March 29th 2019 Brexit day to remember and the end of the Westminster Child Abuse Hearings

On Wednesday 27^th and Friday 29^th 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 1^st 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 22^nd, 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!