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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1016

HOUSE OF LORDS

HOUSE OF COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE THE

JOINT COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS

THE UK’S COMPLIANCE WITH THE UN CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

WEDNESDAY 25 FEBRUARY 2015

EDWARD TIMPSON MP

Evidence heard in Public Questions 62 - 76

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

1. This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.

2. Any public use of, or reference to, the contents should make clear that neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.

3. Members who receive this for the purpose of correcting questions addressed by them to witnesses are asked to send corrections to the Committee Assistant.

4. Prospective witnesses may receive this in preparation for any written or oral evidence they may in due course give to the Committee.

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Members present

Dr Hywel Francis (Chair) Baroness Berridge Mr Robert Buckland Sir Edward Garnier Gareth Johnson Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws Lord Lester of Herne Hill Baroness Lister of Burtersett Baroness O'Loan Mr Virendra Sharma ______

Examination of Witness

Edward Timpson MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families,

Q62 The Chair: Good morning, and welcome to this evidence session on the UK’s compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. For the record Minister, could you introduce yourself? Edward Timpson MP: Good morning, Chairman. I am Edward Timpson, Minister for Children and Families, and currently the Member of Parliament for and Nantwich. The Chair: I should say welcome back, because you were a very valued member of this Committee at one time, I believe. Edward Timpson MP: I think I did my apprenticeship at this place through this Committee, so I am very grateful for it providing me with that backdrop to my early days in Parliament. The Chair: I begin by asking a very straightforward question. How did the commitment made by the Government in 2010 to, “give due consideration to the convention Articles when making new policy and legislation”, has changed in practical terms the way in which the Government go about their business of making policy and law? Edward Timpson MP: First, the restatement of the Government’s intent to have due regard to the UNCRC in December 2010 was an important statement in setting out our intentions for the duration of the Government’s life. I have been part of the Government since 2012 and I have seen as part of that role that a number of practical steps have been taken to ensure that we have due regard to the UNCRC. For example, we now have Cabinet Office guidelines that before any legislation starts on its journey through Parliament,

2 it has to have gone through the various articles of the UNCRC to make sure that it is compliant with them. We have the sometimes rather excruciating but important process of the Home Affairs clearance procedure whereby any piece of legislation has to go through that Committee, which is chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, which has a remit to look at whether a child’s rights are being upheld as part of that new legislation. All government departments have a role in that Committee, and a whole host of Secretaries of State sit on it. That important practical step was put in place. I hope from my department’s perspective that we have shown through the Children and Families Act 2014, which I know Peers in particular rightly took a huge interest in, exemplified many of the core rights of children in putting together some very forward- looking legislation, particularly for vulnerable children, who we perhaps have to have even greater regard to because of their early-life experiences. Q63 Baroness O'Loan: How do you personally work with other Ministers from other departments to ensure that they are properly advised about the UNCRC implications of their policies? As a specific question, were you surprised to discover that there had been no proper assessment of the impact on children’s rights of policies such as secure colleges and the proposed residence test for legal aid? Edward Timpson MP: The first thing that I learnt fairly quickly was that if you are going to ensure that both your own policy objectives, particularly those of the Minister for Children and Families, and the rights of children are not just going to be given a tokenistic or cursory look at across government but are being taken seriously, you need to get out of the department and face other Ministers across the table and ask them what they are doing to uphold the UNCRC. I cannot give you a whole catalogue of every meeting that I have had, but I can give you a flavour of some of those issues. For instance, we have made some important changes to how we support young carers, which came on the back of some direct meetings that I had with young carers and working with the Carers Trust and the Children’s Society. That had a direct cross-over into the work going on at the Department of Health. So I had a number of joint meetings with Norman Lamb, the Health Minister, to ensure that the Care Act, as it now is, was working closely with the changes that we were making to the Children and Families Act to support young carers.

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Another example is special educational needs and ensuring that the new birth-to-25 system is going to work for all children and young people who have SEND. That will involve a whole number of departments working together. I had at three, possibly four, meetings with Dan Poulter in the Department of Health and Andrew Selous and his predecessor at the Ministry of Justice to look at how we support young people with special educational needs in custody. So that we are making sure that policy development upholds the core principle that we have set ourselves, children’s views and interests have to be at the heart of all the things that we do to support them. There are a whole host of different ministerial groups across government that help to support that work, not just in policy but in practical implementation of those policies, on which I can illuminate but I may be straying into territory that we will cover later. As to the specific points that you raise, clearly we have set out the principles which the Government should adhere to. If any examples fall short of that, clearly we need to look at those and ensure that we first understand the reasons why that is, and secondly put in the changes that are necessary to prevent that from happening in the future. The one thing that struck me, not just at national level but at local level, is that a lot of this is about attitude and whether people really believe that this is a worthwhile exercise. One of the main goals that I have set myself, not just through the legal and political arguments but through the human arguments, is to say, “Actually, this really matters and there is more that you can do”. Probably the best example of how that has cut through is care leavers. There was no overarching care-leaver strategy across government. There were departments that were not really engaged in the work that we were doing with care leavers, but when we took some care leavers to the social justice Cabinet committee and they were able to tell Ministers exactly what their lives were like and how they could help, that really changed some of the perceptions out there and therefore some of the commitment that was made pulling together that strategy and making it deliver on the ground. Baroness O'Loan: Can I go back to secure colleges? You said that if things go wrong you need to revisit them? Did you revisit the secure colleges? Secure colleges were contentious when I came into the Chamber. Did you find out how there was no proper assessment of the impact on children? What was done about it?

