The Bill received Royal Assent on 1 May and thus became law. The changes contained in the Act will not affect legal aid for asylum cases or detention cases, but the Act will remove legal aid for immigration cases, inlcuding children's immigration cases. Important changes to the original bill were made during it's passage through Parliament, including keeping legal aid for victims of trafficking and retaining the ability to bring areas of law back into the scope of leagl aid without the need for further primary legislation. A Lords amendment to retain legal aid in all children's cases was reversed when it returned to the House of Commons on 17 April 2012

Due to come into effect in April 2013, the changes to legal aid funding for immigration cases will, for example, affect children who have claims to stay in the UK based on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (private and family life) and those with refugee family reunion claims.The Refugee Children's Consortium and others have rejected the idea, suggested by the government, that social workers could be enabled to provide immigration advice to children and young people in their care. It is possible that the changes to legal aid funding will entail cost-shifting to local authorities if they are required to procure private immigration advice for these children and young people.

As well as impacting on children and young people with immigration claims, the wider changes the government has implemented to legal aid funding for social welfare law through this Act are likely to change the landscape of legal aid provision more generally, at a time when legal advice services are already struggling and many people are in need of advice.

 

The Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) has launched a new microsite on children’s equality. Equality matters for children is the first resource of its kind dedicated to raising awareness of the discrimination faced by children and young people and the importance of equality. The microsite provides a wealth of information and resources for children on equality rights, including:

• Information about equality rights under national and international law
  Real life stories about children who have taken action for equality
  A guide to the Equality Act for children and young people
  A measure of respect for how society should respect children and young people (created by children and young people)
  A take action section with things you can do to promote and protect equality
  Sources of help

Over 130 children and young people from a variety of backgrounds participated in the development of a children's measurement of respect, a tool that can be used at local and national level to stimulate public debate and policy action. The microsite also has lots of ideas for how children and young people can take action on equality issues in schools, when using a public service, when paying for something, in the workplace, and in politics and campaigning.
Find out more about Equality Matters for Children.

The independent panel set up to examine and understand why the August 2011 riots took place has urged local authorities to ensure that children have access to advocates to help represent their best interests. The recommendation was issued in the report After the Riots: The final report of the Riots Communities and Victims Panel. The panel invited submissions from members of the public, visited 24 areas and spoke with thousands of people who were affected by the riots as well as some who were not.The report identifies that these neighbourhoods face significant issues such as high crime and youth unemployment and that many individuals feel their quality of life is poor.

The panel’s recommendations seek to tackle these issues, ‘ensuring public services work together and accept accountability for turning around the lives of individuals, families, and in turn, communities’.

The report emphasises the importance of building on people’s strengths and of giving children every chance to succeed. The panel recommends that every child should have an advocate to support them at key points in their lives. The report states that where parents are unable to fulfil this role, ‘an individual who is acceptable to the child within the wider family, community or among public services (such as the lead professional for the family, or a YOT worker)’ should be nominated to act as an advocate to challenge and hold public services to account on behalf of the child.
Find out more about the report

Dear all,

As you may have seen, a fresh amendment led by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson aimed at keeping children’s cases in the scope of legal aid was defeated late last night. It was scheduled for the very end of the debate in the House of Lords, making a favourable vote highly unlikely.

Unfortunately, this means that the issue is now lost. This is obviously very disappointing news to all of us who have been campaigning hard on the LASPO Bill over many months and it’s a disaster for the 75,000 children and young people who will lose access to legal aid each year that we weren’t ultimately successful in securing amendments to the Bill. However, many small victories have been achieved along the way – we will try to summarise what we think these have been once we’ve had time to reflect on recent events.

We should stress that this is not the end of the JustRights campaign, which was established well before the Legal Aid Bill came along and will continue to lobby for improvements in children and young people’s access to legal advice and representation. We have already started the process of considering the campaign’s next steps and will be in touch again soon to seek your ideas and interest in remaining involved.

Thanks again for all your support!

James, Mandy and Kate

Hansard Ping-Pong debate in HoC 17.04.12.doc

JustRights - LASPO Ping-Pong briefing on Children for Lords April 2012.doc

 

The amendment we won in the Lords protecting all civil legal aid cases for children under the age of 18 was unfortunately overturned by the Government in the Commons on Tuesday, without even a hint from Ministers of any new concessions. This is obviously extremely disappointing. Only two Lib Dem MPs voted against the Government – John Leech and Mike Hancock – even though it is the party’s current youth policy to improve young people’s access to legal advice.

 

As part of the ‘Ping Pong’ process, the Bill now returns to the House of Lords on Monday. Ministers have controversially invoked ‘financial privilege’ to try to prevent Lords from reinstating the amendment. However, we understand that the Peers who tabled the previous amendment in the Lords are nevertheless preparing to table a similar amendment for Monday. We have also heard that Ken Clarke has invited some of the peers for a meeting on Monday. This means there are still hopes of squeezing further concessions out of the Government, although they have not been terribly generous hitherto.

