Taking responsibility

BBC Parliament is a gem - why don't I watch it more often? Tuned in yesterday idly to catch PMQs, and found it was followed by Brown's statement on Britain’s treatment of child migrants. His apology was actually impressive and moving, and I say that as no fan of Brown. (To understand his approach to blame-taking you don’t need Andrew Rawnsley’s gossip, just remember his statement on the McBride affair – ‘I take full responsibility for this, and that’s why the person responsible has resigned’.)

However, what really made me sit up was Cameron’s response – very weak, and his main point was that the scandal happened under all parties. Not quite true, David. It happened almost entirely under one party on particular. Guess which?

The Children Act 1948 (passed under a Labour government) stopped local authorities from arranging for the emigration of children in care without the approval of the Secretary of State. It also enabled the Secretary of State to make regulations restricting the ability of voluntary organisations to arrange for such emigration. For the next nineteen years no such regulations were made, while the practice continued. Thirteen years of Conservative governments, and three of Labour governments with weak or no majorities.

Although the scandal of child migrants came to public attention in 1987 (thanks to Margaret Humphreys). For the next ten years, under two Conservative governments, nothing was done; only in 1998 did the Labour government take the matter seriously. In 1993 John Major had the nerve to tell Parliament that ‘any concern about the treatment of the children in another country is essentially a matter for the authorities in that country’.

The Conservative record on this matter is particularly shameful. It is also absolutely consistent with the instinct to punish and blame the families of children in need rather than support them, which still characterises Conservative social policy today.