PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
22nd MAY 1996 HEIRS TO THE MILLENNIUM (26 March 1996)

That this House, noting the profound consciousness in Parliament and the nation of the inestimable value of children's lives, records that every day children in this nation suffer appalling damage from the actions of adults and, indeed, of other children; remarks with dismay that an estimated 800,000 children in the United Kingdom have no contact with their natural fathers, that some children in local authority care, as young as 11 years of age, finance their drug habit by prostitution, and that many drug pushers are children; commend the initiative Heirs to the Millennium which, by putting 1,500 people into Coventry Cathedral on 22nd May 1996 from a wide diversity of ethnic and religious backgrounds, chiefly to listen to young people themselves, aims to drive up the political agenda the concerns felt across the nation about the way in which we are preparing the nation's children for the next millennium; and notes that one of the sponsors of the event, in her capacity as Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Children, was Lady Faithfull who would have wished no better memorial of her life devoted to the care of children than for Heirs to the Millennium to result in a new awareness of the importance of children to this nation and a renewed commitment to policies designed to protect them from harm and to enable them to realise their full potential.

Sponsored by:
Mr Andrew Rowe (Conservative)