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Baroness Walmsley moved Amendment No. 78:
"CONSISTENCY OF LEGISLATION WITH CHILDREN'S WELL-BEING
(1) A Minister of the Crown in charge of a Bill in either House of Parliament must, before Second Reading of the Bill—
(a) make a statement to the effect that the provisions of the Bill have been assessed for their contribution to the well-being of children, relating to the aspects specified in subsection (3)(a) to (e), and that, in his view, the provisions of the Bill do not act to the detriment of any child or group of children in respect of those aspects; and
(b) make available in each Library of the Houses of Parliament a copy of the assessment made under subsection (1)(a); or
(c) make a statement to the effect that although he is unable to make a statement under subsection (1)(a) the government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.
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(2) The statement must be in writing and be published in such manner as the Minister making it considers appropriate.
(3) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), the aspects of children's well-being are—
(a) physical and mental health;
(b) protection from harm and neglect;
(c) education and training;
(d) the contribution made by them to society; and
(e) social and economic well-being."
The noble Baroness said: The amendment would place on the Government a duty similar to the one under Section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998 to make a statement of compatibility with the five outcomes proposed in the Bill. It would also ensure a "child impact assessment" process for all new legislation, based on the same five outcomes as those that the Children's Commissioner under Clause 2 and local agencies under Clause 6 will have to account for. This would provide a much needed and effective mechanism for improving co-ordination and consistency of policy-making affecting children across all departments and levels of government.
The Bill proposes that one of the functions of the Children's Commissioner will be that of reporting on progress on the outcomes, and that the outcomes be used as the framework for planning and accountability for the new children's services authorities. But it is equally important that national government should themselves monitor and account for its impact on children's well-being.
The Children's Society, which suggested the amendment to us, is committed to the full implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—as, indeed, am I and many other Members of the Committee. Ideally, we want the process of child impact assessments and the activities of the Children's Commissioner and local partnerships required by the Bill to protect and promote children's rights under the convention.
The Government have already agreed to an amendment on the commissioner's activities in this respect, and that is most welcome. The form of the Bill, however, is to rely on the five outcomes and, with that one exception, the Government's response to all requests to strengthen explicit reference to the UNCRC in domestic legislation has been consistently to resist what they see as a movement towards full incorporation of the convention.
I have serious concerns about how the outcomes will be implemented across government departments in all policy and legislation. It must be clear that optional or selective use of the outcomes would put at risk the aims and potential values of the outcomes framework. The use of the outcomes framework must be binding across government structures, not merely at local level. As stated in the Green Paper, Every Child Matters:
Surely the crucial place to start considering whether responsibilities in relation to the outcomes are being met is with new legislation and policy. Starting with a clean sheet, presents the best opportunity to get it right.
We draw attention to the fact that the Bill is before the House of Lords at the same time as the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill, which proposes a number of measures that would adversely affect refugee children. That is a matter that noble Lords debated earlier this week and which would have benefited from a child impact statement to resolve the matter of withdrawal of benefits, which is very contentious.
The introduction of a formal process of assessing the impact of new policies and legislation on children has been recommended by a range of important bodies. These recommendations arise from and promote the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as a yardstick for such assessments. The committee that commented on our implementation of the convention stated that it was concerned about the lack of,
"any formal process to ensure that new legislation fully complies with the Convention. The Committee . . . is concerned that the State Party"—
The Joint Committee on Human Rights highlighted in its recommendations that child impact assessment would benefit from an,
"even more comprehensive consideration of the impact of proposed legislation on children themselves",
not just through the prism of the impact on their convention rights.
The Minister for Children, Young People and Families in 2002, the right honourable John Denham, in evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, said on the subject of child impact assessment:
That is what the former Minister had to say, and I hope that the situation still applies with the current incumbent.
The requirement that we propose in subsection (1)(b) of the amendment to publish the child impact assessment in the Libraries of the Houses of Parliament would significantly aid all parliamentarians in their consideration of whether and how the needs of children are best met and sufficiently protected by any new legislation, in the same way as the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children benefits from the child impact statements which we commission on every Bill. They are enormously helpful, inform our activities in your Lordships' House and help us to improve Bills as they pass through your Lordships' House, for the benefit of all children. I beg to move.
Baroness David: I support the general intention of the proposed new clause, which aims to introduce what has become known as "child impact assessment" of new legislation. When I chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children in 1997 to 1998, we
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commissioned and published child impact assessments on all the Government's Bills. It was a worthwhile experiment and I hope that it will now be taken up with a formal requirement for assessment.
However, the assessment should not be in relation to the outcomes for children, as suggested in the proposed new clause. The obvious framework for assessment is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, at which the noble Baroness may have hinted, and the set of detailed obligations to children, accepted by government with all party support when the convention was ratified in 1991. Parallel with the existing requirement for a statement of compatibility with the rights of the European Convention on Human Rights should be a similar requirement related to compatibility with the full range of human rights. In the light of the Government's concession on Tuesday, I hope that that will now be carefully considered.
The Earl of Listowel: I listened with great interest to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I have not had a chance to study the amendment in detail, but on the matter of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill, the Government have argued that provisions are being made due to the irresponsibility of parents who have been through a thorough system and been rejected, and that we cannot allow those parents to use their children to undermine the system. The noble Baroness's approach might have been very useful in that debate, because it would have made it clear that however irresponsibly parents may behave—and regrettably some, though not most, parents do behave irresponsibly—we must always think very carefully about the welfare of children.
Under this Bill, the Government have not made clear how many families they expect to be affected by the legislation. They say it will be a few, but there is no hard fact there. If people are subject to this part of the legislation, they will be made homeless; they will not be able to get employment, except through illegal means; and their access to education will be undermined because they will be fearful of immigration officers catching their children—and with health, a similar problem applies. In such cases, I see the proposal as being a helpful way forward in preventing such dangerous legislation for children being implemented in future.
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