secretary of state - do we have one?

[jellyjelly]

Am researchign human rights act. Do we in england.uk have a secretary of state? If so who?

Human rights would be covered by the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith. I think.

I'm wrong - we have a Ministry for Justice. Ministers here

Home sec - Jacqui Smith
Foreign sec - Miliband

Do you mean Jack Straw?
What do you want to know about the HRA?

jelly - if you mean do we in the UK (not England) have an equivalent of the US Secretary of State, then it's David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary/Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Lots of different government departments/ministries have responsibility for different aspects of human rights, eg equality for women, for the disabled, for other minorities, children's rights, regulation of media intrusion, and our international human rights obligations.

i have to read about human rights act 1988 and then childrens act 2004 and children (scotland)act 1995.

I can find the first one but quite frankly it doesnt make sense to me just lots of things that relate to clause this and clause that.

We have many secretaries of state, I believe:

Secretary of State for Justice
Secretary of State for Business
Secretary of State for Innovation
... for Children, School & Families
... for the Colonies
... for Defence
... for Work & Pensions

Do you have a copy of the European Convention on Human Rights handy as the UK Act relates to that and probably has loads of cross-references in it. What exactly is your task?

Its part of my nvq i have to basically understand it and explain it to my assessor about what it stands for.

where can i get a copy.?

Can anyone find me an easy to understand copy of the ones i said?

If you are in Scotland, the relevant Secretary of State would be the Secretary of State for Scotland.
To find the other legislation look on BAILII

Explanatory note to the Children Act 2004.
Unfortunately, no explanatory note exists for the other two Acts.
Really you need a published guide to the legislation rather than the legislation itself, which is a little dense!

Where can i find a published guide, i really dont want to have to buy one.

The Acts themselves aren't easy to understand because they're full of references to other legislation or international conventions (agreements).

Here's wikipedia on the European Convention on HUman Rights en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights

The UK's Human Rights Act 1998 (NB not 1988, but the one that fully transposed the European Convention into UK law) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Act_1998

See Liberty's website on human rights in the UK
www.yourrights.org.uk/

If you google the children's acts you'll find other links to explanations of them, too. Look at www.sccyp.org.uk/ for Scottish Children and Young People's Commissioner (with English and Welsh equivalents, too)

thankyou i hope that it will have made it easier. I think i might have to find other acts in further units. How do you know about this stuff so i can find them easier in time?

The US Secretary of State = our Foreign Minister - D Miliband (as already stated)

(They only have one Sec of State, & the title means the person who deals with Foreign Affairs. Sec of State here just means Cabinet Minister)

What are you doing your NVQ in? I'm presuming that you are most interested in Art.8 - an article of the European Convention on Human Rights (which takes direct effect in the UK via the Human Rights Act):

Article 8 Right to respect for private and family life

1 Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

2 There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Though, I may be wrong.

childcare level 3 for teaching assistants.

Have a look at what is available on the Children's Legal Centre site

O rights of the child are the most important, or is that too simplistic? See UN Convention on the Rights of the Child en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child for details of it.

These conventions and acts are the basis for arguments about, for example, whether the children of asylum-seekers can be lawfully held in detention centres with their parents or whether parents can smack their children.

The Human Rights Act is often the origin of arguments over the rights of travelling people to inhabit certain land, the treatment of detainees, the use of CCTV cameras, all kinds of things.

So these laws really do matter. Unfortunately, they're rarely explained very well in mainstream media reporting, especially when it suits journalists/politicians to give one skewed opinion or another of the implications. It's great that you're learning about them and will be helping kids to understand them as part of the principles that underpin our society.

Wikipedia is usually a reasonable bet for an introduction to things like this. The BBC often has some helpful archives as well and Amnesty International should have all kinds of resources as well, like Liberty. And, believe it or not, the US State Dept's site often has fantastic info about "foreign" countries on it.

Best of luck.