Baroness Blower (Lab)

My Lords, having worked on these amendments with my noble friend Lady Lister, and in her unavoidable absence from the Chamber today, I shall move Amendment 469, speak to Amendment 470 and also mention Amendment 502F. Amendment 469 introduces a duty routinely to prepare and make publicly available an assessment of the expected impact of any proposed legislation, policy, budgetary action or other matter that will have an impact on children. Amendment 470 provides for a more general duty, requiring Ministers to consider, protect and promote children’s rights as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Together, these amendments probe all options in the round. Amendment 502F, which is broader in scope, is complementary, but a clear duty to have regard to the UN CRC is preferable to the somewhat vaguer qualification “the desirability of”. Amendments 469 and 470 had input from the NSPCC as part of the Children’s Charities Coalition, the Children’s Rights Alliance and UNICEF UK. They would place a clear duty on Ministers to have due regard to the UN CRC, although those bodies ultimately aim for full and direct incorporation of the UN convention in law, as in Scotland. Three years ago, the British Academy published a report Reframing Childhood. It was the outcome of a wide-ranging programme chaired by my noble friend Lady Lister. Three themes emerged, each of relevance to this Bill. The first was “being and becoming”; this drew attention to the importance of childhood as a state of being of great significance to the child. The final theme was “children’s voices and participation”, and the second was “children’s rights” as articulated in the UN convention. This is missing from the Bill. The Secretary of State has argued that the Bill represents the importance of understanding and promoting child-centred policy. Key to this is children’s rights. They help us value children as children, particularly those in the most marginalised groups. A children’s rights approach could encourage more coherent policy-making. These two amendments offer a practical way for the Government to explicitly enshrine a child-centred orientation in legislation. UNICEF UK argues that children’s rights should be central to plans to improve children’s well-being and opportunities, as they are in these amendments. Having ratified the UN convention, the UK must comply with its principles and standards but, beyond ratification, Article 4 of the convention requires states to “undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognized in the present Convention”. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has ruled that the development of a children’s rights perspective is required for the effective implementation. In its 2023 report on the UK, it recommended that greater efforts to incorporate the convention into UK law and the development of mandatory children’s rights impact assessments for relevant legislation and policy should be taken. These amendments would be important steps in complying with that recommendation and would also bring England closer to the protection of children’s rights provided for in Wales, Scotland and Jersey. They would add teeth to the Government’s aim of child-centred action across departments and facilitate the Government’s mission-led approach in the opportunity mission in particular. The duty on Ministers in Amendment 470 would ensure visibility of children’s rights and best interests in policy-making so that their needs and well-being were not overlooked. In line with Article 12 of the convention, it would mean listening to children so that they were heard and had their views respected. It would help to strengthen the public awareness of children’s rights, in particular through the publication of three-yearly reports. The duty could easily be integrated into existing decision-making processes. It is a step that other nations have taken, with positive results. A key element of the duty would be to involve mandatory children’s rights impact assessments, or CRIAs, as recommended by the UN committee in its report on the UK. Amendment 469 spells out how CRIAs would be used to enable a systematic consideration of how children may be affected by a policy under development so as to identify, avoid or mitigate adverse impacts. They also enable policymakers to identify proactive measures, leading to better realisation of children’s rights. Evaluations have shown that CRIAs, properly conducted, are effective in improving policy-making from children’s perspectives. A comprehensive CRIA was provided for this Bill, but it reads more like an end-of-process assessment rather than one used from the outset to guide policy development. The expectation of the UN committee is that the CRIA would be part of the development of new policy and legislation from as early a stage as possible. In response to an Oral Question earlier this year, my noble friend the Minister confirmed that “the Government recognise the importance of considering children’s rights in that way”. However, she added that they were continuing to encourage departments “to carry out children’s rights impact assessments when they are making policy changes”.—[Official Report, 27/1/25; col. 9.] But the fact that her own department does not collect information on the number of CRIAs carried out, as revealed in the Answer to a Written Question, shows that the Government do not know how many actually are carried out. In discussing this with my noble friend Lady Lister, she described trying to get a CRIA published on previous asylum legislation as like trying to get blood out of a stone. When one finally emerged for Third Reading of the Illegal Migration Bill it was, alas, inadequate —a post hoc attempt to justify measures that actually undermined children’s rights. Moreover, when asked about CRIAs, there is the tendency for departments to respond by referring to equality impact assessments carried out under the public sector duty, but EIAs are no substitute for CRIAs, which require consideration of children’s best interests and the full range of children’s rights. In the interests of good government, I urge my noble friend the Minister to accept the case for mandatory CRIAs that follow the UN committee’s guidance. Over 115 organisations support these amendments, representing national charities and grass-roots groups, spanning areas such as child poverty, disability, youth justice and social care. More than 25 academics have written to the Minister for Children and Families to voice their support, pointing out that it is simply not possible to meet children’s needs in any of the areas covered by the Bill without first respecting and promoting their rights. Members of the Committee may have received an email from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, which states that: “It is essential that this legislation includes measures for ensuring children’s rights are upheld”— hence it, too, is supporting the amendments.