HC Deb 01 March 1938 vol 332 cc937-54

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1938, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Prison Commissioners and of the Prisons in England and Wales

3.59 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Samuel Hoare)

I am afraid that on this Vote it will not be possible to have a discussion on Borstal treatment and the results which have been achieved from it, but possibly at some future time, on the Home Office Vote, I shall have an opportunity of saying something on that subject. So far as to-day is concerned, I must, I understand, restrict myself very narrowly to the object for which this sum of £10 is required. We need this Supplementary Vote to enable us to start on the completion of a transaction the result of which will be to give us another Borstal institution. The Committee will wish to know why we want another Borstal institution and what kind of institution we contemplate. It may be suggested that we need a new Borstal institution owing to what is called by many people outside the great growth of juvenile delinquency. I have more than once had an opportunity, both in this House and outside, of dealing with that question, and I have stated what is my own view and the view of my advisers, that there is no reason to suppose that the new generation is going to the dogs. If statistics suggest that the young are becoming more and more criminal, to a great extent that can be explained by a much simpler and more accurate kind of explanation.

So far as Borstal cases are concerned, for instance, I suggest that the main reasons for the increase are three: First of all the passing of the Children Act, which greatly stimulated public interest in the whole question of the treatment of juveniles; secondly, the fact that only about a year ago the age for boys and girls in Borstal institutions was raised from 21 to 23; and, thirdly, the fact that we are now beginning to feel the results of the increase of population in the years immediately after the War.

I think it will be found that those are the three main reasons why we want more Borstal accommodation, and why, when we come to consider the next Vote, we want more accommodation in approved schools. Moreover, our experience goes to show that both with Borstal institutions and with approved schools it is a mistake to have too big institutions. The essence of the treatment is individual influence upon the boys and girls, and when you have institutions which are too big and too full you cannot get the real benefit out of the kind of training that we are attempting to give to these young people. The result is that we need another Borstal institution for boys and we need it at once, both for the extra numbers and for the better individual treatment that is possible in these rather smaller institutions.

The other question upon which hon. Members will wish to have some information is, what kind of institution am I asking the Committee to approve? Our proposal is that we take over what was in the past the London County Council centre for the unemployed at Hollesley Bay, Suffolk. The Hollesley Bay centre is very well suited for a Borstal institution. It covers something like 1,300 acres of land. It is particularly suitable for the cultivation of fruit and for other kinds of agricultural work which we are finding very valuable as training for Borstal boys. Further than that it gives us the space to disperse the houses over a considerable expanse rather than to concentrate them in a single centre. We have found, in our efforts to increase the self-reliance and the feeling of responsibility of the boys, that we succeed better if we deal with them in small groups of this kind rather than in a single central large institution.

We propose at Hollesley Bay to divide the boys into four or five separate communities, run upon what in schools is called the house system, all of them open to the country and not enclosed by high walls. One of the most interesting features of Borstal training has been the absence of prison wails and the freedom of the boys to move about in a large expanse of open country. As the Committee know, that has been so successful an experiment that we have in recent years extended it to one of our prisons, that at Wakefield, and perhaps it is one of the most satisfactory features of modern penal administration that you can so often succeed, indeed you can so often better succeed, without the high walls and mediaeval appearances of the older prisons. In any case this new institution will be a group of colonies scattered over the 1,300 acres of agricultural land. I think it is just the kind of background that we need for an institution of this kind. The training of the boys will certainly mean a lot of exercise, a lot of hard work, a lot of intensive training, but it will not require high walls or rigid police supervision. I hope that after that short explanation the Committee generally will agree with both the objectives underlying this Vote.

Mr. Maxton

How many are you going to house at this place?

Sir S. Hoare

There will be eventually about 300, divided into five groups. We are starting on a smaller scale. I am anxious that as soon as we can we shall call these boys colonists and call the groups in which they are dispersed colonies. The more in Borstal institutions and approved schools we can get away not only from the old penal traditions but from the terminology as well, the better it will be.

4.10 p.m.

Mr. Rhys Davies

I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by £5.