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Edward Timpson MP: I know that on the back of both the debate and the subsequent discussions, my department and the Ministry of Justice looked at where we needed to answer those questions. I can write to the Committee to give more detail about that. I go back to the intention behind secure colleges, which was, “We’re putting young people in a secure situation, but rather than that being time wasted and leaving them with even less chance of removing themselves from the conveyor belt they are on, we should use that time far more productively”. That is what we have done with the special educational needs reform as well. We are saying that if a young person is in custody, let us use that time productively. Yes, they need to be punished, but we need to ensure that when they come out they are better equipped to be a positive contributor to society. I think the principle was right, but we need to make sure that we follow the processes. Baroness O'Loan: Absolutely, thank you. Q64 Mr Sharma: We have touched on that briefly but there will be an opportunity to expand on that. Do you think there is enough expertise on the UNCRC in your department and across government to carry out the sort of assessment that you need to do to fulfil the 2010 commitment? What have the Government done in order to mainstream UNCRC expertise across departments? Edward Timpson MP: As you have said, I alluded to some of the important leading changes that were made to the Cabinet Office guidelines: namely, that this is core work for government, whatever department they are in when pulling together legislation for policy. The Department for Education has a team that works on precisely that. I have no reason to believe that the support and advice that I am getting is not of the standard that it needs to be. I cannot vouch for every department. It is an important question that we need to revisit: whether each department has the level of expertise that we would want and that I believe we have in the Department for Education. When we were pulling together the latest response to the UNCRC, which we published last year, there was a contribution from right across government about the work that it has undertaken that was both in the spirit and in compliance with the UNCRC. That gives me some confidence that we are not the only department that has the expertise to draw from the work of government and to be able to explain how that works in conjunction with the UNCRC, and that has the impact that we would want to see.

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Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: May I ask a supplementary, please? Minister, my question is about that business of how well embedded the standards are across all the departments. Of course, civil servants move around and we had evidence to that effect: that you can train people, then they move to somewhere else and a new cohort comes in that might not have had the training. Should it not just be a simple thing—a sort of three-bells system whereby every department on every issue says, “Does this affect children? How might it impact on them? Any question at all on this should be referred to the Minister of Justice”? We saw this in the business of the Modern Slavery Bill, when only last night fortunately a shift took place on making sure that trafficked children had special handling. But again it was brought to our attention that the residence test on legal aid is impacting particularly on unaccompanied children. There are ways in which issues impact differently on children, and one would have thought that there should be a justice system that says that as soon as children are in the frame, get on to the Minister who deals with children and test this out with him. Edward Timpson MP: That is the purpose of the HA clearance. The Modern Slavery Bill, for instance, would have had to have gone to the HA Committee, which looks at whether the rights of the children are being upheld within that legislation. That is where those questions are put and, I hope, answered. I know that on the Modern Slavery Bill, for instance, another department has some of the expertise and engages in the UNCRC. There was a memorandum to that Bill which this Committee looked at. From memory, I think that it was a human rights memorandum, which looked specifically at the UNCRC. That is a good example of where other departments are aware of their obligation. Of course I accept that because there is movement around government, and everyone needs to be aware of the overarching principle that you need to ensure that a child’s rights are being upheld and, we hope, enhanced. Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: And given special attention. Edward Timpson MP: And given special attention, and that their best interests are always at the heart of any legislation. Whether it is directed at children or not is irrelevant. Through the structures that we have in place in government through the HA clearance process and at Permanent Secretary-level in each department, that message should be being fed down and filtered properly to all those who are working on policy, whatever area of the department or government that they happen to be in. The Chair: Minister, do you attend the HA clearance meetings?

