Dear Friends,
GOOD NEWS: Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck is putting forward our proposed amendment to DELETE Clause 9 from the Children & Social Work Bill! She will be speaking on this at the Committee meeting TOMORROW THURSDAY 15 DEC at 11.30 am. If you are in London and want to join us, please come to Committee Room 12 in the House of Commons by 11.30 prompt (allow 30 mins to go through security). We want to be there to support Mrs Lewell-Buck when she speaks and to let MPs know how strongly opposed mothers and other carers are to the brutal and traumatic separation of children from their loving families.
We are delighted that we’ve finally got the issue of adoption to be discussed as part of this dangerous Bill, which not only aims to privatise child protection services but to speed up forced adoptions. We are continuing to press for our proposal for a new clause for resources to try to stop so many children being taken into care.
Please see evidence from five women’s organisations to the Committee with our objections. Women Against Rape have also submitted evidence about the situation faced by victims of domestic violence and their children.
If you haven’t already, please write your own letters to MPs and make a submission to the Committee – see here for how to do it or phone the MPs offices if you are short of time. Please do this as soon as possible, ideally this week but before MPs break for Christmas (20 Dec) so they hear from you and get your evidence while the Committee is still meeting.
The Committee will meet again on Tuesday 10 January, Thursday 12 January and Tuesday 17 January. We will be attending when we can so if you’d like to join us, let us know.
Here is a list of the MPs on the Committee to email and/or call. We suggest starting with Labour and the SNP. Let us know what responses you get. See our Model letter below.
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See MODEL LETTER in previous post.