1 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. 1 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 Sarah Teather _______________________ Examination of Witness Edward Timpson MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families, Department for Education 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 Crewe 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. 3 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? 4 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.