Cyfarfod y Gweithgor Opsiynau Deddfwriaethol ar Hawliau Dynol: 19 Mehefin 2024

• Charles Whitmore (CW) (Chair), Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) / Human Rights Consortium (CW)
• Dr Emily Kakoullis (EK), Cardiff University
• Elisabeth Velina Jones (EJ), independent member
• Alicja Zalesinska (AZ), Tai Pawb
• Sarah Nason (SN), Bangor University
• Rhian Davies (RD), Disability Wales
• Simon Hoffman (SH), Swansea University
• Jessica Laimann (JL), Women’s Equality Network (WEN) Wales

Welsh Government officials

• Lorna Hall (LH), Deputy Director
• Hena Thorne (HT), Human Rights policy lead
• Danielle Burdett (DB), Policy Manager Human Rights officer
• Amanda Woodrow (AW), Policy Manager Human Rights officer

Apologies

• Karyn Pittick, Senior Policy Manager Human Rights
• Victoria Vasey (VV), Women’s Equality Network (WEN) Wales
• Chrishan Kamalan, Equality team (CK)

The Chair welcomed members and asked for any amendments to the minutes of the previous meeting to be sent by email, these will be added and a final version will be sent to secretariat.

Action point: members to send any amendments to the previous minutes to the chair.

Action point: Chair to update and send final version of minutes to secretariat for finalising.

Prior to the meeting the Chair had circulated the refined framework now containing 7 questions, the first 5 have been applied to Article 19, CRDP and address the primary purpose of the article including any interpretative aspects and deficit priorities for implementation. The 2 further questions address access to justice and non-legislative measures. A summary of responses to these changes below:

• The new framework is easier and the subheadings directs the question further in terms of where to look for sources of data and information.
• Members will analyse an article and liaise with those in the group with expertise on that subject to find out if there are recent resources to consider.
• The information needs to capture what happened, any issues that have arisen since the last concluding observations and input on specific questions such as questions 3,4 and 6 around deficits in the implementation of the article.
• The measures are the steps towards delivering on the article.
• The Chair will create a google document for all members to access to gather the groups’ edits and will circulate each time an article is completed.
• Question 7 will be an overarching one addressing non-legislative measures.
• Incorporation will underpin human rights scheme, human rights approach, budgeting impact assessment, policy frameworks and action plans.
• The chair suggested replacing the phrasing to ‘are there non legislative options that need to be considered and are there any particularly distinctive non legislative options associated with this article?’ Once all the articles have been analysed a single section in the report can be included on non-legislative options that cuts across all aspects on the basis of the information gathered across a range of rights.
• EK highlighted article 8, CRPD on awareness raising and provisions in place which feeds into all other provisions.

The chair reminded the group of previous discussions on concluding observations and how there have been new and additional steps, such as new legislation passed at UK level, taken by WG since then. A summary of responses is listed below:

• There is a different social context since the 2017 observations, COVID and the cost of living crisis needs to be considered.
• The group discussed the possibility of organising events and gathering inputs on issues that have arisen since the last data was collected.
• There is already a layer of filtration by using the UN as they have already completed an analysis which we are analysing further.
• Concerns were raised that the concluding observations were outdated and how issues could arise but only those affected would be aware of them.
• We need to liaise with the most relevant organisations to that treaty to ask what headline issues need to be added if they were writing their submission to the UN today.
• We need to draft a methodology section to indicate sources of information reviews, how various caveats have been considered and be clear that the data is coming from UN documents and not members themselves.
• Organisations such as WEN Wales and Disability Wales should be aware of the most topical and current issues facing those stakeholder groups and we need to be clear we are drawing on this expertise.
• Issues were raised regarding capacity issues that members are facing.
• The final report would include indications and recommendations around questions.
• Exploration is needed to further substantiate this work and a recommendation around funding that work.
• We need to provide a clear rationale and methodology explaining the work done and how it has been structured.
• RD highlighted a more recent review, than the concluding observations from 2017, that was held in March this year which included articles 19, 27 and 28. A link was made available to members in the comments Concluding Obs from 2024 Special Review including Article 19
  • no specific recommendations were made for WG and the UN looked favourably on how WG had committed to incorporate the UNCRPD
  • Article 19 was central to the work the Disability Rights taskforce and the Independent Living Social Care working group completed and resulted in several core findings and recommendations
• Work completed by WG needs to be built in to help contextualise WG’s own policy analysis when it comes to that stage.
• SH discussed the additional commentary from stakeholders:
  • there was a question on the template and the original intention of reframing was to think about the purpose of incorporation and how it relates to human rights treaties
  • the additional commentary was to allow stakeholders with expertise on particular topics to bring that expertise to the analysis
• HT suggested a caveat to the draft in the reporting stage regarding expectations that the United Nations considered all the reports and evidence they had sight of when making their concluding observations.

RD discussed the recommendations that came out of the independent Living Social Care Working Group:

• A review of WG’s adopted definition of independent living and for it to be at the centre of policy and increase awareness of the concept of independent living.
• A code of practice for the current due regard duty in Social Services and Wellbeing Wales regulated duties there is no guidance for people exercising the functions and the approach in what it looks like and how to do it.
• Raising awareness of rights around independent living and social care.
• Development of a national centre for independent living that would develop and spearhead the work on promoting the concept of independent living and access to full participation in society.
• The taskforce has commissioned the Welsh Government Equality Evidence Unit to do some feasibility research into what a national centre for independent living would look like and have identified three potential models for what it could look like, where it could be situated and what it could do.
• Research will be undertaken with stakeholders over the next few weeks.
• There is a mix of legislative and non-legislative options. 

HT informed the group that the recommendations have yet to be signed off but will liaise with colleagues to see if LOWG can have sight of them with caveats attached.

WG officials in the group have agreed to take responsibility for question 4 as indicates any current Welsh law or policy initiatives relevant to the article.

The analysis should begin with the article itself, the treaty and the general principles of interpretation of human rights. 

Action point: HT to liaise with WG colleagues regarding sharing of the taskforce’s recommendations.

Action point: CW to circulate the word document for Article 19 and each time an article is completed. 

Action point: WG officials to answer question 4 [c] in the framework.

Which articles next for analysis in CEDAW and CRDP? 

The chair asked for suggestions from the group on what articles should be targeted next or if members felt each treaty should be taken in order and if so, are there any articles that don’t need to be analysed as they don’t provide substantive rights?

• Articles 19,27 and 28 were discussed as the UK Government were found to be in breach of them in 2016 due to austerity.
• It was suggested to look at ones that are topical such as the one on employment or childcare.

Action point: members to email chair with thoughts/recommendations of which articles next for analysis.

Targets for next HRAG meeting

The chair confirmed the next HRAG meeting is on 26^th September and to analyse as much of the frameworks on CRDP and CEDAW as possible by this date.

Timeline to a paper for HRAG in 2024

The chair informed the group that an interim paper will need to be submitted for the December HRAG for output and consideration and asked the group if, due to capacity issues, members wanted to proceed with CEDAW and CRDP in parallel along the same timeline or put CEDAW on a slightly delayed one?

Members agreed to focus on articles with devolved competence and to prioritise those that lend themselves to the disability taskforce and areas where we know from legal expertise in the group fall within the Government for Wales Act. 

Additional actions

• Chair will circulate useful links to members.
• Chair will email SN regarding the administrative justice and access to justice points.
• Chair will contact RD and EK on the CRDP as progress is made through the articles.