Mixed-race adoption rules must be changed say ministers... but they duck fears over Christian discrimination



Education Secretary Michael Gove acted after figures showed a huge drop in the number of children joining adoptive families from state care

Race rules that block ethnic minority children being adopted by white families must be lifted, ministers said yesterday.

Social workers should end their ban on mixed-race adoptions as it is the last area of life in Britain where discrimination on grounds of ethnicity is still tolerated, they added.

Education Secretary Michael Gove acted after figures showed a disastrous drop in the number of children trapped in state care who escape into adoptive families.

But the Coalition was silent about the rules that appear to be doing most to push down the number of children finding parents – the bar on adoption through Christian agencies that do not approve of gay rights.



The number of children in care adopted by parents has dropped by 16 per cent since the Local Authority Adoption Service changes were introduced in 2003.

Adoption by couples of a different race from the child has been banned since the 1990s due to claims the child suffers identity crisis. Independent research has found that this is not the case.

Ten years ago Tony Blair vowed to sweep away the petty rules but his 2002 Adoption Act, which introduced adoption by gay couples, failed to meet a target of 50 per cent more adoptions from care.

The 3,800 successful applications in 2004, the year the law went into force, fell to 3,300 in 2007 and 3,200 last year. The decline coincided with the SOR. It forced ten out of 11 Catholic agencies to stop finding homes for children because they refuse to deal with gay couples.

PLEDGE BLAIR COULDN'T KEEP

At a Downing Street summit on adoption in 2000 Tony Blair promised to remove barriers, including racial rules, which stopped many children being adopted into a loving home

'We must clear away the clutter of rules that stop children having a decent home. We have got to get some common sense back into the system. No matter how good a care home is, it isn’t as good as having a loving family.'

The only remaining Catholic agency, Leeds-based Catholic Care, is engaged in a High Court battle to hold on to its religious principles.

In another case, Pentecostalists Eunice and Owen Johns are challenging Derby social workers’ decision to bar them as foster parents because they will not teach children that homosexual lifestyles are acceptable.

Figures show that 92 of the 2,300 children adopted last year went to live with gay or lesbian couples.

Education department officials yesterday promised new rules on race adoption. Children’s Minister Tim Loughton said: ‘Ethnicity should not be a barrier to adoption if there are loving, stable and secure families ready and waiting to adopt.’

Education Department figures show that 2,700 white children were adopted from care in the year to the end of March 2009, against 410 mixed race children and 90 black children.

About one in ten in care were classed as black, and one in nine were said to be from mixed backgrounds.

Last year black children in care were half as likely as whites to be adopted within two years.



Happy story: Gavin Allen and his wife Teresa adopted Chinese baby Bo after years fighting the adoption system

One happy story is that of BBC executive Gavin Allen and wife Teresa. In 2005 they managed to adopt Chinese baby girl Bo after many years fighting the adoption system.



They wanted a racially different child because there are fewer white children available. But this was viewed with suspicion.



When eventually they felt they were getting nowhere, they went online to find a child from abroad. Mrs Allen, from north-west London, said: ‘If you are white and have a decent living, the authorities put you to the bottom of the pile’.

Some 64,400 children were in care in March. Most are sent to homes or shifted between foster families.