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Edward Timpson MP: No, I have not reached that level of seniority, and that may never happen in the future. It is chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister. I do not know what you call a group of Secretaries of State—I am not going to pontificate about that—but it is a very high-level Committee that is rightly chaired by someone of the seniority of the Deputy Prime Minister. Q65 Baroness Lister of Burtersett: Minister, you have painted quite a reassuring picture of how children’s rights are taken into account through the machinery of government. You said that if there are examples of where we fall short, clearly we need to look at the case and understand the reasons why. In our legislative scrutiny report, we pointed to a number of examples where you have fallen short. In fact, the Modern Slavery Bill is one that we commended because the practice was good. What lessons have you learnt from the examples that we have pointed to time and time again where you have fallen short? Edward Timpson MP: There are three things that I would say to that. First, there is still work to do to fully embed the UNCRC right across government at any level. It would be churlish of me to suggest that we have somehow cracked it and that there is nothing more to do. There is more to do. Secondly, we have seen some really excellent practice. I would pray in aid the Children and Families Act. You have mentioned the Modern Slavery Bill. There are other pieces of legislation that do not have the same initial or obvious relationship with children’s rights, which in itself should not dilute the need to closely scrutinise whether it is affecting children and young people and their rights under the UNCRC. That is something that we need to reiterate strongly across government. The third thing is that a lot goes on in government that is not big-ticket items and that does not get the oxygen of publicity but that is going on day to day. They reassure me that there is good communication across government looking at these issues. I touched on some of those at the ministerial level, but of course they are at the official level too. To illustrate that, only this week I was at one of the quarterly meetings of the Inter-Ministerial Group on Violence against Women and Girls, chaired by the , with Ministers from all relevant departments. We have a proper action plan that we are fulfilling and we are checking that against the progress that we are making and understanding where we fall short. It is a very good forum for ensuring that right across government we are committed to the same goals and are working towards achieving them. What I do not want to do, and I fight hard against, is spend too much time on the process side. I hope that it is not controversial to say that I want to know whether the experience

7 for children is changing for the better. If we get the response that it is—early indications of special educational needs reforms is that many children and families are feeling that the relationship between them and the professions is improving, which is great—we need to build on that. But where it is not—should we get examples, for instance, of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children needing better support—we should not try to do that individually across government but should come together and tackle that as a joint problem irrespective of which department we are in. Q66 Baroness Lister of Burtersett: I am sure the Minister would agree about the importance of the experience of children, but legislative scrutiny is about process. If there are departments, such as the MoJ and the Home Office—Baroness Kennedy already referred to the legal aid residence test, which has created other problems—where it is clear that the rights of children are not being prioritised, what do you do when a department clearly has other priorities? What do your officials do, or what can they do, to go in and say, “Look, you are not doing this right”? Edward Timpson MP: These are where the conversations between Secretaries of State need to take place. We can point to a wealth of correspondence where there are issues. Sometimes they come out during the Home Affairs clearance process. That is the time to flag it up, but of course it might happen subsequently during the passage of a Bill. It is at that level, if officials have not resolved it themselves, where there needs to be a proper flagging of any shortcomings. Sometimes there is a genuine attempt to comply, and it only becomes apparent through the scrutiny of Parliament that there is a need to do more. That is why we need to have that process to ensure that we have accomplished the goal that we have set ourselves. But to ensure that the system improves, we need to continue to have the cross-government approach that we have through the Home Affairs clearance process and to review whether we have made steps forward rather than steps back. I think the Secretary of State level is the right level to do that, because that is the level of importance, but I can still have those conversations on a day-to-day basis with Ministers across government to make sure that we do not get to that stage in the first place. Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: So why do you think there is a block on incorporation of the Convention of the Rights of the Child? Edward Timpson MP: I would not say that there is a block.

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Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: So why do we not do it? Lots of people listening would say, “What is the difference? We are signed up to this Convention on the Rights of the Child, but what does it mean that we are not prepared to incorporate it? If we sign up to it as believing it, surely we should be making it a reality by incorporation. I just want to know what you see as being the block on it. Edward Timpson MP: We have taken an approach in this country whereby we do not incorporate international conventions into our law and we use the laws that we already have in order to comply with whatever that convention is. Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: We do that unless we find that there is resistance or a way in which it would enhance. Why not actually find a way of incorporating? Do you think it would be useful? Edward Timpson MP: As things stand, we do not think that we need to take that step. I would not want to dismiss it out of hand and there are some valid arguments to look at whether there is a way of mutualising, if you like, the two objectives between the laws in place and the international conventions that we have signed up to. Unlike other countries, as you well know we have a common law that has been built up over many centuries. To try to overlay that with international convention is first a very complex process, and therefore secondly if we do it we have to be confident that it will enhance the response from both lawmakers and those who implement the law. We will continue to review the situation, and the third protocol, which I know others have signed up to, will in itself have some changes in the future. It is right that we continue to look at that, but the Government’s position, which they have maintained throughout their tenure, is that we will not be incorporating it because we are confident that the laws and policies that we have in place are already strong enough to comply with that convention. Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: If you are right and the laws that we already have are strong enough to deal with the convention’s expectations of us, do you see any gaps, and if there are any gaps, what is going on to try to fill them? Edward Timpson MP: As I was trying to explain, there are practical complexities in trying to incorporate them. Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: For the moment I accept your argument that incorporation becomes too complex, that we have to be respectful of common law and so on. I understand that; I know the argument very well. I just want to understand whether you

