On
Wednesday 27th and Friday 29th March 2019, the British House
of Commons reasserted its supremacy against a dictatorial executive and the abuse
of power by an individual Prime Minister who has repeatedly mislead Parliament
and the British people of her intentions and those of her divided government.
It was able to do this because there is no written constitution, and Parliament
works on its standing orders based on those of Erskine May which has become the
basis of Parliamentary practice and procedure available in a hard copy for £329,
presently on line to those party to the Parliamentary Intranet. The new edition
will be become available on line later this year.
The
Speaker of House of Commons, John Bercow,
was able to facilitate a process where Members collectively, and with the
support of the Leader of the Opposition and other opposition leaders with the exception
of the Tory and Ulster Unionist Parties have taken control of the agenda of future
House of Commons sitting days, recommencing on Monday 1st April when
if a way ahead can be agreed they will also put a business motion to commence
legislation of what is agreed. It is possible that if the Prime Minister agrees
to a permanent Customs Union and is willing to face down the 100 hard line Tory
Brexiteers, accept the hard line resignations from the Cabinet and the refusal of
the Democratic Unionist Party to support government finance votes and votes of
confidence, she could bring back the Withdrawal agreement and the permanent customs
Union Soft Brexit and get Labour front bench support. She would end as Prime
Minister having taken Britain out of the EEC by May and avoid participation in
the EEC elections, and commitment to a confirmatory referendum. She would
remain Prime Minister until a new Tory leader was elected by the Party which is
likely to be followed by a General Election.
The
more likely scenario is that she will be pressed by the hard Brexiteers to ignore
whatever the Commons decides on Monday and move for No Deal. If as more likely the Commons votes for a permanent
Customs Union and a confirmatory Peoples vote for such a deal or revocation,
given the petition is within 23000 votes of 6 million, which would involve a long
delay and participation in the forthcoming elections she will be forced to request
a General Election.
Speaker John Bercow is now in a position to reject
any attempt to bring back another Withdrawal Agreement option unless it is
coupled with legislative agreement on what the Commons has agreed.
The
hard Brexiteers of which 105 voted for no deal last Wednesday and defeated by
346 votes (441 against) will now attempt to use very legal trick and
parliamentary device to achieve no deal irrespective of Mrs May now says and
does or what Jeremy Corbin and other Opposition parties agree (D.U.P excluded).
We
are also a long way from achieving a Corbyn led government with a sustainable
majority. The Scottish Nationalist Party would demand a second referendum vote
or at least a substantial new devolution settlement as the price of the kind of
deal struck by Mrs May with the UDP. The downside of the present Commons insurrection
against the Executive is that the present composition of the House of Commons
is more likely to prevent a Corbyn led administration from carrying out its
election manifesto with full support from the Tory opposition. There is likely
to be a purge from the Tory Party of the soft Brexiteers, with people like Ken
Clarke and Dominic Grieve offered life Peerages. A General Election will enable the Labour
Party to remove the most disloyal members of the Parliamentary Party who could find
a home along with other disgruntled Tories in the new Change Party where some
of those now Independents could attempt to become Members of the European
Community if the decision is taken to participate in the elections.
One
of the problem that the majority of the electorate do not appear to understand
is how political power operates in Britain. Most people do not appreciate that
the Cabinet is a sub committee of the Privy Council or how the Royal Prerogative
works, or the structure of the Privy Council sub Committees. They do not appreciate
that our relations with other countries of which trading agreements are just
one aspect are achieved through Treaties which have the force of International law,
but which are agreed between governments in the form of Treaties and often not disclose
or disclosed in detail Parliament beforehand and some which they concern
nationals securing. They do not know the various mechanisms by which those not
elected to Parliament can directly influence what politicians do as well as
what they or the apparatus of the state and its institutions in enforcing its
will. The best example is the all-party Parliamentary influence group.
Yesterday for example the All party group on Beer and Pubs held a debate on the
importance of the public house for the beer industry and for pubs as a source
of employment and social amenity. There are such groups representing almost every country and British interest abroad; there is one on British
Overseas territories and a separate one on the British territory of Gibraltar
so that Gibraltar has two group of members pushing its interest such as one of the
online gabling centres in the world and one of the online banking centres of
the world because the British Government to protect its value as an adjunct to GSGQ, that it remains the centre
of undersea cable communications, the basis
for its Polaris submarines and a transit and recreation centre for all British
Naval and Army personnel in transit.
