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Coroners and Justice Bill

This is a further attempt to encourage the Government to recognise that there is a real difference between children and adults in criminal offences. Of particular importance is the debate before dinner about developmental immaturity. There is now another effort by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, to attack the same point. It is particularly important that the Government remember that the four Children’s Commissioners of the United Kingdom were extremely critical of the approach towards the criminalisation of children, and young children in particular, in this country. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child was also very critical. It praised the Government for some improvements but it remained extremely critical. There is a danger that the Government of the day, and I suspect all Governments, are overinfluenced by the popular press and particularly certain sections of the press that demonise children and treat all children who are old enough to go to court and who commit really serious offences as evil. The Government should be giving a lead and not responding to the soundbites of the newspapers in relation to the way in which children are to be treated in the same way as adults.