Weekly Human Rights News: 01/08/2024

This week’s human rights news includes our annual board of trustees meeting, an update on our community support solutions programme, our work with the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, and the introduction of a new bill to tackle child abuse.  

This week, we met with BIHR’s board of trustees to share all the work we have been doing so far this year. It was a good opportunity to put the work we have done into perspective, including our community awareness raising workshops, our work with public services such as the Housing Ombudsman Service and The Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, and the work we have done with our RITES committee.  

We were also able to say our in-person farewells to Sir Nicolas Bratza who has retired from his position as the chair of BIHR’s board of trustees. Sir Nicolas shared a great piece on why the Human Rights Act matters, including the importance of the work BIHR has done. 

We thank Sir Nicolas endlessly for all the work he has done as the chair of our board and beyond, and we wish him a very happy retirement. 

This also meant welcoming the new chair of BIHR’s board of trustees, Imran Khan KC. Already a valued member of the board, we are excited to welcome Imran to his new appointment. Imran shared some words about his appointment as chair on our website. 

After meeting with our community groups in Birmingham last week, we are excited to share that work on the human rights support solutions are underway. We will be meeting with each of the four chosen community groups to discuss their ideas for the solution, and we will be busy putting together more wonderful resources that will help people to understand and use their human rights.

This week we began planning the 5th workshop in our 9-part human rights practice leads course with Tees, Eske and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust. The course is designed to: 

• create experts in the Human Rights Act, 

• look in detail at challenging situations and cases across inpatient and community settings 

• provide in-depth understanding of the practical use of the Human Rights Act both internally and externally 

At the last workshop before a summer break, we explored building a culture of human rights and as well as how to integrate human rights principles into everyday policy and practice. The course will be running until early 2025. 

Read more about our training offers here or email us at training@bihr.org.uk to find out more. 

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thomson introduces Child Abuse Bill into the House of Lords 

On Monday 29th July, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thomson* introduced a new bill into the House of Lords - The Regulated and Other Activities (Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill which seeks to create a legal responsibility for those carrying out regulated activities to report known and suspected child sexual abuse. The bill also proposes a criminal offence for those who fail to report concerns of abuse. 

This is an important bill to enhance the protection of children from abuse, and we will continue to provide updates as the bill progresses.  

*Baroness Tanni Grey-Thomson is a BIHR Trustee, but this Bill is her own parliamentary work.