Since
I was The Parliamentary officer and Vice President of the Association of Child Officers
1965-1970 the ability to influence has become more sophisticated and organised
with full time general and specialist Lobby firms with highly paid professional
as self-employed individuals whose ranks
include Prime Ministers and Ministers and senior civil servants, much the same
way that the international and nation intelligence and security organisations
and staff by early retired members of
MI5 , MI5, Special Branch and Special Forces.
Back
in the later 1960’s I could walk into the House of Parliament and show a letter
or a telephone note to the couple of policemen on the door, and on occasions just
mention that I was meeting someone, and I would be let into central Lobby without
more ado. Only with the past few days I
rediscovered the file when I was able to write on official parliamentary
procedure paper amendments to legislation requested by an individual Member of
the House of Commons who agreed in advance to press whatever the Association of
Child Care Officers wished to have considered. I had one success in relation to
a Child Minding Act where my amendment became law. I also came across the booking form for a
room in Parliament approved by as Member of the Commons (as required) for a drinks party to mark the
Royal Assent for the Children and Young Person’s Act 1969 at which the Conservative
Shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Children’s Minister went through the act
and explained to me what they proposed to implement and what they would not is
what then happened when they came to power in 1970.
Before
then I sat on the floor of the House of Lords as guest of the Labour Minister
of State, Baroness Serota, who explained that she was required to move an
amendment in relation to the proposed abolition of the Approved School Order
and the integration of Approved Schools
into a new system of Residential Child Care
homes with Education on the Premises, to be approved by the new Children’s Regional
Planning system. The amendment has been put to the Home Secretary who had been
take out for a meal by the Magistrates Association the day before. The civil
service and the legal advisors had worked out the amendment which required the
appointment of an independent visitor for any child in a residential
establishment who was nit visited by a parent or family member for period of
months. When the Heath government attempted to implement the amendment, staff
at the Home Office discovered that there was no one then in the new Community
Homes with Education where the new regulation applied. But it did apply in a
few Educational establishments providing residential education. What happened in 1974 that some children in residential
care establishments did not have a local authority responsible for them as the
relevant information and files had not been passed between the old, sometimes
abolished local authority and the new.
Three
was also the memorable occasion when the day before travelling to London to
attend an advisory committee at the Home Office on Drug Misuse and HIV
infection, I discovered that the House of Commons was to debate a report on
what is known as the Cleveland Child Abuse scandal when children in numbers
were removed from their homes because of concerns by a Consultant Paediatrician.
I rang the Private number of the Deputy Chief Whip of the Labour Party, the
Member for Jarrow, Don Dixon and he arranged for me to sit with him on the Floor
of House He sat within the curtilage of Commons at the back on a side bench and
I sat behind him in the box used by members of the House of Lords when they wanted
to see as well as listen to proceedings as these were not televised until 1989.
Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher stayed on from P.M.Q’s to listen to the opening
statements in the debate, looked over to where Don and I were talking and spoke
to her PPS (Parliamentary Private Secretary) who went over to the box where the
Civil Servants sit, to ask if I was the Director of Social Services Cleveland and was advised, no doubt, that I the even
more notorious, Director of Social Services for South Tyneside! A couple of years before she had demanded to
know according to the authorised history of MI5, the names and functions of all
former subversives (those on the books of MI5), who were now working for
government with a special focus on those working for departments such as Health.
I subsequently suspected this was why I was invited by the Department Health to
become an hoc Inspector of Social Services at the Department of Health to set
up the Drug Advisory Service and which involved signing the Official Secrets
Act in 1987. It would have been known that although I had been a subversive and Satyagraha based direct actionist that I
worked closely with the Home Office Inspectorate first in 1970 in relation to
investigation when assistant County Children’s Officer West Riding, and then with the national Social Work Advisory Services
in 1981 and whereas the author of the majority report Gates Inquiry, I was
asked by the Chief Social Work Services Officer to brief the then Secretary of
State who is now Speaker of the House of Lords ,including of the aspect it was
agreed we should covered up.
