I can barely bring myself to watch TV scenes reporting the distress of refugees, particularly where children are involved.

Of the refugees that we have already admitted as part of our commitment to resettle 20,000 of the most vulnerable Syrians, half have been children. These have been accompanied children because the UN advice is that unaccompanied children are much better off staying in the region where there remains the possibility of being reunited with their extended families. Notwithstanding, we have also made commitments to take such children where it is judged to be in their best interests and, in addition, we have committed to take unaccompanied children who have already made it to the European mainland.
There is however, a preponderance of young men, and men not so young, some of which claim to be children, and many of which claim to be refugees, when many are actually migrants.

(I blame no migrant for seeking a better life, but our proper response to the problem of mass migration is to invest in the economic development of the places from which they are migrating. The UK is one of the very few developed nations meeting its commitment to spend 0.7% of our national income on this important international development aid. If all the developed nations did so, and if we had all done so 40 years ago when that commitment was made, perhaps we would not be faced with mass migration on the scale that we are now dealing with.)

When I visited the President of Afghanistan earlier this year I raised with him the issue of our difficulty in returning Afghans whose claims to asylum in Europe had been rejected. In the end, he agreed to take personal charge of the issue and to resolve the matter, but before we got to that satisfactory conclusion, he delivered a lecture to me. This is the gist of it: He told me that his main effort had to be delivering progress for all the people of Afghanistan who, despite their difficulties, had stuck with it; that his priority was the needs of the young men and women who were taking the fight to the Taliban. Only after these priorities were met, could he address the issue of receiving back those of his countrymen who gave up on his country and went away.

When we think of the blood and treasure that the United Kingdom has expended in Afghanistan, we might reflect on the President’s lecture.

(First published in the Forest Journal 6/10/16)
I spent last week travelling with a parliamentary delegation to the Republic of China (Taiwan: the Island of Formosa; and distinct from the People’s Republic of China –the world’s most populous -and communist- state, occupying the Chinese mainland).

With a population of only 21 million, nevertheless Taiwan retains its position as one of the Asian ‘tiger economies’ and a major exporter of IT equipment including laptop computers. We benefit from extensive trade and investment with Taiwan and it is just the sort of country with which we need to encourage even closer political, trade and investment relationships as we leave the EU.

As it happens, our parliamentary delegation coincided with the visit by our own UK trade minister, with whom we met whilst there in order to share our insights and common objectives.

Despite our tour being disrupted by a devastating Typhoon we still managed to conduct the greater part of our planned programme of discussions with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Vice-President, The Speaker, our fellow legislators, and the Chairman of the Defence and Security Council. In addition, we spent half a day in a University Hospital because one of my parliamentary colleagues has a particular interest as a member of the Commons Health Select Committee. The Taiwan universal healthcare system is based on insurance and affordable co-payments (people with serious and chronic conditions have their co-payments waived). Remarkably there are no waiting lists for treatment at all.

I have hitherto been rather sceptical of the value these sorts of visits and It’s the first I’ve been on in 19 years. Equally, one has to remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch: the entire cost of the visit, and the invitation also included my wife, was met by the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Clearly, they have their own agenda of building goodwill and alliances in an increasingly strategically important, and contested region. The militarisation of the South China Sea by China, and its strident claims to sovereignty over the islands, including Taiwan itself, threaten the stability of the whole region. Taiwan needs friends and Allies. We too, also need to build friendships and alliances. This is a region where we have a colonial history and where both we and the USA retain vital national interests. We do need to be clear and realistic however, in balancing our proper support for democracy and shared values in Taiwan, along with our desire for greater trade, with the implications this will have for the growing importance of our relationship with China.

I last went on such a trip back in 1996. It was to Germany together with Theresa May, courtesy of the Conrad Adenauer Stiftung. My abiding memory is that she tuned up at the airport with no more than a large handbag. Yet everyday she appeared immaculately turned out in a different outfit. I imagined that the outfits must have been freeze dried and flown out overnight.

(First published in the Forest Journal 13/10/16)
I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist, rather I prefer to think that most suspicious circumstances arise from coincidence, the random caprice of human nature, or just typical cock-up.

I have struggled however, to gain any understanding of how the New Forest wetland restorations continue to be pursued with such vigour in the face of the manifest evidence of their spectacular failure. Existing and thriving ecosystems, which also have the advantage of being beautiful to behold, are -at truly eye watering expense- being destroyed by large earth moving machines and hundreds of thousands of tons of clay. This clay is shipped in by the lorry load from nowhere near the New Forest (something that would never have been allowed in the past). All this, for such a marginal benefit, and that only if the schemes worked as the theorists predicted. The problem is that they don’t: there are already any number where the alien clay has simply been washed away as pollution, with mounting repair bills.

