if you look at the little icons at the top of this page, you'll see that one of them is a snowflake. It's there to symbolise individuality, something I value very much indeed. So I'd like to point you in the direction of the Special Minister for Elective Home Education, who had this to say on the diversity amongst home educators:

Snowflakes are diverse. Each and every one of them is a unique crystal. Soft and beautiful. But driven together in a fierce storm they take your breath away and leave you powerless.

We're all making our own way in this storm, and we might not always agree with each others' directions of travel. But ultimately we're driven by the same firece force and I have a feeling that this lack of uniformity and predictability is the best possible weapon we have at our disposal.

If you've not already subscribed to the Ministry, please do.

Dear David,

Thank you for your response, and that of Delyth Morgan. Unfortunately, neither adequately addresses my concerns. Indeed, in announcing yet another government review, this time into "suitable and efficient" education, Delyth actively precipitates them.

Your government asks many questions but does not listen to the answers. Here are ten questions I need answers to.

My bullet-point comments will unpick the common logical fallacies of Ministers and the DCSF for you.

1. How will HE inspections detect child abuse? 

• Abusers are socially manipulative and highly skilled at avoiding detection.
• Even if we visited you daily to prove that we were not "hidden" this would not be proof that we do not abuse our children.
• Even if we installed CCTV in every room of our house to prove that we do not abuse our children, someone, somewhere, would disagree.
• Almost every child killed at the hands of a parent or carer was not "hidden" but already known to services and failed by them.
  

• Children are not objects. However, they rightly belong first and foremost to their parent or guardian, not the state and this is how their interests are best served.
  
• State education has failed 1 in 6 children who leave school unable to read and write properly.
• Parents make private education arrangements for their children because of dissatisfaction with state provision.
• It is utterly bizarre for the state to prioritise the oversight of privately educated children over those who are in sub-standard state education.
• Assessing a suitable and efficient education is not a tick-box exercise. It is debatable as to whether such an assessment is even possible as "suitable and efficient" will look radically different according to each child's unique ability and aptitude.

• An assessment of welfare is incredibly subjective. Detailed guidance issued for social workers, from NICE and from the NSPCC would flag up most children as "at risk" in some way or another.
• Children whose behaviour or traits fall outside the bounds of "normal" are often home educated where it is easiest for their differences to be accommodated and celebrated, not pathologised or prevented.
• Some professionals erroneously class certain parenting philosophies and practices as pathological - for example attachment parenting.
• Some professionals automatically assume that deeply religious parents or parents with disabilities constitute a welfare concern.
• The institutionalisation and segregation of children in large groups according to their age or ability for "socialisation" or "preparation for adulthood" is nothing more than a cultural construct.
• It is utterly bizarre for the state to prioritise the oversight of privately educated children over those who continue to be bullied in state education.

4. Why should any parent be licensed and inspected for the simple act of refusing state provision?

• Licence, n: a certificate, tag, document, etc., giving official permission to do something; formal permission or exemption
• Inspection, n: Critical appraisal involving examination, measurement, testing, gauging, and comparison of materials or items.
  
• Disproportionate, adj: too large or too small in comparison to something else, or not deserving its importance or influence
• Totalitarian, adj: of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed
  

• I can provide you with a dossier of CRB-checked professionals who have systematically abused children in a variety of settings.
• I can provide you with a dossier of children who have been erroneously (and sometimes also maliciously) removed from their parents by professionals.
• I can provide you with a dossier of children who were abused and/or killed at the hands of their parents or carers despite being known to statutory services.
  
• I can provide you with a dossier of professionals who can demonstrate widespread mismanagement, misconduct and profoundly discriminatory attitudes within the local authority - despite performance management, training and qualifications.
• I can provide you with detailed information and/or qualitative and quatitative evidence relating to every comment I have made in this document.

David, I have answered your government's questions many times over. What I ask is wholly reasonable. If you cannot answer my ten questions clearly and satisfactorily - and you cannot give me cast iron guarantees - then I have to make this declaration:

I cannot give you a cast iron guarantee that I will, in good conscience, be able to co-operate with this proposed legislation, should it be enacted.

This means that I, and many other principled parents like me will:

i. Cause our local authority to incur significant costs in terms of time and other resources in order to accommodate our requirements and defend actions as and when they arise, and/or
ii. Be forced to break the law in order to do what is best for our children and protect them from harm.

9. Is it right for home educating parents to divert significant resources away from the most vulnerable children who are already failed by overstretched services?

10. Is it right for parents to be criminalised for doing what is best for their children and protecting them from harm?

Chairman: Graham, I shall ask you, the Minister and Penny T. Dictator to say a couple of words, if you wish, about where we are at the moment. Who would like to start?

Ms Diana T. Obsfucator: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee. I am pleased to be here this afternoon. I would first like to set out the Government's position in a basic, plain way. It remains that it is a fundamental right that  mothers should be free to breastfeed their child, if they wish to do so. We acknowledge that views on breastfeeding are polarised, with breastfeeders feeling that health professionals do not understand the range of approaches that they can take, and breastfeeders unwilling to accept that in a minority of cases breastfeeding may not be up to scratch...

...In 2007, the Government published non-statutory guidance on monitoring breastfeeding which set out the legal requirements, and the approaches that we expected health professionals and breastfeeders to take in working together to ensure that breastfed children receive good nutrition. However, it became clear during 2008 that neither breastfeeders nor health professionals felt that the guidance was working, and that is the reason for the review.

Graham's recommendations fall into three broad categories: first, registration and monitoring; secondly, providing far greater support to breastfeeders; and, thirdly, mechanisms for breastfeeders' needs to be considered explicitly in healthcare strategies.

