---

Earl Howe: My Lords, I very much share the concerns expressed so well by the noble Baroness. In what may appear to be the rather arid terminology we are using in these amendments, it always helps to give a graphic example—I hope this is a graphic example. I have been advised of one case where a local authority wished to place a child with her aunt who lived in Spain, who was the child's only relative in the whole of Europe. The aunt and her husband already had three young children. The husband was employed in Spain and the two older children were at school there. So, in order to achieve an adoption placement with the aunt it would have been necessary for the aunt, her husband, and, in practice, the other children, to come and live in this country until an application could be made after the child had had her home with the family for 10 weeks. One has to ask where that home would have been—in some temporary lodging or other, very probably. How would that have been funded? Maybe by the local authority, but we do not know. Would the husband have lost his job? Probably, and the family would have been put in the position of being unable to support either this child or the other children.

In another case, pending at the moment, a local authority wanted to place a small child with prospective adopters who have already adopted her two brothers. Since the earlier adoption orders were made, the family has moved permanently to the Republic of Ireland. To enable the placement to proceed, the family has contemplated the possibility of arranging for the parents to come to live in temporary accommodation in England for several months, leaving the older children with a relative in Ireland so that they can continue their schooling. Not only would that impose considerable hardship on those older children, but it would mean that there would be no opportunity to test how well the older children adjusted to the presence of the younger ones, or how well the parents would be able to look after the child when they had the older children to care for as well.
 
14 Nov 2005 : Column 940
 

The amendment proposed would introduce an element of flexibility to enable the court, where proper safeguards were in place, to make an order that would best meet the needs of the child concerned. The drawback of the Government's proposals, apart from the disruption to the lives of the prospective adopters, even assuming that they were able to comply, is that the observations of the agency on the development of the child's relationship with the prospective adopters are bound to take place in artificial surroundings. I suggest to the Minister that this is a matter to which the Government may agree to give some further thought.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the principle on which we are acting in this matter is the same as that on which we have acted in every other matter that we have discussed in relation to the Bill, which is that the interests of the child should be paramount. Although the number of children about whom we are talking in this area is tiny—in the dozens per year—they nevertheless demand our full consideration, and I do not think that the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, need apologise in any way for taking up the time of the House in setting out her case.

I could simply repeat the argument that I made in Grand Committee, that is, the Government's inclination in response to this amendment. However, since the noble Baroness has set out an extremely detailed case that considers a number of cases arising from the Acts of 1976 and 2002, and issues relating specifically to relatives of those people who have been adopted, the most constructive reply that I can make is that I will study with care what she has said in that regard. Without prejudice at all to that consideration, because I do not want to give a misleading impression from the Dispatch Box, I will consider what she has said and discuss it with my honourable friend Maria Eagle, who has policy responsibility for it. It may be that the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, Maria Eagle and I can meet to discuss the matter to see whether we can address some of the concerns that the noble Baroness has raised. I say that without prejudice, because our concern in this matter is to ensure that the interests of the child are protected.

It is a requirement of the 2002 Act that before applications can be made for orders under Section 84, the prospective adopters and the children must have shared their home for 10 weeks. That is an absolute requirement under the Act and one that seems to us eminently reasonable in relation to issues concerning child protection. We should need to be convinced that any change, even in respect of relatives, gave us absolutely robust protection in cases where children had been taken out of the jurisdiction and concerns were then raised at a later stage.

With the important rider that I cannot give any undertaking that we will change our policy, I will look at this matter further, I will draw it to the attention of my honourable friend and I will consider whether we can meet some of the noble Baroness's concerns.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for humanising a very technical matter.
 