Why in the face of this evidence and expert ecological reviews which have panned the scheme, do the Forestry Commission persist?

The New Forest National Park authority is also a supporter of the restorations. As a consequence I do not believe that it is proper that it should be allowed to determine the planning application for the largest and most controversial scheme at Latchmoore. Rather worryingly, constituents have written to me to complain that the Park Authority has wrongly categorised objections to the proposal. Apparently, objections from ecologists and conservation organisations which clearly opposed the scheme, have been designated as ‘Neutral’: cock-up, or what?
I have written to the Secretary of State asking him to call in the planning application.

Why have Natural England allowed this destruction to proceed?
It is the organisation with a statutory duty to ensure that these sites of special scientific interest, some of which enjoy the highest levels of protected status, are preserved. I have written to ministers asking why Natural England gave the go ahead without first observing its own clearly stated rules by ordering an ‘appropriate assessment’ of the impact.

Then, a brown envelope gets dumped anonymously on my doorstep containing a printed email chain dating back to 2008 when the scheme was cooked up to secure EU funds and avoid the normal public expenditure rules which ought to have prevented them getting it. The Official Verderer even asks in an email for an indemnity from Natural England in case the ruse is exposed by an audit and the money has to be paid back.

Conspiracy theory or what?

I’ve handed the emails over to the National Audit Office.

The one thing both sides agreed on in the run up to the referendum in June was the importance of the vote and that it would settle the question of EU membership for a generation. Whether we like it or not, that question is now settled.

When Parliament passed the Referendum Act last year by an overwhelming margin, MPs handed over the decision about our future in the EU to the voters. The voters made their decision on 23 June and the Government has announced that it will implement that decision by beginning the process of leaving the EU not later than the end of March next year. Now however, some MPs are demanding a parliamentary vote on this beforehand. This is a demand for the opportunity to vote against initiating the process of leaving the EU. This explicitly runs counter to the Referendum Act 2015, which handed that decision to voters.

During last week’s debate on the negotiating process prior to leaving the EU, MP after MP got up and announced that, notwithstanding having campaigned to remain, they now accepted the will of their constituents, and acquiesced to the decision to leave. Then the mask slipped: one member stated that she would not give up on those who voted to remain, that those who voted to leave were beginning to regret doing so, and that -so proceeding- there would be a majority opinion for remaining. She is, of course entitled to that honest opinion. What was instructive however, was that she was cheered by those who insisted that they had now accepted the will of the people and would implement the decision made by them on 23 June.

Can they be trusted?

The demands made by MPs, that the Government first set out its negotiating strategy and submit it for their approval, needs to be seen in the light of their thinly veiled opposition to the whole enterprise. This demand is essentially an attempt to secure a means to delay, and ultimately to thwart the process.

Of course, even if the demand were made in good faith, it is manifestly absurd. If the Government sets out its negotiating strategy and objectives, then by doing so, it signals to the other EU members the price that they can extract. We would be sending our ministers bound and naked into the negotiation chamber.

Of course, Parliament can influence the Government through questions and debates and the two new select committees that are being set up. So long as the Government enjoys majority support in the Commons however, it must be allowed to get on and negotiate unfettered and unhindered, particularly by those still unreconciled to the referendum result.

Margaret Thatcher’s mentor Sir Keith Joseph, ended any prospects that he may have had of leading the Conservative party with a speech in 1972 whilst he was Secretary of State for Social Services. The subject was what he called the ‘cycle of deprivation’. In it he observed that an increasing proportion of our children were born to those least fitted to bring them up. There was a great furore from the ‘great and good’ over what they willfully misconstrued as a proposal for eugenics.

 

The problem however, remains. From time to time foster parents visit my surgeries to discuss aspects of the difficulties that they face. I often reflect on the work that so many of these amazing people do in trying to repair much of the damage that the natural parents have inflicted. Some children are born already damaged by their parents’ lifestyle. Others, at the age of five still cannot walk, talk, or are not toilet trained because they have spent their lives strapped in a buggy placed in front of the TV.
The tragedy is that so much of a child’s future prospects are determined by the attention and affection received in the early weeks of life, a truth dwelt on by Andrea Leadsom at the hustings in her aborted bid for the Tory Leadership this summer.

 

Recently local campaigners for 70/30 came to my surgery: their aim is to demonstrate that we can reduce child maltreatment by 70% by the year 2030 through a proper prevention strategy.

