§ Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East)I beg leave to present a petition on the adoption of children from overseas, organised by the Campaign for Inter Country Adoption. The petition has been signed by 6,500 people from over the length and breadth of the country. Those people have themselves adopted, wish to adopt or support those people who are prepared, for humanitarian reasons, to adopt a child whose future might otherwise be bleak in the extreme.
The petition reads:
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of supporters of the Campaign for Inter Country Adoption sheweth that the welfare of children for whom inter-country adoption is in their paramount interests, as the only way that they can be brought up in a family, requires greater facilitation.Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House will call on Her Majesty's Government to take measures to provide adoptive parents with all necessary information and advice, counselling and guidance; and ensure full co-operation from local authorities, voluntary adoption agencies, social workers specialising in inter-country adoption, U.K. embassies abroad, the Foreign Office, the Department of Health, the Home Office and Immigration Officers, in accordance with the 1989 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
§ To lie upon the Table.