Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 20 July 2017 to Question 4616, how many times the UNCRC Action Group has met; what the membership of that group is; what recommendations that group has made; and which of those recommendations have been carried out.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) Action Group has met four times, most recently on 9 January this year.

The UNCRC Action Group (the Group) is jointly chaired by the Department for Education and Children’s Rights Alliance England (CRAE). Its members are:

Action for Children;

The Children’s Commissioner for England;

The Children’s Society;

British Youth Council;

Children England;

Coram;

Rights Watch UK;

UNICEF UK;

National Children’s Bureau;

NSPCC;

Equality and Human Rights Commission;

Ministry of Justice;

Joint Commission on Human Rights; and

The Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law.

The Group does not make formal recommendations. Work taken forward as a result of the Group’s discussions include production of two age-related and child friendly versions of the concluding observations, a message from the former Minister of State for Children and Families, my hon. Friend for Scarborough and Whitby (Robert Goodwill) on Universal Children’s Day (20 November) to all government departments, and production of a video to accompany the launch of CRAE’s annual publication ‘State of Children’s Rights in England’ in December 2017. The department is also working with the Group to put in place a children’s rights training package and children’s rights impact assessment for civil servants.