4. Submissions on Behalf of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales by Mr Williams

Mr Williams: My Lady, prynhawn da.

I represent the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, who welcomes your decision to designate her office as a core participant in Module 2B of the Covid-19 Inquiry.

The office of the Commissioner for Wales was established by the Children’s Commissioner for Wales Act of 2001, which now applies a new part 5 to the Care Standards Act 2000 to children and young people in Wales.

The principal aim of the Commissioner is to safeguard and promote the rights and welfare of children. This must be the Commissioner’s overriding objective indeed when undertaking her work, and in doing so she must have regard to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UNCRC, the international charter which sets out the minimum standards for children and young people wherever they live.

Indeed, the UNCRC underpins all of the Commissioner’s work, for the Welsh Government has adopted it as the basis of all policy making for children and young people in devolved Welsh legislation. The Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure of 2011 places a duty indeed on Welsh ministers in exercising their functions to have due regard to the UNCRC. And the Commissioner’s remit covers all areas of the devolved powers of the Senedd in Wales, insofar as they affect children’s rights and welfare.

Throughout the pandemic, the Commissioner’s office played a key role in influencing, scrutinising and holding to account the Welsh Government and public services devolved to Wales, in particular, as well as working with the Children’s Commissioner’s counterparts across the UK on certain issues. This included, for instance, producing a Covid-19 appendix to her joint submission with the other UK Children’s Commissioners to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in December 2020, as well as a children and young people’s report relaying experiences to the UN committee which provided updates relevant to the pandemic alongside a list of issues.

Examples of other actions taken by the Children’s Commissioner during the pandemic were set out in our written submissions and indeed in her application for core participant status, and I shan’t reiterate those now.

In relation to the scope of the Inquiry, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales notes what is said about Module 2B as set out in the note for the preliminary hearing and indeed repeated by counsel this afternoon.

Whilst we do bear in mind that the issues will be further developed once the responses to the Rule 9 requests for evidence have been received, the Children’s Commissioner does have some initial concerns as to whether there will be sufficient focus on children and young people, such as, for instance, in relation to the decision-making by the Welsh Government in respect of non-pharmaceutical interventions, given that the impact on young people was undoubtedly significant in terms both of their education and their mental health and wellbeing.

In addition, there were particular impact on particular groups of children and young people, including children with special educational needs, children resident in closed settings, such as children’s homes, children at risk of or experiencing abuse, those held in youth justice settings and care experience children and young people.

For instance, children’s education in general, including early years and childcare settings, and the system of school examinations in particular, were completely disrupted in Wales, as of course elsewhere in the United Kingdom during the pandemic.

Now, although this was mentioned by Counsel to the Inquiry in his opening, we do ask the question: is it the case that a future-specific module will focus more sharply on such issues? If so, we say that should be clarified now. If not, then it is vital that the current module expressly deals with them from an early stage.

Should, for instance, other organisations such as the local education authorities in Wales or the examination regulator, Qualifications Wales, be recipients of Rule 9 requests beyond those currently listed and set out in the note to the Inquiry?

Furthermore, what experts, such as education, mental health, safeguarding and child protection and social care professionals should be required to provide expert evidence and produce reports? As yet we have heard very little about that.

The Children’s Commissioner would also request that the Inquiry examines in particular the protection of children’s human rights, as laid out in the UNCRC, during the pandemic.

The Children’s Commissioner would request that the Inquiry pays particular attention to the delivery of actions by the state to follow the advice of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which was published in April 2020, just after the first lockdown, and, there, a series of eleven key priorities for states to protect children’s rights during the coronavirus pandemic.

Furthermore, in relation to the Listening Exercise, of which we have heard something today, the Commissioner would urge the Inquiry, first of all, to gather the views of children and young people directly, and the Commissioner would be willing to identify groups and advise on methodologies in that regard. And secondly, we request that the committee pays particular due regard to the Welsh language, as of course, as we have heard, it has specific legal status in Wales, to ensure that the children’s linguistic rights are upheld during this process.

The Children’s Commissioner, however, does welcome any clarification on these issues which the Inquiry team is able to give during the course of this afternoon and will do everything to assist going forward.

My Lady, diolch yn fawr am eich cefnogaeth parhaol; thank you very much for your continued support.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Mr Williams.

I can assure you immediately and the Children’s Commissioner for Wales immediately, this – as I’m sure you know, this module is all about key decision-making, and I always acknowledge the impact on children being a relevant and significant, important part of that, hence my designation of the Children’s Commissioner as a core participant. But there will be a later module, and as soon as we have the details of it, everyone – which will deal specifically with the impact of the pandemic on children and young people.

So thank you very much too for your offers of support. I will need them. Thank you.

Mr Williams: I’m grateful for that.

Lady Hallett: Right, I have been asked to break now. Our wonderful stenographer, who does the most amazing job – anyone who is following the transcript will see just what a fantastic job she does – so we don’t want her fingers dropping off. We will break now and I shall return at 3.10, please.

(2.53 pm)

(A short break)

(3.10 pm)