Mark Lancaster MP: How can we convince more people to adopt?

Mark Lancaster is the Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes North.

The adoption action plan was published two months ago now, allowing councils and charities new freedoms to speed up the process, resulting in more placements and less delays. The much needed changes include casting the net wider for adopters by using the national Adoption Register, and a ‘fast track’ process for previous adopters looking to expand their family. But the action plan specifically addresses ‘tackling delay’; surely this is just one of the obstacles we face in placing more children in loving families.

How can we get the message out to individuals and couples across Britain that adopting is a wonderful way to build a family, and is not simply for those who cannot conceive?

This attitude, that ‘adoption isn’t for me,’ presents a bigger challenge in making a dent in the number of children currently in care. This is not an easy task. How do we change the very entrenched view that children in care are somebody else’s problem? Adoption may no longer be the taboo subject it once was, but there is certainly still a general lack of embracement.

The importance of family, in its many forms, is a central tenet of our party’s policy. David Cameron has powerfully declared that families are the most important thing in our country’s life. Potential adopters need to know that when making the decision to adopt, they are going to be supported throughout. This means improving the provision for post-adoption support.

Mark Lancaster MP: Foster carers shouldn't be overlooked by the adoption process

Mark Lancaster is the Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes North.

The Government’s refreshing changes to the adoption process give us hope that we can encourage more prospective parents to come forward to adopt one of the 4,000 children in care. Where past governments have turned a blind eye on this issue, we have demonstrated boldness in our action. However, we must ensure that all aspects of this painstakingly slow process are improved, and ensure that the child’s interests are truly placed at the centre of the procedure.

Talking with an adopter in my constituency, he questioned the "back-seat" role that foster carers currently play in the matching process for a child. Roy’s children were looked after by foster carers for two years prior to their adoption. "They did a wonderful job, and in my opinion were best placed to know whether we would meet the needs of the children."

However, the foster carers do not sit on the matching panel for the child. "Our case was handed over to new social workers just one week before the adoption was due to take place! And they were the ones influencing the final decision."

There are no set procedures as to the involvement of foster carers; it all depends on the common practice of each local authority. Generally, foster carers assist in drawing up a detailed profile of the child in their care, and meet with the child’s social workers in the lead up to the adoption. But when it comes to the adoption match, it is very much a social worker decision. The social worker’s expertise are clearly vital to the process, but so too is the day to day experience of those who have been caring directly for the child.

Mark Lancaster MP: The Government needs to overhaul adoption. For some families, one more chance is a chance too many.

Mark Lancaster is the Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes North, and a member of the Territorial Army.

Adopting a child twenty years ago was a very different experience. Relinquishments were much more common, and a plan for adoption was drawn up in a measured fashion. Placed within a matter of weeks, the baby could form attachments to their adoptive parents very quickly and with little disruption. Today, relinquishments are rare, and children who have commonly experienced neglect or abuse languish in care for years. In January, care referrals reached a record high, surpassing an astonishing 900 children. It is figures like this which have spurred this Government into action.

The Government is making all the right noises. Just this week, Michael Gove has encouraged local authorities to work more collaboratively with voluntary adoption agencies, a divide which has long needed to be closed, and an announcement I was delighted to hear. I, like many others, believe that the best possible situation for a child is to remain within their birth family unit. When parents require help to provide care for their child, we should continue to do all we can to provide that. But in a system which is purportedly child-led, it currently fails to work in their best interests.

Having spoken with adoption experts within my own constituency, it is clear that an open discussion must be had about why adopting a child can take so excruciatingly long, and what can be done to improve this. Tim Loughton and adoption advisor Martin Narey have been tasked with overturning a system which currently houses 65,000 children in its care. Even more astonishing is that just 6% of those children are waiting to be adopted. The government have blamed a "Spanish Inquisition"-style process to becoming approved as an adopter, where it is not uncommon to face months of preparation groups.

Whilst this may be true in part, we should also be addressing the power that birth families have to interrupt court proceedings, which is where the disruption truly lies. To understand where changes could take place it is necessary to give a brief overview of a child’s journey through the care system. When a child is removed from their birth home, there are two reviews of the birth parent/s which take place within four months. At the second review, adoption may be addressed as an option.

Mark Lancaster MP: Has the Territorial Army had sufficient training to be deployed as the Government envisages?

Mark Lancaster is the Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes North, and a member of the Territorial Army.

In recent days concerns have been aired over Government plans to rebalance the Army by cutting the Regular Army from 100,000 to 82,000 whilst increasing the number of Reserves to 30,000 and in particular whether members of the Territorial Army have sufficient training to be deployed in the way the Government envisages.

So is the Territorial Army up to the job? Before we assess that we should look at how exactly the Government envisages our armed forces being deployed in the future, beyond the direct defence of the realm.

