Children in Detention,Children’s Rights, Vulnerable Groups

The following three meetings of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Children have been arranged for March, April and early May:

  • Tuesday 28 March – Children in Detention: joint meeting with the All Party Parliamentary Group for Refugees, with speakers including Lord Dubs.
  • Monday 24 April – Children’s Rights in Practice, with presentations from members of Young NCB, Christine Smart (Children’s Rights Director, CAFCASS), and Professor Roger Morgan (Children’s Rights Director, CSCI).
  • Tuesday 9 May – Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill, with a presentation by Maria Eagle MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at DfES and Lead Minister on the Bill.

Children in Detention: Joint Meeting with the APPG for Refugees
Tuesday 28 March

Every year up to 2,000 children in the UK are locked up without committing a crime.   Many of them are thousands of miles from home and have fled their homes and communities, seeking sanctuary from war and persecution.  These are the children of asylum seekers, detained with their parents in detention centres that are little better than prisons. No child should have to suffer detention for the ease of administering immigration control, so Save the Children, the Refugee Council and Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) are launching a campaign to end the detention of children for immigration purposes: No Place for A Child: Stop Detaining Children Now!  

Speakers will include Lord Dubs, who recently visited Yarl’s Wood, where families are detained, and a joint APPG report on alternatives to detaining children will be discussed and commissioned.

Children’s Rights in Practice
Monday 24 April

This meeting will look at examples of how the Children’s Rights principles enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Human Rights Act 1998 are being incorporated into practice.  Presentations by Young NCB representatives, Christine Smart and Professor Roger Morgan will focus particularly on the practicalities of promoting and embedding these principles within their communities and organisations. 

Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill
Tuesday 9 May

This meeting will be an opportunity for Parliamentarians to discuss the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill with Maria Eagle MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the DfES, with responsibility for children and families issues. The Bill provides the legislative framework for a new vetting and barring scheme for people who work with children and vulnerable adults. 

This follows the Bichard Inquiry report (June 2004), which identified systemic failures in current vetting and barring systems, and the public consultation on the new scheme, Making Safeguarding Everybody’s Business: A Post-Bichard Vetting Scheme, which ended in July 2005. 

Please contact Alison Linsey, Clerk to the Group (email: [email protected]), or Zoë Renton (email: [email protected]):

  • To be added to the email mailing list to receive minutes and invitations to meetings,
  • For copies of minutes from any of the meetings,
  • For any further information about the Group.

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