I need to say at this point that I am not able to go into very much detail about the proposals on monitoring and registration today. As you know, they are out for public consultation, which ends on 19 October. We will have to consider carefully the consultation responses before proceeding. I would like to emphasise that no firm decisions have yet been taken.

Breastfeeders have repeatedly asked for additional support, and I am pleased to say that we have listened to them. I hope that members of the Committee had an opportunity on Friday to see the response from the Secretary of State to the recommendations in the report....

...If we proceed to legislate, we intend to require healthcare providers to broker arrangements so that breastfeeders who wish to make use of supplementary feeding devices or breast pumps can access this equipment from centres reasonably close to where they live and at no cost. We will also put arrangements in place for authorities to consider breastfeeders' needs strategically, so that they are systematically considered and appropriate service is provided.

Finally, if and when the recommendations of Graham's review are fully implemented, breastfeeders will still have a considerable degree of freedom. They will not be operating outside the law, as is the case in the Netherlands and Germany where breastfeeding is illegal. They will not have their children tested for nutritional deficiency, as in Finland and Norway, nor follow a prescribed diet, as in Denmark. England will still be one of the most liberal countries in the developed world in its approach to breastfeeding, reflecting the careful balance we have to strike between a child's right to nutrition and a parent's right to feed their child in conformity with their beliefs and philosophies. I very much look forward to the report that you will produce after you have taken evidence.
 
Chairman: Thank you for that, Minister; it got us off to a good start. Is there anything you would like to add, Graham?

Graham Breastman: My thanks for this opportunity. I have not actually said anything about my report since I submitted it to the Secretary of State, and there are some good reasons for that. There were lots of invitations to talk about it, but I chose not to because I thought it would be prejudicial to an open process of consultation. To echo the Minister's comments, if all the recommendations are implemented, there is nothing to stop breastfeeders, many of whom I have met who do a thoroughly good job for their children, continuing. They would be subject to registration and to what I regard as light touch monitoring, but as the Minister as pointed out, in one of the most liberal regimes in terms of a developed nutrition system, we now have greater access to a range of feeding methods. I stated in my report that it seems perverse for any Government to express concerns about this group of people, yet not offer any resources to them.

If I were before you, Chairman, as a Director of Children's Services and you asked me, "What do you know about alll of the breastfed children in your care?" and I replied, "I'm awfully sorry, but I can't tell you very much about them," I suspect that I would not remain in the post for very long. That, frankly, is the situation in relation to breastfeeding. That doesn't mean to say that it is bad; it means to say that we don't know.

Children have a moral right to be nourished; I place great emphasis on that. My report, I hope, sets out to balance the rights of the child with the rights of parents. It seems timely on the 20th anniversary of the UN convention that we seek to examine whether or not this sector of the community actually honours children as expressed in the UN convention. I spent some time in my report discussing that and placed the recommendations in that context.

All that being said, if anything, the report is most critical of health providers. If implemented, it will hold them to account through an audit regime for their systems of monitoring breastfed babies. I think it raises real questions about the support they have given and should give to children with additional feeding needs; about their training, or the absence of it, of staff...

...I tried very hard to represent the views of the countless breastfeeders who often spoke of their despair -I do not use that word without some caution, but it was genuine despair - at the early years system. They had concerns about the understanding of health professionals who did not appreciate the aims of breastfeeding mothers... Breastfeeders often viewed breastfeeding as a place of last resort where their babies could seek comfort when all else had failed... Added to that, there was a whole group of parents who had a philosophical belief in breastfeeding. There was a clear conviction on the part of many of them that they could do it better, and I respect that belief.

But in turning now, to safeguarding, I recognise that this was the most controversial element of the report. Many parents felt that the initial press coverage of the review found them guilty, and they had to prove their innocence. I regret that, because I don't think that is true, and I cite what they said to me-that hard cases make for poor legislation. And where there was no evidence-for example, on forced breastfeeding, where I actually looked at the report that went to the Home Affairs Committee -where I could find no evidence, I said so. In regard to safeguarding I simply ask two questions about well-being and safety. They are on page 28, paragraph 8.2. Basically, my two questions were, "Are the concerns for child protection over-represented within the breastfeeding community; and if so, what could have been done through better regulation to ameliorate those effects?"

Finally, with regard to nutrition itself I recommended further work to be done, to determine, in the context of what constitutes not 21st-century formula feeding, but 21st-century infant nutrition that is required, what is "suitable" and "full-term", now. The definitions that we have got are only defined by case law. They are not legal, and they are pretty woolly. Although I came to no firm conclusions I recommended that further work be done on that; indeed, in the same way that I recommended that we explore more about child-led weaning. We don't know enough; we don't know enough in terms of research, particularly on what are the outcomes for children as a consequence of that.

I began by saying that I'd written this report in seeking to balance the rights of children with the rights of their parents. I hope that, if implemented, it gives children a voice. I know that in itself is contentious. But I have also tried to give breastfeeders a voice. I recommended that they be engaged in the process of determining what is "full-term" in breastfeeding, that they be involved in training, that they be involved in all the things that follow, and that, crucially, health professionals create a forum whereby they regularly hear from breastfeeding parents about the services that are provided.

I believe that the breastfeeding community has much to offer in developing our understanding of the effectiveness or otherwise of bottle-feeding. It holds a mirror up to bottle-feeding, and to that end, I have to say, Chairman, I have been somewhat surprised by the reaction of a vociferous minority -and I do think it is a vociferous minority; I can actually count the number of people who have done it. I have found the remarks of some of them offensive, but I draw comfort from an academic friend of mine who says that often personal attacks are made when logic has been defeated. I don't regard those people as a majority. I think that I have benefited enormously from learning of their experiences, but I actually think that the change in regulation and greater scrutiny is essential for the children.