The UK's compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

The UK's compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - Human Rights Joint Committee Contents

7 CHILDREN'S RIGHTS IN A TIME OF AUSTERITY

86. One area we were keen to explore in our short inquiry into the UK's compliance with the UNCRC was the impact of austerity on the protection and promotion of children's rights. CRAE, in the press release accompanying the November 2014 publication of its report, State of Children's Rights in England, stated in connection with this

Children in England are experiencing the hard edge of austerity, with mounting threats to their basic human rights. The cumulative impact of cuts to services, the cost of living crisis, and changes to the welfare system, means some children in England are not having their basic needs for shelter and food met and can't access the services which are supposed to support families, while many more are not able to enjoy a fulfilled and happy childhood.[83]

Concerns about the effect of the Government's austerity measures on funding for children's services had also been raised with us in connection with our inquiries into the human rights of unaccompanied migrant children and young people and the Government's proposed reforms to legal aid.[84]

87. In its May 2014 report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Government said:

Despite having to make difficult choices about public spending, the UNCRC has been a key point of reference for the Government in determining how it will approach these challenges. In particular, despite the significant funding pressures that have existed, the Government has protected levels of funding on areas of spending that are central to children's lives, including education and health.[85]

88. The Office of the Children's Commissioner undertook a CRIA of the 2013 Autumn Statement and 2014 Budget which it published in November 2014. In her Foreword to it, the then Children's Commissioner, Dr Maggie Atkinson stated that:

the Autumn Statement 2013 and Budget 2014 were a missed opportunity for the Government to undo the cumulative damage of tax and spending decisions since 2010 which made life harder for the poorest and most vulnerable children. Many of the measures have been of most benefit to wealthier households; others have hit lone parents the hardest.[86]

89. Dr Atkinson in her oral evidence to us also repeatedly stressed the impacts of austerity on children as being of particular concern, and an area where the Government did not always seem willing to take action.

Another issue, which is a concern for all four commissioners in the UK, is the continuing stubborn disbelief that austerity worst affects the children and young people who can do least about it. We are in a nation where more children will be poor, hungry and cold, not fewer, by 2016-17 if something is not done.[87]

90. There is evidence that specific pieces of Government legislation run directly counter to the principle of protecting the most disadvantaged. The Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill, introduced in late December 2012, gave effect to a Government commitment to limit rises in most working age benefit to one per cent per annum until 2016. The aim was to make savings of £1.1 billion in 2014-15 and £1.9 billion in 2015-16 through equivalent cuts to benefits. Rises in others, such as pensions and disability benefit, would rise in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The Government's Regulatory Impact Assessment suggested that, in conjunction with other changes, the Bill would not negatively impact children. However, the Child Poverty Action Group claimed that it would increase child poverty. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggested a regressive impact, even taking into account other measures.[88]

91. The Bill's Second Reading took place on the 8 January 2013, and it completed its last parliamentary stages on 20 January 2013. No human rights memorandum accompanied the Bill's publication and its RIA had no specific human rights content. Nor was there any assessment of the impact of the Bill on children's rights accompanying the measure.[89]

92. Given the haste with which the Bill was passed into legislation, we were unable to scrutinise it fully. We did however query the Bill's compliance with a child's rights to an adequate standard of living under Article 27 of the UNCRC and Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights (ICESR) and the statutory target to eliminate child poverty contained in the Child Poverty Act 2010. In correspondence with us, the Secretary of State claimed the provisions were compatible, noting a lone parent with two children would be around £4 per week better off over the period.[90]

93. In evidence to us, Dragan Nastic of Unicef UK noted research that suggested the UK had been "good at weathering the storm and the impact of austerity" in terms of children's standards of living.[91] The Unicef report, Children of the Recession, showed that the UK experienced a small increase of 1.6% in child income poverty between 2008 and 2012, placing it in the middle tier of countries surveyed.[92] The report also noted that UK Government support had effectively targeted support for children over the same period.[93] However, this time period does not cover the impact on child poverty of cuts contained in legislation such as the Welfare Reform Act and Welfare Benefits Up-rating Act about which we expressed concern during their passage through Parliament.

