A coalition of 30 children’s charities led by the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, including the National Children’s Bureau, Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights), the Children's Law Centre, and Children England, have sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Justice, Dominic Raab, calling for the UK Government to abandon its proposals for a Bill of Rights, which is expected to feature in the forthcoming Queen’s speech.
The group, which collectively represent decades of experience in children’s rights across all four jurisdictions of the UK, has warned that the Government’s proposals will significantly weaken children’s human rights and the ability of children to hold the Government and public bodies to account where their rights have been infringed.
The Human Rights Act plays a crucial role in the protection and promotion of the rights of children. Since it came into force, it has provided important protections for some of our most vulnerable children, such as children in care, child witnesses, children in custody, and refugee children.
Importantly for children who depend heavily on public services, section 6 of the HRA also places a duty on public bodies to comply with the human rights obligations contained within it, including the police and the youth secure estate, care institutions, courts, publicly funded schools, and local authorities.
The coalition is deeply concerned with the Government’s specific proposals which could:
- Create unnecessary barriers to children’s access to justice, complicate, delay and add costs to proceedings through introducing a ‘permission stage’ at the start of a human rights legal case.
- Change the definition of ‘public authorities’. This could mean that the HRA does not apply to private providers of public services. This is particularly crucial for the protection of children who live in institutions run by private providers, for example, Secure Training Centres and children’s homes.
- Stop the courts overturning secondary legislation that is incompatible with children’s rights and the HRAand instead only allow them to make a ‘declaration of incompatibility’. Secondary legislation covers regulationsthat can have a wide-ranging impact on many aspects of children’s lives, such as welfare reform.
Louise King, Director of the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, said:
“We urge the UK Government to abandon its proposals for a Bill of Rights, which will significantly weaken respect for children’s human rights and the ability of children to hold the UK Government and public bodies to account where rights have been infringed.
“We work with some of the most vulnerable children in society and it’s crucial that their rights set out in the Human Rights Act are not diluted in any way.”
Juliet Harris, Director of Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights) said:
“The Human Rights Act is a powerful and essential mechanism for upholding children’s human rights.
“If progressed, these proposals would be deeply regressive, making it harder for children to enforce their rights and further undermining Scotland's attempts to strengthen the protection of children's rights in law.”
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Notes to editors
About the Children’s Rights Alliance for England
The Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE), part of Just for Kids Law, works with over 100 members to promote children’s rights and monitor government implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
We believe that human rights are a powerful tool in making life better for children. We fight for children’s rights by listening to what they say, carrying out research to understand what children are going through and using the law to challenge those who violate children’s rights. We campaign for the people in power to change things for children. And we empower children and those who care about children to push for the changes that they want to see.
The importance of the Human Rights Act for children
The HRA is the primary law which protects everyone’s fundamental human rights in the UK, including children, by enshrining the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights (which the UK ratified in 1951) into domestic law. As the UN Convention on the Rights on the Child (CRC) - which the UK ratified in 1991 - has not been incorporated into UK domestic law, the HRA also plays a crucial role in the protection and promotion of the rights of children, enabling them to claim and enforce some of the rights contained in the CRC. These include children’s right to life, to be free of slavery and forced labour and not to be treated in inhuman or degrading ways, their right to freedom of expression, to private and family life and their right to education. Case law has also made clear that when a case under the HRA involves a child, the rights in the HRA must be interpreted through the lens of the CRC.
Since the HRA came into force, it has provided important protections for some of our most vulnerable children such as children in care, child witnesses, children in custody, and refugee children as the following examples illustrate:
- Preventing a woman living in poverty, who had to leave her partner after discovering he had been abusing their children, from being separated from her children. The woman and her children were placed in temporary bed and breakfast accommodation and were housed in three different places in a 6-month period. Social workers claimed she was not a ‘fit’ parent as she was unable to provide stability for her children and was having problems getting them to school. With assistance from a local group, the woman invoked her children’s right to respect for private and family life and their right to education under the HRA and challenged their decision. The local authority then decided not to remove the children, but to keep them on the ‘children at risk’ register, and within three weeks the family was able to be placed in stable accommodation.
- Preventing a mother and her new-born baby from being made homeless. A single mother who had been refused asylum was threatened with eviction by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), while having her second child. NASS issued a ‘termination of support’ notice to her while she was giving birth in hospital. The voluntary organisation supporting the woman suggested to NASS that evicting the family in these circumstances could amount to inhuman and degrading treatment under Art. 3 of the HRA and suggested the NASS reconsider the decision. The notice was amended, and the woman and her children were able to receive support and alternative accommodation under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
- Ensuring that 17-year-olds were given the right to an appropriate adult at the police station, and to have their parents notified of their whereabouts where previously they were treated the same as adults.
- Confirming equal financial support for family and non-family members who foster children, when the High Court ruled that payments by a local authority should not discriminate against foster families on the grounds of family status.
- Ensured that children in prison were entitled to the same protection and care as all other children. This landmark case found that the Children Act 1989 applies to children in custody and led to a raft of child protection policies and procedures being introduced to prisons.
- Curtailed police powers to remove children under 16 years old from designated areas, when a court ruled that the power in the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 to disperse children under 16 from certain areas after 9pm should only be used in cases where children are involved in, or at risk of, anti-social behaviour.