I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

It is a pleasure to serve again under your chairship, Mrs Main. The new clause would place a duty on all public authorities to have due regard to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child when exercising all their functions. It would require public authorities to determine the impact of local service provision and decision making on the rights of children, and would provide a framework for public service delivery in relation to children.

Just last year, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, in response to the fifth periodic report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, urged the UK to introduce a “statutory obligation” to consider children’s needs

“when developing laws and policies affecting children,” because at present the Government have failed to give due consideration to the UNCRC when developing legislation. The UN committee found numerous examples of where children’s views were not systematically heard in policy making or by professionals, and where there was a lack of a statutory obligation systematically to conduct children’s rights impact assessments. It is little wonder, then, that we have ended up in a situation in which just under 4 million children in the UK live in poverty, or in which in England there are more than 70,000 homeless children, many of whom live in squalid temporary accommodation, or that we have seen reports of our children being among the most unhappy in the world.

The UK ratified the treaty in 1991, but has never gone so far as to enshrine it in domestic law. Instead, it has taken a sector-by-sector approach to implementing the convention. The UN committee has rightly said that the Government must do more. It has called on them to expedite

“bringing…domestic legislation, at the national and devolved levels…in line with the Convention in order to ensure that the principles and provisions of the Convention are directly applicable and justiciable under domestic law.”

Incorporation through a duty on public authorities should enable the provisions of the convention on the rights of the child to be directly invoked before the courts, and ensure that it will prevail where there is a conflict with domestic legislation or common practice.

This approach also has the approval of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which says that it would like the convention to be incorporated in UK law in the same way as the European convention on human rights has been incorporated by means of the Human Rights Act 1998—an Act that is under threat from this Government.

It is staggering that in Wales and Scotland a totally opposite approach has been taken. Instead of taking away children’s rights, Wales and Scotland have built on them, giving some statutory recognition to the convention. In Wales, Ministers are under a duty to consider or give due regard to children’s rights; and in Scotland, public authorities are required to report on steps that they have taken to secure children’s rights. It is clear that we lag behind our neighbours when it comes to legislative protections for children’s rights. It is wrong that they are becoming a postcode lottery. They should be offered universally, and we should be leading the way.