Its recently published, but little read, ‘Building Stability Overseas Strategy’ points to a significant different future use for our Armed Forces than the troop-heavy conflicts of the past such as Afghanistan and Iraq. The strategy is founded on three mutually supporting pillars: Early Warning, Rapid Crisis Prevention and Response, and Investing in Upstream Prevention. The most significant change of direction is the focus on Upstream Prevention, effectively a desire to tackle the underlying drivers of instability before a crisis occurs – avoiding the enormous human costs of conflict.

Mark Lancaster MP: We should promote credit unions to high risk borrowers

Mark Lancaster MP argues that we should be doing more to promote Credit Unions as a sensible alternative to pay day loans.

With memories of Christmas already fading the need to pay for it will soon become a reality for many as credit card bills become due or pay day loans require repayment.

The issue of lending has been in the national press over the past couple of weeks and it now has the attention of David Cameron, with his office recognising the problem of short-term lending at high payback rates. This has led to a call for legislation to be put in place to protect those most vulnerable in society from getting into the vicious circle of loans and paybacks with another loan to feed the re-payments.  But whilst legislation is one route, should we not be doing more to promote Credit Unions as an affordable but less well known alternative to high interest short term loans?

Many people have been feeling the pinch over the past few months with the rising food and energy prices with Christmas simply an added expense.  Rather than deny the family a ‘proper’ Christmas, for some the only solution has been to get a short-term loan to cover the costs.  Even now with prices slashed in New Year sales the temptation to buy that new sofa for just a few hundred pounds may be too hard to resist for some resulting in a slippery slide of short term debt which many people don’t manage to get out of.

Lending from so-called-payday-lenders has increased dramatically over the past few years, with reports suggesting that it has increased from £500m in 2007 to a whopping estimated £1.9bn last year. This significant increase has been made easier by the tempting offers from the many online providers with claims that a loan can decided in a matter of seconds and the cash paid into your account in less than 15 minutes. This impulsive borrowing however comes at a price with interest rates somewhere between 1,000 and 4,000% APR on these loans. Of course, these are meant to be short term loans, lasting no more than a month, occasionally two, but there is no check as to whether people can afford to pay back the amount they are borrowing and for some they are simply getting loans to pay back other loans.

Mark Lancaster MP: Will the Government finally Act and legislate the stimulant khat as a classified drug?

Mark Lancaster is the MP for Milton Keynes North, and the PPS to the Secretary of State for International Development.

The Government’s drugs strategy rightly declares its desire to ‘support people to live a drug free life.’ Clear plans are laid to build recovery in communities and help people into sustainable employment. Whilst these are admirable aspirations, one drug, highlighted in opposition seems to have fallen of the Government’s policy radar.   Khat is a stimulant which is currently illegal in the US and several other European countries. The usual suspects of crack cocaine and heroin are awarded just attention, yet the harm caused by khat is again sidelined.  Oddly Khat did receive attention from leading Conservative colleagues when in opposition. In a June 2008 Guardian article boldly titled ‘Conservatives will ban Khat’ ,  Sayeeda Warsi announced that “a future Conservative government would legislate to make Khat a classified drug”, a promise that is still to be enacted on.

Having witnessed the social discord caused by this recreational drug within my own constituency, it is with baited breath that I await this month’s findings of a review carried out by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD).  So will the promises of opposition finally be enacted on?

Khat is a plant grown in East Africa and along the Arab Peninsula, which is chewed for long periods of time. The physical effects are redolent of those generated by classified drugs; the addictiveness of nicotine, the paranoia of cannabis, and the insomnia of speed. The main component, cathinone, is found in meow meow, a drug the government were quick to act upon last year following a tabloid storm. The long leash which khat currently operates on can only lead to a similar throng of tragic incidents.  

Mark Lancaster MP: A glimpse at a project aiming to create jobs and avert an energy crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Mark Lancaster is Shadow Minister for International Development and, as the main Conservative team on Project Umubano base themselves in Rwanda, has travelled north to neighbouring war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. There he is seeing for himself the impact that years of conflict have had on the World Heritage site of Virunga National Park, which straddles Northern Rwanda, Uganda and Eastern DRC and is home to some of the worlds’ last remaining mountain gorillas.

In the wake of the Rwandan genocide, 15 years of violent conflict in Eastern Congo has produced one of the worst humanitarian tragedies in recent history. Fighting between a multitude of rebel militias and government troops, the breakdown of the rule of law and the gradual destruction of all social infrastructure are believed to have contributed to an estimated 5 million civilian deaths. Whilst many may argue that today the ‘war’ is over, as the armed militias continue to rampage across vast tracks of the Eastern Congo, what is clear is that the humanitarian crisis certainly is not.

Disputes over natural resources have always been an underlying cause of armed conflict. Natural forests in particular harbour some of the more established armed groups in the region such as the Hutu FDLR and until recently at least, the Tutsi CNDP as well.  All wars need to be paid for and Illegal trafficking of forest resources, in particular charcoal, provides these groups with one of their primary sources of income.  In 2008 alone, the annual turnover of illegal charcoal was estimated at over US$30m, much of which is channelled through the armed groups which control the trade, 92% of the charcoal used in Goma and Northern Rwanda comes from Virunga national park.