Member

I turn to Amendment 18 on the continuing relationship. Two or three years ago, I was on a Select Committee on adoption, and we met a number of children who had been adopted. We also met a number of children who were in foster care. I have never forgotten—and I nearly cried—when a 15 year-old boy with three younger siblings was talking about having all of them moved into care, and he did not know what was happening to the other children. Nobody was telling him, but he had been the children’s carer because the parents were quite impossible, and he had basically brought them up. He knew nothing about what was happening. The most important of the continuing relationships is with the other children of the family. That is often overlooked, even by well-meaning people looking after the children.