The Children's Society's briefing for the House of Commons Second Reading debate on the Equality Bill
The Children's Society's briefing for the House of Commons Second Reading debate on the Equality BillThe Children's Society is a leading children's charity committed to making childhood better for all children in the UK. We welcome the Equality Bill, which we believe represents an opportunity to improve childhood outcomes and life chances.
It is our aspiration that children are recognised in law as being citizens of equal value and personal dignity to all others, protected from negative discrimination and less favourable treatment. The UN Convention on the Rights of Child embodies the legal and practical standards that would make this real and should be made directly enforceable in domestic legislation and courts.
The Equality Bill takes some significant steps towards simplification and harmonisation of discrimination law and makes important extensions to current protections. However, in order to maintain the strength of existing protections afforded to particular disadvantaged groups and ensure that children are adequately protected the Bill must be amended. Furthermore to put an end to discrimination in our society we believe significantly stronger enforcement mechanisms are required to secure compliance with discrimination law.
In this briefing we set out our concerns about specific areas of the Bill and proposals for amendment.
