Nanny state to kick in full throttle in the UK?

Via the UK Daily Mail:

State to interfere in childrens’ home lives

The home life of every child in the country is to be recorded on a national database in the ultimate intrusion of the nanny state, it has emerged.

Computer records holding details of school performance, diet and even whether their parents provide a ‘positive role model’ for 12 million children will be held by the Government.

Police, social workers, teachers and doctors will have access to the database and have powers to flag up ‘concerns’ where children are not meeting criteria laid down by the state.

The ‘children’s index’, which will cost the taxpayer Â£224 million, will even monitor whether youngsters are eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, whether they go to church or are struggling to get good marks at school.

One assessment records whether a pre-school child is in day care – suggesting that those who are looked after by their mothers at home are not conforming to the state ideal.

Critics said the plan would sideline on an unprecedented scale the rights of parents to bring up their children in the way they see fit and amount to a ‘bar-coding’ of youngsters.

They questioned how the Government knew better than parents on the correct way to bring up a child, and warned that it would deter decent families from seeking help for fear of being branded at risk.

It could take just two warning flags on a child’s file to trigger an investigation. The Government handed itself sweeping powers in the 2004 Children Act to record basic information of all children in England and Wales, based on information from the register of births and child benefit.

The Act followed the death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie – whose neglect by her aunt and her boyfriend was missed by social workers.

Section 12 of the act limits information to name, address, date of birth, gender, a unique id, contact details of parent or carer, school, GP practice and other practioners dealing with the child.

But the Government wants to extend the records to include detailed assessments of a child’s life.

Ministers insist it will act as an early warning system to highlight children at risk.

The database has already been piloted in 12 local authorities and the Government plans to make it nationwide from next year.

It will try to introduce a regulation in Parliament in the autumn – allowing it to become law with barely any scrutiny by MPs.

If you read the rest of the article, you’ll see that this is bumping up against a lot of opposition. But will the opposition be enough to stop the UK gov’t from implementing these extra measures that have been proposed under the banner of ‘protecting the children’? Stay tuned …

Severian says:

June 26, 2006 at 5:32 pm

You know, when I watch the antics of the British government, this, their rampant PC/newspeak issues, their coming down on people for voicing opinions, etc. it comes as no surprise to me that Orwell was British. Obviously he saw something in the British character that was in danger of morphing into something really sinister when combined with socialist/communist ideology, and he appears to have been remarkably prescient.

Seth says:

June 28, 2006 at 12:33 am

If Parliament passes such a bill, our own liberals will be chaffing at the bit to emulate it here in the U.S., once again citing something a foreign country does as a precedent for our own nation.

The right of parents (outside of abusers) to raise their children as they see fit is one that shouldn’t even enter into any kind of official debate, as it is one that is, and always has been, as intrinsic to the human race as opposable thumbs. It is among the truest of human rights, one that is not within the purview of any government to tamper with, despite any “official” conceptions to the contrary.

The whole concept of British politicians having dialogue on the subject is chillingly reminiscent of the kinds of policies one might have encountered in the U.S.S.R. and its Cold War satellites, which is not all that surprising, as the liberals who push such agendas tend to support all things socialist.

Carlotta says:

June 30, 2006 at 4:31 am

Sadly the legislation is already all there – passed 2004 and known as the Children Act.

We at the sharp end, ie: home educators are already feeling the effects. Where once we could be left alone if their was no suspicion of abuse or neglect, we are already finding that families are being investigated by SS on the most spurious grounds.

Opposition to this intrusion by the state is essential, and the more bloggers on the case the better.