Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of self-employed people being unable to take paid adoption leave on the level of adoption.

The department has undertaken no assessment because policy on paid leave for self-employed people is a policy responsibility of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Where adopters do not qualify for family related statutory pay because they are self-employed, local authorities may make a payment equivalent to Maternity Allowance. This is at the discretion of the local authority and is means-tested.

The latest figures on adoptions were published in a statistical release ‘Children looked after in England including adoption: 2017 to 2018’ on 15 November 2018. The release is available on the department’s website at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018.