Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will increase support for families involved in the adoption process to ensure that contact with birth parents is achieved with support rather than independently.

Local authorities have a legal duty to provide a comprehensive adoption service: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/691/part/2/made?view=plain.

As set out in the department’s Adoption Strategy, we are working with Regional Adoption Agencies to develop and trial what good practice around contact looks like, with a view to setting national standards in this area. This includes investigating what support is needed for children, birth parents and adoptive parents. We are also currently funding Regional Adoption Agencies to develop a new programme called ‘Letterswap’, a new digital platform to improve the current ‘Letterbox’ system. The strategy can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adoption-strategy-achieving-excellence-everywhere.

Additionally, the recently published Independent Review of Children’s Social Care makes recommendations to improve contact between adoptive children and their birth families. We will carefully consider these recommendations. The review can be found here: https://childrenssocialcare.independent-review.uk/final-report/.