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Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

The fact that we have not specified detailed criteria in respect of bringing a country off the restricted list in Clause 9 is not meant to signal that we have any intention of not following the agreed international criteria of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child and the Hague convention, wherever possible and in the vast majority of cases. Our intention would be to follow those processes. However, there has, as yet, been only one instance of a country from which we have had to suspend adoption. We cannot predict that the issue of Cambodia will be a typical example, nor that the approach we have taken in this instance will be the most effective and appropriate in every case. We simply cannot know what we will encounter in future regarding suspension of intercountry adoptions. In the case of Cambodia, the articles of the UNCRC were useful criteria on which to judge the process, but in the case of other countries, there may be effects to intercountry adoption that do not fall within this category, but are nevertheless against public policy. Since we cannot predict the situations that the Secretary of State will need to review and evaluate, we should allow the flexibility that this clause allows. Lastly, I should add that the Secretary of State has a duty under the clause to cancel special restrictions if she believes that the reasons that provoked the restrictions cease to apply. Therefore, there is a clear obligation on the Secretary of State with regard to the ending of restrictions.