European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, we discussed two key aspects of protecting children’ rights post Brexit in Committee.

The first is the need to guarantee that our present level of cross-border co-operation should not diminish. Here, my noble friend gave me an assurance, for which I am grateful, that the United Kingdom’s current security arrangements in Europe will continue; and, in particular, through the effective agencies now deployed, including Europol, the European arrest warrant, Eurojust and ECRIS.

The second matter, focused in the amendment before us, is that, post Brexit, UK domestic law and its deployment should manage to reflect and be guided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. My noble friend also gave a commitment on this in Committee: that UK domestic law would always reflect and be guided by UNCRC. Following that resolve, it should not be necessary that UNCRC be incorporated within UK law. Yet perhaps my noble friend the Minister may be able to support what this amendment implies: that a Statement to the House should be made at another time, as convenient, setting out more broadly the Government’s commitment to children’s rights, while also indicating the work that is going on across government and in the United Kingdom to promote and protect these rights.

My noble friend the Minister might possibly agree as well that such a Statement such could usefully include an undertaking to offer on certain relevant policies impact assessments on children’s rights.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

I support the amendment, to which I have added my name. I shall speak for no more than a minute, or possibly a minute and a quarter, in view of the time. While the UK has been a significant advocate for children’s rights globally, our domestic legislative environment refers only scantily to the rights of children. The Minister must be aware that there are no legal financial sanctions in this country for non-compliance with some of the principles and provisions of the UNCRC. Ministers claim that, because we have ratified the UNCRC, we do not need the protections afforded through our EU membership—but there is no point in children having rights on paper if there is no way to enforce them.

The Minister will be aware of the case of Hughes Cousins-Chang, in which the High Court relied not only on the UNCRC but on EU laws, directives and guidance to challenge the Government when that person’s rights were inadequately protected domestically. What legal and financial sanctions and safeguards does the Minister have in mind for children in our future world? Will the Minister please respond to this point?

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I simply want briefly to challenge the central plank of the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, in Committee that the Government remain fully committed to children’s rights in the UNCRC. He said:

“The rights and best interests of children are already, and will remain, protected in England”.—[Official Report, 5/3/18; col. 932.]


That is strongly contested by the children’s sector, which argues that that protection is piecemeal, inadequate and inferior to that in Scotland and Wales because there is no UK-wide underpinning constitutional commitment to children’s rights such as exists at EU level. In contrast to the rosy picture that the Minister painted, in its latest observations on the UK the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child,

“regrets that the rights of the child to have his or her best interests taken as a primary consideration is still not reflected in all legislative and policy matters”.

It calls on the Government to,

“ensure that this right is appropriately integrated and … applied in all legislative, administrative and judicial proceedings and decisions as well as in all policies, programmes and projects that are relevant to and have an impact on children”.

Whereas the Minister claimed that incorporation of the convention is unnecessary because the UK “already meets its commitments” under it through legislation and policy, the UN committee recommended that the Government,

“expedite bringing our domestic legislation … in line with the Convention to ensure that”,

its,

“principles and provisions … are directly applicable and justiciable under domestic law”.

Far from meeting our commitments under the convention, refusal to accept this amendment would fly in the face of the letter and spirit of the UN committee’s recommendations and would be seen as a betrayal of children’s best interests by the children’s sector.