9 see gaps in reaching the standards that are set by the convention. If so, what is going on to try to fill those gaps? In our domestic law, what are we doing to fill the gaps? Edward Timpson MP: We take the view that we are compliant with the convention, but of course the challenges you face as a Government are a moveable feast. Whether you are looking at relative poverty in the country and how you measure it, or whether you are looking at the rights of a child to non-discrimination, there are always changes in technology and how children interact—there is the whole issue of iRights. These are all new areas that we need to explore to make sure that they remain compliant with the convention. I know that you will have had this discussion with many other Ministers as well, and you always make a very good argument, but the Government’s position is that we are not at a stage of incorporation but we will continue to keep it under review. The Chair: We need to make progress. Mr Sharma. Q67 Mr Sharma: Minister, do you acknowledge any substance in the view that when the Department for Children, Schools and Families became the Department for Education, it was inevitably going to focus on education over and above other children’s issues? Edward Timpson MP: I do not accept that. I do accept that there was that perception because of the change in name, that that somehow meant that there was a reshaping and a refocusing of the department. Clearly, many people were very interested, in the early days of the Government and through the Education Act 2011, in the far-reaching and important reforms to schools. That therefore attracted a lot of attention, but it did not mean that nothing else was going on in the department. Of course, the department was not always called children, schools and families—from memory, that only happened in 2008. It was education and skills before that and the Department of Education before that. My predecessor in this role, , was extremely active in trying to speak up for children and families. Like me, he had regular meetings with care leavers and children in care, and was a strong advocate across government for many of those vulnerable young people. A huge amount of activity was going on in the department, but it was not the principal interest of many people who were looking at what the department was undertaking. Inevitably, that was going to lead some people to the conclusion that there had been a reduction in the role of the department. However, certainly in my experience—I hope that the Children and Families Act is the best indicator of this—a huge amount of work was going on in the area of children and families. You just need to look at the Green Paper on special educational needs,

10 which Sarah Teather brought out in 2011, to demonstrate the commitment upholding children’s rights within the department, irrespective of its name. Q68 Baroness Berridge: Minister, the women and equalities brief is currently held at Cabinet level by your boss the Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan. Do you think that there has been sufficient priority within her brief to carry the concerns again to Cabinet level over and above the narrow educational issues? There seems to be a dichotomy: you have women and equalities issues held at Cabinet level, but children’s issues are not held at that level. Do you have enough clout across government, and should it not be a role that is also held at Cabinet level? Edward Timpson MP: It is held at Cabinet level because the Secretary of State for Education is responsible not just for schools but for my areas of responsibility, which she kindly delegates to me but with a huge amount of oversight. Child protection, children in care, adoption and fostering, and special educational needs are all areas for which she is responsible and takes to Cabinet. She has been very active in making sure that her Cabinet colleagues are fully aware of the work that we are doing, particularly in light of the recent events in Rotherham and the huge area of reform of social work practice. I do not see a dichotomy. Baroness Berridge: May I just follow up on that? She is a Secretary of State and has a separate ministerial role for women and equalities. That is a separate ministerial role but it is held at that level. The Minister for Children is not, so from a public perception point of view why is there a Minister for Women and Equalities? I appreciate that it is a delegated responsibility within her department, but is there not the same argument that a children post is also so important that it needs to be held as an adjunct to a Cabinet post? Edward Timpson MP: The Secretary of State for Education is in the Cabinet. Among her responsibilities is children and families. So there is no downgrading of that role. If you look at any department, a Secretary of State is responsible for all the areas of responsibility that have been given to them through the delegation of government functions across government and the Prime Minister’s objectives of how the Government should be organised. Within that they have a ministerial team, each with its own portfolio areas that reflect the whole encompassed responsibilities of that Secretary of State. So when the Secretary of State for Education goes to Cabinet, they may be there to talk about academies and free schools if it is on the agenda, but on another occasion it may well be child protection or how we better

11 support children in care through their education. There is just as much going on in Cabinet around children and families as there is around women and equality. Baroness Berridge: Can I turn this on its head? Why is the Minister for Women and Equalities not sitting in that same delegated role underneath the Secretary of State, who could say, “I go to Cabinet. It is within my department”? For some reason we have put that and not children up with the Secretary of State. Edward Timpson MP: It is with the Secretary of State. Baroness Berridge: Yes it is, but there has been a different approach to women and equalities. Your point would be the same for any Secretary of State whose department includes women and inequalities. They go to Cabinet on that occasion and they cover women and equalities and other issues, but for some reason that role has gone up to be attached to a Cabinet post but children has not. Does that affect the ability to work across government for children? Edward Timpson MP: No, it does not. We have the Government Equalities Office. In the role of Minister of State for Women and Equalities, the Secretary of State has also delegated some of those responsibilities to other Ministers. For instance, Nick Boles is responsible for equal marriage. I can understand how people are looking and trying to understand how all this fits together, but I can reassure you that sitting around the Cabinet table is a Secretary of State who has responsibility for children and families and who also happens to have responsibility for women and equality. It used to be the Home Secretary and is now the Secretary of State for Education. All those issues have equal veracity around that table both from the person talking about them and the subject itself. Mr Sharma: Minister, what will you do to ensure that the practices exemplified by the excellent UNCRC memoranda that accompanied the Education Bill, the Children and Families Bill and the Modern Slavery Bill will become the norm for every Bill presented by the Government to Parliament that has significant implications for children’s rights? Edward Timpson MP: First, I appreciate that there is recognition that we have moved forward and been able to demonstrate that we can legislate in a more effective way by greater pre-legislative scrutiny and by the way in which we have approached the assessment of the impact of those Bills in particular where they have relevance to UNCRC, the EHRC and other important areas. They are a new process for a lot of people across government, and we need to ensure that they are held up as ways of how things can be improved, but we

