First of all, I endorse David Melding’s comments about the former Minister and the non-partisan nature of this. I also extend congratulations on your new position.

There are lots of good things here, and I’ve heard lots of good things that you’ve said today. I notice that you said you want to see a reduction in the numbers of children coming into care. I note that you say

‘the more we can help families stay together during difficult times, by offering the right level of support’— that that's the right way to do things. But what concerns me about the cases I get time after time after time is that parents who desperately want to keep the children in this region, South Wales Central, appear to be losing them for a whole variety of reasons, one of which, often, is not safety. I have a case on my books where it’s recognised that the parents love the children, the children love the parents, and unfortunately for the parents, they called in children’s services to get support, and they’ve ended up losing the children, and they’re desperately fighting to get them back, because that particular children’s services department say that these parents don’t have the skills to parent.

I would question that judgment, because far too often parents are saying to me that adoption and care is almost becoming an industry, and the interactions that I’ve had with families—. Ironically, I’ve just had a message through today from a mother who wants me to go and visit because she’s in danger of losing her child. I would say, really, as a former professional teacher, families need support, but what they’re getting is a very adversarial system that interrogates, almost, and there is a tick-box approach from social workers under tremendous pressure. So, I wondered what you thought of those things, and whether or not you’re looking at countries around the world where there is no forced adoption, because forced adoption is something that is really troubling me, looking at the kind of cases that I’ve picked up for far too long, actually, not only in here, but across the road as well.