the preferred position very clear—these are the National Standards to which I referred earlier in debate and which will very much govern the way in which adoption services are operated by local authorities and agencies—that siblings should be placed together unless this does not meet their individually assessed needs.

We should expect that adoption agencies would make appropriate arrangements for the child to have contact with siblings where it is in the child's interest. If there were any obstacle to this, the agency could apply to the court for a contact order under Clause 25(3)(a).

If siblings themselves wanted to seek contact, we would expect them to approach the agency and agree an arrangement with it and the prospective adopters. However, if this did not prove possible, it would be open to the sibling to seek the court's leave to apply for a contact order under Clause 25(3)(e).

I agree that Clause 25 does not provide explicitly for siblings to apply. In this, it is the same as Section 34 of the Children Act, which makes parallel provision for contact where the child is subject to a care order under care orders. Clause 25 is modelled on Section 34. However, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, has made a very good case. I give a commitment to noble Lords to look at the issue between Committee and Report stage to see if there would be merit in being explicit about siblings. I should be happy to take that back.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is right: the issue of contact and the role of grandparents is indeed important. It is an issue on which the adoption standards help us in some way. It is certainly a matter that needs to be fully taken into account.

Earl Howe: I am very grateful to the Minister for what he has said. He is indeed right that my concern was that siblings should be able, as of right, rather than with the leave of the court, to make an application under this clause. I hope that we can make some progress in this area because I have heard of some quite heart-rending cases where siblings have been denied contact because of various obstructions in the system.

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7.15 p.m.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: There may be certain circumstances where it is appropriate for a sibling to be denied contact. One can think of abuse cases where that decision would be made clearly in the interests of the child.

Earl Howe: Most certainly. I recognise that fully. Nevertheless, there are equally deserving cases the other way. There is little merit in continuing this debate now. I am grateful to the Minister for his undertaking that he will give further thought to this matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Earl Howe moved Amendment No. 65:

Page 16, line 37, at end insert "and at the time of making an adoption order the court shall be required to reconsider whether any such order and any other existing contact arrangements are appropriate"

The noble Earl said: The provisions of Clause 25 focus on the placement of the child. Subsection (6) allows for an application for a contact order to be made when an application for adoption is heard. But the Bill does not appear to allow the court simply to re-examine an existing contact order when adoption is made. The issue of post adoption contact would most easily be addressed by the court in the context of the existing order for contact, which was made on placement, rather than in some separate adoption application. I hope that this amendment commends itself. I beg to move.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I hope that I can reassure the noble Earl, Lord Howe. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, has raised before the difficulties that we all have with the interconnection between this Bill and the Children Act. Some of the answers to the questions raised by probing amendments are to be found in the continued provisions of the Children Act. I agree with the sentiment behind the noble Earl's amendment. I believe that the Bill provides what the noble Earl seeks.

While any contact order made under Clause 25 would come to an end on the making of an adoption order because the child would no longer legally be placed for adoption, under Clause 45(6) the court, when considering making an adoption order, would have to consider whether arrangements should be made for contact and, for that purpose, review any existing or proposed arrangements to see if they are appropriate.

As I said earlier, the starting point for any contact, whether during placement or after the final adoption, must be what is best for the child. There should be no automatic presumption that previous arrangements must continue. Our preferred approach is that the adoption agency, the prospective adopters and the parent should review existing arrangements and agree between themselves what contact arrangements are appropriate and in the interests of the child now that the child is placed for adoption.

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However—I repeat what I said earlier—because informal agreement may not always be possible the Bill provides for the court to make a contact order under Section 8 of the Children Act at the final adoption hearing, either of its own motion or on the application of anyone entitled to do so, including the child's parents. This is provided for by Clause 25(5), which ensures that applications for Children Act contact orders may be made at the final adoption order hearing. I hope that in that way I can reassure the noble Earl.

Earl Howe: That is a very helpful reply. I thank the Minister and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Earl Howe moved Amendment No. 66:

Page 16, line 43, at end insert—

"( ) In considering any provisions for contact pursuant to this section, the court must consider the ascertainable wishes and feelings of the child (considered in the light of the child's age or understanding)."

The noble Earl said: In moving Amendment No. 66, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 67. The thought behind Amendment No. 66 relates closely to that behind my earlier Amendment No. 59. I strongly suspect that the Minister's reply to me on that amendment makes this one entirely unnecessary. Very often when an adoption is in prospect, a child's views will be strongly in favour of contact, especially with parents or siblings. However, there may well be circumstances, especially where abuse has occurred, as the Minister indicated, where the child's views would be strongly hostile to contact. Either way, it is only right that the court should ascertain those views and take them into account. Amendment No. 66 repeats the approach adopted in Clause 1 for contact orders. I hope the Minister will tell me that the provisions in Clause 1, which he so helpfully pointed out earlier in Clause 1(7)(a), cover this point fully.

Amendment No. 67 deals with a different aspect of the child's views. This allows a child to apply to have contact arrangements reviewed once the child has reached the age of 10. This is designed to deal with the situation where contact arrangements were made while the child was very young and most likely had no ascertainable views. The amendment would allow the child to articulate his views at a later stage and give the opportunity for the contact arrangements to be varied. I beg to move.

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