12 do not accept that they are being executed perfectly. There are ways in which we can still do more. I do not know, and I will be able to write to the Committee about this, how, among Permanent Secretaries across government and the parliamentary teams who work closely with the authorities in the House, that best practice is being disseminated and developed through those Bills in particular. I think it would be helpful to find ways of ensuring that those who are working on future legislation learn from those experiences. I will happily look at what we have done and what more we can do to ensure that every department in the next Parliament is fully aware and compliant with those new processes, which I hope we agree are a better approach than what came before. Q69 Baroness Lister of Burtersett: As you will be aware, there has been some criticism of the Government’s reports to the UN committee. I think there are broadly two areas of criticism. One is the failure to acknowledge. There has been some quite vigorous debate about the extent to which government policy and laws are compatible with the UNCRC. Secondly, there is a sense that the report perhaps is focused too much on policy on paper and not enough on how it plays out in practice on the ground; the experience of law and policy that you emphasised is so important. How would you respond to those two criticisms of the report to the UN committee? Edward Timpson MP: First, we did not produce this report in isolation. We spent a lot of time working with NGOs and other interested parties to understand their views and in order for them to have some input into how we can best present in a fair way the work that has gone on over the last nearly five years. I hope that that more collegiate approach ensured that we captured a lot of the issues that others were interested in and are somewhat concerned about. Obviously it is disappointing if some feel that it lacks some of that analysis. We sought to draw out and tried very hard to demonstrate where there have been some practical changes brought about by the policy initiatives. I will take my area because it is the one I know most about. We have done work to improve the education of children in care. We introduced the pupil premium plus, which rather than just £900 a year in order to support education is £1,900 a year. There is the instruction of the statutory position of a virtual school head to support the education of all looked-after children in their area. Albeit that it is in its early stages, the impact is that the attainment gap between that group of children and their peers

13 has narrowed. We have tried to make it evidence-based and to demonstrate where there has been an impact. As for compliance with the convention, there will always be that argument as to whether we are or are not, which goes back to our discussion earlier about incorporation. All I can do is reiterate the Government’s position that our view is that the laws and policies that we have in place are compliant and that the Children and Families Act is a strong representation of that. Q70 Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: Chair, I am going to incorporate question 20 and put two together because I know that we are under pressure of time. We have four Children’s Commissioners in the , one for each of the different nations. They have very different powers and in some respects different relationships with government or their own Parliaments. Do you see a problem in that? Concern has been expressed that, for example, the English Commissioner does not deal with individual cases brought to their attention, that they have a more general remit. What do you feel about those differences, and does it create a disconnect? The next question relates to a criticism, a critique or concern, that has come from the United Nations committee that says that because of these differences, very different reports and information are collated in different ways in the different parts of our United Kingdom. The report is presented in a way that is not coherent to the United Nations. It would like a more coherent report that consolidates statistics and information from the four entities. It would like a more holistic approach. What do have to say about all that? There are two questions: one is about the differences in the commissioners’ remits and powers and whether that concerns you at all. The second is about whether we do a better job in presenting it all in a holistic way. Edward Timpson MP: On the first point, a combination of devolution and organic evolution of the various Children’s Commissioner roles across the United Kingdom has led to some differences in the remit and the powers of each Children’s Commissioner. Our recent legislation has strengthened the powers of the English Children’s Commissioner so that they are there to protect the rights of children, which has put them at odds with some of the other responsibilities of the Children’s Commissioners across the United Kingdom. This is an area of discussion which, in my very early weeks as the Minister, I remember having with the Children’s Commissioner, Maggie Atkinson, who I know has given evidence to this Committee and who is just about to leave her post to the new Children’s

