Statement from Covid Inquiry Core Participants the Children’s Rights Organisations (Centre for Young Lives, Child Poverty Action Group, Save the Children UK, Just for Kids Law, and the Children’s Rights Alliance for England) following Sir Gavin Williamson’s oral evidence to the Covid Inquiry today.
Dan Paskins, Executive Director of UK Impact at Save the Children said:
“The shocking failure to properly plan or to assess the impact of decisions made during the pandemic on children has left a generation paying a heavy price. School closures widened attainment gaps and did catastrophic damage to young people’s education, mental health and confidence, especially impacting children growing up in poverty. Children already facing inequalities suffered the most and continue to do so. The long-term effects are expected to influence life outcomes for many years to come.
“Devastating mistakes were made, and we cannot accept them being repeated. Children’s rights must never again be an afterthought in a national crisis. Their protection should be written into law, and families better supported in non-crisis times, and there must be a clear plan to keep children safe, supported and learning in any future emergency.”