The Brexit Freedoms Bill, or to give it its proper title, The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, passed through the House of Commons with a healthy majority. Since when it has been given fairly rough treatment in the Lords.
When we exited the EU we retained all EU laws to provide a period of continuity and stability. It also afforded us the time to examine each of them in detail to see if we wanted to keep them, amend them or remove them. The Bill gives ministers the power to do this with a default setting that they will lapse, if not specifically retained, by 31^st December this year.

It is vital to our productivity that we remove this ball and chain of red tape  that holds us back from experiencing the economic benefits of having left the EU.
The principal argument that has been made against the bill is that the procedure allowing ministers to make these decisions about what to retain and what to discard, lacks democratic accountability and that Parliament should debate each one of the 4000 pieces of legislation.
As I said in this column of  26^th April Frost in Morocco (desmondswaynemp.com) this would effectively delay the process for years. In effect it would be a wrecking measure.
I rather suspect that it owes more to a determination to keep us close to the EU regulatory orbit, in the hope that one day we may re-join, than it does to a fastidious preference for parliamentary scrutiny.
As for democracy, the reality is that these laws were made in the EU Council of Ministers by qualified majority voting and in secrecy – not even a transcript of the deliberations. The swifter we review them the better.

I hope I am mistaken, but I suspect that ministers are beginning to get cold feet. There is a very significant volume of work to be done. Officials will have to go through all the legislation and offer ministers advice on the options. It will be hard work.
 Is it achievable whilst officials work from home?
Will some in Whitehall resist on the basis of their ideological objections to the whole concept of completing Brexit?

I think the Prime Minister needs to appoint someone from the business world with a track record of successful delivery to grip this entire endeavour, which is in danger that it just isn’t going to get done. Perhaps another Tsar?

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As a postscript, I see that the civil service unions want to negotiate a four-day week with no loss of pay, such will be their claimed increased productivity.
I once worked for a firm that retained the 3 Day week, imposed during the miner’s strike in 1973, for a couple of years afterwards because of their very real increased productivity. Alas, they ended it because it didn’t work for their customers who wanted contact 5 days per week.
This will prove the rub for the public who need the services provided.
Much of the work of my office is spent contacting public sector organisations on behalf of constituents who have had difficulty making contact themselves. There is no doubt that this has become so much harder and more frustrating since the arrival of ‘working from home’.
I don’t believe we should even consider the possibility of a shorter working week until they are all back in the office and we can actually measure their productivity.

I look back on my ministerial career with great affection. I thoroughly enjoyed my close relationship with my private office of six civil servants and my wider interaction with the Civil Service generally. I don’t recall ever having a cross word. Perhaps I was just fortunate, or maybe I’m looking back with rose- tinted spectacles.
I do recall however, two occasions when my staff went to great effort to persuade me not to do something that I was determined to do. Of course, when it became clear that I was so determined, they quite properly facilitated the decision that I had made. I have no doubt that on both occasions I was right, and that the outcome was successful. I speculate, but I always suspected that the inability of my officials to persuade me not to persist in my intention, was judged a failure on their part, by their superiors.
Dominic Raab’s experience in government may have been a very different, but he has my support. I really wish that the PM had refused his resignation. My reading of report is that he is very largely exonerated, and on the two counts on which he is criticised, they both, in my estimate, fall below the threshold for resignation. On the contrary, in the circumstances, Raab’s reaction was entirely understandable.
Bullying should always be rooted out. That’s why, when I was a schoolmaster, the cane was our first resort when it came to bullying. I fear however, that there is a danger that the pendulum has swung too far the other way and that demanding exacting standards in the workplace is becoming impossible. As a consequence we are becoming less and less efficient -something that constituents are constantly drawing to my attention – and so proceeding, we will become ungovernable.

