APPROVED SCHOOLS, ETC, ENGLAND AND WALES. (Hansard, 27 February 1936)

§ Mr. LLOYD
An original sum of £90,000 was provided for approved schools, and the increased sum now asked for is due to the fact that the number of boys and girls going to these schools has been greater than was anticipated. The number has risen from 6,483 in 1933, to 6,816 in 1934, and the present figure is 7,430. For remand homes an additional sum of £4,000 is required, and that also is because there have been a larger number of boys and girls sent to these homes than was anticipated at the beginning of the year.

§ Mr. RHYS DAVIES
Everybody who is acquainted with the good work in the approved schools will pay tribute to them for what they have achieved. They have indeed a very difficult task to perform. The figures given by the Minister would indicate that juvenile delinquency in this country is increasing alarmingly. But the situation is not exactly that. The passing of the Children Act of 1933 extended the age of the young person from 16 to 17, and the increased number may be attributed in part to that factor. I would like to ask the hon. Gentleman what is the intention of the Department in respect of these schools. I gather that magistrates —

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
The hon. Gentleman can only raise that later on the main Estimates.

§ Mr. DAVIES
Will the Under-Secretary tell us where these new approved schools are to be built? There is a complaint from the parents of some of these children that they are sent to approved schools that are too far away for them to visit, and that the expense of travelling is too heavy. I hope that the Home Office will bear in mind that these new schools should be located in places that will not be too far for the parents to visit. I hope the hon. Gentleman will bear in mind also a point that has been raised on many occasions before. The boys and girls are not graded in these schools. Some of the boys want care, and do not require the severe training that is sometimes meted out to them.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
Again I think the hon. Gentleman is raising a 736 matter that must come on the main Estimates.

§ Mr. DAVIES
I think I am entitled to argue in connection with approved schools as to the method of handling those who are in the schools.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
Not on this occasion. The hon. Member can raise that when the new Estimates for 1936 come on. At the moment we are only concerned with the increased sum.

§ Mr. DAVIES
I should have thought that the new schools would be built to put somebody in, and that putting somebody in these schools meant that children would be there. The hon. Gentleman should take note that in the new schools they should start the new process of handling these boys and girls. It would be appropriate that they should begin in these new schools to grade the boys and girls. There will, of course, be some boys there with just wayward tendencies, there may be boys sent there of rather criminal habits, and the point has been made that there should be certain schools set apart to deal with certain types of boys and girls. The last suggestion I would make to the hon. Gentleman is this. These new schools are apparently required because there is not adequate accommodation for the number of boys and girls sent to them by magistrates. I am informed that boys and girls "sentenced" to be sent to the schools are kept in remand homes for six and seven months, and I am told also that some are kept in hostels and go from their homes to and fro from the hostels for several months at a time because there is no accommodation for them in approved schools. Will the hon. Gentleman tell us how long it will take to establish these new schools? Will the programme take two, or three or five years The proposal seems to me rather more urgent than the hon. Gentleman seemed to indicate. Will the hon. Gentleman also be good enough to indicate where they are to be located?

§ Mr. MAXTON
I am terribly disappointed at the request for this Vote, and I am not prepared to excuse the additional demands as easily as my hon. Friend seems to do. He seemed to think that the increased age of commit- 737 ments under the last Children Act justified the demand for additional accommodation and staff. I do not know what other Members of the House thought when we were passing that Act, but I was under the impression that the net result of that legislation would be to reduce substantially the number of young children admitted to institutional treatment, that it would tend to expand the probationary system, that it would enable the judicial and educational authorities who had to deal with young people running off the rails or getting into trouble through some schoolboy prank or other, to deal with the matter by probation, and by more careful attention to these difficult types by the teachers in the ordinary schools. Now we find that the result is an increased commitment to an institution which, under whatever name you call it, is a prison. It is the halfway road to the Borstal Institution. The change of a name has made no essential difference to the fact that the boy who is committed to one of these places has a public stigma attached to him which is known to all his friends, and that he is committed there for a period of time beyond the normal school age. He is kept in strict confinement, he is allowed only limited opportunities of returning to his chums and home.
I am tremendously disappointed, and I would like the hon. Gentleman to tell us how it has come about that the hope of all of us that the number of young people sent to these institutions would be substantially reduced, that the reformatory and industrial school under its new name would be a vanishing institution, has not been realised. It was hoped gradually to eliminate these particular institutions from our public life. Now they are on the increase. Are magistrates making use of their probationary powers? Are they trying to fill these institutions? Are magistrates being led into the belief that these new approved schools are an Eton and Harrow business and that they are conferring a benefit on the youngsters in sending them there? Why is it the case that the Home Office is now asking for a substantially increased sum and for powers to build eight new schools? I hope that I shall be in order in saying something about the type of school which this additional money is going to build.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is perfectly in order in inquiring what type of schools are provided for under the Bill.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I want to ask what sort of school architecture the Home Office is establishing for these new schools. Are they to be schools or small-sized prisons? Are they to be built and equipped on the principles which apply to good secondary schools? Is the living accommodation to be the large dormitory, or are the boys to have living conditions which can compare with the home life rather than with institutional life? Are they going to have proper playing fields and a proper gymnasium? Are these schools going to be staffed by specially qualified teachers if possible, with the special psychological training which is desirable in the handling of difficult cases, or are they going to be staffed, as the old reformatory industrial schools were staffed, by a type of teacher who himself has got some sort of a black mark against him, which rather bars him from acceptable appointment in the ordinary educational life of the nation? Is it going to be the case of criminals being educated not by criminal teachers but by teachers who have not maintained their intellectual status or the moral character status which is expected of the ordinary teacher?