I do not think the Home Secretary has told us the whole story yet. If he does not mind my saying so in passing, he has painted Hollesley Bay and such places as Wakefield and the prisons of the land almost as if they were holiday resorts. This token Vote, of course, is put before us in order that the Home Office may proceed with the purchase of Hollesley Bay in Suffolk. We are told that the colony will cost £85,000, and that it is intended to spend £108,769 on alterations and additions. To the uninitiated the first question to occur would be, would it not be better to put up a new and modern building? There is another thing that ought to be remembered. I understand that these boys are to be brought from all over the country, but I do not know definitely whether the Home Office has it in mind that this new Borstal institution will just be a place to receive boys from a comparatively small area or whether it is intended that they shall be brought from all over the country. It seems to me, as one who is not very well versed in this problem of Borstal training, especially as relatives have to visit the boys from time to time, that we should not concentrate too much on any given area when these boys are being trained.

The Home Secretary ought to give us a little more information about one aspect of the problem. I see that the London County Council had a fairly large staff at this place. Unless I am mistaken they had 120 officers and employés. Are the London County Council transferring any of those employés to the Home Office when the place is taken over? If the Home Office intends to take over some of these employés, are they the right type to manage an institution of this kind? If the high aims of the right hon. Gentleman are to be carried out in the training of these young people, the staff that was good enough for an unemployed colony like Hollesley Bay can hardly be suitable for a new Borstal institution. The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly right in saying that there are at least three specific reasons why the old Borstal institutions are bulging. We include in them now certain categories that were excluded hitherto. In these extensions at Hollesley Bay I am wondering whether the right hon. Gentleman has any plan in his mind. Is he satisfied that this place will be sufficient for the next five or ten years? Those who are interesting themselves in the training of these young men have paid a great deal of attention to what is called psychology. I cannot very well deal with the general problem of psychology in connection with this Vote, but when the Home Office embarks on a new institution like this and spends nearly £200,000, it ought to have all the available experience and equipment that are needed to provide training that is suitable to these young people. I have visited one or two institutions where that sort of thing is done, and I am sorry to say that, by comparison with one or two foreign countries, we are not up to standard in that connection. I should have thought the right hon. Gentleman would have been able to say something about some new treatment of young offenders, when he is embarking on a new institution. When we enter a new house, we try out new experiences as a rule. I think the Home Office should bear that in mind when buying this new place.

Might I suggest that in future, when we come to the main Vote, we ought to get the report covering Borstal institutions very much earlier. The report for 1935, dealing with the very problem we are now discussing, was published only in April, 1937. I do not think that is good enough. We ought to have the report in order that our deliberations may be intelligible. I want to ask whether, in proceeding with this new institution, all the known methods of training are to be adopted and a new type of teacher introduced. Vocational training has been introduced in our Borstal institutions to the disadvantage of instruction; I think it is admitted that instruction, as such, is lacking in some of them. I see no reason why we should be over-critical of the Home Office for extending accommodation for Borstal in the way the right hon. Gentleman proposes, and we shall therefore decide later whether we shall divide against the proposal or not.

4.20 p.m.

Sir John Withers

I should like, first, to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman very heartily on the most sympathetic way he introduced the Vote. When he described what is going to be done at Hollesley Bay, I thought it was a very good augury for the future. The whole thing to my mind, is to distinguish as far as possible between the different types of wrong-doers. Here, you have a perfect place—a very large estate with five different houses; and you will be able in each one to deal with a particular sort of ill-doer that you want to retrieve. After all, the object is not to punish but to retrieve; and I think the right hon. Gentleman understands that. I think the Hollesley Bay experiment ought to be supported, on the ground that it gives an opportunity for new ideas to be put in force.

4.22 p.m.