I was never persuaded of the merits of devolved government. I recall that, such was the dismal and obstructive record of Ken Livingston’s Greater London Council, that Mrs Thatcher went to some trouble to have it abolished. The same was true of the Inner London Education Authority.
I campaigned in four referendums to oppose, first assemblies and then parliaments in Edinburgh and Cardiff.
We are a small Island and Government from London, for the most part, worked reasonably well.
The danger is that when you have a general election involving the whole of our kingdoms and a new government is elected with an ambitious manifesto, it finds that there are insufficient levers to pull, because critical powers have been devolved elsewhere beyond its control.
Three things have reinforced my prejudice recently. First, the absurdity and confusion of different lock-down policies pursued by the governments in England, Wales and Scotland during the pandemic. We now know from the leaked Hancock WhatsApp messages that restrictions were imposed on England, not based on any evidential effectiveness, but purely to keep up with zealous officialdom in Scotland.
Second, we’ve recently seen the UK Government intervene to veto absurd legislation in Scotland, which allowed people to redesignate their gender, because they could not be restricted, in the rest of our islands, to facilities consistent with their actual sex.
Even worse still, as the UK Government of the has wrestled with the hideous complications of halting the traffic of migrants in small boats across the Channel, the Welsh government sought, on the contrary, to increase the ‘pull factor’ by paying the asylum claimants £1,600 per month and funding legal costs to resist deportation.
It is our good fortune that the UK Government still had the powers to thwart these daft intentions:
We need to ensure that devolution proceeds no further to rob us of them.

I was alarmed by a survey of nearly 8,500 teachers which revealed that 13% of them had been assaulted by pupils in the last year and that more than a quarter had been subjected to verbal abuse by a parent.
I spent a seven happy years teaching in the nineteen eighties and was fortunate enough never to have felt threatened by a pupil, nor was I aware of any colleague experiencing that either. I confess that I always found the parents much harder work, but never to the extent of anything anywhere near the threshold of what might be described as ‘verbal abuse’.

Undoubtedly society has become coarser and more disordered, but there remain spectacularly well-disciplined schools in some of the least favoured areas.
As with any walk of life, some teachers are outstanding and others less so. Yet when I became a teacher, my parents were very proud. That is because their generation had such respect for the profession. I believe the esteem, even awe, in which the profession was once held has significantly diminished. To some extent, at least, that may account for the difficulties that teachers now face.

Why has the high esteem in which the teaching profession was held been so diminished?
This is my prejudice: The unionisation of the profession over several years, by adopting the mores of the factory shop-floor, and by embracing strike action, have fundamentally changed the perception of what was once a profession, even a calling, into what is now -almost-  just another ‘job’.
The teaching unions continue to display such antics and ideology at their Easter conferences that they are fortunate indeed very few are watching or listening. But those same unions welcomed so many heresies of the modern age into the classroom over the years, that cumulatively have made the work of their members so much more difficult and less rewarding.

Having left teaching and returning as a school governor just a few years later, I recall being dismayed at the disorder and familiarity -and we all know what that breeds- experienced in classrooms. Some teaching methods struck me as just draft.
 The decline in literacy and numeracy that resulted, could not be ignored. The imposition of the National Curriculum, of Key Stage tests, of OFSTED, were all part of a remedy to hold the teaching profession accountable.
Inevitably they have, to some extent, become part of the problem. They certainly make the lives of teachers much more difficult, but they were introduced for very good reasons.

There remains within the profession a minority that have taken leave of their senses, exemplified in what can pass in some schools for sex education – as I described in this column on 9^th March Abolishing Childhood (desmondswaynemp.com)

Returning to what teachers may have to deal with in the classroom. Of course, in my day it was somewhat easier because we had the threat of the cane. But even in those days there were excellent and well run schools that did not allow corporal punishment – but I suspect it was a lot harder work.
Anyway, when I was at school, it never did us any harm.

Every time there are reports of a brutal child murder, I receive a dozen or so demands for restoration of the death penalty. And so it was last week after the trial of Kyle Bevan for the murder of his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter, Lola James.
I have voted for the return of the death penalty on three occasions in Parliament but alas, the majorities against restoration were overwhelming.
I recall an election meeting in a church where I was challenged on the ground’s that as a Christian I ought to oppose the death penalty. I responded by quoting from 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”.

