Whenever brutal child murders fill the news, I receive several dozen emails demanding restoration of the death penalty. The trial of Axel Ruhakana has prompted many more such demands.

I have voted for the return of the death penalty on the three occasions that the opportunity has presented itself during my parliamentary career. Alas, I was always in the minority -and by a wide margin.

When I first became a parliamentary candidate in the New Forest, I expressed my view robustly. I was challenged at a church hustings, as to how I could reconcile this support with my professed Christian faith. I answered by quoting article 37 of the 39 Articles (which form the doctrinal foundation of the Church of England): “The laws of the Realm may punish Christian men with death, for heinous and grievous offences”.
When my questioner responded with the sixth commandment “ Thou shalt not Kill” , I pointed out that the original biblical languages suggest “thou shalt do no murder” is a closer translation, and that is a clean different thing.

The latest polling by More in Common reports that overall, 55% support restoration with 37% opposed. This is a 5% increase in support and a 5% reduction in opposition, since their last poll in 2023. In the generational breakdown, there is majority support across the age ranges with millennials (28- to 43-year-olds) leading the way, 58% of them are in favour, to only 27% against. Generation X (18- to 26-year-olds) was closest with 45% in favour and 42% against, even here however, there has been a 16% increase in support since the last poll.

Whatever the level of public support, the reality is that there is just no parliamentary majority for it.
Even if we did restore it, a significant minority would remain viscerally opposed and every death sentence would be the focus of public protests. It might also be more difficult to secure convictions for capital offences -as jurors contemplate the finality of a guilty verdict. Whatever the argument, one way or another, it certainly won’t happen in this Parliament.

The public demand for justice might be assuaged however, were a life sentence to mean what is says. Which is why the inability to sentence Ruhakana to a whole-life term was so frustrating. It is an affront to justice to see criminals who have been imprisoned for the most horrible offences being released (even though this is very unlikely in Ruhakana’s case).

We devalue human life by our refusal to punish those who take it, with death.

There are two issues that arise from the grotesque murder of children at a dance class in Southport. The first is how Axel Rudakubana, being well known to the authorities and thrice referred to the anti- terrorist ‘Prevent’ programme, avoided surveillance. The Home Secretary has made it clear that this is properly to be subject to an inquiry.
The second concerns whether the riots, which followed the murders, might have been prevented had the authorities been more candid with the public. The Home secretary avoided answering whether this too would be subject to the inquiry.

The riots were inexcusable and should not be blamed on anyone but the rioters. Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable to ask if they might have been prevented.

The Home Secretary’s statement on Tuesday was immediately preceded by that of the Parliamentary Under- Secretary for Communities entitled ‘a statement on community engagement principles and extremism’. I put it to him that “when a crime has the attributes of a terrorist outrage, but the police, in their engagement with the community, proactively announce that it is not initially being treated as such, is that not bound to give rise to public suspicion that the truth is being covered up?”
 The Minister replied “I do not know what in particular the right hon. Gentleman is referring to”, which is absurd given that his statement had been prompted by the Prime Minister’s words in Downing Street that morning on the Southport murders. The minister’s response is exactly the sort of obfuscation that may have been a contributory factor in the rioting that followed the murders.

The authorities were aware that Rudakubana had been referred to the Prevent programme. That he possessed an al-Qaeda manual and the poison Ricin (themselves offences under the Terrorism Act 2006).
These facts were not disclosed to the public in case a fair trial was subsequently prejudiced. But was it necessary for the public to have been told, as they were, that there was no evidence that the carnage was motivated by terrorism and that it was not being investigated as such?
It was into this void that suspicion of a cover-up and misinformation spilled online, some of it, apparently, originating from hostile states, and fuelling the riots.

Would being more open with the public have prevented riots?
I don’t know, but it is a fair question to ask.
Would being more open really have prejudiced Rudakubana’s trial?
I doubt it. After all, the authorities released this information in October before the trial began. If it wasn’t prejudicial in October, why would it have been prejudicial last August?

Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said this “The Government has to be aware…that if there is an information gap…then there are other voices, particularly in social media, who will try and fill it….If there is any information you can give, put it in the public domain, and be really careful that you don’t fall into the trap of saying ‘we can only say zilch, because there are criminal proceedings….Quite often, there’s a fair amount…that can be put into the public domain…. just saying ‘there’s a charge, we can’t say any more’, is not going to cut it these days.”

I think he’s right and the authorities got it wrong last August. The Inquiry should examine it.

I recall the mayhem, carnage and horror of the ‘troubles’ in Ulster, so much of it orchestrated by Gerry Adams, and so I recoil at the prospect of him receiving compensation along with hundreds of terrorists.

This grotesque possibility was ruled out by The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, which sought to draw a line under the conflict and move on with the peace process.
To be fair, the legislation was highly controversial and opposed by almost everyone except the Conservative Government. Drawing a line under a conflict can be like that: There are still scores to be settled and investigations unresolved, but after so many years there has to be an end to it all.
Equally, we had to stop the outrage of elderly former soldiers being hauled before the courts to answer charges that they overstepped the rules of engagement. When, at the same time,  the immunity of so many terrorists has been provided by indemnities in the form of ‘letters of comfort’ furnished to secure the peace agreement in the first place.

Labour opposed the Act and made it clear that it would be repealed after the election. But there was one part of the ACT that enjoyed unanimous support in both the Lords and the Commons: the part the which prevented compensation for Adams and others like him -sections 46 & 47.

It is complicated:
In the 1970ies, Adams, with so many others, was interned (imprisoned without trial on the orders of the government, not the courts). In 2020 Adams successfully appealed against convictions for escaping from his internment, because his internment was unlawful – having been ordered by a minister rather than the Secretary of State.
Section 46 and 47 restore the longstanding principle that powers conferred on the Secretary of State can properly be exercised by subordinate ministers, effectively reversing the Supreme Court ruling by statute.
In February last year Adams appealed again and the Northern Ireland High Court ruled that section 46 and 47 were incompatible with European Convention on Human Rights and issued a Declaration of Incompatibility with the Act.
But Parliament remains supreme. Such a declaration does not change the law or require Parliament to change it. Parliament can just decide to leave things as they are.
Sunak’s government chose, in the first instance, to appeal. There is now a body of expert legal opinion of the view that the government appeal would have been upheld and that the original Supreme Court ruling was flawed.
Nevertheless, in July the new Government withdrew the appeal and last month used its power under the Human Rights Act 1998 to issue a remedial order for Parliament to repeal sections 46 & 47 of the Legacy Act.
It is this unforced and chosen course of action, this remedial order, that now reopens the frightful possibility of thousands of pounds of taxpayer’s money  being paid in compensation to hundreds of murderous terrorists. The Prime Minister says he will find a way to prevent such payments. He’d better, because he has opened up the possibility, which the last Government had shut down.

On Wednesday the Prime Minister almost pleaded with the Leader of the Opposition to withdraw her wrecking amendment to the Schools and Children’s Wellbeing Bill. I can’t imagine why. Given the size of his parliamentary majority, there was no prospect of the Government being defeated and the Bill being lost.
The occasion was the second Reading of the Bill. The opportunities to improve a bill by amendment come at committee and report stages. To be orderly at second reading, an amendment cannot seek to improve the bill, on the contrary, it must be fatal to the bill e.g. “That this House declines to give a second reading to the xxx Bill because…”. Hence the term ‘wrecking amendment’.
The PM’s concern was that the Opposition were using their amendment merely as a ruse to secure a vote on a public inquiry into sexual grooming gangs just to achieve the political objective of embarrassing the Government with a vote that it didn’t want, and in which ministers would have to whip their members to vote contrary to both popular will and the advice of Andy Burnham, their most successful regional mayor.
The PM appeared to be horrified that the Tories would be so destructive as to vote against a perfectly good bill just because it didn’t contain provision for an inquiry, notwithstanding that it contained so many other desirable measures. When, in any event, the Tories could have supported the bill as it stood, then moved amendments at latter stages to include the inquiry.

