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The number of children who benefit from adoption could be severely restricted unless the Adoption and Children Bill is amended, a coalition of leading adoption and children's agencies warned MPs last week.

A letter sent by 19 agencies - led by BAAF Adoption & Fostering and including the National Children's Bureau, Barnardo's, NCH, Adoption UK and the Association of Directors of Social Services - is timed to coincide with the bill's report stage in the House of Commons this week.

The coalition has urged MPs to back a cross-party amendment to the bill allowing unmarried couples to adopt jointly. Under current legislation, which the bill reaffirms, adoption is only permitted by single people and by married couples making a joint adoption. Children can be adopted by unmarried couples, but only one partner is granted the legal status of adoptive parent.

The coalition believes the life chances of more children would be improved by widening the pool of potential adoptive parents and by allowing those children placed with unmarried couples to enjoy the security of a permanent legal relationship with both parents.

The coalition's letter has been prompted by fears that the government is considering a whipped vote to support the bill as it stands, following recent reports of a Cabinet split over the government's stance on marriage issues, and concerns over the wider implications for unmarried couples. The government is also understood to have added the issue of adoption to its ongoing review of "registered relationships".

However, during the bill's special standing committee stage in December and January almost all the witnesses who gave public evidence backed the right of unmarried couples to adopt jointly.

The number of cohabiting couples has tripled since 1986, according to last year's British Social Attitudes Survey, and the proportion of cohabiting couples is expected to reach 30 per cent of all couples by 2021.

Yet the bill remained un-amended at the end of the committee stage and an early day motion on the issue has attracted the support of 140 MPs.

The cross-party amendment, tabled by Health Select Committee chairperson David Hinchliffe, which the coalition wants MPs to support, would force the courts to be satisfied that the relationship between two unmarried people seeking to adopt was longer than two years at the time of application and was intended to be permanent.

"We want to know why the government isn't responding to the evidence given by the committee, listening to its own MPs, and putting children first," said BaaF chief executive Felicity Collier.