Mr. Lansbury

I wish to support the proposition before the Committee, but I also wish to call the Committee's attention to the fact that, in this question of Hollesley Bay, we have retrogressed rather than gone forward. This estate has been in the hands of public authorities for over 30 years. It was bought originally by an American, and the object for which it was bought was to train men; to prevent them, because of poverty, becoming chargeable to the taxes or the rates; and to develop the idea of cooperative smallholdings in this country and, for those who chose to go, abroad. It was a training institute for men who at that time received no unemployment pay, and for whom there was no organisation whatever except what was called the London Unemployment Fund. I think it is worth while reminding the Committee that this estate, which is now being handed over by the London County Council, originally cost, bare, with only the then buildings on it, £30,000, and that that money was advanced as a free loan to London, together with some other thousands of pounds for other buildings, on an honourable understanding that the estate should never be used for Poor Law purposes, or any other purposes than training men who needed training for the land. Mr. Joseph Fells tried very hard to get that embodied in the final sales agreement, but the President of the Local Government Board at that time pointed out that the public authority could not be bound in that way, but that both Mr. Fells and the local authority should take that into account and that it would be honoured. The War came and the whole idea of that place was smashed, and it become more or less—more rather than less—an able-bodied workhouse; and it has remained that ever since. The idea of any training has passed away, until now it is to be part of what is known as Borstal, for, I suppose, young people.

No one, I think, will quarrel with the Home Secretary's statement as to the manner in which this new institution is to be used. We all agree, that the smaller number there are to be dealt with the better; but I want, if I may, to say that it is really a terrible criticism on our social life and conditions that this place, originally established for the purpose I have mentioned, should have passed through these various phases and that we should now feel obliged to use it for this particular purpose. Without disputing what the Home Secretary said, that young people were not more criminal, and that the statistics proved that, it remains true that the bulk of these youngsters—I think the overwhelming proportion of them—come to the condition which forces us to support a proposition of this kind, mainly because of unemployment. I cannot help thinking that, instead of taking this place and establishing other Borstal institutions of a similar character on the Wash, a saner thing would be to take these boys and girls long before they reach the point where you have to deal with them as semi-criminals and settle them, or train them to settle, either on the land here or, if they wish it—and not in any other circumstances—abroad.

The Deputy-Chairman

The right hon. Gentleman is getting rather wide of the Supplementary Estimate. He would be quite in order on the main one.

Mr. Lansbury

I was quite sure, Captain Bourne, that I should go wrong before I finished, but I think I am in order in calling attention to what this place was established for, and expressing my regret that it has gone back and that now it is to be used in connection not with causes but with effects. Having expressed my regret, I want to say a word or two about the estate itself.

Viscountess Astor

I should like to put this point to the right hon. Gentleman, because I know that he and I feel the same. Really, you cannot say that most of these boys in these homes are victims of poverty. It is often a case of moral delinquency in their parents. It is not all poverty.

Mr. Lansbury

I never said that it was all due to poverty. I said that a considerable proportion of it was. I happen to deal with many more boys and young people than does the Noble Lady.

Viscountess Astor

I am not at all sure about that.

Mr. Lansbury

I am quite certain that I do, and there is no one in this Committee who knows more about the Hollesley Bay Estate than I do. Although I hope that it will be bought, I spent years as chairman of the committee which was responsible for managing it, and I have had the dissatisfaction of seeing it reduced to what it is to-day Does the Noble Lady think that it is a good thing that boys and girls should be born into the world and allowed to sink to such an extent that they have to be brought up in these places? I should have been sorry if my children had had to undergo the same kind of treatment.

Viscountess Astor rose—

Mr. Lansbury

I know perfectly well that my children and the children of the Noble Lady have very often been guilty of things that they ought not to have done. There are moral lapses everywhere, but do not let us be so foolish as to imagine that the crime in this country with which Borstal has to deal is all the result of moral lapses. It is poverty caused by economic conditions. [Interruption.] I have made that statement, Captain Bourne, and I am prepared to prove it whenever I have an opportunity.

The Deputy Chairman

I have allowed the right hon. Gentleman to proceed because of the interruptions, but I think that he had better try to prove it on some other occasion.

Mr. Lansbury

I hope, Captain Bourne, that you will be able to do what no other person in that Chair has ever been able to do, and that is, to keep the Noble Lady in order.

Mr. Ede

Find a Borstal institution for her.