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Commissioner, Anne Longfield. I know that the four commissioners have worked hard to ensure that the concerns of the UN committee were being met and for a more cohesive output that could be used as a way of measuring whether there has been a useful input of Children’s Commissioners across the United Kingdom and whether they are making a positive impact. So they have an operational protocol to try to achieve that. I know that they were keen to keep their individual identities for the areas of their responsibility, but they recognised that there needed to be better cut-across between each nation. We have three commissioners newly in post or soon to be in post, and I am sure that a conversation they will want to have will be to see whether there is more that we can do. Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: I think it is about having a better way of measuring progress. Each nation will find its best way. The size of their populations are different, and all that. You can often fail to see where there are gaps if the information is not presented in similar ways from different places. It is about creating some sort of coherence in the material that comes out. Edward Timpson MP: In our periodical review, we tried to put together the progress that had been made across , Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I also know that they work closely with the Republic to give a holistic picture of the work that they are doing collectively. It is something that continues to need to be looked at, and I am sure that the new commissioners will see this as a priority. Q71 Baroness O'Loan: There is a certain amount of pressure on the Government to ratify the third optional protocol to the convention, which would allow children to take complaints about breaches of their rights directly to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. The response of the Government is that they are waiting for evidence on the ratification of CEDAW and the UNCRPD. Can you tell us when you think the Government will have enough evidence from observing the effect of ratification of those two optional protocols before making a decision on this protocol? Edward Timpson MP: I cannot give you a definitive date for that. I go back to the exchange I had earlier with Lady Kennedy about the position of the Government. Whoever is in the hot seat after 7 May will need to continue to look at this, but I cannot give you any clearer timeline. Baroness O'Loan: But can you tell us what difference you think ratification would make in practical terms and what difference it has made with regard to CEDAW and UNCRPD?

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Edward Timpson MP: We have been clear that we do not see incorporation or ratification as a necessary step at this juncture. The laws and policies that we have in place already allow us to be compliant with that. Baroness O'Loan: But they do not allow an individual right about access to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Edward Timpson MP: But we have the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, who has that responsibility to take up those issues for children if they so wish. We also have a panoply of redress procedures within our domestic law that children and young people can follow. One that has been created by this Government is for someone who is post-16 with special educational needs. Previously, you had no right to go to a tribunal should you feel that what was your statement and would now be an education, health and care plan was not meeting your needs. You can now do that up to the age of 25, should you still have an education, health and care plan. There is the overarching principle, which clearly we do not disagree with, about the rights that are replaced, which we should be following closely within domestic law. Where we part company is whether we need ratification in order to make that happen in practice. Baroness O'Loan: I could be wrong, Chair, and you will have to forgive me, but the English Children’s Commissioner does not have the right to investigate individual complaints, does she? Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: That is right. Edward Timpson MP: The Children’s Commissioner does not have a right to investigate individual complaints. Baroness O'Loan: But the Northern Ireland commissioner does. Edward Timpson MP: That goes back to the point that we raised before. Baroness O'Loan: That was the point of this question. Edward Timpson MP: We looked at that as part of the legislation going through, and because of the other routes of redress that were available and the role that we wanted for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, which also incorporated the Children’s Rights Director, the most effective way of upholding children’s rights was being able to report directly to Parliament and having that greater level of independence. That law has now been passed and has been scrutinised, but I am sure that others will want to revisit it in due course.

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Baroness O'Loan: Particularly in view of the effect of the cuts in legal aid on children’s access to law and the assertion of their rights. Q72 Baroness Lister of Burtersett: Minister, I think it is probably fair to say that one of the overwhelming messages that we have received in both written and oral evidence so far in this inquiry from NGOs and the outgoing Children’s Commissioner is that the biggest impact on children’s rights has come from austerity—and I mean damaging impact. How do you respond to that? Edward Timpson MP: I am not going to repeat the lines that you will hear on the Floor of the House when these issues are raised. I do not think that is helpful. Clearly, when you have to retrench public expenditure you want to do it in a way that achieves the objective, not just in the short term but in the long term, that those who are not able to shoulder more of that burden should be the ones who do so. We need to protect or nurture those who are not able to shoulder it through that change, which will be painful for us collectively. There is also a need to keep a clear picture of what we are seeking to achieve. It is a means to an end, and the means may not be the sort of medicine that we want to take but they are necessary to get to where we want to be. We are starting to see the effects of doing that. We have 400,000 less children living in a workless household. We have 3,000 less children— fewer children, I should say, otherwise the previous Secretary of State will have me up in front of him—living in relative-income poverty. We have £2.5 billion being spent on the pupil premium. We have free school meals, which are now universal. We have free entitlement to childcare for three and four year-olds. A whole host of measures have been put in place to try to ensure that we help those who are least able to protect themselves in that endeavour. Baroness Lister of Burtersett: There is probably no point in pursuing that, but it is pretty clear that the people who have given evidence to us feel that it is those with the narrowest shoulders who have had to bear much of the burden: that is, children in lower- income families. Just to pick you up on the point about poverty, as you know the figures look rather different for what is called absolute poverty, but we will not go into that. Of course, the problem with the statistics is that the published ones do not yet show the impact of government measures. The statistics that do are not going to be published until after the election, I understand. All the projections from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and others are that child relative-income poverty is going to start going up again, and it is going to be a lot worse by 2020, which is the target date for the eradication of child poverty. The Government, to their credit, are still committed to that target, so would you accept that on

