§ Mr. Abseasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware of increasing concern by children's officers of the effect upon children who have been in their care for many years and tended by good foster parents, of their lack of powers to prevent such children being peremptorily seized by feckless parents who have had no contact with their children for more than three years; and whether he will now seek to strengthen the local authorities' powers to enable them to assume parental rights on wider grounds than at present exist.
§ Mr. Roy JenkinsI would refer my hon. Friend to the replies given to his previous Questions on 25th and 26th January.—[Vol. 739, c.310–11; c. 319–20.]