The Voice for Children

Making it count today

From its formal recognition in December 2013 the APPG on A Fit and Healthy Childhood provided a comprehensive overview of life in 21st century UK for children and young people. The Cross-Party Group on a Fit and Healthy Childhood continues that commitment. The Voice for Children has been launched to serve as a campaigning body, fulfilling a role that the APPG was unable to perform for itself owing to Parliamentary rules.

We launched THE VOICE FOR CHILDREN to better deliver the vital advances in policy required to deliver real change to the health and wellbeing prospects of our children and young people.

During the past decade, we’ve studied their health and wellbeing but rather than charting a trajectory of progress, our 20+ published Reports have instead borne witness to a radical slump in the life prospects of a newborn baby today.

For the first time in living memory, the coming generation is likely to find itself physically, mentally and economically worse off than its predecessors. Something must be done.

2013 – 2024 has been a period during which time:

  • A child obesity ‘issue’ has become an ‘epidemic’
  • The worsening mental health of children and young people is predicted by some to have the future resonance of ‘the next pandemic’
  • Children’s Centres have closed and unsustainable costs are threatening the entire system of early years and nursery education
  • The impact of the  pandemic followed by a cost of living crisis has revived institutional inequalities and entrenched food deprivation and child poverty
  • The role of an unmonitored internet has grown in significance as a serious potential risk to children and young people – and the Online Safety Bill, long delayed and still to be enacted, is still considered at best an imperfect ‘solution’
  • Deadly diseases such a measles have made a return due to a down turn in immunisation and the plight of NHS dentistry will see a generation of children and young people with dental problems to dwarf those of their parents and grandparents
  • A generation of young people have left university with a handshake rather than a degree for their years of study and changed ways of working and financial hardship have made loneliness and isolation a fact of their lives (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/19/socially-stunted-how-covid-pandemic-aggravated-young-peoples-loneliness)

These and many similar issues cannot be resolved overnight but unless we are preparing to write off the future, a start must be made – and quickly.

In 2014, the APPG Report ‘Healthy Patterns for Healthy Families’ called for the Government to appoint a Cabinet Minister for Children.

We were the first of many to call for this and we still believe that a Secretary of State leading a Department for Children, Young People and Families would be a worthy addition to the Government.

However, a decade of experience has taught that pursuing change via   structure rather than changing the culture is likely to be a long and uncertain process.

The Voice for Children wants wins today that will benefit the children of today so we have to start where we are.

Making every Department responsible

Policies affecting children and young people are policies that affect all of us. They aren’t confined to the Department for Education or the Department for Health and Social Care and every year, the Secretary of State for each Department has to make a case to the Chancellor for the amount of money that they will need to pursue their policies.

The Voice for Children sees this as an ideal time for each Secretary of State to itemise in their budget the resources that they will need for their policies to include measures to benefit children and young people.

The amounts specified and allocated should be published by the Chancellor at the same time as the Annual Budget Statement and thus held to a similar process of scrutiny in the ensuing Budget debate.     

Strengthening the role of the Commissioner for Children

Each of the devolved nations in the UK has a Children’s Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner for England has statutory powers to talk with children, gather data and gain evidence with the aim of effecting change and long-term improvements to their lives. Unfortunately, although the many insightful Reports of successive Commissioners are invariably well-covered by the media, there is no obligation for them to be debated at Westminster.

The Voice for Children will campaign for a day to be set aside within the annual Parliamentary Calendar for the Commissioner’s Annual Report to be the subject of debate introduced by the Government of the day. The debate would ensure that the issues raised and the response to them would be a matter of public record.

Our promise to you

We will not stop until significant change is delivered. We will go the extra mile voluntarily. We will not be diverted from our aims under any circumstances. Children and young people are far more important than the needs of any one organisation. 

What do we want the Government to DO nationally and locally to ensure that for EVERY newborn baby, tomorrow really will be better than today?

Collaborations and Support

The Voice for Children needs your help. To be most effective, we want to collaborate with supportive organisations and we need volunteers with practical skills. Please get in touch if you would like to be involved or if you would just like to register your support and go on our mailing list. Contact phil.royal@btinternet.com.

Phil Royal and Helen Clark

August 2023