Children and Adoption Bill (HL)

This Bill is intended to assist in the implementation of the Green Paper, Parental Separation: Children's Needs and Parents' Responsibilities (Cm.6273, ISBN 0101627327), which the Government responded to in Cm. 6452, ISBN 0101645228. Also a draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill was published (ISBN 0101646224, along with a Government reply, ISBN 0101658832X).

This Bill provides the courts with new powers to promote contact and enforce contact orders made under section 8 of the 1989 Act (ISBN 0105441899).

Provisions are also set out about intercountry adoption, including a statutory framework for the suspension of intercountry adoption from specified countries where concerns exist about the adoption process of these countries.

The Bill applies to England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The contents of the Bill are as follows: Part 1: orders with respect to children in family proceedings, covering contact with children and family assistance orders; Part 2: adoptions with a foreign element; Part 3: miscellaneous amendments and repeals to existing legislation. This Bill represents the Government's ongoing aims of modernizing adoption law, placing the welfare of the child at the heart of the adoption process and reinforcing the view that a child should continue to have a meaningful relationship with both parents after a parental separation, so long as it is safe and in the child's best interests.