Mr. Lansbury

Given the condition that you are obliged to deal with these young people, there is not a more ideal place in the country than Hollesley Bay. It is all that the Home Secretary claimed for it, and I am sorry that we have been obliged to deal with it in this way. I wish the boys the best of luck, and I hope it will be remembered that, in spite of what the Noble Lady has said, these are not merely cases of moral lapses, and that these boys have no more original sin than either the Noble Lady or I possess, but are just ordinary boys who have not had as good a chance as she and I have had.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. Benson

I can understand the feelings of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), who has been so long connected with Hollesley Bay, but I think that to some extent he realises that the whole essence of Borstal treatment is that of training. This morning I tried to find out what a Borstal institution is, and I was rather astonished to find how extraordinarily vague is the definition. As far as I can gather, a Borstal institution is a place where boys shall be trained and be subject to moral influences. That is the only definition we seem to have of a Borstal institution. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I think the whole Committee will agree that, if we have to have a new Borstal, such an admirable site should have been found for it. It is about three times as large as that of any other Borstal institution, and it contains a variety of occupations. After all, it means that we shall get another Borstal which is not merely a converted prison. That is an enormous advantage. No matter what the Home Secretary or his advisers do to a prison building, they cannot make it suitable for a Borstal institution. If you have a prison building or something equivalent to such a building, you have to lock up your boys at night, and, as the Home Secretary himself has said, locks, bolts and bars are entirely antagonistic to everything that Borstal means. If you are to build up trust and responsibility—and that is the essence of the Borstal treatment—you must have the very maximum of freedom for the boys.

I was rather disappointed in the statement of the Home Secretary as to why this new Borstal institution is necessary. I was aware of the increase not so much in crimes as in convictions, but I was hoping that the Hollesley Bay institution might ultimately lead to the closing down of one of the old Borstals. We seem to some extent to have overcome the overcrowding of Borstals of a few years ago. The period during which boys stay in Wormwood Scrubs has now been reduced practically to a minimum of something under three weeks. That period is necessary for their general organisation and classification, and I had hoped, when I first saw the Supplementary Estimate for a new Borstal, that it might mean that there would be an opportunity of closing down one of the older and less satisfactory Borstals. Perhaps, however, that will come in time.

I should like to know what type of boy is to be sent there? I assume that it is mainly character rather than geographical classification which decides where a boy has to go. What type of regime are we to have there? That is of fundamental importance. We want more information as to the type of boy to be sent there, and what perhaps is to be done with him. We can get little or no indication from previous Borstals as to what is to happen, because there is no such thing as a Borstal system. There are seven Borstal institutions with entirely distinct systems, and this is going to make eight, and we have no guidance whatever as to what the right hon. Gentleman intends. I should judge from what we have been told, that it is an admirable place for a regime of minimum security for unruly boys. It is easy enough to give minimum security for boys who are not likely to run away or to give trouble, but here we have an opportunity of giving minimum security conditions to boys who in a camp nearer to a large centre of population might need a great deal more care exercised in regard to their supervision.

At any rate, this is a place for experiments. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will make experiments boldly. As there is no Borstal system, he will have to strike out on a new line, and I hope that he is going to be bold. I would draw the attention of the Under-Secretary to the fact that those responsible for Borstal treatment are in an extraordinarily strong position. To begin with, they are absolutely free and unfettered. They have no regulations except of their own making. The words of the Act are so vague, indefinite and nebulous that they can do anything. The public will accept anything provided it is in the right direction, but they will not accept reaction. They will accept bold experiments of a progressive character. Borstal has proved itself over and over again, and it has given results in a way that could never have been dreamed of.

The Deputy-Chairman

I would remind the hon. Gentleman that he cannot raise this matter on the Supplementary Estimate. Such a statement would be in order on the main Estimate.

