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It is a true honour to be giving this year's Mayflower lecture. I am most grateful to the Plymouth Law Society for their kind invitation, and to the City of Plymouth and to the University of Plymouth who also co-hosts of tonight's event.

The focus of my address is upon the adoption of children. In giving it, I am conscious that I am speaking to a number of audiences in addition to those of you who have been kind enough to gather this evening. Although many of you are lawyers, and what I say may be read by a good number of Family lawyers, I also hope that my words may be of interest to the wider public. With that in mind, I will take some time in setting out matters of history and context to assist 'new readers', as it were, without, I hope, boring those for whom that information may be well known.

What follows is not a conventional 'law lecture', and you will find only passing reference to case law within it. My purpose is twofold. Firstly, to raise public awareness of the fact that the Family Court is regularly making orders which will have a profound impact throughout their lives on those who are adopted and their families. Secondly, to suggest that there is a pressing need for courts and those who advise them in these matters to modernise the approach that is taken to supporting a young, adopted person by enhancing the degree to which they may maintain some form of relationship with their birth family after adoption.

Malaysia's public healthcare sector risks losing even more professionals if the Health Ministry refuses to take immediate measures to improve their livelihoods. Government healthcare workers, upset with the ministry's decision to reject the proposal to increase on-call allowances, told the New Straits Times that they were overworked and severely underpaid. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one medical officer (MO) said they were bogged down with work, going as far as describing the workload as "crazy". "I've never experienced an increase in allowances ever since I was a houseman in 2016.

Some 1.5 million jobs are expected to be created in Sarawak up to the year 2030, said Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.

He said these jobs will be generated by the many programmes and plans of the state’s Post Covid-19 Development Strategy (PCDS) 2030, of which one of its objectives is to increase the people’s income.

“Out of the total (1.5 million jobs), about 200,000 would be in the technical or skill sector. I have been told that Petros, as the third largest oil and gas company in the country, will need 20,000 technicians or skilled workers.

The Canadian government has presented a sustainable jobs bill intended to prepare workers for a transition to a lower-carbon economy following years of consultation and opposition from Alberta, Canada’s main fossil-fuel producing province.

Canada, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer and sixth-largest natural gas producer, has aimed for a 40 percent to 45 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050.

As many as 4.5 million Malaysians are likely to lose their jobs by 2030, if they do not improve their skills or attend reskilling and upskilling programmes with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

Human Resources Minister V. Sivakumar said this is based on the 2020 World Economic Forum warning that AI could cause a recession in the job market as it is already being used to automate tasks in various industries including manufacturing, healthcare and customer service.