by Tony Rucinski, TCW
EARLIER this month it was LGBTQ+ Adoption and Fostering Week. Across England and Wales, local councils, adoption agencies and government departments marked it with warm words and striking statistics. In Wales, LGBTQ+ fostering households have risen by 30 per cent in a year, according to figures released by Foster Wales during the campaign. At Adoption Matters in England, 40 per cent of approved adopters in 2025 identified as LGBTQ+, up from around 30 per cent the previous year. Ministers celebrated. The sector applauded. Hardly anyone asked the question that should have been front and centre throughout: what does the evidence say is best for the child?
The broader trajectory makes the question more urgent, not less. In 2013, roughly 1 in 31 adoptions in England went to same-sex couples. By 2023, that figure had risen to 1 in 5, a near-sevenfold increase in a decade – a figure Adoption England’s own strategy document now confirms. That shift may reflect a range of factors, including who applies to adopt. But it also reflects something else: a deliberate policy effort by adoption authorities to recruit and prioritise LGBTQ+ adopters as part of their strategy for expanding the pool of adoptive families.
Adoption England’s strategy for 2024 to 2027 sets an explicit goal of increasing the number of LGBTQ+ approved adopters – the strategy’s own words, listed as Goal 4 under its diversity ambition. To support this, every Regional Adoption Agency in England is asked to consider baseline standards for LGBTQ+ adoption produced not by a child welfare research body, not by a university, not by a government department, but by New Family Social – an advocacy organisation whose explicit mission is to promote LGBTQ+ adoption and fostering. The fox is not just in the henhouse. The fox wrote the henhouse rules.