|TOP|Under reforms to children’s services in Scotland, gay couples will be allowed to foster children for the first time and unmarried couples, including same-sex couples, will be able to legally adopt.

The Catholic Church of Scotland expressed its immediate alarm over the changes to adoption rights that the new Adoption Bill, published yesterday, will carry through.

The Bill is an attempt to overcome the shortfall in available places for vulnerable children by widening the definition of which groups are legally entitled to hold adoption rights following a sharp drop in the number of adoptions in the last 2 decades from around 1,000 a year to just 400 a year now.

Peter Peacock, education minister, defended the new Bill: "At a time when the number of adoptions is falling and the number of children living in seriously chaotic households is rising, we have to secure more opportunities for youngsters to enjoy family stability which can make all the difference."

|QUOTE|Under current law only one partner in an unmarried couple can adopt. Gay rights group Stonewall Scotland welcomed the new Bill that will allow heterosexual and homosexual couples to adopt together regardless of whether they are married or in a civil partnership or not. Stonewall Scotland’s Calum Irving welcomed the Bill for its recognition that “families come in all shapes and sizes”.

While Mr Peacock assured that individuals seeking to adopt would have to meet tough criteria be able to “demonstrate they are in an enduring family relationship and can make a positive difference to a child’s life” before being selected, the new legislation has met with fierce criticism from the Catholic Church which described the new adoption rights as a “distorted social experiment”.

"Why are we putting children at the centre of a social experiment?" asked the Church’s Peter Kearney.

"Opting to put children in inherently unstable situations cannot be in their best interests and there is a wealth of evidence that highlights the relative instability of these relationships, which has not been taken into account."

New permanence orders will also be brought in under the new legislation to bring long-term stability to children for whom adoption is not an option. Under these orders, the children and youngsters will be able to maintain links with their birth parents and the foster parents will be given long-term responsibility.