Mr. Benson

I take it that I can urge upon the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary the desirability of making experiments in connection with this particular camp. This is an opportunity for experiments, and I hope that we shall have experiments of a very broad and farreaching character. I do not like the use of the word "institution" in this Supplementary Estimate in relation to "New Borstal Institution." The word "institution" has very unsavoury associations, and I hope that we are going to avoid as far as possible anything that one might term an institution. I know that it is difficult, but we should try to avoid institutionalising boys and girls. In regard to a boy who must be disciplined, it would be very difficult to avoid institutionalising, but it is very important, and I think that it can be done. The remedy seems to lie along two different lines. As the boy progresses in his sentence he should progressively become freer. That, I believe, is done to some extent, and it ought to be done even more. As the boy progresses more responsibility should be thrust upon him. Responsibility never did anybody any harm, and I feel that if Borstal treatment is to be improved it must include far greater responsibility than has hitherto been tried.

I suggest that the form it should take should be in the direction of experiments in self-government. I do not suggest that self-government should apply to the whole camp, or that boys who go there should immediately be given self-government. The Home Secretary has told us that we are to have five distinct camps. Is there any reason why these camps should not be graded in freedom and in responsibility? Is there any reason why the camp to which a boy finally proceeds before he passes out should not try the experiment of self-government? It has been very wisely said that you never avoid mistakes unless you give the opportunity of making mistakes, and it is also said that no Member of this Committee ever learns the Rules until he has broken them. I am not quite sure that that is a very happy parallel, because I think that the main advantage of knowing the Rules of this House is that we can avoid them without breaking them. It is essential that the boys should have an opportunity of making mistakes. The system of responsibility and the appointment of leaders is good, but I think that it might be bettered. I do not know whether I am in order on this point, but I would like to read a quotation from an article by a Borstal boy on this very point of responsibility. It is a quotation from an article in the "Howard Journal" by Mark Benny, who has been at a Borstal camp: Perhaps one in 10 house captains did take his job seriously and tried to acquire qualities of leadership. Most of them took it as a job, that gave them more privileges than they deserved. I feel that while this system is an attempt to introduce self-government, it would be much more successful if it were on a broader basis. Instead of this semi-democratic autocracy, there should be full democracy. Each boy should have a voice in the government; each should help to make rules and to impose them. That may seem ideal, but if they are to make their mistakes and blunders it is better that they should make them inside than outside. I do not suggest that this proposal is going to be simple, or that it will not involve a considerable amount of trouble, but I do not think that anyone who ever applied for the job of being house master was not prepared to face some trouble. The whole essence of the scheme is the getting over difficulties, and I hope that the Home Secretary will see to it that these experiments in giving greater freedom and greater responsibility are tried. It is not an entirely new idea. I assume that he is conversant with the position of the Q camp, a voluntary organisation under the guidance of Mr. David Wills, himself an old Borstal master. There they are striving to run the camp on a system of self-government. They had their troubles, any amount of them, but the experience of the camp is well worth examining. Lessons can be learned from it which could be applied to other camps. The Home Office are acquiring a magnificent estate which ought to be used to its fullest capacity for experiments, and if those experiments are carried out I feel sure that they will bear full fruit in the future.

4.48 p.m.

Mr. Kelly

I was disappointed with the statement of the Home Secretary, because he gave us very little information as to the type of training that is intended to be carried out. I hope that we shall hear more on that subject before we pass the Vote. A great many people are concerned about this matter, particularly those who have had the least to do with young people. I hope that there will be a little more regard paid, not to finding out what is the matter with boys or girls when they have been sentenced, but that every endeavour will be made to find out more about them before conviction.

The Deputy-Chairman

I am afraid that the hon. Member cannot raise that point on this Vote.

Mr. Kelly

I will not go any further with it. I am anxious to know what is the type of training to be given at Hollesley Bay. I know it well, as a member of the county council, and I know that we shall pass the estate over to the Home Office at the price which they are offering, together with the silver cups, medals and the rest of it which are attached to Hollesley Bay. I hope that we shall be told whether it is intended to send young people from the approved schools to the places that are termed Borstal institutions. If so, it is a serious matter, because the Borstal institution, although we have tried to take the prison taint out of it—

The Deputy-Chairman

The hon. Member is not entitled to raise the general question of sending juveniles to Borstal establishments on this Estimate.

