Adoption Law, The Promise, and the Children’s Strategic Planning Bill

Date: July 2025
Issued by: Scottish Adult Adoptee Movement (SAAM)

The Scottish Adult Adoptee Movement (SAAM) issues this statement in response to confirmation, following the publication of the Children’s Strategic Planning Bill, that the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act will not be reformed as part of current legislative proposals.

This position represents a serious and troubling gap between public commitments made under The Promise and the legal reality facing adopted people.

The Promise Was Made to All Care-Experienced People

The Independent Care Review did not exclude adoption from consideration of reform. Its conclusions were clear: Scotland must fundamentally rethink systems that remove children from their families and impose lifelong consequences without sufficient accountability, transparency, or remedy.

The Promise was made to all care-experienced people, including those who were adopted. There is no credible reading of the Review’s findings that supports excluding adoption from scrutiny, reform, or rights-based consideration.

To proceed with wide-ranging reform of care systems while leaving adoption law untouched undermines the universality of that promise.

Adoption Law and UNCRC Incorporation

The Scottish Government has incorporated the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into domestic law. However, it is now clear that UNCRC incorporation will not meaningfully apply to adoption law.

Adoption orders remain permanent, irreversible, and largely insulated from challenge in adulthood. Rights to identity, family life, participation, remedy, and review are therefore curtailed at the very point where the state has exercised its most intrusive power over a child’s life.

This creates a two-tier system of children’s rights: one in which some children benefit from incorporation, and another in which adopted people remain excluded from its protections.

Westminster Responsibility and the Supreme Court

SAAM recognises that responsibility for this legal position does not sit solely with the Scottish Parliament.

The Supreme Court ruling on UNCRC incorporation confirmed that Westminster retains ultimate authority over certain aspects of family law and human rights compatibility. As a result, adoption law remains constrained by UK-wide legal frameworks, even where devolved ambition exists.

However, constitutional complexity does not absolve governments of responsibility for transparency.

Failure of Public Transparency

During evidence to the Education, Children and Young People Committee, MSP Willie Rennie made clear that the public should have been informed that adoption law would not be reformed and that UNCRC incorporation would not apply in this area.

SAAM agrees.

Adopted people, families, professionals, and the wider public were entitled to honest communication about:

• the limits of reform,

• the constitutional barriers involved,

• and the fact that adoption would remain untouched by the changes being proposed.

That clarity was not provided.

The Consequences of Inaction

By excluding adoption from reform:

• safeguarding gaps remain unaddressed,

• adopted people continue to lack effective routes to justice,

• lifelong impacts of state removal are left unexamined,

• and adoptee voices are once again marginalised.

This is not consistent with the principles of The Promise, nor with a rights-based approach to care, accountability, or healing.

SAAM’s Position

SAAM maintains that:

• adoption is a state-authorised intervention with lifelong consequences;

• adopted people are rights-holders, not closed cases;

• reform of care systems without reform of adoption law is incomplete;

• and transparency with the public is a minimum requirement of ethical governance.

We call on both the Scottish and UK Governments to acknowledge these gaps openly and to commit to meaningful engagement with adopted people on the future of adoption law, rights, and accountability.

Silence and exclusion cannot be reconciled with The Promise.

Scottish Adult Adoptee Movement (SAAM)
Adoptee-led. Rights-based. Evidence-focused.