§ (1) Subject to regulations made by the Secretary of State the Board shall—
- (a) exercise general supervision, protection, and control over defectives;
- (b) supervise the administration by local authorities of their powers and duties under this Act;
- (c) certify, approve, supervise, and inspect institutions, houses, and homes for defectives, and all arrangements made for the care, training, and control of defectives therein;
- (d) visit, either through one or more Commissioners or through their inspectors, defectives in institutions and certified houses and approved homes, or under guardianship, or (with a view to their certification) elsewhere, and persons who have been placed under the care of any person as being defectives;
- (e) provide and maintain institutions for defectives of criminal, dangerous, or violent propensities;
- (f) to take such steps as may be necessary for ensuring suitable treatment of cases of mental deficiency;
- (g) make annual reports and such special reports as the Secretary of State may from time to time require;
- (h) administer, in accordance with this Act, grants made out of money provided by Parliament under this Act.
§ (2) Without prejudice to their powers and duties under any regulations which the Secretary of State may make for further 442 or more frequent inspection and visitation, it shall be the duty of the Board, through one or more Commissioners to inspect every certified institution, certified house, and approved home at least once in each year, and either through themselves or their inspectors to inspect every certified institution, certified house and approved home one additional time in each year and every defective under guardianship, at least twice in every year, and any Commissioner shall have power to discharge at any time any person detained in a certified institution or certified house or under guardianship under this Act:
§ Provided that a Commissioner shall not exercise such power of discharge without the consent of the Secretary of State in the case of a person sent to such an institution by order of the Secretary of State from a prison, criminal lunatic asylum, place of detention, reformatory or industrial school, or inebriate reformatory, so long as the term for which he was committed to the prison, criminal lunatic asylum, place of transferred remains unexpired.
§ Mr. WEDGWOODI beg to move in Sub-section (1) paragraph (d) to leave out the words "(with a view to their certification) elsewhere."
I want specially to call attention to paragraph (d). The Board and their inspectors do not only visit the institutions or people who have been certified as defectives, but they hold a fishing inquiry and go round to see whether people should be segregated or not. That at present is not the duty of the Lunacy Commissioners, and I think it is an undesirable thing that it should be the duty of the new Board of Control. We do not want to have more interference with the homes of the people than we have now. It appears to me to be a very undesirable power to give to this Board, and I have put this Amendment down to specifically call attention to it. I will move my Amendment, and not the omission of the whole Clause as I intended. The whole Clause deals with a great many points that it is undesirable that the Board of Control should look after. I trust the Home Secretary will be able to meet me. I think everyone that thinks of it will agree with me that such a fishing inquiry by the Board or its inspectors will not tend to the popularity of the Bill when it becomes an Act.
§ Mr. McKENNAI understand my hon. Friend is moving the Amendment to leave out the words "(with a view to their certification) elsewhere." The reason for these words is very simple. If my hon. Friend will look at Sub-section (4) of Clause o, which we have already passed, he will see it provides that
Where the Board are satisfied that a petition under this Section ought to be presented concerning any person, and that the local authority have refused or neglected to cause a petition to be presented, they may direct an inspector or other officer to present a petition, and this Section shall apply accordingly.It is in order to carry out the duty imposed by that Sub-section that this power is required.
§ Mr. WEDGWOODIf that is so, and, of course, we passed Clause 5 under the Closure last night, the Home Secretary should make it quite clear then the difficulty would be met. Otherwise you leave it in the power of the Board to make fishing inquiries, and although. I have every confidence in the present Home Secretary, I have no confidence that the Board will not consider it their province and duty to hold those fishing inquiries.
§ Mr. McKENNAThey will only have the powers conferred by the Bill.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONI beg to move to leave out paragraph (e).
The work which the Commissioners do now in the inspection of lunatic asylums is exceedingly important work and is well done. It is very necessary that the new asylums including mental defectives, who should be educated and dealt with very carefully, should be well inspected. They are to be congregated with people removed from lunatic asylums at different periods, and, in some cases, with people of criminal propensities. It is therefore very important that the inspection of these institutions should be of as high a standard as that of lunatic asylums at the present time Here you have this peculiar position. In the case of lunatic asylums now you have inspectors who have nothing to do with those lunatic asylums or with the management; they come from outside and can criticise them freely. Under this Clause their duty is to provide and maintain an asylum, and the only person who is to inspect is the very person who has to provide and maintain the asylum. That is a 444 thoroughly bad system, and the result of it is that the person responsible for running the establishment is the only person to come down and inspect them.
§ Mr. MALCOLMI beg to second this Amendment.
