Child Maltreatment Bill 2013-14
If you have covered Constitutional Law in some detail, you will appreciate just how difficult it can be to get Private Members’ Bills pushed all the way through both houses of Parliament in order to become law. Only a very small percentage of these bills acquire Royal Assent and become statutes. Therefore, it is interesting when a Private Member’s Bill appears to be attracting more attention than usual, especially when it covers such an important aspect of family and criminal law.
At present, there are many people who believe that the laws surrounding child neglect do not go anywhere near far enough to protect the youngest members of our society. Whilst they do cover ‘intentional neglect’, which basically means protection against physical neglect, there are absolutely no provisions in law to protect a child’s emotional, spiritual, educational and moral needs.