Centre for Public Policy

This blog is part of the Centre for Public Policy UK General Election Policy Insights series.

Author: Professor Bruce Adamson is Vice-Chair of the global Child and Youth Friendly Governance Project. He was Children and Young People’s Commissioner from 2017-2023 and Chair of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children from 2019-2022. He was a Co-Chair of Scotland’s Independent Care Review, an advisor to the Advancing Children’s Rights in Strategic Litigation project, and the UK Parliament’s Children’s Future Food Inquiry. He is currently completing a term as Professor in Practice at the University of Glasgow School of Law. 

 

Children don’t have the same political or economic power as adults. Children won’t get to vote on 4 July. But their views matter, not because they are the voters and taxpayers of the future, but because they are an essential part of our communities. They have the right to a say in issues which affect them. How will those seeking election address the democratic deficit? How will they prioritise children’s rights?

100 years ago, Eglantyne Jebb, the British social reformer and founder of Save the Children led the drafting of the first International Declaration on the Rights of the Child. Legal recognition that hungry children should be fed, sick children should receive health care, and that in times of distress children should be the first to receive relief. It was a time of global uncertainty with conflict and economic instability deeply affecting children. In response, we agreed that protecting children’s rights had to be a priority.

100 years on, if you ask children what is important to them, they talk about fairness – citing poverty, mental health, education, and the health system. They worry about their peers who aren’t getting the support they need. They worry about their parents who are struggling with bills. They worry about their grandparents getting the care they need. They worry about the environment. They worry about the effects of the pandemic and of global conflict. They worry about the impact all this worrying is having on their own mental health. But they are also optimistic and full of solutions. They don’t want to be seen as objects of charity, but rather as active citizens. We have seen how children can be powerful human rights defenders on issues like climate justice.

Last year the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reviewed the track record of the UK against the modern standard for children’s rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. While the Committee recognised some progress, it made almost 200 recommendations about where we need to do better. It sets a clear framework for what the next UK Government should prioritise, but children’s rights have been sorely absent from the election campaign so far.

Civil society organisations working with children and families have been clear about what the priorities for the next government need to be. They highlight the need to address devastating cuts to children’s services, rising child poverty, worsening mental health, widening education gaps, increasing violence, abuse and neglect, and persistent and increased discrimination and structural inequality. Allowing these injustices to continue is a political choice and a failure of the most basic tenets of government.

Human rights leadership requires more than warm words. One of the most important things we can do protect children’s rights is to put them in law. Two weeks after the election the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 will come into effect. Unanimously passed by the Scottish Parliament, it follows in the footsteps of some of the countries with the best outcomes for children. It will benefit all children, but particularly those whose rights are most at risk.

All public bodies in Scotland or private providers fulfilling public functions will need to act compatibly with children’s rights standards when applying Scottish laws. If they don’t, then they can be held accountable through the courts. The UN has recommended that the UK Government follows suit and incorporates children’s rights fully, but so far it has declined to do so.

The Together (Scotland’s Alliance for Children’s Rights) analysis of party manifestos highlights some positive commitments. All of the major parties with the exception of the Conservatives have committed to lowering the voting age to 16. They all highlight education, poverty healthcare and online safety, albeit with very different approaches. The Conservatives make no rights-based pledges. Labour maintains broader commitments to international human rights, but doesn’t have any clear commitments on incorporating the UNCRC. In contrast, the SNP and Liberal Democrats have both committed to fully incorporating the UNCRC in their manifestos.

The incorporation of the UNCRC brings real accountability and effective remedy. Those in power need to demonstrate that they have listened to children and that they have used all available resources to the maximum extent possible to address things like child poverty, education, and mental health. We know that rights-based budgeting and supporting relationships around families, like community and early years practitioners, youth work, and school-based supports, make a huge difference in children’s lives.

We are already starting to see some diversion of approaches across the UK. Scotland and Wales have prohibited corporal punishment. Scotland has also followed the strong evidence against criminalising children and raised the age of criminal responsibility to 12, two years higher than the rest of the UK, although still two years below the international minimum standard. The Scottish Child Payment is making a difference to children, and while it desperately needs to be increased, it stands in stark contrast to UK social security with its punitive approach such as the two-child limit.

The next UK Government needs to take urgent action to place children’s rights and their voices at the heart of policy making. They need to incorporate rights into law at a UK level and create routes for access to justice – including through the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the UNCRC which allows children to complain to the UN directly if they can get justice here.

Rights require accountability and an effective remedy, and that requires bravery and human rights leadership from our next Government.

 

Photo by Margaret Weir on Upsplash.

 

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First published: 28 June 2024