In advance of the second reading of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill on, Coram Children Legal Centre, with other key children’s charities, has called for an amendment to the Bill to ensure that children’s rights are protected.
Withdrawal from the EU is the most fundamental constitutional change to the UK for a generation. It is critical that during the passage of the Withdrawal Bill, parliament considers the impact of the decision to leave the European Union on the rights, safety and welfare of children and young people and urges the Government to put the best interests of children first.
This Bill provides the opportunity to affirm the UK’s role as a global leader and advocate for children‟s rights. While UK law currently lacks automatic protection of children‟s rights, this Bill provides an opportunity to ensure that current and future governments would have to hold children‟s rights in due regard in future policy and legislative matters. Whilst the Withdrawal Bill intends to bring existing EU legislation into UK law, without a renewed commitment to the fundamental rights of children, we risk children’s rights being diluted or impinged as future governments look to correct and update the statue book in light of our departure from the EU.
This briefing, which is supported by a range of organisations representing hundreds of thousands of children and young people across the UK, proposes two key amendments for debate in later stages of the Bill.
- Protection and promotion of children’s rights;
- Ensuring that cross-border mechanisms are in place to safeguard
children and ensuring adequate structural funding to address
inequalities.
Read the EU (Withdrawal) Bill Second Reading Briefing
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