My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Bridget Prentice) and I wish to make the following Statement about the implementation of Part 1 of the Children and Adoption Act 2006.

We will bring the remaining provisions in Part 1 of the Act (Sections 1 to 5 and 8) relating to new powers for the courts to order contact activities to assist people in resolving contact disputes and new enforcement powers on 8 December 2008.

The new arrangements will extend to England and Wales and have been agreed by Welsh Assembly Government Deputy Minister for Social Services (Gwenda Thomas).

Some provisions in Part 2 of the Act, relating to adoptions with a foreign element, are already in force. The provisions relating to the restrictions of adoptions from abroad came into force on 1 August 2008. We are working to a longer timetable for the implementation of Section 13 and will announce this in due course.