94. In its written submission to us, the Equality and Human Rights Commission noted its recent research which "found that the impacts of tax and welfare reforms have been more negative for families containing at least one disabled person, particularly a disabled child, and that these negative impacts are particularly strong for low income families".[94] Paola Uccellari of CRAE told us that the impact on families across the board had been disproportionately negative.[95]

95. In oral evidence to us, Natalie Williams of the Children's Society stressed that the latest IFS projection suggested that 700,000 more children will be in poverty by 2020. She and Dragan Nastic explained that, while some areas of society had been protected from the impact of austerity, low-income families and migrant families had been particularly badly affected. Natalie Williams further explained that 6 in every 10 children in poverty are in low income working families.[96]

96. Some particular impacts cited in oral evidence to us were: cuts to local welfare assistance grants (for local authorities to provide emergency and community support to families in times of real crisis) which replaced the national statutory fund; cuts to the early intervention grants that provide funding for children centres, and cuts to virtually all specialist teams for migrant children in local authorities across the country. Kate Aubrey-Johnson of Just for Kids Law expressed concerns that local authority social services were often not complying with their statutory duties to children due to budget constraints and budget cuts.[97]

97. A recent report published by Save the Children also finds that the number of children living in relative poverty in the UK may increase to 5 million by 2020 despite the cross-party commitment to eradicate child poverty by that year.[98] Together, the Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights, noted in its submission to us that forecast trends for Scotland suggest "around 65,000 more children will be pushed into poverty by 2020", as a direct result of the current UK Government's tax and benefit policies.[99]

98. There was general concern expressed by our NGO witnesses about the projected trajectory of increasing child poverty which seems clearly to threaten the cross-party political commitment to eradicating child poverty by 2020. Natalie Williams in evidence to us said that the Government is very likely to "to miss that target".[100] The Minister was however "happy to reiterate […] [the Government's] commitment of eradicating child poverty by 2020". He believed that the projections being made by bodies such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies might not be as robust as some think, citing their projections for numbers of unemployed which were not in reality met; and he added that he does not "accept the policies of the Government are leading to the inevitability that […] [it] will miss the target".[101]

99. The Minister acknowledged the reduction to local authority budgets (which is where the responsibility lies for the provision of children's services at a local level) had been "challenging" for many local authorities, but stressed that as much was spent on child protection services in early 2015 as in 2010. He also remarked that some of the local authorities which spend the most on children's services were the worst-performing, and that some financial stringency can lead to money being spent more effectively. He further mentioned the pupil premium, free school meals and free entitlement to childcare for 3 and 4 year olds.[102]

100. ALL THE EVIDENCE WITH WHICH WE HAVE BEEN PRESENTED DURING THIS SHORT INQUIRY POINTS TO THE FACT THAT THE IMPACT ON CHILDREN OF THIS CURRENT PERIOD OF AUSTERITY HAS BEEN GREATER THAN FOR MANY OTHER GROUPS. CERTAIN CATEGORIES OF CHILDREN MAY HAVE BEEN PROTECTED FROM THE WORST IMPACTS OF AUSTERITY, BUT OTHER GROUPS—IN PARTICULAR MIGRANT CHILDREN, WHETHER UNACCOMPANIED OR NOT, AND CHILDREN IN LOW-INCOME FAMILIES—HAVE BEEN HITS BY CUTS IN BENEFITS AND IN THE PROVISION OF SERVICES. INASMUCH AS AUSTERITY WAS A NECESSARY RESPONSE TO THE FINANCIAL PROBLEMS BESETTING THE COUNTRY—AND IT IS NOT OUR ROLE TO TAKE A VIEW ON THIS—SOME PROPORTIONATE IMPACT MAY HAVE BEEN INEVITABLE. HOWEVER, WE ARE DISAPPOINTED THAT CHILDREN—IN PARTICULAR, DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN- HAVE IN CERTAIN AREAS SUFFERED DISPROPORTIONATELY.

101. CHILD POVERTY, ALONG WITH THE STATUTORY DUTY ON THE GOVERNMENT TO ELIMINATE IT BY 2020, MUST BE SEEN AS A PHENOMENON WHICH IMPACTS VERY CONSIDERABLY ON CHILDREN'S RIGHTS, AS IS REFLECTED IN THE CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIES ADOPTED BY THE GOVERNMENTS OF NORTHERN IRELAND AND WALES. AS SUCH IT SHOULD BE REGARDED AS A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE, AND THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD UNDERTAKE AN ASSESSMENT OF ANY NEW POLICY OR LAW IN TERMS OF ITS IMPACT ON CHILD POVERTY, INTEGRATED WITHIN OR ALONGSIDE ITS ASSESSMENT OF THE COMPATIBILITY OF THAT POLICY OR LAW WITH THE UNITED NATION CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD. THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO WORK HARDER TO MINIMISE AS MUCH OF THE EFFECT ON CHILDREN OF CUTS TO FUNDING AS POSSIBLE. THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD ALSO HAVE MONITORED MORE CLOSELY THE IMPACTS OF THESE CUTS WITH A VIEW TO MODIFYING ITS POLICY IN THOSE AREAS WHERE CHILDREN WERE CLEARLY SUFFERING MORE THAN OTHER GROUPS.