Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has weighed in on the debate over Kirstie Allsopp, saying, ‘Frightful busybodies in this country should mind their own business’.
Speaking on GB News Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “Children develop at different ages. [Kirstie Allsopp’s] son is 15 I think and may even have turned 16 by now.
“Social services have a lot to do. They have telecommunications, they can keep in touch, they know the number of the emergency services. Mobile telephony works across Europe.
“What happens if you're 53 and you're run over by a bus? There are always risks, and life is about taking risks. And parents allow their children to take gredated risks as they get older, and some children are ready to do things.
“I would have had complete confidence in my current 15 year old and now 16 year old doing this. They're highly competent children, they would have been able to do it.
“Isn't this parental choice from an earlier stage? If you wrap your children in cotton wool, from the day they're born when they're 15, when they're 25 they're still incapable of doing anything.
“You need to allow them to be incrementally independent. So to go on a British train by themselves when they're 10 or 11, then to do a continental train at 15. To do the occasional international flight unaccompanied. All these things show them growing confidence and spirit.
“I think there is a battle over children between the state and parents, and that the state wants to control everything, but I think parents know best. And I think parents are entitled to allow their children to take risks, and the state has no business interfering.
“But aren't [parents] just as likely to make mistakes as the state? And therefore, if a mistake is to be made, better it should be made by a parent than by the heavy hand of the state.
“The state has no business interfering in a 15 year old travelling. It's not a five year old being abused. That's where social services should be concentrating their support: The children who aren't in school, the children who, since covid, have never returned, not a child of celebrity where they picked up gossip in the papers. It's just headline chasing.
“There are some frightful busybodies in this country who should mind their own business. But social services should recognise that.
“I actually hope parents will think the other way and think we can allow our children to do more. Because I certainly think that my children have been allowed to do less than I was allowed to do, and I did less than my father's generation did.
“I think, fear not, and he'll be all the more competent for it. I also think that the busy body who reported them really ought to go to boil his or her head.”
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