The damage done to children by maltreatment costs the UK taxpayer £ billions in social services and other costs as these children go on to struggle with problems in later life. The 70/30 approach is to prevent maltreatment to children before it happens by investing resources to tackle the root causes. These might be maternal mental health problems, domestic violence, drug abuse or a whole host of other issues affecting parents. Early, effective support could help them deal with these problems before they get out of control.  This might mean a mum-to-be who is struggling with her mental health – where the right support could make all the difference to her ability to cope.  Or it might mean a couple who have unhealthy tension in their relationship – helping them to get things back on the right track prevents the severe stress a baby experiences in a tense or violent home.

 

The challenge is to get people thinking ahead to the point that we can really start seeing prevention as something urgent, not just something that would be nice to work on once we have finished intervening where things have already gone wrong.   In fact, that is the whole point. We will never finish intervening until we have stopped things from going wrong in the first place. To use an analogy from WAVE Trust, the charity behind the 70/30 campaign, if your taps are on and your sink is overflowing, you will never finish mopping up unless you stop to turn the taps off.

I certainly support the campaign. If readers have experience of children’s services or would like to get involved with the campaign details can be had from slawes@wavetrust.org

 

Parliament returned for just two weeks with an agenda that included subjects which arouse the most passionate and ideological of debates: grammar schools, the future of the BBC, and nuclear power; added to that mix were the statements on Brexit, the G20, the Foreign Affairs select committee report on Libya,  and the announcement that David Cameron is leaving the Commons. All on top of the momentous events from mid-June to mid-July.

For those former regime loyalists like myself, still struggling to adjust to the new reality, and realigning ourselves to the metaphysical plain, the news of Cameron’s departure came as another jolt (I was his Parliamentary Private Secretary for seven years). Particularly so, given a widespread perception amongst the ‘commentariat’ that his legacy was being expunged, much in the manner of some disgraced former Soviet Politburo member.

As if to put all these events into a proper perspective, this week the Gaia telescope, a million miles from the Earth in space, reported its findings over the last 14 months by releasing a map of 1.1 billion stars. So vast is the data that the European Space Agency cannot process it all and has asked for the assistance of amateur astronomers and schools. Yet this mind numbing number of stars represents just 1% of our own Milky Way galaxy. Our best estimate is that there are another 100 billion galaxies out there. All hurtling apart (our own galaxy, taking us with it, is going at 1.3 million miles per hour) since the moment of the Creation some 14 billion years ago. These numbers are just too mind bogglingly large to comprehend. Think of it, Just 1 billion minutes ago Jesus was preaching in Galilee.

What can have been in the mind of God when he conceived the Creation of such vastness? Certainly, the very question puts into perspective our priorities and preoccupations, irrespective of how momentous we imagine events to have been over the last few weeks and months.

The data from by Gaia will prompt fascinating studies and speculations. For those of us perplexed by the crowding-in of recent events however, there is I believe only one proper reaction to Gaia’s revelations: it’s that of the Psalmist; “Be still and know that I am God” Ps 46.10

 

I think it was in 1976 or thereabouts that I wrote a cheque for £1 to support the national campaign in the battle to save Tameside Grammar. It was my token gesture of support as a student in straightened circumstances – although £1 was worth a lot more then. It was right to stop good schools being interfered with, and it still is.
I do not carry any ideological baggage about grammars. I voted against the 1998 legislation that prohibits the opening of new grammars, and I would vote to repeal it: no school should be ruled out on principle. Equally, I am no enthusiast for any widespread return to selective schools.

I was surprised, and delighted, by the scale of the Prime Minister’s ambition to improve education, and by the way that she explicitly linked this great endeavour to Brexit. I will need some persuading however, on the detail of the plans. The key objective that both the PM and the Secretary of State have set out, is to get many more good schools. I agree with that.
Many selective schools are very good schools, but I am not convinced that selection is a significant factor in making any school a good one. I have visited some fantastic comprehensives in ‘deprived’ and unpromising areas. I believe that the key difference is made by the quality of teachers and, even more importantly, their leadership.
How do we get more good teachers and excellent heads?
Returning to selection won’t fix it. Rather, we need to raise the whole status of the teaching profession -which will come at a cost. (The recently introduced requirement that new teachers have at least a 2.1 honours degree, was well intended, but I fear that in practice it is unhelpful: inspirational teachers don’t necessarily have the best degrees, and we should remember that Einstein got a third).

Selection and choice can be opposites: you cannot choose a school that will not admit you. A school’s ability to select pupils, is equally its ability to reject them. Each of the 4 market towns in my parliamentary division supports one secondary school. Imagine that Burgate School acquires the ability not to select a proportion of pupils from Fordingbridge. I don’t relish the prospect of informing parents that they will have to have their children bussed elsewhere. So, one component in the debate that will now follow, will be about the quality of provision that will be made for pupils that are not selected. We have be told that there will be no return of secondary moderns, but this will be a ‘hard sell’.

