Friend makes a powerful point. If determinations are confined to, for example, obtaining a place on the national register, the prospective parents who are being turned away now would be no further forward. It is essential that the procedure apply to at least some matchings and allow parents to appeal where a child is not to be allocated to anyone else and the outcome would be that the child would remain in care. It is important that the appeals procedure should cover such cases, as my hon. Friend's clause does.
Friend makes a good point.
He describes one of the failings of the present system, which we must address urgently. I want to go even further in my clause on appeals, to an appeals system that deals with what I call the eternal triangle. The three sides of the triangle are the birth family, the child and the adopters. The Government Bill would not deal with all three sides of the triangle. Column 1212 families that feelings run high about the present system.