Agencies in North Staffordshire face an uphill struggle to home the dozens of children desperate for a new start each year.

After Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith claimed unmarried couples are not fit to adopt children, Mark Forster, Sentinel reporter, speaks to adoption experts to find out who fits the bill

The Adoption and Children Bill aims to allow unmarried and gay couples to adopt, revamping the attitude towards adoption in the hope of encouraging more to help re-home the estimated 5,000 children nationally earmarked as suitable for moving into full time, permanent care in the bosom of a family.

Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith is the latest to add weight to moves to prevent gay couples adopting.

But privately, many working behind the scenes to get children settled in permanent adoptive homes care little about the marital status or sexual orientation of potential adoptive parents.

They are more concerned with getting people through a rigorous and lengthy selection process to try to help the dozens of children waiting, and waiting, for a second stab at a happy and stable home life.

It is what prospective parents offer rather than whether they are married or gay that matters most.

Adrian Sewell, children's services manager for Staffordshire County Council, said he could not talk about politics, but stressed: "We need to make sure any child matched with adoptive parents has a future.

"We would never scheme to compromise the needs of the child. We are not here to satisfy the needs of the people wanting children or the politicians. The child is our primary concern."

He added: "I would say the process people enter into before they can become adoptive parents is thorough and rigorous, and while nothing can ever be foolproof, we hope we can see when a relationship is likely to stand the test of time and the test of child rearing."

Staffordshire, like Stoke-on-Trent's family placement team, faces an ongoing struggle to recruit potential adoptive families to cope with the dozens of youngsters wanting homes.

One stumbling point faced by the latest move to allow unmarried and gay couples to adopt is a Tory challenge to the Adoption and Children Bill. Political commentators forecast the bill, which would lift the ban on adoption by unmarried couples and same sex couples, will face fierce opposition in the Lords.

While the Tories argue it would be wrong to allow gay couples to adopt, Labour and the Liberal Democrats believe it is the right move.

Lib Dem health spokesman Evan Harris pointed to scientific research which he claimed showed children fare much better when adopted by unmarried, including same sex, couples, than in care.

The law now allows children to be adopted by individuals, including gays, but not with their partners, as in the case of married adopters.

Iain Duncan Smith said figures suggested cohabiting couples were four to five times more likely to break up than married couples.

He said: "What we know from all the figures is that couples that are not married, their systems, their allegiances, break up far quicker than married couples."

That potential would not be fair on children who need a stable future, he said.