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On 22 April 2026 the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of X and Y (Children: Adoption Order: Setting Aside) [2026] UKSC 13.

The case concerned two children who had been placed for adoption in 2012, and then adopted in 2013, but who subsequently decided to move to live with their birth family in 2021.  Further care proceedings were issued which resulted in child arrangements orders setting out that one child lived with her birth mother and the other with her birth father.  Their adoptive mother applied to the High Court seeking revocation of the adoption orders on welfare grounds, to give effect to the children’s wishes and feelings.  Her application was refused, but the children’s surnames reverted to their birth surname.  The adoptive mother then appealed to the Court of Appeal, who rejected her appeal.  Her second appeal to the Supreme Court was also rejected, on the basis that there was no power under the inherent jurisdiction to revoke adoption orders.

Julia Belyavin from our Children Team has analysed the decision. Read the full analysis below.

Background facts

  1. Care and placement orders were made in relation to two children, X and Y, who were then placed for adoption with their adoptive mother (AM) in At the time, they were aged 4 and 5. In 2013, adoption orders were made. The adoption was an ‘open’ one in that contact with their birth mother (BM) was maintained.
  2. In 2021 both children moved in with Y remained with BM, but X ultimately moved to live with her natural father. The moves were not because AM rejected either child.
  3. In February 2023 the Local Authority issued care proceedings, and interim supervision orders were made on the basis that X and Y were beyond parental control. On 4 May 2023 those care proceedings concluded with ‘lives with’ child arrangements orders: X should live with her natural father, and Y should live with BM.
  4. Meanwhile, in April 2023 AM applied to the High Court for revocation of the adoption orders under the inherent jurisdiction on welfare X, Y and BM all supported the application.
  5. Lieven J heard the application ([2024] EWHC 1059 (Fam), reported at [2024] 1 WLR 5167). She accepted that there is a power to revoke an adoption order under the inherent jurisdiction, but held that this power could not be used solely on grounds relating to the child’s welfare. She recorded that, had such a power existed, it would have been in Y’s best interests to revoke the adoption order because she has consistently found the legal fiction produced by the adoption order deeply Both children were permitted to revert to BM’s surname.
  6. AM appealed. That appeal was not opposed by X, Y or BM, but because AM sought a declaration of incompatibility pursuant to s4 of the Human Rights Act 1998, the Secretary of State for Education was invited to intervene. The declaratory relief was ultimately not pursued.
  7. The Court of Appeal held that a first instance court has no jurisdiction to set aside a validly made adoption order. The only avenue for challenge is an appeal out of time, but the fact that an adoption has ‘turned out badly and that revocation would serve the interests of the adopted person, whether a child or an adult, is not a reason for the court to supply a remedy that Parliament has chosen not to provide’.
  8. AM appealed to the Supreme Arguments in relation to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights were not pursued during the oral hearing.

Issue

  1. Is there power under the parens patriae jurisdiction to revoke a valid adoption order and thereby to transfer parental responsibility?

Decision

  1. The Supreme Court held that there is no such

Reasons

  1. The written opinion of the court was prepared by Lord Stephens and Lady Lord Reed, Lord Sales and Lord Doherty agreed.
  2. They noted that in previous decisions of the Court of Appeal relied upon in support of this application/appeal, the Court of Appeal was considering an application to extend time for appealing out of time against an adoption order on the basis of a breach of natural justice, a procedural irregularity or a fundamental mistake of fact. Where, on occasions, the Court of Appeal had referred to the court’s ‘inherent jurisdiction’ in the context of an appeal out of time, this was not an exercise of the parens patriae jurisdiction (para 79), but the (Court of Appeal’s) power to extend time for an appeal.
  1. There is a detailed analysis of the extent of the parens patriae It was held that ‘where a matter is regulated by statute, use of the inherent jurisdiction is limited not only where the statute expressly says so, but by implication by the very existence of the statute itself. The inherent jurisdiction cannot be used to circumvent the legislation, either by achieving the same aim by a different procedural route, or by achieving different aims which are incompatible with the statutory scheme’ (para 55), i.e. recognising the basic constitutional principle of parliamentary sovereignty. Any use of the inherent jurisdiction to revoke a valid adoption order would circumvent the comprehensive statutory scheme contained with ACA 2002 and would be impermissible (para 71).
  2. In relation to children, the provisions of s100(3) and s100(4) of the Children Act 1989 expressly limit the court’s parens patriae jurisdiction to make orders in relation to them unless satisfied that there is a likelihood of significant harm to a child if these powers are not invoked and that the matter is one for which the 1989 Act makes no Examples of the ways in which the jurisdiction can be exercised include to prevent abduction, to order the return of children from non-Hague states following abduction, to protect against forced marriage or female genital mutilation in relation to a British child who is overseas at the relevant date, or to regulate medical treatment (paras 58, 60 and 61).
  3. Prerogative parens patriae powers are not and have not been concerned with extinguishing or transferring parental responsibility from one set of adults to another (para 64). When a child becomes a ward of court, PR vests in the court as well as the parents so that there is no transfer of PR away from the parents. Until the Adoption of Children Act 1926, there was no court power to re-order parental responsibility. Given that the transfer of parental responsibility to an adoptive parent has always been a statutory power, there is no residual inherent jurisdiction to preserve to enable this to now be exercised (para 64, para 66).
  4. The only mechanism whereby an adoptive parent’s PR can be extinguished is the making of another adoption order (s46(5), para 67 of opinion – subject to the

