Politics: Children: Adoption drive urged

AN ALL-PARTY initiative to prevent children from spending long periods in council care will be launched in the Commons today. A Ten Minute Rule Bill proposed by Julian Brazier, Tory MP for Canterbury, will call on the Government to force more local authorities to put youngsters up for adoption.

More than 50,000 children currently live in foster or residential homes nationwide, while the number of children adopted out of care has fallen to just 2,000 a year.

The bill, which has Labour's Frank Field and Lin Golding among its sponsors, requires councils to give the Health Secretary a full list of every ward of court and how long they have been in care.

"Social workers' dogma is being put, in some local authorities, ahead of the best interests of children," Mr Brazier said yesterday.

"Whereas adoption offers children the prospect of a loving home, all too often the children in a children's home are abused or neglected."