Keep children out of politics

Vulnerable must take priority

THIS NEWSPAPER accepts – and appreciates – the challenges and daily difficulties that Ministers face over Covid- 19. Little could have prepared them for a global pandemic with such profound political, economic and social consequences.

Yet, too often, there’s a tendency for Ministers to react to events with hindsight rather than take a proactive approach underpinned by foresight, and the care of vulnerable youngsters, highlighted by Anne Longfield, the outgoing Otley- born Children’s Commissioner, is a case in point. Her evidence to Parliament’s cross- party Education Committee, and non- partisan stance taken by participating MPs, was an example of how party politics should not be distracting Ministers from their primary purpose – the care of children.

This was clear when Ms Longfield warned far more needs to be done to help pupils catch- up with their studies and that the Government needs to be taking steps now to empower schools to help, and support, those families facing poverty as a result of losing their jobs.

This social crisis, she says, is likely to last far longer than the dreaded virus and explains her call for a new generation of youth workers to be set up, and based in schools, to ensure no child, however vulnerable, is forgotten – or allowed to fall through the policy cracks – because of the failure of Whitehall whims, the latest being Boris Johnson’s advocacy for onetoone tuition, to cover all eventualities.

Time will tell whether the Government embraces her call for a Cabinet- level Children’s Secretary to champion the care agenda while the Education Secretary, currently Gavin Williamson, focuses on school standards. But it is another warning, following footballer Marcus Rashford’s own intervention over free school meals, that the future of children is too important, even more so now, to be left to politics.