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Equality Bill [HL]

I apologise to my noble friend. I nearly cut her off, but I had not seen her. Had I seen her, I would have known that she would speak on this—and quite rightly too. As my noble friend said in her remarks, there was a consultation with young people. It was conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry in partnership with the Children’s Rights Alliance. One hundred young people aged 14 to 19 were consulted on the idea of both the commission and the White Paper. I gather—and this is why I smiled when the note appeared—that one participant described it as ““the most boring day of my life””. Something that I love about young people is that they tell you like it is. There is no mealy-mouthedness about them. We want to see the active involvement of children and young people in   this context as part of the beginning of the commission’s work and it is something that we want to see actively continued. They are important in that context. As regards the interesting little debate on the Liberal Democrat Benches between two noble friends, I tend to take the view that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, put forward. As the noble Lord said, in the Bill children and young people have human rights. They are people and they are therefore covered. As noble Lords will know, if they are already covered, there is no need to put them in again. When looking at Clause 9(2)(b), ““other human rights””, the example that I was given by the officials when I asked them to explain it to me was the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. There is no disagreement between the Government and what is being sought here. It is simply that the vast majority of it is already achieved because it is already in legislation. There will be a Memorandum of Understanding between our new Children’s Commissioner, Al Aynsley-Green, who has just taken up the post, and the commission to make sure that we do not leave anything out. In other words, children are to be fully represented and supported in the work that the Children’s Commissioner will undertake and the work of the CEHR. They will complement and strengthen each other in the best possible way. Turning briefly to the group of amendments, with regard to Amendment No. 8 the Secretary of State is required to look at knowledge and experience when appointing commissioners. We would expect those to include knowledge and experience of issues relating to   children and young people. Therefore those requirements are already covered. On Amendments Nos. 75 and 84, the commission has a duty to promote good practice in relation to equality and diversity and to promote equality of opportunity. That already includes children and young people, as do the duties relating to human rights and encouraging public authorities to comply with their human rights obligations. Noble Lords will know that issues of violence linked to racism and the education and support of children with special educational needs are important areas which, between the Children’s Commissioner and the commission, will be looked at with enormous interest and, I hope, to good effect. Amendment No. 99 addresses communication with   children. We have already talked about the independence of this body. I believe that we must allow the commission to develop its own mechanisms to ensure that all its stakeholders, including children and   young people, are consulted with and engaged wherever appropriate in the commission’s work. But that means recognising that there will be differences in the work undertaken by the commission. I am not sure that age equality would take us very far because children are different. A lot of the age equality work is for those between 18 and 118 and does not address the specific needs of children and young people. However, I accept that the way in which they are dealt with is of great importance; that is, making sure that such communication is effective. The same is true for people with learning disabilities. We need to think of means of communication that are as effective as possible. The simple argument put forward by the Government is that we agree with the principles behind these amendments, but we do not feel the need to prescribe them in legislation. Given what I have said about our expectations of the commission and what is already covered in the legislation, I hope that the noble Lord is fully reassured and will agree to withdraw his amendment.