Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many applications to adopt children have been declined each year since 2010 on the grounds that the prospective adoptive parents are not British even though their child was born in the UK.

This information is not collected centrally. The department welcomes enquiries from prospective adopters who are UK residents, or who are domiciled in Britain. In order to adopt in England, an individual must be a legal resident of the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, and have been so for at least 12 months.