Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Meston Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my fellow signatories to Amendment 221, those who supported a similar amendment in Committee, and the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, UNICEF UK and the NSPCC for their assistance. I also thank Minister MacAlister for a helpful meeting to discuss it.

In a nutshell, the amendment would introduce a statutory requirement for Ministers to prepare and publish a child’s rights impact assessment—CRIA—on any proposed legislation, policy, budgetary or other strategic decision related to children’s well-being, social care or education, and to publish periodic reports on the steps taken to ensure that CRIAs are being carried out to a high standard.

I am grateful too to my noble friend Lady Blower, who moved this and a related children’s rights amendment in Committee, on my behalf. I am bringing back this one amendment, minus a reference to operational decisions—in response to my noble friend the Minister’s comments in Committee—as a practical and proportionate way to ensure a children’s rights perspective on the issues covered by the Bill.

Crucially, since Committee, the report of module 2 of the Covid inquiry has recommended that

“the UK Government should introduce legislation to place child rights impact assessments on a statutory footing in England”.

This was in response to the inquiry’s finding that children’s needs and rights were not properly considered or understood by the Government during the pandemic, and its conclusion, based on extensive evidence, that the use of CRIAs could have guided better outcomes for children during the pandemic.

In Committee, my noble friend the Minister accepted that CRIAs offered policymakers a “valuable tool”, but argued that they should be “effective and proportionate”, and that voluntary rather than statutory CRIAs would be more manageable and less challenging. But experience, including that of the pandemic, suggested that a voluntary approach is not working. Only a small number have been undertaken across government since the DfE’s introduction of a template in 2018, practice is highly inconsistent, there is no oversight of their quality and there is no guarantee that the few that are concluded are published, which is necessary in the interests of transparency and accountability.

Under the previous Government, it was all too obvious when scrutinising relevant legislation that a CRIA had not been undertaken. On the rare occasions when one was finally produced in response to parliamentary pressure, it was nothing more than a post hoc tick-box exercise: a far cry from being a “valuable tool” that would help ensure that children’s best interests were addressed from the very outset of policy-making.

When questioned about CRIAs, other Ministers and officials often point to the inclusion of age in equality impact assessments as being sufficient, but equality impact assessments are no substitute for CRIAs. They do not engage with the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which include taking account of the views of children themselves.

I therefore hope I can persuade my noble friend that a statutory duty to undertake CRIAs would not be the challenging and disproportionate burden on departments that my other noble friend fears. Here I will draw on the experience of Wales, which I learned about at an inspiring parliamentary round table chaired by my honourable friend Helen Hayes MP, chair of the Education Select Committee. The experience of Wales, and indeed of other countries that have mandatory CRIAs, is that they can be easily embedded into existing policy-making processes without a disproportionate impact. Typically, they include an initial screening stage to assess whether a full CRIA is required, so that in practice not every policy is subject to one. They are designed to be light-touch and proportionate. They inform every stage of policy-making and are published in the interests of transparency and accountability. The Welsh Government have developed a manual and comprehensive support system, and I am sure we could learn a lot from this, rather than reinventing the wheel.

The Welsh experience and wider research by UNICEF UK have confirmed that, where properly applied, CRIAs result in better outcomes for children, reflecting their rights as set out in the UN convention, to which we are a signatory. Identifying and addressing potential rights breaches early can help to prevent poor decision-making, saving time, public money and, most importantly, avoidable harm to children. They are thus both proactive and preventive. As it is, though, England is seen very much as an outlier. Do we really want English children to be the poor relation compared with children in Wales and Scotland, or the treatment of Welsh and Scottish children to continue to be dependent on whether or not it is a reserved matter?

The amendment is now supported by the Children’s Commissioner for England and by around 160 organisations spanning a wide range of children’s interests, around 40 more than in Committee. Rejection of it would in effect mean rejection of the Covid inquiry’s recommendation, the need for which has been reinforced by evidence of the children and young people’s module. Acceptance of it would be widely applauded by civil society. It would strengthen and underpin the Bill, ensure that children’s voices were heard in policy-making and provide a lasting legacy to help ensure that children’s rights were properly recognised by future Governments.

If nevertheless my noble friend rejects the amendment, I remind her of what my noble friend Lady Smith said in Committee when she acknowledged that CRIAs provide

“an important toolbox of ways in which policymakers can be, rightly, driven to consider the rights of children … We need to improve the way in which we use that toolbox across government”.

She finished with the very welcome assurance that

“we will continue our work to ensure that child rights impact assessments will be delivered across government and that children’s rights and interests will be at the heart of decisions made by this Government”.—[Official Report, 18/9/25; cols. 2430-32.]

Could my noble friend now tell us what steps exactly the Government are taking to achieve these aims, and could she give a commitment that they will evaluate the effectiveness of this voluntary approach with a clear timeline to inform their formal response to the Covid inquiry’s recommendation? This should be done in partnership with the key organisations that have worked hard on this amendment. It would show the way for the introduction at a future date of statutory CRIAs, as recommended by the Covid inquiry, so that children’s rights in England are protected and promoted as well as in Wales and Scotland.

I will conclude with the words of Ben, a 13 year-old boy who is following the Bill, who was quoted in Committee and who wrote to me again last week:

“I think the CRIA amendment would make a significant difference to children’s lives ... For me personally it would feel good to know that the government is taking my concerns and the concerns of other children into account when they come to pass the Bill”.


I beg to move.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 221, cogently moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, to place child’s rights impact assessments on a statutory basis for the purposes referred to in her amendment.

In Committee, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, referred to the

“shared goal of putting children’s rights at the very centre of policy-making”.—[Official Report, 18/9/25; col. 2429.]

Last week, in answer to a question by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, described the UNCRC as

“an essential framework which will guide both Ministers and officials in drawing up the appropriate policies”.—[Official Report, 27/1/26; col. 764.]

There is therefore no doubt about the Government’s stated intentions and commitment, but those make it only more difficult to understand why there has been a reluctance to act on the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, as long ago as 2023, for stronger national frameworks with greater efforts to embed child rights into law by full incorporation. That would be the best way to maintain and raise standards, enhance accountability, and show that children’s rights are regarded as truly important and should have a strong influence on decision-making.