asked Her Majesty’s Government:

Whether the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families will head the United Kingdom delegation reporting to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva on 23 September.

My Lords, the UK delegation will be led by a senior civil servant, Tom Jeffery, director-general at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, who will be able to undertake a high-quality dialogue with the committee. The UK Government do not routinely send Ministers to report at this type of hearing and, like the Governments of most other western countries, have not previously sent Ministers to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. Will she tell her right honourable friend the Secretary of State how much the committee appreciates it when a country sends in its delegation its most senior Minister to report to it on forward goals and priorities for implementation of the convention? Will she also tell him that, if he felt moved while he was there to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to integrate it into UK law fully, wholeheartedly and overtly, he would make himself even more popular with the committee?

My Lords, the UK Government take the reporting process very seriously. We have identified suitable senior officials who will be able to undertake this task. It is long established that those officials will represent the Government, but they also bring together the devolved Administrations and other government departments. However, the Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families has written to the UN committee’s rapporteurs in the UK and has invited them to meet her while they are in the UK this summer. We take this extremely seriously and are keen to enter into a constructive, strategic and fruitful dialogue with the UN committee.

My Lords, how will the Minister make certain that the dialogue with the committee on 23 September is strategic and fruitful, as the UN committee stipulates, and in what way does the Minister intend to report back from the committee?

My Lords, a high-powered delegation is to go. We have in this area active NGOs, which, as the noble Baroness will be aware, have a great deal to say about how the United Kingdom should carry through the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I have absolutely no doubt that they will keep our noses to the grindstone and will ensure that this is done effectively, as will noble Lords who are active on these issues.

My Lords, does my noble friend recognise that 87 per cent of British children know nothing about the work of this important body? What are the Government doing to raise awareness of its work in this country and with children in terms of the curriculum?

My Lords, the Department for Children, Schools and Families is providing funding to UNICEF for its Rights Respecting Schools initiative—an initiative that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has advocated in this House. The initiative aims to help to provide children with a practical understanding of the personal meaning of their rights and those of others by relating the principles of the UNCRC closely to everyday behaviour in the classroom and school.