 

After Monday, if we have managed to win a new vote in the Lords, the Bill will return to the Commons on Thursday and may Ping Pong more than once that day between the two Houses of Parliament. Indeed, we understand that the Government is hoping to complete the passage of the Bill on Thursday. If we are still 'in the game’ by then, the Government will be under some pressure to make concessions to ensure the Bill gets through.

 

We drew some consolation this week from some excellent contributions in the Commons debate from MPs – the opposition front-bench relied almost entirely on our briefings and referred to our amendment as “the most open-and-shut case of all”, whilst other MPs also referred to our evidence and briefings. Please find attached key extracts from Hansard.

 

We also gained a lot of media coverage for our campaign in the last week, being featured in the following, amongst others:

BBC

Morning Star

Law Society Gazette

Solicitors Journal

eGovmonitor

lots of education and parenting websites around the world

and even in the Iranian state press !!!

 

Assuming a new amendment is tabled by Peers for debate on Monday, we will once again need any help you can give to persuade Peers to turn up and vote for it. Please find attached our latest briefing for Peers. 

  

Best wishes,

  

James, Mandy & Kate

 

James Kenrick Co-Chair of JustRights Email: james@youthaccess.org.uk Tel: 020 8772 9900

Mandy Wilkins Co-Chair of JustRights Email: mandy@lawcentres.org.uk Tel: 020 7842 0725

Kate Bell JustRights’ Parliamentary Adviser Email: kategobell@gmail.com Tel: 07823 770 425

Lords 3rd Reading debate on C_YP 27.03.12.docx

 

As you may have seen by now, peers voted yesterday in favour of our amendment led by Tanni Grey-Thompson on Children under 18, but against Baroness Howe of Idlicote’s amendment on Vulnerable Young People aged 18-24.

The vote on children represents a major victory for our JustRights campaign. The amendment brings back into scope of the legal aid scheme all civil legal aid cases where a child under the age of 18 needs advice, assistance or representation in their own right, independently from parents/carers. However, we will now have to work hard to prevent the amendment being reversed when the Bill returns to the House of Commons on 17^th April. If you have ideas on tactics, please get in touch. There remains a danger that the Government will invoke ‘financial privilege’ to over-turn all of the 11 defeats they have suffered in the Lords on the Legal Aid Bill. The Lib Dems are apparently in utter turmoil over this and we’ve been told that some very senior members of the party were secretly quite pleased with yesterday’s vote on children. Only one Lib Dem peer (Baroness Benjamin) actually voted for our amendment, whilst we picked up support from three Conservative peers, but the crucial factor was the overwhelming support we received from cross-benchers.

We are extremely disappointed to have lost the vote on vulnerable young people, which would have retained legal aid for care leavers and young people with disabilities. Peers effectively decided that a 17 year old is vulnerable enough to deserve legal aid, but an 18 year old (even one with a learning disability or mental health problem) should be able to navigate the system without specialist help . We’ve come a long way in recent years, but we clearly need to keep educating everybody (including politicians and the legal advice sector) about the needs and vulnerability of this age group. However, we certainly don’t think our attempts to protect legal aid for vulnerable young people have been in vain. As well as helping to win a concession on victims of trafficking, which the minister said yesterday would be extended to cover immigration cases, we have certainly raised awareness of the issues and it seems our arguments may have been picked up by the Cabinet Office team undertaking the ongoing review of advice services. There may also be scope for us to push the MOJ on the rules for "exceptional cases" to cover vulnerable young people, either through their current consultation on this or, if necessary, through an early judicial review.

Please find attached yesterday’s full debate as reported in Hansard – it’s well worth reading the many powerful speeches in favour of our amendments.

Many thanks to all of you who have supported our campaign and helped secure yesterday’s important win on children.

Best wishes,

James, Mandy & Kate

James Kenrick Co-Chair of JustRights Email: james@youthaccess.org.uk Tel: 020 8772 9900

Mandy Wilkins Co-Chair of JustRights Email: mandy@lawcentres.org.uk Tel: 020 7842 0725

Kate Bell JustRights’ Parliamentary Adviser Email: kategobell@gmail.com Tel: 07823 770 425

In January JustRights wrote to Sarah Teather MP, Minster of State for Children and Families to raise concerns about the impact of the Legal Aid Bill on children and young people and how the legal aid cuts threaten to break a commitment she gave that the Government will give due consideration to the UNCRC when making new policy and legislation.

JustRights have now received a reply and here it is:

Letter to Sarah Teather MP.docx 

Response from Sarah Teather.pdf 

Local authorities are to be issued sscorecards to measure how quickly they place for children for adoption. Under a new government action plan for adoption in England, potential adopters will have to be assessed within 6 months, and cureaucracy cut.

Martin Narey, governments advisor on adoption said, "This is an important plan which when implemented - and I expect that to be swift - will effect a radical reform of adoption in England". Read more here

 

Reported by the Children's Rights Director for England, Dr Rogoer Morgan - report attached here: After Care CRD Mar 2012.pdf