The principle of registration is certainly correct, but as ever the devil is in the detail. I am unsure whether the new clause properly addresses the sensitivities of what it involves. The question is not whether there should be a register, but how people would get on it, what kind of hoops they would have to jump through, and what they would have to do to stay on it. That needs a lot of fleshing out. Foster parents are enormously valuable to the system and the position is difficult. As hon. Members have rightly said, such parents have to be professional and there are standards of conduct to which we would all expect them to adhere, but at the same time, one is looking for a warm family atmosphere and the support that a family can provide, and those are not the easiest qualities to regulate.

The principle of regulation is not wrong, but we must be careful. We need to appreciate that, in practice, the issue will be sensitive. In many parts of the country, it is very hard to get new foster parents. I have had experience of that in an inner-city area where there was a dearth of new foster parents. Relatively large houses are needed, which are hard to come by in cities. That means that the supply of foster parents is limited. I remember how we treasured them.