Competence

I have never met Victoria Gillick, and I have only ever had one telephone conversation with her, during which she told me that her attitude to the Conservatives was that "I spent 18 years campaigning against them" (a sign of how long ago it was), while the Labour Party "used to be based on Methodism, but now it isn't". No one who has been active in the pro-life movement has any time for the Conservative Party as such, and there has always been a particular abomination of the name of Margaret Thatcher. But the drugging and mutilation of children in the service of gender ideology has revived the issue of Gillick competence, and not before time.

As long ago as 1985, 38 years ago, the Thatcher Government secured a judicial fiat that, without bothering to ask Parliament, abolished the age of consent altogether. Gillick competence ought instead to be called Thatcher competence. The Major Government did write Thatcher competence into the Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland) Act 1991. But it is applied in Northern Ireland on no authority that is apparent to anyone. And even in England and Wales, it has never been subject to a parliamentary vote. Let there be one now.