The Government is this week expected to publish a White Paper outlining new laws to make adoption quicker and easier and curb "political correctness".

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said the paper would be out towards the end of the week, possibly Thursday.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose father, Leo, was adopted, has taken a personal interest in improving the adoption process.

Earlier this year a Cabinet Office review portrayed the system as overly bureaucratic and working against the interests of children.

And all-party Parliamentary group on adoption, led by the Tory MP David Davis, has criticised the inter-agency fee system in adoption which has led to some local authorities refusing to allow children in area be adopted by parents in other council areas.

A key part of the White Paper is likely to include proposals for a national adoption register to help match children more quickly with families across the country.

There are currently thought to be about 2,000 children who have been in care for a long time but have yet to find the right adoptive family and about 1,200 approved adopters who have yet to find the right child.

Report in the Guardian yesterday and Independent on Sunday said that Health Minister John Hutton, who is responsible for adoption policy, will also tackle the tendency of some local authorities to reject would-be parents because they are too old, too fat, smoke cigarettes or - as in some cases - were deemed "too white".

The reports said ministers were seeking a 50 per cent increase in the number of youngsters adopted from care with adoptions completed within two years to prevent youngsters becoming institutionalised by the care system.

The Guardian report also suggested that an adoption taskforce would take to task local authorities whose adoption rate was low because of an insistence to ensure children were matched with an adoptive family of the same ethnic origin.

A report in The Independent on Sunday said the White Paper would be a radical overhaul of adoption laws and will promise legislation after the expected spring General Election.

Meanwhile Tory MP Caroline Spelman, is expected to introduce her own backbench adoption Bill after coming sixth in the ballot for such bills.

Her legislation would create a national register of adoptive parents and set down national criteria in the selection of adoptive parents to iron out current inconsistancies across the UK regarding age, race and weight.