Why the case of Ashya King should trouble us all greatly

When the news first broke that his parents had taken Ashya out of Southampton hospital, the predictable media storm erupted. Armed with only one side of the story, such emotive terms as “snatched” and “abducted” were tossed around with gay abandon.

Ashya King and his father, Brett

The batteries for Ashya’s essential feeding equipment, we were told, were shortly to run out and he would surely starve to death. We were then told that the family were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and with it the suggestion that the family had refused to allow Ashya to be treated – an inference demonstrably false as Ashya had recently undergone major brain surgery.

As public pleas by the police – instigated by Southampton Hospital – for the Kings to get in touch went unheeded, a European wide manhunt was launched. Chris Shead, the assistant chief constable of Hampshire police, took to the airwaves to tell us that a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) had been issued for the arrest of the Kings based on the vague suggestion of “neglect”. (The Spanish police have since publicly stated the investigation centres upon equally vague “child cruelty” allegations.

As the days went by, the Kings’ side of the story gradually became known. With their son suffering a stage four aggressive brain tumour and given just four months to live, their only ostensible crime was to love their son and to have the audacity to disagree with doctors on how he should be treated. For this, they have been pursued like dangerous fugitives to Spain where they currently languish in a prison cell, prevented from seeing or speaking to their possibly terminally ill son.

In desperation, the Kings wish their son to undergo proton beam treatment.  This treatment is perceived to be a ‘kinder’ form of radiotherapy as it’s believed to cause less damage to the healthy cells around the tumour, making it particularly suited to children. Unfortunately, this form of treatment is not the best treatment available for every cancer patient and is not currently available in the UK. Whilst the NHS has in the past paid for some patients to receive the treatment abroad, this is only possible with the consent of the patient’s oncologist – something which would not appear to have been forthcoming in Ashya’s case.

Now it may well be the case that proton beam treatment would not be effective in Ashya’s case, and the NHS was right not to pay for the same when the cost of a treatment seems to play an ever more important role in the clinical decision making process.

What is troubling about the situation is when we hear from Ashya’s grandmother that his parents had been threatened with the prospect of a protection order being made, simply for disagreeing with doctors how Ashya should be treated. That when they decided to privately seek their preferred means of treatment abroad – at not insignificant cost – they were pursued by police forces across the continent.

With horrific stories of child abuse in Rotherham, and particularly the collective failures of various public bodies to tackle this, still dominating our newspapers, Hampshire Police have gone to the other absurd extreme. When the Kings should have been permitted – if not helped – to explore every possible avenue of treatment which may be available to Ashya, they are locked up in a Spanish prison cell; their son in a hospital hundreds of miles away prevented from seeing anybody he knows.

Clearly in the first instance a lot hinges on exactly what the police were told by Southampton hospital, but that Hampshire police leapt into action as the enforcement arm of the NHS in the event of a disagreement over medical advice is profoundly unsettling. It should be a matter of public debate as to where the balance of decision making should lie in cases like this – with patient or their guardian(s), or with the doctors.

More worrying is how the police have handled this matter. Public confidence in the police, particularly here in the north east, still bears the scars, rightly or wrongly, of their actions during the miners’ strike, when they were perceived to be the state’s enforcers. The police, as is widely and repeatedly stated, police with and by consent in the UK. Any perception they are merely the establishment’s heavy-handed, ham-fisted hired muscle is profoundly worrying. More so given an European Arrest Warrant was applied for and issued in the absence of any prerequisite ongoing criminal proceedings (a decision the police and CPS have hitherto refused to explain or justify).

As the CPS inexplicably continues to wrestle with the decision whether to charge and seek the extradition of the Kings, they should immediately take the only right and decent course of action available to them – to rescind the arrest warrant, call on their Spanish counterparts to release Ashya’s parents immediately, and make arrangements for the family to be reunited with their son as soon as is humanly possible.

I don’t doubt the ramifications of this sad case will be felt for some time to come. What they will transpire to be should be of great concern to all of us.

Did Tory MP breach the Data Protection Act in courting Muslim voters?

Concerns have been raised that Conservative MP for Stockton South James Wharton may have breached the Data Protection Act by sending a letter about the current conflict in Gaza, but only to Muslim voters .

I have been passed the letter sent on 22 July by a number of Muslim residents who are concerned that they have been singled out to receive the letter on the sole basis of having an 'Islamic-sounding' name. Their concerns are borne out to a degree by the fact a number of friends and constituents with non-Islamic names who frequently receive such unsolicited correspondence from Mr Wharton have not received this particular letter.

The case bears remarkable similarities to that of Labour MP Karen Buck who a fortnight ago admitted her staff trawled the electoral register singling out people with 'Islamic' names in order to send cards celebrating Eid - a practice Miss Buck was warned by the Information Commissioner's Office back in 2010, following a previous complaint, was probably in breach of the Data Protection. Correspondence should not be sent to selected voters 'merely on the basis of an assumption about their names' chided the ICO.

