During the Commons sitting on the 25th July 1958 the matter of Clause 24 of the Children Bill was raised.  This might seem quite cryptic and obscure but in the history of the Provisional Adoption Order it is quite interesting.  It started with Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew) saying:

I suggest that all the Amendments to Clause 24, except those in page 14, lines 39 and 40, in the name of the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), might be taken together. The other two may be taken separately. If Divisions are wanted, Mr. Speaker will be quite happy for Divisions to take place.

The debate that followed demonstrated that while the idea of providing for those not permanently resident in the UK to adopt, the mechanism was recognized as being problematical.  Before 1958 it was not possible by law for a non-domiciled person in the UK to adopt a child with UK citizenship.  This of course caused problems for British citizens living in far flung parts of the British Empire who wanted to adopt from the UK.  In order to address this problem Clause 24 was introduced, but was soon seen to be a problem in certain quarters.  The main concern was that the vehicle to be used was called a ‘Provisional Adoption Order’.  This Order gave the persons applying to adopt permission to remove a UK child to another country where there may or may not have been adequate law in place to ensure the safety of the child.  While a child adopted in the UK would be protected by the UK legal system, a child for whom a Provisional Adoption Order had been issued, the UK legal system no longer had any control.  In fact in a recent conversation with a court archivist, I was told that the chances of discovering the court records of a adoption was quite high while the changes of finding any records relating to a Provisional Adoption Order was quite low.  The reason for this was quite simple, the papers were more often than not just handed to those applying for the Provisional Adoption Order and usually no copies were kept by the court.

The end of the discussion that July is quite telling, a Mr Lipton in answer to the then Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal was:

The public were in no way prepared by the contents of this Report for the conclusions to which the Government suddenly came as a result of which it will now be possible, as an hon. Member opposite said, to have export licensing of children provided for by the law of the land for the first time.

I am sure the Government must agree with this point. In Clause 24 we are taking a gamble. The Under-Secretary knows that she is taking a gamble. It has been made clear by Government spokesmen that there were risks involved in this Clause, which the Government thought on balance ought to be taken. I do not mind taking risks at my own expense, but I object to taking risks and gambling with the lives of children. In retrospect I am sure the Government will agree that they have taken a very serious responsibility upon themselves. I do not think this Third Reading ought to be allowed to proceed without some reference being made to this fact.

The Government are taking a gamble on the future of these children and, what is worse, we shall never know whether this gamble has come off. Even if we did get to know, no one would be able to do anything about it. Goodness knows what tragedy may occur as a result of this, of which we shall never know, but the Government will say, “The Act is working very smoothly. No evidence has been brought to our notice that any child who has been allowed to go abroad is not as happy as any other child in this country.” I know that the rest of the Bill makes many useful and desirable provisions, but from my point of view this Bill will always be tainted by the inclusion in it of the Clause which enables child to be exported abroad.

What I have discovered in my search is that this gamble did not “come off”.  While for many it might have resulted in a happy existence, the undeniable problem is that no matter how happy they might have been, the reality is that if they were not legally adopted by those who applied and received a Provisional Adoption Order, they are officially ‘nobody’.  We are people hanging in limbo, holding on to an identity given to us by people who legally did not have the right to give us a new name, but at the same time not permitted to use the original identity given to us by our birthparents because we were Provisionally Adopted in the eyes of the UK government.