Mr. Kelly

I hope that the training will be suitable. With regard to the purchase of the Hollesley Bay Estate from the London County Council, may I ask whether it is being purchased because of the lack of accommodation in the other institutions that already exist for what is termed Borstal training? If that be so, I am wondering why so many people are sent to such places and why there should be so much inclination to send young people for this institutional training rather than training them in their own homes. I hope that fewer young people will be sent to these institutions and that greater regard will be paid for home life, so that there will be fewer young people appearing before the courts.

4.50 p.m.

Viscountess Astor

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for having taken such a practical interest in the question of problem children. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Kelly) hopes that more interest will be taken in home life. If he will look at the report of the Children's Branch of the Home Office and will scan the list of homes—

The Deputy-Chairman

That matter does not arise on this Vote.

Mr. Kelly

I do not need to look at that report. I know it.

Viscountess Astor

It is very difficult to keep in order on this Vote. I would only say that I have been deeply interested in the Borstal experiment, which has proved itself beyond any words. It has proved itself to an extent which people could not have believed would be possible. We hear now and then of failures, but the number of the cases of success are staggering. We have experimented by allowing some of these children to go to camp—

The Deputy-Chairman

The Noble Lady cannot raise that point on this Vote.

4.52 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher

When the Home Secretary spoke about removing the prison walls he said that the first experiment in this country was made at Wakefield. If he was referring to England as "this country," he is correct, but if he was referring to Britain, I would point out that the first experiment was made in Scotland. I know that is so, because I helped to build the prison. I should like to suggest very seriously that opportunities should be given for the children to visit their homes. With regard to the Hollesley Bay Estate, one speaker drew attention to the distances that children would have to come from their homes. In view of the statement made by the Home Secretary about the walls being removed and a great free area being provided for the lads, I suggest that it would be very desirable if, instead of the parents having to travel long distances to see them, arrangements could be made to give the children a week-end at home occasionally. That would be one of the finest innovations, and if it were introduced I do not think there would be any trouble with the boys. They would understand and appreciate the great value of the concession, and their contact with home would be a very big advantage. I hope the Home Office will seriously consider that matter.

4.54 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd)

At the Home Office we agree with the suggestion that has been made by the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), and we have already started a system of home visits from the Borstal institutions. Such a system is unquestionably valuable. There is, therefore, no difference of opinion between ourselves and the hon. Member on that matter. I do not think it is necessary for me to argue generally the question of this Estimate because there is general agreement in the Committee. It merely remains for me to answer a number of the points that have been put. In the first place, I appreciate the position of the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) with regard to the report of the Prison Commissioners, and I am glad to be able to tell him that it will come out in the immediate future.

Mr. Rhys Davies

For 1937?

Mr. Lloyd

The report that is due. The hon. Member can hardly expect us to make a change of a whole year in our arrangements on the spur of the moment.

Mr. Davies

Why not?

Mr. Lloyd

Because it would require very careful consideration. On the question of the buildings, the hon. Member made a very practical comment when he asked whether it would not be better to have entirely new buildings. The real position is this. There is this large building at Hollesley Bay, and it is proposed to use the existing building as a central administrative block, and for the classes and the accommodation of one of the houses. All the other houses will be new buildings. I think that is a practical solution. With regard to staff, the hon. Member asked what would be the position of the London County Council staff at Hollesley Bay. We are in communication with the London County Council at the present time and discussing with them how many of the existing staff we can take on. All those who are suitable for the new work will be kept on. The hon. Member also asked about training. He had in mind the staff particularly concerned with the security side, the specific Home Office side, as opposed to the technical side, the work of fruit farming, and so on. They will be trained very carefully, mostly at the other Borstal institutions and will be drafted in as occasion offers.

Perhaps the most important point is the type of boy and the question whether we shall confine ourselves entirely to boys coming straight to Borstal institutions, or whether there will be a certain number of absconders from Home Office schools. There are a certain number of absconders from Home Office schools, but the number is not very large: it would not mean much to allocate them to one particular Borstal institution, and they fall to be considered in the general plan of the allocation of the boys to the various institutions. Therefore, the type of boy will not be entirely confined to those who go straight to Borstal institutions, but as opportunity offers in the ordinary course of administration there will be a certain number of boys that come from Home Office schools.