§ Sir JOSEPH NALL
Surely that is a most unfair aspersion to make on those who are selected to run these special schools.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I do not know. I never like to be unfair and I hope that I have made no unfair aspersions. I was speaking with a certain amount of knowledge, and I do not think that I was going beyond the known facts of the case. The representative of the Home Office is here, and I presume he will be able to defend these staffs. If he can give an answer and tell me that in staffing these approved schools they are looking for men of the highest qualifications and character and that the present staffs are of that type, I say in advance that I have no intention of casting aspersions on them. The point I was going to make is that this is exceptionally difficult educational work. I want to know whether the Home Office in the staffing of these new schools have this in mind, and are making the condi- 739 tions of services such as will attract the best type of man in qualifications and in character. If that is the case at the present time it has not always been so in the past. If the Under-Secretary has the necessary information available I hope he will give an answer to these points, and also to the additional question as to the location of these eight new schools, and inform us whether the increase in commitments to these schools is fairly generally distributed throughout the country or whether it is occurring only in particular areas, in those areas where magistrates take a different view of their responsibilities from magistrates in other areas.

§ Mr. R. DAVIES
I am sure the hon. Member will pardon me when I say that I had intended to develop exactly the arguments which he has developed. I agree entirely with all that he has said. When I sought to develop my argument I was called to order three times.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I kept in order all the time.

§ Mr. R. DAVIES
Simply because it is you.

§ Sir PERCY HARRIS
I was not surprised at the speech of the hon. Member or at the interruption of the hon. Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall) because I think the blame must rest on the Department and on the Minister in bringing forward this Supplementary Vote without any explanation whatever. There should have been a White Paper explaining these remarkable figures. The fact that this is a Supplementary Estimate is the serious matter. In the explanatory memorandum you will find the words: Accommodation in existing schools has been exhausted and certificates have been granted to eight new schools since the commencement of the year. We have heard alarming statements about the increase in crime and its causes. They were interpreted in various ways according to the predilections of the hon. Member who was discussing the problem. Some of the increase, it is said, is due to the abnormal amount of unemployment, some to malnutrition and some to the administration of the law. I do think that we require an explanation why it is necessary to improvise this additional 740 accommodation. These are not brand new buildings. Not even the ingenuity of the Home Office can build new buildings in six or 12 months. This is improvised accommodation. The accommodation in existing schools has been exhausted and certificates have been granted for eight new schools since the commencement of the year. When the House is asked to vote sums like this the Department ought to take the trouble to provide an explanation in some kind of memorandum. We are entitled to say to the Under-Secretary that even on Supplementary Votes the Department should exercise just as much care to give full information to the Committee as they do when bringing forward the main Estimate.

§ Lieut.-Colonel SPENDER-CLAY
The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) has complained of the increased number of young people who are sent to these schools and has made certain criticisms in regard to that matter. It may be that magistrates in different areas do not adopt the same methods in sending children to these approved schools. He criticised the character of these schools and hoped that they would retain something of the home life. In many of these cases I think he would find that the home influence leaves much to be desired, and that it is well for the children that they should be removed from the influence of their homes.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I have in mind the case of a man who becomes unemployed. He has a wife and family; surrounded by trouble of one sort or another. The children are not properly cared for. There is a whole group of boys and girls, and they are committed and taken away for five years because the family are in temporary difficulties. Can the hon. and gallant Member justify that?

§ Lieut.-Colonel SPENDER-CLAY
I think that our first consideration must be to help the rising generation in spite of the misfortunes which may have befallen their parents. If children are suffering through contact which is undesirable I think it is proper to send them away. I should like to draw the attention of the Under-Secretary to this point, that there are complaints about these remand homes; that boys and girls who are sent to remand homes remain there 741 for weeks and months before being sent to an approved school. It is in the highest degree desirable that life in a remand home should be shortened. The children cannot be properly supervised and ought to go to an approved school as early as possible. I am glad that the Home Office are doing something to extend and improve the methods of dealing with the young in order to give them a better chance in life.

