The All Party Parliamentary Group for Children has held 6 meetings
since Parliament returned from the summer recess in October 2002:
• Still Missing Out – Ending Poverty and Social Exclusion
for Families with Disabled Children
• Positive not Punitive Approaches: The evidence for early prevention
of offending at home and in primary school
• ‘Young People to Parliament’ event to launch the
Group’s report ‘Commitment to Children’ (see report
from Kathleen Lane in the December 2002 issue of the webmag)
• Inter-departmental Childcare Review: Delivering for Children
and Families
• Sexual Offences White Paper
• Criminal Justice Bill
The
All Party Parliamentary Group for Children also held a special meeting
following a cross-cutting debate on youth issues held in Westminster
Hall on 23 January 2003.
The
cross-cutting debate was the first of a new style of debate, where
MPs are able to ask questions to a panel of four Government Ministers.
In this instance the panel included John Denham MP, Minister for Young
People and Minister of State, Home Office; Ivan Lewis MP, Parliamentary
Under Secretary of State for Young People and Adult Skills, Department
for Education and Skills; Jacqui Smith MP, Minister of State, Department
of Health; and Richard Caborn MP, Minister for Sport, Department for
Culture, Media and Sport.
The
All Party Parliamentary Group for Children invited 12 members of the
UK Youth Parliament to sit in the public gallery during the Westminster
Hall debate, and to a de-briefing session after the debate with MPs
and Ministers.
The
young people said that they found the debate ‘very interesting’
and ‘very relevant’, although at times the language used
in the debate was confusing, formal and traditional. The young people
felt that the range of questions was quite narrow (questions are allocated
to MPs by a lottery system) and that there was too great a focus on
crime, as well as on negative rather than positive issues relating
to young people. Suggestions from young people for topics that were
more relevant to them included transport, tuition fees, education,
the environment, and the situation in Iraq.
There
are more cross-cutting debates on different issues planned for the
future, and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Children aims to
ensure that young people are able to attend the debate and participate
in pre and post debate sessions with MPs and Ministers.
Forthcoming
meetings of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Children include:
10 February – National Service Framework for Children (Professor
Al Aynsley-Green and Children’s Alliance)
4 March – A Children’s Commissioner for England? The Work
of a Children’s Ombudsman (Joint with Associate Parliamentary
Group for Parents and Families)
5 March – Pupil Behaviour and Discipline in Schools (Ivan Lewis
MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Young People and Adult
Skills)
Please
contact Alison Linsey, Joint Clerk to the Group:
• To be added to the email mailing list to receive minutes and
notices of meetings
• For copies of minutes from any of the meetings
• For a copy of the Group’s report ‘Commitment to
Children’
• For any further information about the Group
