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On the day the 2010 General Election was called, the Children's Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) wrote to the children's leads of each of the three main political parties to ask how they would approach children's rights were they to form the next Government. CRAE gave each senior politician the same six questions. Their answers are here: Ed Balls (Labour) and David Laws (Liberal Democrats) answered each question while Michael Gove (Conservatives) declined to respond to the questions and directed CRAE to his Party's Election manifesto. The questions probe how Government would work for England's 11 million children – would it, for example, have a senior Minister with special responsibility for children's rights? They were designed to put on record how the different political parties plan to broadly address the UK's obligations under international law with regards to children. With support from all the main political parties, the UK ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1991. The UN body of children's rights experts has examined the UK's progress on implementing the Convention on three separate occasions – in 1995, 2002 and 2008. Each time, it has made numerous recommendations for improvements in the law and public services. At the last examination, the UN also expressed concern about negative attitudes towards children, including in the media. The next UN review will be in 2014. CRAE wants the incoming Government, however it is made up, to immediately make children's rights a priority.
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