A petition asking the government to vaccinate all children against Meningitis B has now garnered over 700,000 signatures, and as a result the government will now schedule a debate on the issue. It is the most signed petition in parliamentary history.

Any petition which receives 10,000 signatures automatically requires the government to respond, usually in the form of an open letter. If a petition receives 100,000 signatures or more, the government is then under a duty to consider holding a debate on the petition’s contents.

The campaign was started for two-year-old Faye Burdett, from Maidstone, Kent, who caught the infection and died after 11 days. 

The government has now agreed to hold a debate, but before they do, they would like to hear from families who have been affected by Meningitis B, as well as medical experts. You can read the government’s update which was published this morning, below:

The Petitions Committee has agreed to schedule a debate on this petition.

Before setting a date for the debate, the Committee would like the House of Commons to have the chance to hear from some of the families who have been affected by meningitis B as well as from relevant medical experts. This will help to inform MPs taking part in the House of Commons debate.

More details about this will be announced in due course. We will keep you informed about what is happening and how you can get involved.

Thanks,
The Petitions team
UK Government and Parliament

We will publish further details as and when they come in.

New documents which have come to light suggest that convicted paedophile Bishop Peter Ball’s defence team had tried to do a deal with the police in order to avoid “the scandal of a trial”. Ball confessed to his legal team which included a priest, that he had been sexually abusing young men.

The documents, which have been described as information solely for the Bishop of Chichester and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, say Ball had been “abusing not only his office but very many young men”.

One of Ball’s victims also expresses the view in the article linked to above that there appears to have been a deeply sinister cover up, though not a particularly sophisticated one.

The documents raise some very concerning questions:

• Which other senior members of the Church of England clergy knew Ball was an offender?
• And how was Peter Ball allowed to carry on working in churches up until 2010 when members of the clergy knew he had confessed and were informed he was responsible for a string of sex attacks?

George Carey has refused to comment on his own knowledge of the incident, but has agreed to go before the nation’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and answer questions on the matter, as well as engage with the Church’s own internal review of the Ball case.

Very many thanks to Phil Johnson for alerting us to this development. If you would like to know more about Phil and his brother’s national campaign to bring Peter Ball to justice, and further details on the case above, please search our website using the search term ‘Peter Ball’.

The Guardian newspaper has created a hugely interesting series called “My Letter To The Public” which allows public servants like child welfare professionals to write in about what’s bothering them inside their sector.

From the state of things for kids in care to supporting women suffering domestic violence in the face of horrendous budget cuts, this series is well worth a read, and well worth contributing to if you’re a child welfare or family work professional.

The entries are all anonymous, which allows for complete freedom of expression: an important aspect of these articles, as writing about the flaws inside the sector for those working in it, is a dangerous pastime. Fear of being punished or fired for whistleblowing, and other unethical behaviours which stem from telling the truth is a significant issue, and so being able to voice honest opinion on such a widely read platform is a welcome step forward.

If you’re a social work or family justice professional, you can send your piece in to tamsin.rutter@theguardian.com 

Good luck.