Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I shall speak to amendment 15, which stands in my name, as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The amendment was tabled on behalf of the Committee to give effect to one of the recommendations in our scrutiny report on the Bill. The Bill places children's trust boards on a statutory footing. In its 2008 concluding observations on the UK, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, commenting on the UK Government's overall strategy for implementing the UN convention, welcomed the fact that the convention was referred to in the children's plan, but expressed its continuing concern""that the Convention is not regularly used as a framework for the development of strategies throughout the State party and at the lack of an overarching policy to ensure the full realization of the principles, values and goals of the Convention."" We agree with that criticism and we asked the Government what, if any, would be their objection to the Bill being amended to require children's trust boards, first, to have regard to the need to implement the UN convention when preparing their children and young persons' plans, and secondly, to consult with children and young people in the preparation of the plans, as envisaged by article 12 of the convention. We welcome the Government's commitment in relation to the second suggestion that children and young people should be consulted when the children and young people's plan is being drawn up, and the fact that this will be made a requirement in the new regulations governing the adoption of such plans. However, my Committee is disappointed by the Government's refusal to adopt the UN convention as the strategic framework for children's plans. In their response to our question, the Government state that they consider it""unnecessary to have any specific provision falling on the Children's Trust Board to have regard to the UNCRC when preparing its plan."" The Government's reason is that they say that the UK complies with its obligations under the UNCRC through a mixture of legislative, executive and judicial action, and they are content that their legislation is consistent with the provisions of the convention. They say that the broader issue of embedding the UNCRC into UK policy and practice is covered in the Green Paper on a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, and they consider that the appropriate way to take the issue forward. Although the Green Paper welcomes public debate on whether children's rights should be included in any Bill of Rights, and considers that such a Bill""could contain a right for children to achieve well-being, whatever their background or circumstances"," it nevertheless acknowledges that the UNCRC is""the overarching international treaty for children's rights ratified by almost all UN member states."" However, the Green Paper contains no proposal for further embedding the UNCRC into UK policy and practice. If anything, the Green Paper appears sceptical of the value of such a proposal, preferring to emphasise that the goal of achieving improved outcomes is pursued in distinctive ways across the UK, and indicating that any Bill of Rights and Responsibilities should allow for recognition that responsibility for many aspects of child well-being is devolved. My Committee was not persuaded by the Government's reasons for not taking the opportunity in the Bill to embed the UNCRC in further policy-making. The Bill's provisions on the drawing up of children and young people's plans provide an opportunity for the Government to respond positively and constructively to the concern of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child that the convention is not regularly used as a framework for the development of children's strategies. We recommended that the Bill be amended to require children's trust boards to have regard to the need to implement the UNCRC when preparing children and young people's plans, and in our report we suggested an amendment to achieve this, which is the amendment that I tabled for today's debate. This is, in effect, a more specific version of the duty that now appears in clause 1 of the Equality Bill. It requires the strategic decision-making authorities for children—the children's trust boards—to have regard to the need to implement the UNCRC when drawing up strategic plans for children. The UNCRC includes a duty to realise progressively various social and economic rights—for example, the right to an adequate standard of living, access to health, education and so on—as interpreted by the UN committee. Both the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on Economic and Social Rights want states to adopt strategic plans for the implementation of the rights, particularly the social and economic rights, in the UNCRC and in the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. The point of our amendment is to require the strategic decision-making authorities for children to have regard to the need to implement the UN convention, including by progressively realising their right to an adequate income and so on, when drawing up strategic children's plans. Like the Equality Bill clause 1 duty, it could be judicially reviewable if the children's trust board does not have regard to the UNCRC when drawing up its plans. This is a way of ensuring that the CRC, which protects children's social and economic rights, is more firmly embedded in strategic decision making about children. That is what the amendment seeks to achieve. It is regrettable that the Government have not accepted it so far, and I hope they will now reconsider, in the light of our amendment.