Of course, it was -partly- a political ruse: It was important to secure a vote on a matter which had hit the headlines in a big way, even though the Government didn’t want the embarrassment of the issue getting a further airing.
For my own part, I am not an enthusiast for public inquiries. They are very expensive and time- consuming. On this occasion however, I think that Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, who himself commissioned one of the earlier enquiries, was right in his assertion that there is proper scope for a limited national inquiry to pull together the threads from the local inquiries and explore the question of why the establishment failed comprehensively. Such an inquiry would not impede proceeding swiftly the recommendations made on the basis of the earlier findings.

The PM’s concern about the Opposition’s naked political expediency by voting against a sensible measure just to embarrass the Government is however, quite misplaced. We would have voted against this frightful Bill in any event.
Though the Bill does include some measures to improve child protection, nevertheless it undermines the long-standing combination of school freedom and accountability that has been the foundation of the dramatic improvement in England’s educational standards. These were first introduced by Tony Blair with the enthusiastic support of the Conservative Opposition. These successful policies were then extended under the following Tory years. This Bill now seeks to abolish academy freedoms which have been at the heart of that success. It ends freedom over teacher pay and conditions, making it harder to attract and retain good teachers. It ends freedom on Qualified Teacher Status, making teacher recruitment harder. It removes school freedoms over the curriculum, leading to less innovation. It repeals the requirements for failing schools to become academies and for all new schools to be academies and it will undermine school improvement and remove the competition which has led to rising standards. The Bill will make it harder for good schools to expand, reducing parental choice and access to a good education.
It is just dreadful.

I spent the best part of 5 years in the last Parliament serving on the Work & Pensions Select Committee. The experience reinforced my prejudice that the principal problem that we face is a culture of welfare dependency.
Our out-of-work benefits are not particularly generous by European standards and those who are dependent upon them are not, by any stretch, enjoying a ‘cushy’ lifestyle. Nevertheless, recipients grow accustomed to the life and learn to ‘get by’, particularly so, when they are relieved of the inconvenience of going out to work for a living.
The trends are particularly worrying amongst the young
More women are now out of the workforce due to sickness than those who don’t work because they are raising children. Whilst the number of young men off work due to sickness has trebled in the last decade and three quarters of them indicate that they have no interest in finding a job.
The economically inactive population of working age now stands at a record 10 million.
The bill for sickness benefits is currently running at £65 billion annually, and is predicted to rise to £100 billion by 2030.
This has to be set against a background of several years with vacancies at record, or near-record, levels and enormous pressure from employers on government to ease immigration control in order to enable them to recruit from overseas.
Some 40% of those claiming sickness benefits state that mental health issues are their reason for doing so. Yet nothing could be better for mental health than the stimulation of work, with a consequent improvement in self-esteem.
Ministers have undertaken to bring forward reforms to the welfare system this year with the intention of encouraging recipients back into the workforce. We will have to wait and see what they propose. I did however, try and steer the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the direction of the work of Jeremy Bentham and his utilitarian principle of ‘the greater good for the greatest number’. I do not believe that society can, or should, carry a growing cost of an increasing proportion of its members who are not working.
The most effective way to achieve this would be a return to Bentham’s policy of ‘less eligibility’:  that life on benefits must be less eligible than the meanest form of independent existence, so as to discourage anyone from choosing to live on benefits.
How could we implement such a policy without cruelty and a return to the Victorian workhouse?
I think we need to ensure that, as far a possible, welfare rights have to be balanced with responsibilities. We need a system of ‘workfare’ where benefits are paid in return for socially useful work. This would be good for the self-esteem of many claimants with mental health problems and encourage them to take a further step towards paid employment.