It has been my sad lot when I was chairman of a hospital to travel all over Europe looking at hospitals for nervous diseases, and it has become more and more clear to myself and those who worked with me that these institutions for defectives of a criminal, dangerous and violent propensities should not be mixed up with those in other institutions. I have seen men in Austria and Munich who have committed murder the night before put into these baths, in which they remain for eight or nine months at a time. This proposal in this Clause is going right against the scientific tendency of the present age.
§ Mr. McKENNAI think the hon. Member has misunderstood the purport of this paragraph. He suggests that separate institutions for criminals of dangerous propensities should be maintained by the State and that is what we propose. The defective institutions will be maintained by the local authorities. The proposer of this Amendment does not quarrel with the proposal that the State should provide and maintain separate institutions, but he thinks some other authority should be set up by the State for the sole purpose of providing these institutions. I think in this case the hon. and learned Member has made a mistake. It is quite time theoretically that it is undesirable to have the same body inspecting on the one hand itself and maintaining a similar institution on the other, but that is not a similar institution. It is quite a different kind of institution from the ordinary institution provided and maintained by the local authorities, and all the defectives who are criminal and dangerous will be transferred from the local authorities' institutions to the State institution. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would press us to set up another authority merely to provide for this class of defectives.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMI should like to give the House an illustration which entirely confirms the views of the proposer of the Amendment. Some years ago during the time of the late Conservative Administration, I received a letter from a man at Broadmoor Asylum who said that 445 he had been confined there for some twenty-four years for a very petty offence. He wrote to me over a series of years, and I eventually went to see him. I became convinced that he was absolutely sane, and I asked various Home Secretaries, one after the other, to allow me to send a specialist to see the man whom I was told was a violent person. The man, as a matter of fact, was perfectly sane, but the doctor at the asylum said that he was not, and that he was not going to recommend the Home Secretary to allow him to be discharged. The Home Office acted in their usual stupid manner, and I was not allowed to send an independent doctor to see him. Eventually, I was told how to get the man out. I was told to get him transferred to the county asylum at Nottingham on the ground that his relatives were poor. I did so and the man was under the inspection of the medical officer of the county asylum at Nottingham for a year. Ultimately he was let out and he now has a barber's shop in my Constituency and shaves a largenumber of people. I have not been shaved by him myself, but I am certain that I should get a very excellent shave if I were. This I mention to show that it is the doctor who says whether a man is to be let out or not and that the Commissioners are of no use at all. This man used to shave the prison officials, and yet he was confined there for twenty-four years. Therefore, if the hon. Member goes to a Division, I shall vote with him.
§ Mr. WEDGWOODI understood that all the mentally defective persons who are at present in prison will be transferred to these State institutions. It is not merely persons of violent and dangerous propensities but all those who are at present in prison who will be transferred to other institutions, so that you will not get a specialist's institution, but a distinct institution for dealing with the larger part of the 30,000 mentally defectives with whom you are going to begin. The question, however, arises whether the State would provide a sufficient number of separate institutions. You do not want to have in one institution the sixteen different classes male and female, of four different types, and simply to talk of them all a scriminal. Such lunatics is quite beside the mark. This is going to be a very wide Clause indeed, and I do not think we ought lightly to hand over the management of the greater number of these mentally defective persons in the way proposed.
§ Mr. MALCOLMI wish to ask the Home Secretary whether these are really to be State hospitals set up by the Home Secretary or by the Board. A State hospital must be set up on the authority of the Home Secretary, and I should like to know if he does not mean that they are to be State hospitals altogether, and whether he has satisfied himself, in the event of State hospitals being set up by the Board, the Board being subordinate to himself, that there are sufficient extra doctors to undertake the staffing of these hospitals. That is a very serious question.
§ Mr. McKENNAThe number of institutions to be set up under paragraph (e) will be extremely small. We do not propose to transfer all the defectives, as the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme seems to think, to these institutions, which will be specially for lunatics who are criminal or dangerous—I do not mean criminal in the way of petty thefts or offences of that sort, but really dangerous and violent criminals. We anticipate setting up not more than one or two of those institutions. The Board of Control in future will be under the Home Secretary in setting up institutions of this kind.
§ Mr. POLLOCKI have been looking again at the Bill. I thought for the moment that the Clause was similar to the Clause in the Lunacy Act, but it is a little different, and I see that the matter is already sufficiently covered. I think, in the interests of getting on with the Bill, the cases being so few and so small, that upon the whole my hon. Friend is right. I thought, when he made his speech, that he was wrong, but looking at the powers under the Lunacy Act and the powers in this Bill, I have come to the conclusion that he is right, in spite of what the Home Secretary has said, because it seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman has overlooked the powers which he possesses in subsequent Clauses of the Bill. I do not think he needs this in addition to the very wide powers he has already taken.