17 current policies the Government are going to be in breach of their duty, if they are still the Government then, to eradicate child poverty by 2020? Do you also accept that these policies are contributing to that? Edward Timpson MP: I am happy to reiterate that commitment of eradicating child poverty by 2020. We need to have these types of commitment. We have seen this with development goals and elsewhere: it helps to concentrate people’s minds and does not let things just drift and fall down the pecking order of importance. In terms of the impact of policies, of course there is the time lag issue. You can make an initial impact assessment. There will be other bodies such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies that will look to make their own projections. Some of its other projections a few years ago on the number of people who would be out of work proved to be drastically wide of the mark. I do not think that we can all be 100% confident that our predictions are going to come to fruition. However, we have to believe in the policies that we set in train in order to achieve that objective. I am sure that if you had the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions sitting here, he would be vociferous in his defence of the changes that he has made to welfare reform, of the department’s own predictions on the introduction of universal credit, of removing another 300,000 children from the numbers of those in workless households, and of getting more people into work and the benefits of that. This is also about looking at the root causes of what brings about poverty in the first place. I know that the child poverty strategy which my colleague David Laws is responsible for has borne down on what we have to do rather than just following the statistics, which is changing people’s lives so that this does not become an intergenerational issue. I do not accept that the policies of the Government are leading to the inevitability that we will miss the target. It is a tough target, but rightly so, and I fully support the work that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is doing in order to bring that about. Q73 Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: Minister, I know that we are not going to agree on the impact of austerity; I happen to think that the austerity policies have had a huge impact on children. But I am particularly concerned about vulnerable children, such as migrant children, suffering from cuts to government and other public services, because the evidence that was agreed upon across the board from all the witnesses was that, yes, it is impacting on families at the lower end of the economic scale, but it is particularly hard on the children of immigrant families—migrant children. That evidence must have reached your desk too.

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Edward Timpson MP: When it comes to migrant children, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, children who have been in need of protection who have come from overseas, the identification and then ongoing support that we provide is clearly something that I am very interested in within my portfolio. It is right, and important, to say that although there have been reductions to local authority budgets, which is where the responsibility lies for children’s services— Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: Local authorities say that it is quite daunting for them. Edward Timpson MP: It is challenging for many them. There is no denying that. Whenever I write to a director of children’s services I acknowledge that there are pressures that they are having to wrestle with, but what is encouraging is that as much is spent on child protection services now as there was in 2010. More important, though, is what that money is achieving. That is why we have had such a strong focus and drive through the new Chief Social Worker for Children and Families on improving the quality of response to those types of children, and through the legislation that I know the House of Lords has been looking at closely we are looking to see how we can top up the whole host of roles that are already in place to provide those migrant children with support, whether it is the social worker, the independent reviewing officer, or the potential for an advocate on their behalf. We are looking to see what more we can do to do what makes a difference. We have seen with the local authorities that have been most successful through their Ofsted inspections or children’s services in achieving good-quality care for vulnerable children in their area that there is no direct correlation between how much money they are spending on it. In fact, some of the highest-spending local authorities on children’s services are the worst performing. We need to make sure that the money is effectively spent. Yes, there is less of it, but it can be far more effectively spent. I know that is an easy line to keep trotting out, but the evidence is that you can do it, and it need not be the most vulnerable children who pay the consequences. I talked about the pupil premium, free school meals and the free entitlement to childcare for three and four-year olds. There are also other areas. I am sorry that this is a slightly long answer, but I go back to my earlier point that there are lots of other things going on in government that are not necessarily known about because they do not attract the headlines. For example, every child in care now has a bank account set up for them by the Government, a junior ISA. Two hundred pounds is put in initially, so that when they leave care it can be supplemented by local authorities, philanthropists and those who have an

19 interest in that child. When they leave care, they all have their own bank account. We have set up 55,000 in the last three years. That, for me, is a good example of there being a problem: children leave care and do not have a bank account or a family to support them, so what can we put in place that gives them something that they have ownership of and gives them a better start in life? For me, that is a good way of central government working with local government and coming up with the right solution. Q74 Baroness O'Loan: Minister, we have raised concerns during this Parliament about the legal framework surrounding the use of force of children, for example when they are searched at school or when they are subjected to the use of force for the purposes of good order and discipline in secure colleges. Our predecessor Committee also raised concerns about the retention of the reasonable punishment defence. In the light of those concerns, would you be prepared to initiate a review of the legal framework governing the use of force on children? Edward Timpson MP: We have been looking at the use of restraint in children’s homes and secure children’s homes and making sure that we get that right and that the lines are clear about what is acceptable and what is not. I know that that work is ongoing. I can report back to the Committee about the stage that it has reached. Forgive me if I am wrong, but I think your question is looking at the whole issue of reasonable chastisement. Baroness O'Loan: It is about the use of force generally on children. Edward Timpson MP: From memory, I think it concerns a debate that surfaced during the Children and Families Bill in Committee. This will always be an area of contention. The Government’s position remains clearly that a mild smack on a child is acceptable, but there are clear laws in place around what reasonable chastisement is. There are clear guidelines for professionals, particularly teachers, about how they should deal with situations where restraint may be required. But of course we need to keep returning to whether it is in practice being upheld. Again, I am happy to write to the Committee with more details about some of the evidence that is emerging as to whether the law is being upheld and whether the changes that others have proposed would make a difference. Baroness O'Loan: Very briefly, I accept that there is a general election coming and that you will not announce a review today, but do you think that it would be a good idea to review this issue?

