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Equality Bill [HL]

I rise with a certain diffidence because I got into enough trouble on the Children Bill with the children’s rights organisations for brokering a compromise that allowed parents to smack their children in certain circumstances without committing a crime. I hope that nothing that I say now will cause further offence to that powerful and important lobby. I would be grateful if the Minister could say whether my understanding of the Bill is the same as hers in this respect. It seems to me that the position is something like this: children are human beings and have human rights in the way that adults have human rights, except that they are children. As I understand it, under Clause 9, the commission is to,"““take account of any relevant human rights””" in fulfilling its duties under Clauses 8, 10 or 11. Relevant human rights include not only the European Convention on Human Rights but, for example, the rights protected in international law by the UN Convention on the Rights   of the Child. Therefore, the commission shall have to have regard to the rights of children, in particular, which are codified and enshrined in that important international treaty. No doubt, the appointments will, to some extent, be sensitive to that, but the way in which the commission works will have to achieve the aims that noble Lords have pressed for in speaking to the amendments. If that is right, it would help me to understand the position.