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Lord Northbourne moved Amendment No. 52:
- Page 28, line 39, at end insert—
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 53. I am afraid that the amendment now before the House will not prove quite as exciting as the previous one. It is about the nuts and bolts of the Bill—the assessment procedure that is being talked about on all sides of the House.
The vote that has just taken place does not affect the relevance of these two amendments because they apply to all couples who want to adopt as a couple. Therefore, they apply to married couples and, if another place were to reverse the vote that has just taken place, they would apply equally to unmarried couples of both types.
When couples adopt as a couple, I would argue that the stakes are higher for two reasons. First, a couple gives the child a father and a mother, as well as giving the child the experience of living with two adults who have to learn to get on together. Thus he has appropriate role models. Secondly, and against that, if the couple break up the catastrophe is much greater. If the child is adopted by a mother and father and the father goes away, he loses a father. If he is adopted only by the mother and the mother's boyfriend goes away, that is not terribly important. I am suggesting that the standard of proof needs to be higher for couple adoptions than it does for single adoptions. Provision for that needs to be made in the Bill or in guidance.
I am most grateful to the noble Lord for sending me the Adopter Preparation and Assessment consultation document and also for his kind and helpful letter. It seems to me that the consultation paper is an excellent
However, that document does not deal with the special importance and commitment required in couple adoptions. In different ways, my two amendments attempt to help social workers and adoption agencies to address those issues. In that context, it is also worth noting that at paragraph 5.1 of the consultation document the Government stress their intention to improve the consistency of assessment. I believe that my proposals would also help to do that.
Amendment No. 52 suggests that a social worker should encourage applicants for adoption as a couple to develop a mutually agreed memorandum of commitment. This would not be a legally binding document, but would help to ensure that both partners have thought seriously through the key issues and that they have been able to hammer out an agreement.
Perhaps I may tell your Lordships a little story. About three or four years ago I met an Australian priest who carries out a good deal of work on marriage preparation. He told me that he had a rather good system. When couples came to him for marriage preparation, he would talk to them a little. He would then say, "I would like you to fill in a questionnaire. But, no, not together". He would then suggest that each of them fill it in separately while sitting in opposite sides of the room. When the couple came together again, he said that often the differences in their answers to the questions were absolutely staggering—especially on major issues such as how many children they would like, financial matters, and so on. He said, rather wisely, "It isn't what I say to them, it is what they say to each other on the way home in the car that makes a difference".
It is important that couples who are going to adopt should go through such a process so that they really have to think through what they are saying. In that way, when they find that they have differences they can try to thrash them out effectively. That is the intention of Amendment No. 52. However, Amendment No. 53 is a horse of a different colour because this would encourage couples to enter into a legally-binding agreement about financial arrangements before the adoption.
If, regrettably, divorce and separation take place, I am sure that noble Lords will agree that experience shows that it is very often the financial settlement that causes the most bitterness and anger. It also does the most damage to the child. I am told that it is quite common in America to have a pre-nuptial agreement, which covers what financial arrangements will take place should the partnership break down. Clearly, it is slightly depressing to enter into a loving relationship for life and then sign a document stating what would happen if it comes to an end. We have heard a great deal this evening about the modern world in which we live. In this day and age we have to face the fact that a great many relationships do break down. It may be
Lord Elton: My Lords, in order to obviate a rather longer intervention later, perhaps the noble Lord might consider a different phrase from "pre-nuptial" for Third Reading, given that the couples concerned may already be married and "pre-adoptive", or something of that nature, might be better.
Lord Northbourne: Yes, my Lords. I think that the word "pre-nuptial" is rather symbolic. The word "pre-adoption" might be better under these circumstances. However, I accept that there are difficulties with such wording. These and other amendments have not been entirely easy to draft because of the threat of proposed radical changes, which will, indeed, be taking place in the Bill.
I do not believe that either of these two amendments should be mandatory upon couples seeking adoption. However, if they indicate a willingness to enter into such agreement, I believe that that should be taken into account by the adoption agency in prioritising their potential as adopters. I beg to move.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I rise briefly to support the two amendments of my noble friend Lord Northbourne. Quite clearly, they would come into effect only if there was any form of reversal of the decision that has just been taken in your Lordships' House. Nevertheless, I think that they should—
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, perhaps I may just make the point that I said at the beginning of my remarks that they would apply to married couples and, therefore, they would come into effect in any event.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I am so sorry. I stand corrected. I meant that they would come into effect as far as concerns unmarried, cohabiting couples. However, I should have thought that this would give some comfort to those who have overturned the current existing provision that was before the House because it would be a verbal assurance—a commitment—on the part of the two people who were making this very definite move to adopt children. I would argue that, quite often, the commitment to adopt is even more considered and more worked over by the individuals concerned than perhaps is the case with a married couple where children appear, which is lovely, and so on. It might be an additional comfort should a reversal of the reversal take place.
There is also another reason why I would support Amendment No. 53. Quite honestly, I am not entirely certain why it should not be compulsory. Married couples enter into a vow of lifelong fidelity. Sadly, as we all know, it does not necessarily end that way. There are also financial obligations on married partners to help support any children of the marriage if they are dependent children when and if separation and divorce occur.
A similar commitment to look after the financial side of the relationship if things go wrong would surely enhance the acceptance by both those partners of the specific commitment into which they are entering. Alas, all things in life do not always go according to plan. I strongly suggest that that happens among married couples as well as among cohabiting couples. I hope, therefore, that this amendment will find favour with your Lordships and with the Government.
Earl Russell: My Lords, a few years ago, in the library of Cambridge University, I read a series of manuscript sermons by Archbishop Ussher on the subject of predestination. The archbishop insisted firmly on condemning those who believed that it was possible to know who was predestined to salvation. He described them as behaving as if they had stood at God's right hand.
John Calvin himself and all the best Calvinist scholars have insisted that the question of who is predestined to salvation is one which it is a presumption for any human being to attempt to know. I am rather inclined to take the view that attempting to decide which unions will be permanent is a similar kind of presumption.
Last Friday, I was speaking to the party's annual dinner in Stroud. My host happened to be someone who had lived with us for a year when I was 14 while his parents were abroad and whom I had not seen since. He told me the many different things that had happened to his siblings. Only one had had a marriage that had survived—and he was the most improbable. His bride was 16, and pregnant—not, I think your Lordships will agree, the kind of situation from which stability in marriage usually results.
When one considers the prospect of a marriage licence—indeed, when one contracts a marriage oneself—one cannot speak out of knowledge; one can only speak out of faith. Attempting to produce external texts for the measurement of faith is a very difficult thing to do.
Amendment No. 53 is, as the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said, a horse of a different colour. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that it would be much better if the word "pre-nuptial" were removed—because we shall be interested at some stage in the question of unmarried couples.
I cannot help feeling that there must be a large body of statute and case law into which such a provision would need to be fitted as one piece of the jigsaw. I fancy that the Minister may be about to tell us what those pieces of the jigsaw are. My response to this proposal would depend heavily on how well it would fit into such a jigsaw. I believe that it would fit much better into a Bill dealing with civil partnerships such as that introduced by my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill. By itself, it looks like one horse pretending to be a cavalry regiment. I am not sure that one can do that.
"( ) Regulations may make provision for securing that, in determining the probable future stability of a relationship, proper regard is had to whether or not each of the two partners is willing to sign a "declaration of commitment" which includes a commitment by each partner to do his or her best—
(a) to create and sustain a stable lasting relationship with the other adopting partner; and
(b) to create jointly a home for the adoptive child and to give that child the love, care and support it will need until it reaches the age of majority."
7 p.m.
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