§ Mr. OatenTo ask the Secretary of State for Health when he expects to introduce regulations under the Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act 1999. [152312]
§ Mr. HuttonSection 13 of the Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act 1999, in so far as it inserts a new subsection (3A) after subsection (3) of section 72 of the Adoption Act 1976, came into force on 31 January 2000. This makes it clear that only local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies approved by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State may carry out an assessment of the suitability of an individual to be an adoptive parent.
Section 14 of the Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act 1999 makes it a criminal offence for a person habitually resident in the British Islands to bring to the United Kingdom for the purpose of adoption a child who is habitually resident outside those islands, unless they comply with requirements to be prescribed by regulations. We intend to implement section 14 in April, and will be laying regulations before the House shortly.
We are continuing to develop regulations under the rest of the Act and will be consulting on these as soon as possible. We will lay the regulations in time to meet our commitment to ratify the 1993 Hague convention on the protection of children and co-operation in respect of intercountry adoption by 1 January 2002.