The future of the Western Solent has been under discussion for the last few years. The question has been the extent to try and ‘hold the line’ through engineering works in the face of rising sea levels and climate change, or whether we try and manage the retreat as the coastline realigns.

There is a consultation underway: the detailed proposals can be found at https://www.hurstspit2lymington.co.uk/  and representations must be submitted by email HurstSpit2Lymington@environment-agency.gov.uk by 11^th January

I find the proposals for ‘managed retreat’ pretty alarming. They include discontinuing the maintenance of the Hurst Spit shingle bank and abandoning the existing sea wall between Keyhaven and Lymington Yacht Haven.

Walking along the popular sea wall footpath from Lymington to Keyhaven will no longer be possible.

Once Hurst spit has been breached through discontinued maintenance, all of the salt marshes inside of Keyhaven river, all along the existing sea wall to Harpers post will ultimately be lost. This managed realignment will accelerate the loss of the intertidal habitat outside the sea wall and make the Lymington outer harbour area much more exposed.
I understand that the Lymington River will almost certainly silt up, it will be subjected to huge wave action and become no longer navigable.

Hurst Castle will be cut off permanently from the shore and Lymington Harbour as a whole will be at risk. All of the features in that area will be given up to allow the tidal waters to penetrate inland and create new intertidal habitats for the birds further inland.

The cost of raising the existing sea wall to “Hold the Line” is in the order of £100 million, whilst the “Managed Retreat” option is closer to £280 million. The more expensive option of managed retreat is now the preferred option of the environment Agency because it unlocks central government funding for the proposed creation of the new intertidal bird habitat. However, I do not believe that enough weight has been given to local marine-related employment, or sufficient recognition given to the needs of businesses in the town of Lymington which depend of a thriving harbour, or the local amenity of sailing, motor boating, sea fishing, or simply walking your dog along the sea wall between Lymington and Keyhaven.

The annual budget for maintaining the shingle bank at Hurst of £40,000 is per annum, but there has been no maintenance this year. Given the new policy of “do nothing”, it remains to be seen if there will be any future maintenance of Hurst Spit between Milford and Hurst Castle, or whether this has already been abandoned to “Managed Retreat”. Given the relatively moderate cost of maintaining this structure in a normal year, this should not be allowed to lapse.

These proposals will change forever the shape of the coastline with profound impact on amenity and businesses. We need to consider very carefully before we give them up.

Reports in the press suggest that representations have been made to the new Modernisation Committee, principally by newly elected MPs, for shorter and more family-friendly hours in the Commons. There is nothing new under the sun…(and change if usually for the worse).

When I was first elected in 1997 the Commons sat from half past two o’clock in the afternoon until half past ten o’clock (and not infrequently until much later) from Monday to Thursday, and from half past nine o’ clock in the morning until half past two o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday.
That didn’t mean we took the mornings off Monday through Thursday. On the contrary, the morning was precious for meetings with councillors, constituents, and experts. They were vital for briefings, telephone calls and correspondence.

Tony Blair’s newly elected government set up its own modernisation committee and the hours were changed. Monday was left unaltered – to allow for MPs from far flung parts to get to Westminster.
Tuesday and Wednesday sittings were changed to start at half past eleven o’clock and finish at half past seven o’clock. Thursday to begin at nine thirty o’clock and finish at five o’clock.
We were told that this would allow us evenings with families, or enjoying the theatre, or whatever. We were sold a pup.
Most MPs have their families in constituencies well beyond the reach of a finish at seven thirty in the evening. They would arrive home after their children had gone to bed, and they would be up the next morning to get to Westminster, before their children were awake.
Furthermore, a seven thirty finish is not quite what says on the tin: it simply means that the main business must conclude by seven, with an adjournment debate for half an hour thereafter. The main business will more often divide the House. So there will usually be at least one vote and sometimes several more before the adjournment debate. The notion that you might get to the theatre in time is utterly fanciful.
That is before you consider that, as happens so often, you get a message from the whips informing you that “the business may go beyond the moment of interruption”, in other words, its going to be a late one.

