I welcome you to the Committee, Mr. Stevenson. We have a marathon stretch ahead of us. You have already encountered the difficulty in pronouncing certain names—you are lucky that you did not have to question Professor Triseliotis last week.

I thank the Minister for her response to the amendment which, as I explained when I moved it, is a probing amendment. It harks back to the concerns that we have expressed throughout our deliberations that the child should play a greater part in the adoption placement process. We expressed concerns earlier in the week about how the appropriate agencies should go about ascertaining the wishes of the child, and we argued that that should certainly include direct contact, which is not explicitly stated in the Bill. The Minister has gone some way to assuring us, particularly by saying that the regulations will place explicit obligations on the agencies to refer to children and that if they do not do so they will have to give a good account of themselves as to why not. Given that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn