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Equality Bill [HL]

My Lords, I strongly support this amendment. Children have needs which are peculiar to children. It is on the needs of children that their rights should be based, as it is on the needs of human beings in general that their rights are based. Children’s needs are not different, but they have extra needs that adults do not have. It is extremely easy to say that there is no reason to mention children’s rights in this Bill because human rights are at the centre of it. That is not enough. I agree with everything that has been said. Particular reference to the convention is really essential to give this Bill the teeth, which, unfortunately, the commissioner has not been allotted. Children will suffer by being marginalised unless the convention is mentioned here.