‘legitimation’ exception in ACA 2002 s55, discussed below). The only way in which the legal parent-child relationship can be changed is via adoption, which places adoptive parents and their children in the same position as natural parents (para 70).

Legislative history of adoption

  1. The Supreme Court considered the Hopkinson Report (1921), which was presented to Parliament prior to the enactment of the Adoption of Children Act 1926. The Hopkinson Committee had specifically contemplated the possibility of revocation of adoption orders. Whilst the Hopkinson Committee recommended provisions in relation to revocation, the 1925 Tomlin Committee did not, stating that ‘the notion of revocation is inconsistent with the notion of adoption’. It was therefore clear that Parliament followed the recommendation of the Tomlin Committee rather than those of the Hopkinson Committee (paras 108, 113).
  2. None of the subsequent Acts made any amendments insofar as the intended permanence of an adoption order (paras 114-119), save a specific amendment which related to an illegitimate child adopted by one (natural) parent and where the natural parents subsequently married one another so that the child was legitimated (para 117).
  3. Subsequent reports to Parliament in relation to adoption did, on occasion, consider whether adoption orders should continue to be a permanent status, or should be capable of revocation. The Hurst Report specifically rejected any change to the finality of such an order save in relation to the narrow ‘legitimation’ exception, which remains in force through ACA 2002 s55.

Closing comments

  1. At paragraph 28, Lord Stephens and Lady Simler quoted from In re B (Adoption: Jurisdiction to Set Aside) [1995] Fam 239, where Sir Thomas Bingham MR said that adoption ‘effects a change intended to be permanent and concerning three parties. The first of these are the natural parents of the adopted person, who by adoption divest themselves of all rights and responsibilities in relation to that person. The second party is the adoptive parents, who assume the rights and responsibilities of parents in relation to the adopted person. And the third party is the subject of the adoption, who ceases in law to be the child of his or her natural parents and becomes the child of the adoptive parents’. In today’s adoption landscape, it is perhaps more accurate to say that typically where a placement order has been made and parental consent has been dispensed with, the natural parents are divested of their rights and responsibilities.
  1. At paragraph 30, they stated that ‘there are strong public policy reasons for the ‘peculiar finality’ of an adoption order once made, grounded in the nature and intended effect of an adoption order but also in the potential damage that would be done to the lifelong commitment of adopters to their adoptive children if there was the possibility of the child, or indeed the parents, subsequently challenging the validity of the order, and to the willingness and availability of prospective adopters if this possibility were to exist’.
  2. In relation to the availability of potential adopters that must be right. For Y that ‘peculiar finality’ of an adoption order may not be thought to have met her welfare throughout her life, which was, of course, the court’s paramount consideration pursuant to s1(2) of the 2002 Act at the times placement and then adoption orders were made.
  3. Perhaps what can be taken away for now is that this case highlights that when, during a Re B-S analysis, mention is made of the possibility of adoption breakdown, we need to consider that when an adoption breaks down, the legal relationship will remain in place (absent a further adoption order), which may be against a child’s then wishes and in some cases, that may come at an enormous emotional cost.