Member

Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees children’s right to play, yet we are simply not living up to that. Let us think about a child trapped in temporary accommodation—there are more than 160,000 of them, frequently in bed and breakfast accommodation, without any provision for play—or the young carer, who is forced to put aside play to take up adult-style responsibilities and the 4.5 million children in poverty. We have seen many public spaces privatised, with the benches taken out. If you are going to sit down, you have to go into a coffee shop and have money. Many of our young people do not have those spaces to interact because those spaces have been privatised and the security guards will arrive and chase them off if they gather in a group. That is the reality.