Campaigners are celebrating after winning a ten year battle to change adoption laws.

The House of Lords has passed the Adoption and Children Bill after previously throwing it out because of proposals to allow unmarried and gay couples to adopt.

The Wheatley-based National Organisation for Counselling Adoptees and Parents is celebrating because the new law, which comes into force in April 2004, will make it easier for adopted adults to find their birth parents.

Norcap founder Pam Hodgkins said the change would give adopted adults and their birth relatives better access to information that could help them trace their relatives.