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Children were stopped from playing outside during Covid partly because it looked “like fun” and did not fit with the seriousness of the restrictions, the UK’s inquiry has heard.
Alice Ferguson, the founding director of Playing Out, which campaigns for children’s freedom to play outside, told the inquiry that play was fundamental for children’s health and wellbeing, especially play outside with other children.
Yet during Covid, children were ordered indoors by police if they were caught playing in the street or having a kickabout with a ball and neighbours complained. Some parents were even fined for letting their children play outside.
In one example, two brothers who lived in a high-rise flat in central London came out to build a snowman in January 2021, but were ordered to go back inside by police. Ferguson said the incident had a lasting impact on one of the boys, who remains socially anxious.
The inquiry heard that the treatment of children playing outside may have been linked to messaging by the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, at the very start of restrictions.
On 23 March 2020, when Johnson ordered the nation to stay at home to try to stop the spread of the virus, he granted permission for people to go outside for one form of exercise a day, whether a run, a walk or a cycle.
But children’s exercise “looks different” to adult exercise, the hearing was told. “Play is the main way that children are physically active,” said Ferguson. “They play because they enjoy playing. They don’t need to be told how to do it.
“By not explicitly mentioning children and play in those guidelines and in those rules, the prime minister gave the impression that only really adult forms of exercise were permitted, things like walking, cycling or running.
“So it did create this wider understanding including amongst police, councils, parents and the wider public that children playing out was not a permitted activity. It was something we raised right at the beginning with the government. It did not change throughout the pandemic.”
The inquiry was told that Ferguson had written an article at the time in which she said that “part of the problem was that play does look like fun and that does not fit with the seriousness of the guidelines. But for children play is serious.”
Ferguson was giving evidence on the second day of module 8 of the Covid inquiry, which is looking at the experience and impact of the pandemic on children. The hearing has heard that children’s rights and needs were frequently overlooked in the government’s response to the pandemic.
Ferguson and others giving evidence have called for a dedicated cabinet minister for children to ensure that children’s interests are represented at the highest level of government and the mistakes made during the pandemic are never repeated.
Dr Carol Homden, the chief executive of Coram children’s charity, highlighted the way the restrictions introduced during the pandemic affected some of the most vulnerable children in society, despite best intentions.
Children awaiting adoption lost their opportunity to find a permanent home as matching services were interrupted. Homden said the vast majority of children being adopted were under five, but some had “aged out” during the pandemic, while those in foster care suffered delays in seeing a social worker.
Homden also raised concerns about the experience of unaccompanied asylum seeking children arriving in the UK during the pandemic and having to go into isolation. “Just imagine being one of those young people, not speaking the language, arriving in such circumstances and then having to be alone in a room with no one to support you for 14 days.”
The inquiry was told that large numbers of unaccompanied children accommodated in hotels went missing. “I don’t think we’ve even begun to understand what’s happened to those children. This is not one or two children. This is hundreds who went missing. How could that have occurred and what are we doing to prevent that happening again?”
The inquiry continues on Wednesday and is scheduled to last four weeks.
