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The Association of Directors of Social Services withdrew its evidence supporting the right of birth parents to deny adopted people the opportunity to gain access to their birth records, during the committee stage of the Adoption and Children Bill, writes Jonathan Pearce.

"I’m not going to defend my corner, but I’m going to retreat from it," former ADSS president, and Kensington and Chelsea director of social services, Moira Gibb told the House of Commons special standing committee.

Indicating that the ADSS had received further information on the issue, she added: "If you wanted to accuse us of being confused, then you would have some justification."

Clause 58 of the bill, as it currently stands, would make it impossible for adoption agencies (including local authorities) to disclose to adopted adults the information needed to obtain a copy of their original birth certificate, where a birth parent objected to the disclosure of the information, thus reversing the existing right introduced by the Children Act 1975.

Earlier in the session, committee chair David Hinchliffe MP pressed the Department of Health’s bill principal James Paton on the reasons behind the change.

Paton said disclosure was "an extremely difficult and sensitive area", where it was "difficult to balance the various interests of the parties", but that the government wanted to ensure a more consistent approach to the information adopted people could access; allow all parties the opportunity to express a view about the disclosure of identification information; and put in place safeguards for the small minority where disclosure would be "inappropriate or harmful".

When asked for evidence supporting the reasons, Paton said the DoH had received a small number of representations where disclosure might be potentially dangerous for birth parents, including one case in which an adoptee had set out their "express intention of killing their birth parent", because the adoption had taken place after severe abuse which had left the adoptee physically damaged.

In reply, Hinchliffe suggested the government was using "a sledgehammer to crack a nut".

Paton also admitted that the DoH did not have any information on criminal offences committed by adopted people against their birth parents.