CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS [MONEY] (No. 2). (Hansard, 8 April 1932)

§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Oliver Stanley)

I am sorry to have to trouble the Committee with this amended Financial Resolution for the Children and Young Persons Bill. It arises owing to a purely drafting point, and beyond this there is no substance in the Resolution. The circumstances under which this amended Financial Resolution becomes necessary are as follows. Under the existing law the responsibility is placed upon the police authorities in local districts to provide places of detention and towards the expenses of police authorities in providing these places of detention a grant is made from the Exchequer. Under the Bill now being considered in Committee upstairs these places of detention will in future be known as remand homes. Certain minor alterations in the arrangements will be made and in future the obligation to provide them will rest not upon the police authorities but on the local authority itself. It is, however, still desired in these new circumstances to continue the Government grant to the remand homes provided by the local authorities, just as a Government grant is made in respect of places of detention provided by police authorities. Although this alteration makes no further charge on the Exchequer yet, owing to the fact that the object for which the money is to be granted is technically different, 519 it was necessary to include it in the first Financial Resolution passed when the Bill was first before the House. In that original Financial Resolution the essential words referring to this particular expenditure were: The expenses of a council of a county or of a county borough…in respect of children and young persons in remand homes established and maintained by them either alone or jointly with any other council. At the time we moved that Resolution it appeared to us sufficient to cover the continuance of the existing system, but I am afraid that in that drafting I rather overlooked the difference in character of the places of detention and remand homes in different local areas. The drafting I adopted would undoubtedly have covered the ordinary remand home provided in larger areas like London, where a separate remand home is established and maintained—in the words of the Financial Resolution—by the local authority, or a public institution already maintained by a local authority which are used not only in their original character but also as places of detention. But the position in the smaller local areas is rather different. There are areas where the number of persons whom it may be necessary to send to remand homes is very small, perhaps a remand home is not required for years, and it has often been the practice not to provide any separate establishment at all but to make use either of existing institutions, such as voluntary hostels, or in the smallest areas a room in a policeman's house or the school. It appeared on reconsideration that remand homes of that character, where you could not say that they had been established by the local authority or were maintained by the local authority, would not have been covered by the original Financial Resolution and, therefore, the Treasury would have been unable to make a grant in respect of the local authority's expenses in regard to them. If hon. Members will look at the amended Financial Resolution they will see that we have taken out the words, "established or maintained," and simply inserted the words: any expenses of a council of a county or of a county borough, or a large burgh in Scotland, in respect of remand homes. That is a broad wording which clearly will cover all the varying types of homes, 520 and will allow us to continue our present grants system and to give to the local authorities that financial assistance which I am sure hon. Members would wish to continue.

There is one further point. Under the existing machinery we also make a grant towards the capital expenditure which a local police authority may incur in the erection or establishment of a remand home. Owing to the alteration of the machinery, whereby the obligation is transferred from the police authority to the local authority, it is no longer clear that under the existing words we should have been able to continue such grants towards capital expenditure. This new form will certainly enable us to continue that expenditure. I apologise to hon. Members for having to trouble them with a Financial Resolution which I should have presented in the proper form on the first occasion. I hope they will be prepared to give me the Resolution, so that I may insert the appropriate Amendment in the Bill that is now before a Standing Committee.

§ Mr. RHYS DAVIES

I am sure the Committee will congratulate the Under-Secretary of State on the skilful way in which he has got out of a very serious difficulty. He has conducted the Bill with a great deal of skill up to now, and I am sorry that his advisers have let him down in this matter. I am not going to oppose the Resolution. I want to say "Amen" to it in the end. The Under-Secretary left until the end of his speech what is the whole problem. The first Financial Resolution that we passed provided that expenditure could be incurred in connection with the maintenance of remand homes, but the Home Office and the Treasury seem to have forgotten that there may be new buildings necessary sometimes. This is one of the instances where the Government are muddling through anyhow, and we must congratulate the hon. Gentleman on rescuing the Government from another muddle.

I am very anxious to support everything that is done in connection with this very admirable Measure. I would add, however, that if the Government can do all this with remand homes, how is it that they cannot do anything with regard to observation centres? I am very delighted indeed that more money, or the better distribution of the money, is to be 521 secured by the passing of this Resolution. We on the Labour benches will do nothing to prevent the expenditure of money in a proper way in connection with the treatment of young offenders. Having made my protest that the Government have not seen fit to include observation centres, I beg to support the Resolution.