§ Earl WINTERTON
I know that we must be rather careful in what we say on the Supplementary Estimate if we are to keep in order, and, therefore, I only desire to give reasons why an increase is needed in these schools without explaining how these reasons arose. What I may say is not hostile to the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), although it may to some extent conflict with what he has said. A very disturbing state of affairs is arising in Sussex and the South of England generally. Whatever may be the effects of unemployment elsewhere, they are not to be found there, since there is no juvenile unemployment and very little other unemployment in that part of the country. Nevertheless, juvenile crime is increasing, and, rightly or wrongly—I cannot discuss the matter on this Estimate, nor do I express any opinion—more and more children are being sent to the remand homes or approved schools.

§ Mr. MAXTON
Is the crime of a serious nature?

§ Earl WINTERTON
Sometimes it is very serious. It might be interesting to hon. Members to glance at a list of the juvenile offences—I will use the more lenient term—for which the children in one of the most prosperous parts of England are being sent to these schools at the present time. It is this growth in the number which is the reason for the increase in the Estimates, for there is undoubtedly most undesirable congestion in some of the approved schools at the present time.

§ Mr. KELLY
I was very sorry to hear one hon. Member say that he was pleased to hear that the Home Office is making more provision for sending children to the approved schools. I think there is too much 742 readiness on the part of my fellow justices to send young people to approved schools, often for offences which are mere pranks and which ought not to be the cause of taking the children away from their homes. I have often heard justices say that young people would be much better off if they were in these wonderfully-conducted approved schools. I would ask the Under-Secretary whether there has been any investigation into the causes of this increase, which has taken place since 1933, in the number of young people sent to the approved schools. I wonder whether there are many cases such as the one I came across about a fortnight ago, where a boy was sent to an approved school because he was unemployed, refused to continue at the instruction centre and had the good sense to refuse to enter—

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I think the hon. Member is now very close to challenging the decision of a court. As long as he deals with the matter on general lines he is in order, but as soon as he comments on a special case he is out of order.

§ Mr. KELLY
I am not commenting on the sentence, but only pointing out the type of case which is responsible for these additional costs. Again, those of us who are responsible for the conduct of some of the colonies for mentally defective children—responsible for five or six thousand of the young people of this country—find that children are being sent to the approved schools and later transferred to colonies for mentally defective children. I should be glad if the Minister could inform us whether there has been any investigation into the causes of this increase, and I join the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) in asking whether the increase is spread over the whole country or is peculiar to certain districts.
With regard to the eight new schools, does this mean that children who are sent to the approved schools are to be sent to schools where there are other children who have not been to the approved schools? If so, could the Minister tell us where these schools are and the type of children, other than those sent from the approved schools, attending them? I have heard references to the influences of the home. If the bad influences of the home are responsible for juvenile 743 offences, we shall have to remove a great many of the children from the slums of this country because of the bad homes there and enter them in approved schools. That is not what any of us desires. We would rather improve the homes than have the young people sent to approved schools as they are being sent at the present time.

§ Mr. EDE
The hon. and gallant Member for Tonbridge (Lieut.-Colonel Spender-Clay) and myself sit on the same quarter sessions bench but we sit on different petty sessions benches, and at our respective sessions we have to face the problem of the astonishing increase in what the Noble Lord called juvenile crime.

§ Earl WINTERTON
I agree that those words were inappropriate. I later used the words "juvenile offences."

§ Mr. EDE
I understand that the recognised term at the Home Office is "juvenile delinquency." The number of young persons up to the age of 17 years who appear before the various juvenile courts has increased very much in number. The figures for the counties of Kent, Middlesex and Surrey show that a little over double the number of cases came before the courts last year than in the year before the Act was passed. I share the disappointment of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) that that should be so; but I would point out that there has been brought in an entirely new reason for sending a child to an approved school—the consideration as to whether the child needs care and protection. Undoubtedly the magistrates have used that power very freely, and I do not comment on their wisdom or lack of wisdom in doing so, but I know of one case of a tall youth, almost 17 years of age, who, when he was committed to the remand home, knocked over a couple of policemen and had to be taken to the remand home by four policemen. When I made inquiries, it was reported to me, as chairman of the county council, that the youth was before the court because he was in need of care and protection. It may well be that he was in need of moral care and protection, in spite of his hefty physical appearance and his capabilities on the physical side.
744 It must be borne in mind, however, that the question of care and protection has been introduced, and that on the day the Act became law one-third of the population of this country was under 17 years of age. The proportion was very high owing to the exceptional birth-rate in the years 1920 and 1921. I hope I shall be in order when I say that we have not yet made it a delinquency to be in a home that does not meet all the requirements of the magistrates—