The strong pro-Palestinian sentiments expressed in Mr Wharton's letter, criticising Israeli military action as being "out of all proportion" and the consequences "horrifying", will doubtless anger many of his Conservative supporters. Indeed, there can be no doubts as to where Mr Wharton's sympathies lie, with his helpful inclusion of a photograph from 2011 of him shaking hands with the Palestinian Authority's Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Mr Wharton himself recognises his position will be widely unpopular, stating: "I know this is a matter which divides opinion and that my stance will not please everyone." His actions are somewhat less principled than he seeks to portray, however, when he attempts to court the votes of those he presumes will agree with him (i.e. those with 'Islamic' names) whilst hiding his position from everybody else.

It is such opportunistic cynicism that has become Mr Wharton's hallmark since 2010, and does so much to erode voters' confidence in their elected representatives.

In criticising Miss Buck, Tory MP Philip Davies said: 'The idea that you can win elections by this kind of vacuous, politically correct, cynical tactic is wrong." Mr Wharton would be well served to heed his colleague's words.

In the next day or two I expect we will hear an ardent denial of wrongdoing by Mr Wharton; maybe even some letters ostensibly received by local party members residents will be helpfully presented. Should such a situation remarkably transpire, I trust Mr Wharton will be helpful enough to clarify to whom the letters were sent and, more importantly, on what basis those individuals were singled out. For some reason, I very much doubt he will...

'Free' school meals leave schools facing funding crisis

Ever since its announcement at last year's Liberal Democrat party conference, the government's decision to grant every child aged 5-7 a free school meal has been dogged by controversy.

Aside from it being questionable that in excess of £600million of taxpayers' cash should be spent feeding the offspring of very affluent families (children from the poorest families have long received free school meals, irrespective of the child's age), this politically motivated gimmick has been beset with eminently foreseeable difficulties from day one.

From councils across the country (though thankfully not in Stockton) having to dip into their own education budgets to pay for kitchen improvements (the grant from central government proving insufficient) to thousands of schools unlikely to have the work completed by the first week of term in September, the implementation of the policy has been shambolic. So much so, faced with the number of schools who will be forced to provide meals cooked off-site and then re-heated, or even unable to provide a hot meal at all, the government has quietly dropped the obligation on schools to provide a hot meal.

But whilst these issues could be argued to be temporary, and relatively easily remedied, one enduring problem with the policy will continue to impact schools for years to come.

One of the Lib Dem's proudest - dare I say rightly so - achievements in government is the introduction of the Pupil Premium.

The Pupil Premium is additional funding given to publicly funded schools throughout England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils hailing from the poorest families. During the financial year 2014/15, primary schools will receive an additional £1,300 for each eligible child. These payments soon add up to sizeable sums of money.

Here in the borough of Stockton on Tees, our primary schools registered anywhere up to 74.1% of pupils being eligible for the Pupil Premium - nearly three times the national average. Rosebrook Primary School, to give but one example, received £203,942 in 2013/14 (when the premium was set at just £953 per pupil).

The difficulty such schools face going forward is that eligibility to receive the pupil premium is based on whether a child has been eligible for free school meals at any point during the past 6 years. Given all pupils aged 5-7 will now automatically receive a free meal, their parents will no longer have to apply and prove their eligibility to the local authority, and by extension the school.

The upshot of this is that primary schools throughout the country will not necessarily know which or how many of their Year 1 pupils are eligible for free school meals, and without any previous record of them having been eligible, thereby leaving the school unable to apply for the additional pupil premium for those otherwise eligible pupils. This could easily see primary schools losing tens of thousands of pounds of additional funding.

Upon asking the question of Stockton Council last week, I was pleased to hear that the council has been working with the governing bodies of local schools to encourage parents to still register their eligibility for free school meals and the pupil premium irrespective of the fact their child(ren) will receive a free meal nevertheless. Whilst it's pleasing the council is ostensibly ahead of the curve on this issue, it is ludicrous they have been put in this position in the first place.

Councillors from all across the country will be aware of eligible families who haven't previously registered for free school meals, be it through ignorance of their eligibility or embarrassment at having to do so. Indeed, this was used as one of the justifications for the expansion of free school meals to all infants.

But how many more families will fall into this category when there is no tangible financial benefit to them in them doing so? It seems inevitable that we will see the number of infants recorded as eligible for the Pupil Premium fall as a direct consequence of the new free school meal policy.

It is impossible to say whether this looming crisis was foreseen by the government or simply overlooked, although given I wrote a blog last September highlighting the problem (here) it simply isn't plausible to claim nobody in government saw this coming.

What seems for more likely is that George Osborne did indeed anticipate these difficulties but saw reduced Pupil Premium payments to schools as a means of contributing to the cost of the additional free school meals. Once again it seems the Conservative part of the government is happy to take away from the poorest in society to the benefit of their more affluent core vote.

If you have children attending any publicly funded school within Stockton Borough, you can check eligibility and register for free school meals / the pupil premium online here or by ringing the Free School Meals Team on 01642 526606.