I suspect that there would be majority support for restoration, but that a significant minority would remain viscerally opposed. 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. In any event, whatever the pros and cons, there just is no parliamentary majority to be had for it.

The public demand for justice might be assuaged however, were a life sentence to mean what is says. There is nothing more frustrating than to see people who have been imprisoned for the most horrible offences being released to present a danger to the public once again.
This undermines our whole concept of justice, and it extends from wicked and violent crimes down to more minor offences.
When a judge hands down a sentence in court it bears little relation to the time that will actually be served in prison. Indeed, it requires multiple convictions of burglary before the offender sees the inside of a prison at all.

There was a time when a politician (in those days the Home Secretary) was able to determine the ‘tariff’ -the actual minimum time of any sentence that a convict would serve. But this was considered to breach the constitutional principle of the ‘separation of powers’ between government and judiciary. So, that power was removed from the hands of elected politicians.
Now the only lever that ministers can pull is the right of appeal that the Attorney General has, where it is considered that a sentence has been unduly lenient.

Which brings me to Labour’s recent advertisement insisting that the Prime Minister doesn’t want child sex offenders imprisoned. On the contrary, I rather suspect that the PM shares my prejudice that they should be locked-up and the key thrown away. I don’t know if he would go as far as I would and make it a capital offence, were in in my power to do so.

It is very frustrating but the reality is -and Labour knows it, neither the PM nor any other politician, can determine the penalty that the trial judge imposes.
What we can do however, is increase the penalties available to the courts. When we’ve introduced measures to do exactly that, Labour has voted against them.

Given a few moments to think about it, I’m sure we could all come up with a daft law to add to some that are already on the statute book.
I’ve always been of the view that the fewer laws we have, the better governed we shall be; that, within reason, you should be able to do pretty well whatever you want so long as it doesn’t adversely affect the enjoyment of others. This has broadly been the status of our legal framework: we are permitted to do anything that isn’t against the law. There are many jurisdictions where the reverse is the case: you may only do what the law specifically permits you to do.

Many of my constituents have an appetite for much greater regulation of our lives. They write to me proposing new laws to address any number of real or imagined problems. They have ‘happy thoughts’ about “how much better organised life would be in only we had a law to make us do…” whatever the bee in their bonnet may be.
Putting their happy thought in an email to me does no harm. Alas, parliamentary colleagues have the opportunity, afforded the annual private members’ bill ballot, to put their happy thoughts into law.
There are 13 sitting Fridays per year on which the Commons deals with the private members’ bills that were successful in the ballot. It is a minority taste: Most MPs clear off to their constituencies where they have more pressing demands on their time like visiting schools, councils, enterprises, police, NHS and many more.

When, constituents write to me to ask me to be in Westminster on a Friday to support a particular bill, I reply telling them that, even were I in favour of the bill, the best thing I can do to support it is to stay away. The greatest enemy of any private members’ bill is the limited time available to it. Opponents need not trouble to muster numbers to vote against it. All they need do is speak at length about it. If you did support it, then it would be foolish to come along and help the opponents by taking up some of that time yourself.

Such is the potential damage and cost of the proposals in so many private members’ bills, sensible and public-spirited MPs will organise small teams of colleagues dedicated to ‘talking-out’ the offending bills. It is essential too that the Government Whips have some oversight of this process. It is also vital that the whip on duty at close of business shouts “object” at the right moment to prevent any undebated bill going through ‘on the nod’.
Given all this, the message gets through to most colleagues that, if they want their bill to proceed, then it must be of narrow scope and almost wholly uncontroversial.