§ Mr. BUTCHERI venture to support the appeal of my hon. Friend who has just spoken. Let us assume it is right to set up these institutions. I agree there ought to be institutions of that description. But it is the duty of the Home Secretary to provide and maintain them, and if so, then this Bill is wrong, because it lays the duty on the Board to arrange for payment. Let the Home Secretary undertake the duty, employing as his agents the Board or any 447 other body or persons he may choose. But to say that the Board shall provide them is to place an improper function on that body. What is the Board to do? It is to supervise, protect, control; it is to exercise purely administrative managerial functions. But how is it to provide and maintain the institutions? Where is it to get the necessary money from? There is no provision in the Bill of funds for providing and maintaining such institutions. I beg the Home Secretary to consider whether it is proper the Board should deal with such questions as providing these institutions, and whether this is the proper place in the Bill to raise the point. Would it not be better to have a separate Clause or proviso, making that part of the duty of the Home Secretary to provide and maintain such institutions.
§ Mr. GOLDSMITHWill the effect of omitting this Clause be to put mentally defective persons now in State institutions in ordinary institutions maintained by local authorities? If so, I shall not support the Amendment, because it would involve putting half the cost of the maintenance of these people on the local authority, whereas, as the Clause now stands, the whole cost has to be paid by the State and not by the local authority. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether at the present time there are such institutions in existence to which criminal lunatics can be sent? What, too, is the difference between a criminal lunatic and a defective who has criminal, dangerous, or violent propensities? I believe there is very little difference indeed.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONI would urge the Home Secretary not to insist on this Clause. He says he really does not mean it for criminal defectives, for he has already full power to deal with that class. Criminal lunatics are already sent to
§ Broadmoor. The question is whether the cost of the poor people with whom this Clause deals shall fall on the rates or taxes. This is another blot on the Bill; it is a very fair illustration of the danger of such a Sub-section as this. If these people are sent to an institution for the mentally defective under this Bill the Government contribution towards their maintenance will be 7s., but if they go to an ordinary lunatic asylum then the contribution will only be 4s. Will not the effect be to fill these institutions with people who would otherwise be in ordinary lunatic asylums? You will, in fact, have a type of institution set up which is unnecessary, because all these cases can be dealt with either at Broadmoor or in existing lunatic asylums. By introducing this you are setting a very bad precedent; you are making people responsible to provide and maintain institutions; you are, in fact, making them inspectors of these institutions at the same time. This is not a mere theoretical point; you are making a very bad precedent. Your Commissioners at the present time are doing their work thoroughly well; they understand the duty of inspection, but they have had no experience of providing and maintaining institutions such as these. That work is usually undertaken by a very different type of person to the class who act as inspectors, and I venture to submit to the Home Secretary the great desirability of omitting this Clause, because it is introducing a thoroughly bad precedent, of putting on the Commissioners work which they ought not to be called upon to do. It is not for them to provide and maintain these institutions. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will meet us, otherwise, we shall have to press the matter to a Division.
§ Question put, "That paragraph (e) stand part of the Bill."
§ The House divided: Ayes, 203; Noes, 65.
