Thank you for your statement, Minister. I would like to join the Minister in paying tribute to those who put themselves forward to adopt a child in need of a loving and stable home, and I welcome this statement. Although the Minister hasn't quantified the improvements he set out in his statement, I welcome the news that children are being placed with adopting families quicker, that a sizeable proportion of sibling groups are being placed together, and that more people want to adopt. It's equally good news that the majority of adoptions are lasting and successful. As the Minister says, adoption week offers an opportunity to focus on adoption and recognise Wales's successes.

However, it's also a chance for the Minister and his department to reflect on whether there are barriers to people applying to adopt or continuing with the adoption process. It's also an appropriate time for the Minister to consider whether the guidance he and his department provide to adoption agencies and services is the best it can be, to ensure that no child is waiting for adoptive parents longer than is absolutely necessary. Does the Minister therefore intend to review such guidance and will he report back to this place on the results of his review?

I'm a firm believer that it's the quality of parenting an adopter can offer a child that should be the deciding factor when placing a child with adoptive parents, ahead of all other considerations. The Barnardo's website suggests that there's an additional difficulty in finding adoptive homes for children of black and minority ethnicity, sibling groups, and children who have challenging behaviour.

I wonder if the Minister is aware of the initiative named Adopting Together, which is supported by the National Adoption Service and that was highlighted in an article on the BBC website earlier this week? I presume he is. It seems to be a good approach to placing children in need of adoption. But, whilst it states it's targeted at finding loving homes for children aged four and over, sibling groups, children with additional needs, and children with medical needs or medical uncertainty—in other words, those children who have been identified as waiting the longest for a family—it makes no mention of children from an ethnic minority.

Why, I ask myself, when Barnardo's have identified BME children as a group needing special consideration, does Adopting Together miss them out, unless they also fall into one of the other categories? That, of course, is a question more properly put to Adopting Together, but are you concerned about the apparent difference of approach and whether such a difference could potentially affect the number of parents putting themselves forward to adopt BME children?

It's difficult to find out if the agencies and local authorities that operate adoption services in Wales are fully open to interracial adoption. Do you agree with me that the overriding concern when finding a permanent family home for looked-after children should be the ability of the adopting parent or parents to provide a loving and stable home? And, just as we are rightly completely open to adoptions by gay couples, we should also be open to adopting children into families of a different ethnicity to themselves.

Another point that prospective adopters may find off-putting is that one agency says potential adopters should either be home owners or have an assured tenancy. I'm concerned that this excludes a huge amount of potential adopters. Assured tenancies are pretty hard to come by in Wales and renting is on the increase, what with prices and deposit requirements being the way they are. We're going to have a huge problem finding loving and stable homes for children if we discount generation rent from the pool of potential adopters.

It seems a very cruel irony that an agency would be content to leave a child in a situation where they may have to regularly and unpredictably move from foster home to foster home or care home to care home simply because an agency doesn't want to place them with a family that may have to move. Moving to a different house is a physical act, it's not the same as moving to a different family.

So, are you happy that either a mortgage or an assured tenancy should be a prerequisite for adoption? If you are, rather than stop shorthold renters becoming adoptive parents, shouldn't you bring forward policies to increase the duration of shorthold tenancies? How is the Minister ensuring that the National Adoption Service and Adopting Together are co-ordinating their work to the benefit of children and young people? 

It's encouraging that health boards are also looking at working together to provide improved access to clinical psychology input. And I would ask the Minister how he will learn lessons from this work, and roll those lessons out throughout Wales. Finally, I would like to join the Minister in celebrating adoption. And I very much hope that, the next time the Minister comes to this place to report on adoption in Wales, he will be able to report that the measures he's taking now will have resulted in very positive results. Thank you.