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Edward Timpson MP: All I can say is that the Government have set out their position in this area and it is not one that will be reviewed before the election. Q75 Baroness Berridge: The Committee has also expressed concerns about certain legal protections for children not applying to 16 and 17 year-olds. I am thinking specifically of the amended child cruelty offence and the rights of under-18s in the Armed Forces. I appreciate that there are only weeks left, but is there a mind within the Government to initiate a review of the different definitions we now have of “child” in UK law to try to remove some of the inconsistencies and anomalies that there are? Edward Timpson MP: In the final few weeks there is not that intention, but you make a good point. One of the repercussions of producing so much legislation over the years is that there are lots of anomalies within it. We have seen an example of that recently where child prostitution was mentioned in legislation going back some considerable time, although some not as much as you would expect. We have sought to correct that and to make it clear that that is wholly inappropriate phraseology for the circumstances in which many young people find themselves as victims. That is one example, but there may well be others that we need to consider. I know that there has been a falling off of the numbers of 16 and 17 year-olds in the Armed Forces and that a whole spectrum of legislation places children at different ages depending on the area being talked about, from the criminal age of responsibility through to what age you can vote. I am sure that there will continue to be debates about that. I cannot commit to any review in the next few weeks, but it is a valid point which the new Children’s Commissioner may be interested in looking at. I will meet her next week when she takes up her tenure. Q76 Baroness O'Loan: I want to go back to children’s rights and devolution. You told us a lot about the extent of joined-up government in relation to children in England and Wales, but what relationship do you have with the Governments of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland on the issue of children’s rights? Do you have concerns about the different speeds at which the countries are going with regard to the provision and promotion of children’s rights? For example, a public sector duty to have regard to the UNCRC has already been introduced in Wales and is coming into Scotland. Are you monitoring that? Edward Timpson MP: Obviously we monitor all developments right across the United Kingdom. I have two levels of relationship with my counterparts in other nations. One is on the overarching principles. When we pulled together the response to the UNCRC last year,

21 clearly that meant that we had to have quite detailed discussions about what each of us were doing and had achieved during our period in office. The second area of communication is where there are individual changes that we are making in legislation or regulation that potentially affect other nations. Again, to give an example of the changes in special educational needs, because devolution around police and justice in England and Wales is separate from Scotland and Northern Ireland we had to make sure that there was compliance but in a different way, depending on which area you were talking about. It means that there is fairly consistent dialogue between myself and my counterparts in other nations. We are always going to move at different speeds because that is the nature of devolution. When we introduced the new right for children in care to remain with their foster carers up to the age of 21 should they wish to do so, at the same time Scotland was looking at doing something similar, as well as Wales. But we have ended up doing it at slightly different timings. Baroness O'Loan: Northern Ireland? Edward Timpson MP: I do not think that Northern Ireland is there yet. But the fact that we inform each other and have those conversations has elicited the changes that have happened elsewhere. I think there is a mutual interest to keep those lines of communication open, because it means that some of the harmony you perhaps are looking for happens but is done in a way that meets the needs of each of those nations individually. Baroness O'Loan: If one part of the UK were falling behind, say Northern Ireland, on this issue, as UK Minister with responsibility for ensuring compliance with the UNCRC, can you do anything? Do you have any tools? Is there any way of forcing them to come up to speed? Edward Timpson MP: I cannot force them. I can make strong representations. They have their legal frameworks in which they make decisions. I hope that we never reach the stage where it becomes a Secretary of State or even a prime ministerial discussion where there is either a blatant breach or a clear, consistent discrepancy that is too uncomfortable to leave on the table. But no, I do not have any direct legal right to interfere. Baroness O'Loan: But you have the responsibility? Edward Timpson MP: I have the responsibility to pull together what we are doing across the United Kingdom. In the same way in which the Secretary of State for Health cannot tell the Welsh Health Minister or the Scottish Health Minister directly what to do, the same

22 applies in my role and in relation to many of my other responsibilities that are just for England. The Chairman: Thank you very much Minister. For the most part, we have covered the questions that we wanted to cover. There will be one or two points that we will wish to clarify and we will write to you. You have also indicated that you will write to us to clarify some of the points that you mentioned earlier in this session. Thank you very much for your co-operation. For my part, I will be a colleague of yours in the new Parliament and I will not wish you well. You may wish to return and join this Committee. Baroness Berridge: We wish you well. Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: I wish you well. but I do not think that Children’s Minister of a Conservative Government is necessarily where all your talents can go.