Five children’s rights organisations told the Covid-19 inquiry that the pandemic ‘exacerbated’ deep inequalities within the UK and highlighted the ‘total invisibility’ of children within Government decision making.
On Friday (6 September), Module 8 of the Covid inquiry into the impact of the pandemic on children and young people got underway with a preliminary hearing. Under Model 8 evidence will be given on how inadequate protection or children during the pandemic contributed to an epidemic in poor mental health, widening of inequalities in education outcomes and in diminished life chance for children. Evidence will be taken next year.
Within their submission to the Inquiry, the charities – Centre for Young Lives, the Child Poverty Action Group, Save the Children UK, Just for Kids Law and the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, claim that ‘significant inequality and a lack of political will to prioritise children before, during and after Covid, created a perfect storm of challenges for children’.
They argue that high child poverty levels meant families lacked financial resilience when Covid hit and continue to struggle today, a struggle that has been further compounded by the cost-of-living crisis.
The charities, known as the children’s rights organisations (CROs) and which have been selected as ‘core participants’ to feed into the Inquiry, call on the Government to urgently address the ‘woefully insufficient’ recovery fund and make legislative changes to ensure children’s rights are enshrined in law.
Calls will also be made for a dedicated national children’s recovery programme to improve children’s mental health and wellbeing, an adequate education recovery package and embark on a national play strategy to ensure children have time and places to play.
Representing the charities, Barrister Steve Broach KC, told the inquiry in the preliminary hearing that the impact of the pandemic on children had been devastating and the lack of focus on their rights was ‘systemic’.
He said, ‘This was not an unfortunate oversight for which particular individuals bore responsibility. It resulted from a failure to embed the rights and interests of children in the centre of the machinery of government.
‘Certain groups suffered worst. Babies, whose parents who lost the support of health visitors… children and young people from black and racialised communities… and looked after children; and children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.”
He added, ‘Despite the clear recommendation by the Education Recovery Commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins, and a plethora of other bodies for a substantial investment in children’s recovery, no such funding has yet been made available, by the current or former governments.’
Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said, ‘This stage of the Covid-19 inquiry provides an opportunity to investigate how a decade of cuts to family incomes, stark child poverty levels and deep social inequalities left children on the lowest incomes defenceless in the pandemic.
‘On the eve of the first lockdown more than one in four children were in poverty and as many as one in two for those from Black and minority ethnic groups. And societal disparities only worsened as government responses proved inadequate. This must never happen again. The Inquiry’s critical work must pave the way for new protections for children including legally binding child poverty-reduction targets.’
