Dialogue
with Ministers
As
detailed in the last update for the webmag the All Party Parliamentary
Group for Children (APPGC) has been closely following the passage
of the Children Bill through Parliament, as well as holding meetings
(often jointly with other All Party Groups) on various other subjects.
Children
Bill
Baroness Ashton of Upholland, who is the DfES Minister leading on
the Children Bill in the House of Lords, has been very supportive
of the APPGC meetings and has held several question and answer sessions
on aspects of the Bill for MPs, Peers and practitioners and representatives
from the voluntary sector.
Since
the last issue of the webmag, the APPGC has held the following meetings
on the Children Bill:
• Children’s Commissioner for England proposals –
Members of the Group met with Kathleen Marshall, Children and Young
People’s Commissioner for Scotland, Peter Clarke, Children’s
Commissioner for Wales, and Barney McNeany (representing Nigel Williams,
due to illness) from the Office of the Northern Ireland Commissioner
for Children and Young People. The meeting allowed participants
to raise issues on Part 1 of the Bill, ranging from the remit of
the Commissioner across the UK, and inclusion of the UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child, to the proposed Commissioner’s
independence and ability to take up individual cases. This meeting
was well-referenced in debates in the Lords chamber.
• Q&A session with Baroness Ashton, which gave APPGC members
the opportunity to quiz the Minister on all aspects of the Bill
• Information sharing proposals – with presentations
from three trailblazer authorities: East Sussex, Sheffield, and
Telford and Wrekin; and the civil servant leading on this aspect
of the Bill. The Minister for Children, Young People and Families,
Margaret Hodge MP, sat in on the meeting. The trailblazers spoke
about how the systems have been working in practice and showed screenshots
of what the databases look like.
Future
meetings are still planned on structural change (September) and workforce
issues (October), as well as a further Q&A session with the Minister,
Baroness Ashton of Upholland, on 9 June.
National
Minimum Wage
On
22 April the APPGC held a joint meeting with the APPG Youth Affairs
on a National Minimum Wage (NMW) for 16-17 year olds. Speakers from
Unison, the TUC and the British Youth Council all gave very powerful
presentations about the low limit set by the Government for the NMW
for this age group, of just £3 per hour; and the need to publicise
the NMW to young people and let them know where to go if their employer
is refusing to pay them the NMW. This meeting was reported on in Young
People Now magazine.
Disabled
Children
The
APPGC also held a meeting on child protection and disabled children
on 5 May. Disabled young people and their supporters from Triangle
(an organisation with a strong children’s rights value base
providing training and consultancy about child protection and consultation
with disabled children) gave a presentation at the meeting, as did
Jenny Morris, an independent researcher. The presentations were very
powerful, and again this meeting was referenced in debates on amendments
to the Children Bill. Presenters from Triangle have agreed to come
back and present to the Group again in the autumn.
The
joint meeting with the APPG Domestic Violence has been postponed,
and will now take place with the Children’s Minister, Margaret
Hodge MP on 22 June. This meeting will discuss whether children affected
by domestic violence fall between the provisions of the Children Bill
and the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill.
Please
contact Alison Linsey, Clerk to the Group (email: alinsey@ncb.org.uk):
• 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 free copy of the Group’s report ‘Commitment
to Children’
• For any further information about the Group.