 

A journalist asked me if, with an effective working majority of only 15, how difficult will it be to get these measures through the Commons. As a whip in both opposition and in government, I have witnessed the House become much more independent over recent years, irrespective of a government’s majority. I think we have reached a position where, if ministers want to get their measures on the statute book, they have to win the argument. I’m all ears.

I think the government accepts that it has to persuade, otherwise the PM would not have sent out such a clear message by promoting some serial ‘rebels’ to ministerial and cabinet rank in July.

 

I am delighted by the announcement that the government has secured commitments from local authorities for the resettlement of 20,000 Syrian refugees. I am surprised at how soon it has been agreed, because I recall just how challenging it was for my colleague Richard Harrington a year ago. Scotland and the north were generous but it was much harder to find places in the south. Notwithstanding the offers of local churches, the proposal that Ringwood should take a family secured very little support from the council.

 

I think the balance the government struck was the right one: we are the second largest donor and, with 4.5 million Syrian refugees, our money goes so much further helping many more refugees in the region. Nevertheless, our decision to take the most vulnerable direct from the camps was both proportionate and properly targeted, because it did not encourage further trafficking across the Mediterranean – where Syrians account for only a minority of those being trafficked. At one discussion a senior cabinet minister told me that it was the job our £14 billion aid budget (his overestimate) “to buy the migrants back to Africa”. It was Theresa May who rescued me by pointing out that, were we to do so, their places would very soon be taken by others. The proper job of our aid budget is to spend it securing peace and economic development in the places where so many people see that their only current option is to leave. That this is in our vital national interest, strikes me as blindingly obvious.

*

News of the personal life the Bishop of Grantham reminded me of that vast correspondence – dwarfing even the letters about hunting – which I received about gay marriage. Having ‘whipped’ the bill through the standing committee and the Commons, I was warned that it would mean the end of marriage, and the world as we know it. I’m waiting. I suppose it’s a bit like Brexit: they’ll say it’s still too soon to tell.

*

I rejoice at the canonisation of Mother Teresa. I recall the delight of her visit to my children’s excellent primary school where, despite the very high proportion of free school meals, they were always collecting for charity. That so much air time should be given over to her critics however, seems bizarre. Beware, the secular agenda which cannot comprehend that, to the dying, the warmth of human contact equipped only by the love of God, is of greater comfort than any high-tech medical intervention.

I have received an outraged email from a constituent in Barton-on-Sea, disgusted at the actions of the Supreme Court of France, because of its failure to uphold bans by the local mayors of the Cote d’ Azur, banning burkinis. Alas, the court is not accountable to me, and the French must sort out their own affairs.

In any event, I am confident that no burkinis have been seen in Barton-on-Sea, or on any other beach in the New Forest parliamentary division.
Am I disappointed?
I have always taken the view that people should feel free to show off as little or as much as they like, when it comes to beachwear. Like any hot blooded male however, I appreciate beauty, which can sometimes enhanced by a bikini. Equally, often there can be something quite attractive, alluring, even sensual, about concealment.  It leaves more to the imagination.

Whilst there are of course exceptions,  as a general rule, most of us look far better with all our clothes on.

 

A colleague told The Sunday Times that anti-Corbyn Labour MPs begged him to push for an early election. I envy his Influence. Perhaps he can persuade the Prime Minister to secure her own electoral mandate distinct from her predecessor, to capitalise on her ‘honeymoon’ and on Labour’s confusion, but I doubt it. At every leadership hustings she told Tory MPs that there would be no election before 2020.
The notion that she needs her own distinct electoral mandate is constitutional nonsense. We have a parliamentary democracy not a presidential system: the Prime Minister’s mandate to govern rests only on her majority support among MPs, who were elected for a full five year term.

Whilst it might be tempting to cut and run early, given the opportunity afforded by the state of the Opposition and strength in the polls, the suggestion completely ignores the post coalition reality. The discretion of the Prime Minister has been removed. She may no longer, at a moment of her choosing, simply ask the Queen for a dissolution of Parliament. For an early election now to take place, one of three of three things would be required; Losing a vote of confidence and failure to put together a new administration; Or a vote by two thirds of the Commons for a dissolution; Or primary legislation in both houses to restore the status quo ante.
None of these strike me as at all likely before May 2020.

Whilst it may be unlikely, it is of course possible that the Government might lose its majority at some stage over the remaining four years of this parliament. For example, if there were to be a highly divisive spat over what ‘Brexit’ should actually involve. Notwithstanding reports of dissent, we are still a long way from anything like that. An early election however, to cement a large majority, would certainly reduce the possibility of any such eventuality. Nevertheless, whatever the potential advantage, perceived wisdom, or the calculated risks of seeking an election soon, such speculation is time wasted: the Prime Minister simply no longer has it in her power.