Alas, every now and again the system malfunctions. Perhaps the dedicated team didn’t show on a particular Friday, or the whips were asleep at the wheel, or even -extraordinarily- the minister at the despatch box indicated support for the intentions of the bill. Whatever it was, the result can be a disastrous piece of legislation. Here is one such: we now have the prospect of employees being entitled to sue their employer for damages if a customer upsets them.
We all know how difficult it is to keep a small business going, why would we throw another burden on them by making them responsible for the speech and opinions of their customers?
How daft is that?

I always find that it is best to reserve one’s thoughts on the budget until the Commons has finished debating it, and that was only on Tuesday evening – although there will be another thrash when the Finance Bill begins its parliamentary proceedings.

Normally votes on the budget resolutions keep us till late into the night. This time however, there were only two divisions: Labour voted against the reductions in pension taxation and the Scottish Nationalists voted against the freeze in alcohol duty (what were they thinking!).

Personally, I much preferred the short-lived proposals in Kwasi’s Autumn statement. His mistake was to announce his intention to implement them all at once, and at the same time as a very generous scheme to subsidise all our gas and electricity bills.
By contrast, the tax increases in this budget will hurt, particularly the increase in corporation tax for businesses and the freezing of personal allowances for the rest of us. Nevertheless, our addiction to public expenditure and the expectation that the state will take ever greater responsibility for ‘looking after us’ has to be paid for somehow.
 And we must kick the habit of borrowing: I am alarmed that the government debt that our pension funds and other institutions have acquired may now be crowding-out productive investment opportunities.

There were two ‘give-aways’. First the abolition of the lifetime-limit on pension savings. This is a very sensible measure to remove the incentive to retire early for so many professionals, especially highly skilled doctors.
Labour, by opposing the measure, because they say it is only of benefit to ‘the rich’ have, first got their sums wrong, and second, they’ve lost all sense of proportion. 27% of those who will benefit are doctors, 5% are teachers, 13% will other public sector employees such as senior police officers and many will be skilled technicians, scientists and entrepreneurs. It is in all our interests to encourage them to continue working and earning.
In any event, for all labour’s confected rage, I recall that, as Treasury Lord Commissioner, I signed into law ‘The Pensions Increase (Pension Scheme for Kier Starmer QC) Regulations 2013’. I believe the advantages extended to Sir Keir should also be available -for all our sakes- to keep skilled operators in the workforce when we are so desperately short of them.

The second big announcement was the extension of free childcare provision. I understand the rationale – clearly the affordability of childcare is one of the major restrictions that prevent parents from working. However, I do have reservations. First, there is a structural problem: The providers are in the private sector but the price is determined, not by the market, but by government. The problem hitherto has been that the price government has set is insufficient for the providers and, consequently, supply has diminished; It’s no good having a right to hours of free childcare if you can’t find people who will provide it.
Whether the extended childcare that the Government is offering can be delivered, will depend entirely upon the price that it sets.
As we have the highest childcare costs in Europe we should attach a higher priority to reducing some of the bureaucratic impositions that bind the providers.
Also, there has to be a amelioration of the very substantial tax disadvantages experienced by single-income families when one parent looks after the children full-time. It just isn’t fair.
And finally, nothing is free. The Government’s hands will be in our pockets to pay for it one way or another.

I rather regret having written to the BBC asking them to properly enforce their own rules when dealing with their highest paid presenter, Gary Lineker.
My inbox so quickly filled with emails denouncing his ‘tweets’ and supporting the policy that he had criticised, that I soon realised how effective he was at marshalling support for the Government’s policy. So, long may he continue to ‘tweet unrestrained’. 

On the policy itself, I entirely support it. But we fool ourselves if we think we can stop the boats without the enthusiastic co-operation of France. Currently, French intervention stops about a third of crossings. If, by increasing our financial contribution, we can get them to significantly raise their game, then we will have got ourselves a bargain compared to the ever-increasing costs of dealing with those who make it to our shores.
We need to keep in mind that this is an international problem to which international solutions have to be found. France is having as much difficulty at its own border with Italy as we are having with the Channel.  Already this year 20,000 migrants have arrived in boats on the Italian mainland.
Of course, Europe has to find ways of protecting its borders and I am confident that they will increasingly start to embrace the policies that the UK is now adopting. Ultimately however, we must tackle the problem at source: the conditions that are driving mass migrations in the first place.