449| Division No. 226.] | AYES. | [12.25 a.m. |
| Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) | Beck, Arthur Cecil | Chancellor, H. G. |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George) | Chapple, Dr. William Allen |
| Adamson, William | Bentham, G. J. | Clancy, John Joseph |
| Addison, Dr. Christopher | Bird, A. | Clough, William |
| Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton) | Boland, John Pius | Clynes, John R. |
| Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles p. (Stroud) | Booth, Frederick Handel | Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock) |
| Arnold, Sydney | Bowerman, C. W. | Condon, Thomas Joseph |
| Baker, H. T. (Accrington) | Boyle, D. (Mayo, North) | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. |
| Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) | Brace, William | Cotton, William Francis |
| Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark) | Brady, P. J. | Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe) |
| Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset) | Brunner, John F. L. | Crumley, Patrick |
| Barnes, George N. | Bryce, J. Annan | Cullinan, J. |
| Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick) | Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) |
| Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.) | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) |
| Barton, William | Carr-Gomm. H. W. | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) |
| Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks | Cave, George | Dawes, James Arthur |
| Beauchamp, Sir Edward | Cawley, H. T. (Lancs., Heywood) | Delany, William |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S.Molton) | Phillips, John (Longford, S.) |
| Devlin, Joseph | Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) | Pointer, Joseph |
| Dickinson, W. H. | Lardner, James C. R. | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West) | Radford, George Heynes |
| Doris, W. | Leach, Charles | Raphael, Sir Herbert H. |
| Duffy, William J. | Levy, Sir Maurice | Reddy, Michael |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Lewis, John Herbert | Redmond, John (Waterford) |
| Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley) | Lundon, T. | Redmond, William (Clare, E.) |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Lyell, Charles Henry | Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.) |
| Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid) | Lynch, A. A. | Rendall, Athelstan |
| Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) | Lyttelton, Hon J. C. (Droitwich) | Richardson, Albion (Peckham) |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N). | Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J. | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Essex, Sir Richard Walter | MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) |
| Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson | Macpherson, James Ian | Robertson, John M. (Tyneside) |
| Ffrench, Peter | MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Robinson, Sidney |
| Field, William | McGhee, Richard | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Rowlands, James |
| Fitzgibbon, John | M'Laren, Hon. F.W.S. (Lincs.,Spalding) | Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Manfield, Harry | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| France, Gerald Ashburner | Marks, Sir George Croydon | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Gibbs, G. A. | Marshall, Arthur Harold | Scanlan, Thomas |
| Gladstone, W. G. C. | Meagher, Michael | Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B. |
| Greig, Colonel James William | Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) | Sheehy, David |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix) | Shortt, Edward |
| Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.) | Middlebrook, William | Simon, Rt Hon. Sir John Allsebrook |
| Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) | Millar, James Duncan | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| Hackett, J. | Molloy, M. | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.) |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Stewart, Gershom |
| Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire) | Mooney, John J. | Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West) |
| Harris, Henry Percy | Morrell, Philip | Sutherland, J. E. |
| Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West) | Muldoon, John | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Hayden, John Patrick | Munro, R. | Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) |
| Hayward, Evan | Murphy, Martin J. | Tennant, Harold John |
| Hazleton, Richard | Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Helme, Sir Norval Watson | Nolan, Joseph | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Norman, Sir Henry | Webb, H. |
| Henry, Sir Charles | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston) |
| Higham, John Sharp | O'Connor, John (Kildare. N.) | White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E.R.) |
| Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | O'Doherty, Philip | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Hughes, Spencer Leigh | O'Donnell, Thomas | Whitehouse, John Howard |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | O'Dowd, John | Wiles, Thomas |
| John, Edward Thomas | O'Malley, William | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth) | O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid) | Williamson, Sir Archibald |
| Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) | O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) | Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.) |
| Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe) | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.) |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | O'Shee, James John | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney) | O'Sullivan, Timothy | Wing, Thomas Edward |
| Joyce, Michael | Palmer, Godfrey Mark | Young, William (Perthshire, East) |
| Keating, Matthew | Parker, James (Halifax) | |
| Kelly, Edward | Parry, Thomas H. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Gulland and Mr. Geoffrey Howard. |
| Kilbride, Denis | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) | |
| King, J. | Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Baird, J. L. | Goldstone, Frank | Peto, Basil Edward |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Greene, W. R. | Pollock, Ernest Murray |
| Barlow, Montague (Salford, South) | Gretton, John | Pryce-Jones, Col. E. (M'tgom'y B'ghs) |
| Barnston, Harry | Guinness, Hon. W.E. (Bury S.Sdmunds) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich) | Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne) | Sanderson, Lancelot |
| Bennett-Goldney, Francis | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish- | Hogge, James Myles | Spear, Sir John Ward |
| Bigland, Alfred | Hope, Harry (Bute) | Starkey, John R. |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian) | Sutton, John E. |
| Burn, Colonel C. R. | Horner, Andrew Long | Tobin, Alfred Aspinall |
| Butcher, John George | Jessel, Captain H. M. | Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay |
| Campbell, Captain Duncan F. (Ayr, N.) | Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Lewisham, Viscount | Wheler, Granville C. H. |
| Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W. | Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester) | White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport) |
| Clay, Captain H. H. Spender | M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) | Whyte, A. F. (Perth) |
| Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham | Markham, Sir Arthur Basil | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton) | Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E.R.) |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Needham, Christopher | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M. | Newman, John R. P. | Younger, Sir George |
| Falle, B. G. | O'Grady, James | |
| Gilmour, Captain John | Parkes, Ebenezer | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Rawlinson and Mr. Malcolm. |
| Glazebrook, Capt. Philip K. | Perkins, Walter Frank | |
| Goldsmith, Frank |
Question, "That the word 'some' stand part of the Clause," put, and agreed to.