14 Nov 2005 : Column 941
 

I thank the Minister, but he will understand that on this side of the House, we have absolutely no intention of setting up loopholes and enabling people to find their way around child protection. We are simply endeavouring to find a way around the problem when it has been broadly determined that the best interests of a child are served by being with a particular person and that person is not resident in this country. It applies to only a small number of children, although I suspect that the number of children who come into this category may increase as people become more mobile and cross borders to live in different places. I welcome the Minister's suggestion that we may meet his counterpart in another place to take this matter forward. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Earl Howe moved Amendment No. 33:

Before Clause 14, insert the following new clause—

"REGISTRATION OF PRIVATE FOSTER PARENTS
For section 69 of the Children Act 1989 (power to prohibit private fostering) substitute—
"69 REGISTRATION OF PRIVATE FOSTER PARENTS
(1) Every local authority shall keep a register of persons who act as private foster parents within their area.
(2) A local authority shall not register any person as a private foster parent unless it is satisfied that he is fit to act as a private foster parent.
(3) The Secretary of State shall by regulations make provisions as to the considerations to which a local authority is to have regard in reaching a decision as to whether to register a person as a private foster parent.
(4) A local authority shall cancel the registration of any person under subsection (1) if—
(a) it appears to them that the circumstances of the case are such that they would be justified in refusing to register that person as a private foster parent;
(b) the care provided by that person for any privately fostered child is, in the opinion of the authority, inadequate having regard to the needs of that child; or
(c) the premises in which any privately fostered child is or would be accommodated are not suitable for that purpose.
(5) No person shall act as a private foster parent unless he is registered under subsection (1).
(6) A person who contravenes subsection (5) shall be guilty of an offence.
(7) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (6) shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months, or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both.
(8) A person aggrieved by the refusal of a local authority to register him as a private foster parent may appeal to the court in accordance with paragraph 8 of Schedule 8 to this Act.""

The noble Earl said: My Lords, Amendment No. 33 returns briefly to an issue which we have debated a number of times over the past three or four years, most recently during the passage of the Children Act 2004. The issue is private fostering.
 
14 Nov 2005 : Column 942
 

This Bill quite properly tightens up the current legal provisions relating to inter-country adoptions, and it does so with the purpose of protecting vulnerable children from exploitation. But there is another group of children whom one could argue were equally vulnerable to children adopted from abroad; namely, children who are the subject of private fostering arrangements. It seems to us that anyone who wanted to get round the procedures associated with inter-country adoption could opt instead for private fostering, where the regulations are, to put it mildly, a great deal looser. That is the justification for our having tabled this amendment.

The numbers of children who are privately fostered are probably considerable. The best estimates are that about 10,000 children in England and Wales are fostered privately and some studies mention as many as 15,000. Between 80 and 90 per cent of them come from West Africa. At the moment, private foster carers are required only to notify local authorities of the arrangements that they have made: in other words it is up to private fosterers to own up. That is not the kind of process which is likely to expose to the daylight those foster parents who may pose a danger to children. When serious problems occur it is often too late. There is a tighter alternative to notification, which is to make all private fosterers subject to registration. That is the alternative which we have consistently proposed to the Government on a number of occasions and which they have, with equal consistency, rejected at least in practice although there is provision in the Children Act to go ahead if the Government believe that that is right.

We all acknowledge that a registration scheme would be more bureaucratic than simple notification, but it would also have a number of advantages. One of them would be that local authorities would be able to bring a private fostering arrangement to an end if they thought that it was undesirable. They cannot do that at the moment, or at least not without a great deal of difficulty. Another advantage would be to ensure that private fosterers were approved in advance as being suitable. People often object that this is none of anybody's business if the arrangement is purely private. But with the tragedy of Victoria Climbié still fresh in our minds, my own view is that many of these arrangements should be vetted in advance; and at the very least the child's individual needs should be assessed and provided for. Notifying yourself as a foster carer is not at all the same thing as being approved, but in the minds of birth parents overseas, it can look like the same thing, and that can lead to a false sense of security.

I should be grateful if the Minister could take this opportunity to say how the Government's thinking has developed since we debated the issue last year. What have been the results of the enhanced notification system thus far? What criteria are they using to decide whether the current system is or is not satisfactory? The last time that the Government collected figures in this area was 1991, so the up-to-date statistics will be quite revealing—perhaps in a way that may not be fully anticipated. I beg to move.
 
14 Nov 2005 : Column 943
 

10 pm

---