When I was the Minister for International Development, I recall visiting the largest refugee camp in the world. The UNHCR had provided housing well above the standard available in so many settlements in developing middle-income countries. The world Food Programme provided clean water and enough to eat. UNICEF was educating the Children. The host country’s police and army ensured a level of order and security uncommon elsewhere.
On balance, the refugees were getting a level of support that would be difficult to match in much of the world.
Nevertheless, there was a significant flow of refugees leaving and risking all that they had to pay gangsters to traffic them elsewhere, in pursuit of the one thing that that refugee camp could not provide: a livelihood.
If we are to have a prospect of solving migration we need to invest in providing the opportunity of earning a living in those parts of the world where that prospect is remote. As I kept saying to anyone who would listen, “it’s all about jobs”.

50 years ago, the rich nations pledged to invest 0.7 % of their national incomes in the poorer developing world. Most have never honoured that pledge at all. It took us the UK until 2011 to reach that pledge, but it only lasted until 2019. If all the wealthy nations had honoured their pledge when they made it, then perhaps we would not be having to cope with the current levels of migration that are overwhelming us.  

I recall my headmaster taking the opportunity of the last scripture lesson of the year to teach the ‘facts of life’ to those of us who were 13 and would be leaving. It was all over in half an hour. And that was it, until a couple of years later, we got a slightly more detail in the Biology O Level syllabus.
It may seem surprising, but we managed to marry and raise families.
Of Course, in those days, we didn’t have easy access to pornography: there were no mobile phones, laptops or internet; hence no internet pornography. Even video was some years off. The best one could manage -if you had the courage – was to reach up to the top shelf for the latest edition of Health and Efficiency, and then avoid the shopkeeper’s disapproving stare as he placed it in a paper bag. Life was a great deal simpler.

Last week I wrote to the Prime Minister together with Miriam Cates MP and other like-minded colleagues, to remind him of a pledge that he made during his leadership campaign: to end inappropriate sex education in our schools.
We enclosed a evidence that many children are being subjected to sex education that is wholly inappropriate. Children are being taught about extreme and dangerous sex acts, encouraged to share intimate details about sexual desires with classmates and teachers, and even primary school children are being indoctrinated with radical ideologies about sex and gender. Many of the resources used would make adults deeply uncomfortable, especially if they were expected to view them in their place of work. It is unconscionable that our children are being forced to engage with such disturbing materials in school.
Many of the resources are produced by external agencies, some of which take extreme and political positions on these issues, including campaigning to end the rights of parents to withdraw their children from sex education. Surprisingly, a number of schools refuse to allow parents to view lesson materials in advance.

 It is, of course, important that children are taught about tolerance and discrimination and are expected to treat others with dignity and respect. But exposing children to explicit materials and radical ideologies amounts to the abolition of childhood.

At Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Miriam followed up our letter with this:
“Graphic lessons on oral sex, how to choke your partner safely, 72 genders—this is what passes for relationships and sex education in British schools. Across the country, children are being subjected to lessons that are age-inappropriate, extreme, sexualising and inaccurate, often using resources from unregulated organisations that are actively campaigning to undermine parents. This is not a victory for equality; it is a catastrophe for childhood. Will my right hon. Friend honour his commitment to end inappropriate sex education by commissioning an independent inquiry into the nature and extent of this safeguarding scandal”
The PM replied saying that he shared our concern and that he had tasked the Department for Education to ensure that schools are not teaching inappropriate or contested content in relationships, sex and health education. He said “our priority should always be the safety and wellbeing of children. Schools should also make curriculum content and materials available to parents. As a result of all this, we are bringing forward a review of RSHE statutory guidance and will start our consultation as soon as possible.”

Good, but not before time!
That we have reached this current pass raises the  question, have some of  teachers entirely taken leave of their senses?