Mr. Kelly

The hon. Member speaks of absconders from Home Office schools going to Borstal. Are we to understand that boys and girls can be sent to Borstal without an order of the court?

Mr. Lloyd

I understand that an order of court is required; it is a well recognised and established procedure. Let me say a few words about the name "institution," which was raised by the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson).

Mr. Benson

I was not worrying about the word "institution," but rather the institution itself.

Mr. Lloyd

I appreciate the hon. Member's point and I think we are all agreed in regard to that, and the speech of my right hon. Friend showed it very clearly. In order to mark that tendency, my right hon. Friend said that the new place would be called a "colony" and not a Borstal institution. That follows the procedure adopted in regard to Lowdham Grange and the North Sea Camp.

With regard to the character of the boys and girls who are to go to this colony, they will, broadly speaking, be those who are considered suitable for a system of minimum security. Of course rather the same problems arise as arose in the case of Lowdham Grange where the regime is very much one of minimum security also. This colony will follow Lowdham Grange in that respect. Undoubtedly in the beginning boys have to be selected, with some care, for this type of Borstal institution. Obviously, more risks are run with boys of a certain character than with those of another type. If we take the view that, as time goes on, we may get a stronger tradition in the colony we can afford to be rather freer in our choice. Very often there are borderline cases which might not respond to the atmosphere of the colony in the beginning but which would respond later when there is a stronger tradition in the colony.

The question of psychological treatment was raised by the hon. Member for Westhoughton. I do not think it would be in order to say very much upon it for this reason, that there would not be necessary any specific technical organisation or, for example, space in this new colony, as psychological treatment is generally centralised in the boys' prison at Wormwood Scrubs. It is carried out there and has been going on for some time. We expect a report shortly upon that work, and the whole subject can then be considered.

Mr. Benson

Is it not the case that this work is confined to the ordinary prisoners and does not touch the Borstal boys who merely pass through Wormwood Scrubs and spend only about three weeks there?

Mr. Lloyd

The work has both those functions. The boys do pass through Wormwood Scrubs as a central clearing house, and if it is thought that they need special psychological treatment they stay there. Also, when the boys have gone out to the various institutions, if it is thought, as a result of experience in the institutions, that they would benefit by special psychological treatment, they go back to Wormwood Scrubs where they get the benefit of a very high degree of specialised technical skill. I may say, in passing, on that aspect of the matter that although we all know now that a certain number of people do respond to psychological treatment in an extraordinary way, there are, on the other hand, a certain proportion of failures as must be expected. Also the mass of boys unquestionably do not need psychological treatment but will respond to the ordinary commonsense instructional methods that are used at the Borstal institutions as a whole.

In any case, we have now a scheme under which a certain proportion of the housemasters in the Borstal institutions—and this, of course, applies to the colony—are trained at the Institute of Industrial Psychology in vocational guidance. Boys will have to that extent psychological training. Admittedly it is not deep psychological analysis—nevertheless it is a very useful side of psychological training. We welcome this new colony as a place in which experiments can be carried out—experiments no doubt in the direction of increased responsibility for the boys although I would not like to go as far as to come down definitely in favour of the system technically known as "self-government." The hon. Member for Westhoughton said he thought that we were falling behind in this matter. I would remark that a recent German report on the question of the treatment of young criminals said that anybody who wanted to study that matter to the best advantage should go to England and study the Borstal system.

Mr. Lansbury

When does the hon. Gentleman expect to make a start? Has any date yet been fixed?

Mr. Lloyd

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, this is a token Vote and is to enable us to go ahead with the actual technical question of buying. I do not think that in the immediate future we expect to do more than that.

Mr. Lansbury

What I wished to suggest was that very often the Home Office invite Members of the House to visit places which are much less worthy of attention than this, and perhaps it would be a good thing if an opportunity were given to hon. Members to visit the colony.

Mr. Lloyd

I understand that 1st April is the date of handing over, and I gather from my right hon. Friend that there is an invitation to hon. Members to visit not only this colony but all Borstal institutions.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Resolved, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1938, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Prison Commissioners and of the Prisons in England and Wales.