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In reply to a Parliamentary Question from Mr Roger Simms MP,
the Hon Mark Lennox-Boyd MP today told the House that the United
Kingdom was making positive progress towards ratification of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Whitehall scrutiny of the text as regards the UK mainland has now taken place and
Mr Lennox-Boyd outlined areas where it was envisaged that the UK
would be making reservations on ratification.
In a statement today, Mr Lennox-Boyd said that the Whitehall
review had been immensely valuable. It showed just how close our legislation concerning the protection of children was to this
important international human rights standard.
In particular, legislation on health and personal social
services for children for which the Department of Health is
responsible fully meets the relevant obligations of the Convention.
Regarding the articles within the Convention covering
education, the United Kingdom again fully meets the requirements
laid down and indeed in some cases exceeds them.
Naturally there are some differences between UK legislation and
this wide ranging consensus document and we have identified the
following areas where we envisage the need to make reservations when
we come to ratify.
In some respects our legislation is more sophisticated than
that contained in the Convention and one such area is that of
Juvenile Custody. In England and Wales experience has shown that
the mixing of adult and juvenile girls in custody can be mutually
beneficial and 17 year old males are as a matter of course held with
18-20 year olds as young adult offenders. We will therefore be
making a reservation to cover this aspect.
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