It
is unlikely however that when Thatcher’s
PPS checked with the Civil Service who I was they knew that in 1970 the
Director of Social Services Cleveland concerned, Mike Bishop had worked to me
in the West Riding of Yorkshire when I was the County Assistant Children’s officer
and he was the divisional fieldwork children’s officer for an area based on
Rotherham where I one point I decided to transfer responsibility for the day to
day management of children’s home including the appointment and discipline of
staff to him and his colleagues as regarded he was the most outstanding of three
divisional officers for which I was accountable with over 600 children in care
in third of the County Council area. Only in 2018 did I come across a book published
in 2012 about the child care home I had been asked to investigate with the Home
Office Children’s Inspectorate. An helping
the author of the book had obtained access to the minutes of the West Riding
Children’s Committee and mentioned not only of the Inspectors with whom I had
worked but some of the issues that had been investigated. This provided
documentary evidence for a matter about which I only had memory when writing to
the then head of the National Child Abuse Inquiry. At the time I was aware that
the son of the head of the home in question had written a report as an Ma
Education thesis using child care records and in 2018, I also discovered the report
was now available as an online e thesis at Durham University.
The
changing nature of residential child care and its management, the role of civil
servants, and government Ministers has been more to the fore this week but not
had national publicity because of Brexit. Shortly I will be printing out and
then reading the closing statements of Counsel and core participants in the
Westminster National Child Abuse Hearings which have taken placed during three
of the weeks of March and where I have assumed the decision was taken to holding,
the public hearings to coincide when national and Parliament attention was
focussed on Brexit. The investigation which preceded the Hearings received over
one hundred thousand pages of evidence and documentation, of which core
participants received 15000 pages, but where only a small proportion has been
placed on line, although these have been very revealing. Next week I need to finish the sending of relevant
information to appropriate interests to supplement the hearings in relation to
one aspect which will be covered by the Lambeth Inquiry hearing in 2020.
Only
then I will be able to return to writing about my life until September 22nd,
1964, the first day as a child care officer with Oxfordshire County Council
when I received an embossed invitation to attend a Civic reception from the Mayor
and Mayoress of Oxford City to mark the Children’s Officer of Oxfordshire
becoming president of the Association of Child Care Officer. Although I did not
have a D.J, I was told a suit and tie would do in the circumstances. I attended
although I did not know anyone there and returned home when the dancing to
midnight commenced to read the pile of county and officer manuals procedures
and forms, I needed to learn and to use in my new job.
During
the early part of attending an academic and work experience course at the
University of Oxford, I had written to the Children’s Officer asking if there
was likely to be a job when I qualified. She then sent the Deputy Children’s
Officer, David Clifton, subsequently Children’s officer Northumberland, and
Director of Social Services Bedfordshire to interview me. Later in the course I
was invited to attend for what I assumed would be a formal interview at the
office of the Children department at Kidlington. I arrived nervously and found when
shown into her office only one other person present, was the chairman of the
Children’s Committee. “This is Colin”, she said, “who wants to come and work
for us”. The chairman said good and we talked about my experience on the course
and if I expected to pass the academic examination and the work experience
which would lead to a qualification from the Home Office managed Central
Training Council in Child Care. I completed the medical form, references were
checked and I received a letter of appointment as a new Child Care and Court officer
for the Witney area, the subsequent constituency of Prime Minister David
Cameron.
Because
of her role as president of the Association of Children’s Officers none of us
saw much of the Children’s Officer Barbara J Kahan, or BJK as we called her, during
the year that followed. We had to make a note of every telephone message and sometimes
1000 had accumulated in her in tray between visits to the office, and this
would be followed by a return of the copy message with a handwritten note what
happened, and sometimes a call to her office to learn more. It was on one such
instance, I had assumed, that she handed me a copy of the weekly Hansard record
of all that had gone on in Parliament and asked if would like to go through and
make a note of anything related to child care which I agreed and used my voice
recording machine to complete the assignment. I was invited to see her once
more when she said she would circulate to all her colleagues on the executive
Committee of the Association and handed me the next edition. After doing this
for a couple of more weeks I was called to her office told that the Association
of Child Care officers would like me to do this on a regular basis which would
be circulated all Children’s Departments, independent child care bodies, Government
Departments and training institutions. Parliament and Social Work was created
and 100 plus edition were edited and produced until the creation of Social Service
Department and British Association of Social Workers. Shortly after I commenced the voluntary work
the then Parliamentary Officer became President of the Association of Child Care
officers and asked if I would take over from him, which I also agreed. However, this was not my first experience of
visiting the House of Commons or of direct contact with Government and Shadow Government
Ministers which had commenced in 1962. More of that another time!
