This petition was submitted during the 2019-2024 parliament
Rejected petition Allow children aged 5 to 12 mix with one other household in any outside setting.
To improve the physical and mental health of our children we must urgently allow outdoor play with their peers. Lockdown is devastating for children and letting them mix outside with one other household would have a minimal impact on transmission of the virus but vastly improve children's wellbeing.
More details
Adults in England are able to meet one person outside for exercise. However primary age children are effectively banned from doing so as they are too young to go out in public places without an adult. Not seeing their friends for months is causing significant harm. Allowing children to mix with children from one other household outside would reduce this harm at relatively low risk in terms of transmission of the virus. Allowing mixing in gardens would enable children to play whilst parents work.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
You may wish to sign this petition calling for a similar petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/567170
We could accept a petition calling for a different change to rules on household mixing, but could not publish a petition that made unsubstantiated claims about the risk of allowing household mixing of the kind you have requested.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.