So, we gave up our mornings in which so much could be squeezed, for the illusion of a family friendly leisure time at the end of the day. When, in reality,  what had been done in the morning, now had to fill the evenings, but so much less efficiently, because the councillors, officials, experts or whomsoever that you wanted to interact with, are by then at home in front of the telly.
We found these changes so shocking that within eighteen months we had voted to restore the status quo ante on Tuesday, and we very nearly got a majority to get back our Wednesdays too.
Then a new Parliament, with more newer, younger and more gullible members, voted to recapture Tuesday for modernisation.

I fear it all going to start again, and the result will be even worse.

There is something a ‘bit off’ about getting into a new job and immediately agitating to reduce the working hours.

We are fortunate in Hampshire that our police force is led by a “copper’s copper” who would not have been out of place in Dock Green. Other parts of the country are not so well favoured, like Essex for example.
The very concept of Police investigating and recording ‘non-crime hate incidents’ infuriates me. We have enough crime to fully occupy every policeman that can be had. That they should find time to harass citizens for expressing opinions that fall short of any criminal intent under common or statute law, is outrageous.
We pride ourselves on being a tolerant nation that enjoys freedom of expression. Which, in turn, means none of us have any right not to be offended. It is ridiculous for police forces find the time to pursue those who have given offence, but who have not committed a crime in doing so. Equally, it is deeply worrying that our current Government is encouraging them to do so.
We are all subject to the law, subjects, the police and ministers. There is a clear danger however, that we are increasingly being subject to arbitrary government.

We’ve now had sight of the Assisted Dying Bill that we will debate on 29^th November. The lobbying has been under way for some time. Already I’ve had literally hundreds of letters and emails.
Now the meetings have started too, with invitations to discussions led by any number of eminent people. On Tuesday I went to one addressed by Liz Carr, the actress who is one of the stars in the BBC drama Silent Witness. She’s made a documentary entitled  Better off Dead. It is well worth watching, whatever angle you come at the subject from. You’ll find it on BBC i-Player.

The principal strength of the Bill is that it avoids, to some extent at least, the profound impact on the medical profession that authorising practitioners to kill their patients would have. The key point here is that patients will have to do the deed themselves, having first secured a terminal prognosis of death within six months, confirmed by two doctors and signed off by a judge. Only then can the prescription be had, which -I reiterate- must be administered by the patient.

The difficulty with this is that it is also the Bill’s weakest point too. Most of the reservations of those who oppose the bill are that it is the start of a slippery slope. That once the principle of assisted death is breached, then the permitted circumstances will be swiftly extended, as they have in so many other jurisdictions. This was certainly my own reservation when I blogged previously  Medically Assisted Death .
The problem is that the Bill’s method fails to address the aspirations of those who have been campaigning hardest for the service. Patients with progressive wasting conditions want to continue life as long as its quality is bearable. When it becomes unbearable, they want to die. The terrible dilemma they face is that, whilst they do not want to die early and before they are really ready, their condition may, at any time, rob them of the ability to take the potion themselves, making them them reliant on what remains the unlawful agency of someone else. They will have to die by their own hand early or run the risk of being unable to do the deed at all, so either facing exactly the sort of death that they feared or having to secure unlawful assistance.
This Bill will not help them. So, the self-administration requirement will be the focus of the first campaign to extend the Bill’s provisions and allow the doctor to administer the drugs.
Next, campaigners will question the cruelty of the requirement for a six-month terminal prognosis. If you are suffering unbearably and expected to live for a year, why should you have to endure another six months of agony before you qualify. Indeed, if you are in agony, or extreme misery, and are desperate for the relief of death, why should you need a terminal prognosis at all?
If the Netherlands can be so humane as to accommodate the death wishes of those who experience a much wider are extremity of circumstances, why shouldn’t we?

The cast iron guarantees of the Bill -death in six months; two doctors, a judge, and self-administration, are merely an aiming target for further reform. It is indeed a slippery slope.