| In this Report, the Committee considers the Children Bill as introduced to the House of Commons on 19 July 2004. It does so in the light of its earlier Report on the Bill as introduced to the House of Lords, the Government's responses to questions it raised in relation to that version, further oral evidence taken from the Minister for Children, Young People and the Family, the amendments made to the Bill by the House of Lords, and its two Reports made in 2003 on The Case for a Children's Commissioner for England and The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Part 1: The Children's Commissioner
Part 1 of the Bill establishes the office of a Children's Commissioner for England. The Committee concludes that, with some relatively minor reservations, the Bill now provides a statutory basis for a genuinely independent, rights-based, strategically-focused commissioner for children and young people, and the framework for an office which can help achieve the aim of making the interests of the child a primary concern in the work of the agencies of the state. It warmly welcomes this initiative.
Parts 2 and 3: Children's Services
Parts 2 and 3 of the Bill aim to strengthen the legal framework for achieving better co-operation between agencies delivering children's services. The Committee welcomes these provisions as an advance in fulfilling the Government's important positive obligations under Articles 2, 3 and 8 of the ECHR to take steps to protect the lives of children, to protect them from inhuman and degrading treatment, and to protect their physical integrity, but has concerns about whether the duties are sufficiently robust to prevent future breaches of those positive obligations.
The Committee recommends that the duty on "partner agencies" to co-operate should be clarified to make quite explicit that it is an ongoing duty.
It recommends that the duty imposed on agencies to safeguard and promote the welfare of children should be strengthened to make it a direct rather than a procedural duty. It further recommends that this duty should be directly applied to private bodies providing services to children under contract to public authorities.
The Committee concludes that the exclusion of the immigration and asylum agencies from these duties and arrangements constitutes unjustifiable discrimination against some children on grounds of nationality.
The Committee examines the implication for the right of children to privacy of the provisions of the Bill relating to information sharing by agencies. It expresses a number of concerns about the compatibility of these provisions with Article 8 ECHR.
Clause 49: Reasonable Chastisement
The Committee considers clause 49 of the Bill, restricting the defence of reasonable chastisement, in the light of its conclusions and recommendations reached in its 2003 Report on the UK's implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
It concludes that, on balance, the amendment to the law is likely to be considered sufficient to satisfy the UK's obligations to comply with the judgment of the Court of Human Rights in A v UK. However, it also concludes that, although the continuing availability of the defence of reasonable chastisement does not give rise to any present incompatibility with Convention rights, there is a risk that it will in future be held to be incompatible with the ECHR.
It concludes that the continuing availability of the defence is incompatible with the UK's obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and under other international agreements.
It concludes that there is nothing in the UK's obligations under the ECHR which prevents it from achieving full compatibility with its obligations under the CRC and other international human rights treaties.
| 
