My favourite Tories

I chaired a fringe meeting at the Conservative conference with my two favourite Tories: Cllr Les Lawrence and Edward Garnier QC MP. The Howard League shared the meeting with TACT, the biggest charitable provider of fostercare, and Jon Fayle explained some research done for them about the complicated links between children in care and offending.

It was a super meeting, quite surprisingly good. The room was so full that people had to stand at the back and the questions were thoughtful and constructive. Les talked about project set up by the Howard League and the Local Government Association with four pilot councils exploring ways of supporting children and avoiding custody. Edward talked about the needs of children who get caught up in crime. He sits a Crown Court Recorder related seeing the case file of a young lad who appeared before him that revealed a lifetime of misery and neglect.

We all agreed on the ideas for changing things to support young people and that custody was pretty much a recipe for long term disaster. I came away feeling quite optimistic.