HC Deb 07 July 1948 vol 453 cc511-21

Lords Amendment: In page 9, line 35, at end, to insert: Provided that any person being a parent or the guardian of a person of whom particulars have been so furnished shall be entitled, on application to the officer having the custody thereof, to examine those particulars in his presence, but shall not be entitled to receive or take copies thereof.

Read a Second time.

10.40 p.m.

Mr. McCorquodale (Epsom)

I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman should move to agree with the Lords Amendment first, or whether I should first move my Amendment to the Lords Amendment which is on the Order Paper. I should like your guidance, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker

To tell the honest truth I am not quite sure, but I think the right hon. Gentleman is correct in doing so.

Mr. McCorquodale

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in line 4, to leave out from "particulars" to the end of the Lords Amendment.

I should like to thank the Minister for bringing in these Amendments. This first Amendment is in line with all the promises which we exacted from him after some difficulty. He has met the point that we made. There are one or two further observations which I should like to make about this matter, having had some period to consider it since our Debate on 26th May. I fully agree that some words are used there which might be held to cover what this Amendment seeks to do, but I will endeavour to show the right hon. Gentleman that the words which we wish to leave out do not in any way assist in arriving at the conclusion that the House wished when we discussed this matter on the Report stage, but rather they give what we might colloquially call a slap in the face to the idea of parenthood in the matter of children, which we are endeavouring to safeguard.

The right hon. Gentleman will probably have seen the remarks in "The Times" Educational Supplement following the Debate here. I endeavoured to refresh my memory this afternoon by going into the Library to read what the Educational Supplement said, but I found that it had been extracted by someone else and no complete copy was available. I shall have to try to rely upon my memory as to what "The Times" Educational Supplement said, which was to the effect that, while the promise was satisfactory as far as it went, the matter needed to be closely watched to see that no retrograde step was taken when the matter was brought forward again. When we discussed the matter previously the House agreed that the most important person to be considered was the boy or girl, and next, the parent was not any less important than the youth employment officer. It seems to me that by being so meticulous in the words that have been used in the last line and a half of the Amendment moved in another place, we have placed the parent once again in a position which is below that of the youth employment officers in regard to the child.

This matter is so important from a status point of view that I make no apology for discussing it at this late hour of the night. If the words are left in which we wish to leave out it will mean that in the opinion of the Government the parent only comes in as something of an afterthought, and he or she is not to be trusted like the youth employment officers and is only there, so to speak, on sufferance.

Imagine what may happen if these words are carried to their full conclusion. The parent will make application to come to see the report which is in the hands of the youth employment officer. The youth employment officer is perhaps a very busy man. He has to be there all the time—"in his presence" it says—and must find the first available time for the parent to come to see him. It may be some time ahead. The parent then arrives and it may be that during the discussions the youth employment officer is called to the telephone or to some other appointment. The report is to be locked up. The parent is not to be trusted with it alone. It is to be seen only in the presence of the youth employment officer, and if the parent produces a pen or pencil, and wishes to make notes the youth employment officer must say to him, "You are not allowed to do that. You are only allowed to read it, and not to make notes. You can memorise it and make notes afterwards, but in my presence you must not make any notes." The youth employment officer being a sensible man, as I know officials of the Ministry of Labour are, I would suggest, will not do this. But if he does not do this he will be breaking the law, and it puts him in a ridiculous position to be sitting there as a sort of superior person saying to a parent who has come there to discuss his own child with the officer, "You must not look at it if I am called out of the room for a moment. You are not to be entrusted with a copy to take away, or to make notes which you may take away." I suggest that the Government did not surely mean this, and I would go further and suggest how it has happened. I believe some of the Minister's advisers were not too happy at the Parliamentary Secretary accepting the spirit of the Amendment.

I would remind the House that this is no party affair. This was pressure put upon the Government from all sides of the House from people who wished to see that the status of the parent was maintained in this matter, and that this House, Parliament, and this Bill should recognise that, where a boy or girl was concerned, the parent ought to have proper consideration. I would remind some hon. Members who were not here during the previous discussion that the Government's original proposal was that the master from the school should make a report to the youth employment officer and that it should not be made available to the parent at all, and after discussion the general opinion of the House was that this was absurd. The parent has a responsibility for the child at least equal—and I am putting this very moderately—with that of the youth employment officer, and should certainly see the schoolmaster's report. One hon. Member suggested that it might be embarrassing to the schoolmaster if the re- port which he had made on the child was to be seen by the parent. No schoolmaster should make a report on a child which he is not prepared to show to the child's parent, if he be prepared to disclose it to a third party. Therefore, I do not think the schoolmaster enters into this discussion at all.

We agreed that copies of the reports should neither be sent nor broadcast. We all want to see them regarded as confidential to the parent and to the youth employment officer; but the Government by this Amendment seem to think that although the youth employment officer can be trusted to keep these matters confidential the parent cannot. I object to that view. I say that if these words are left out there is still a complete confidential status kept in so far as anything can be kept confidential. We do not suggest that these reports should be sent through the post. We only suggest, and this I asked on the Report stage, that they should be made available on request to the parent if he comes to discuss them. The words used on Report were that they should be made available on request and, in another place, that they should be made available to the parent if he required them.

If the right hon. Gentleman would accept our Amendment, which has the full support of the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay)—I much regret that he could not be here for he was associated with us in the earlier discussion—it would make no difference whatever to what actually will happen, but it will remove the smear against the status of the parent by giving him an equal right at any rate with the youth employment officers to see the reports of the schoolmaster on his own boy. In these days we all know that one of the things which we must all foster is the home-life of the country and the parental control which has so largely been lost and the loss of which is the cause of the wave of juvenile delinquency all over the country. We must not derogate from the responsibility of the parent over his own boy or girl and I am sure that neither the right hon. Gentleman nor the Parliamentary Secretary wish to do so.

I would suggest, in all seriousness, that the right hon. Gentleman's officials have been altogether too meticulous in granting the very minimum they possibly could—possibly, because they were annoyed that we pushed, and the right hon. Gentleman agreed to go, so far. I would ask them, even if it is some inconvenience, to take this matter back to another place again and I realise that it is some inconvenience. I would ask them, nevertheless—and I ask in no party spirit, for I have regard to these matters due to my past associations—to remove these offending words, or at any rate the last lot of them, for they do to my mind, and to the minds of all those with whom I have discussed this matter, appear to be a direct hit at the status of the parent, obliging the parent to go as a suppliant to the youth employment officer in this respect. Cannot the right hon. Gentleman leave out the words that they must be in his physical presence all the time. The parent is not entitled to receive or take copies. The parent must not produce his fountain pen or take a copy of the report about his own son. It seems to me a monstrous idea and quite unnecessary. The confidential point will, as I say, be covered by the words of the rest of this Amendment if we leave out these other words.

10.55 p.m.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs)

I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman should have brought this Amendment forward, and should have so completely swallowed the words he used on the Report stage. We have given, exactly and precisely, what was then asked for and what was promised, and on that promise the proposal was then withdrawn. The right hon. Gentleman then said: I agree that we do not want these reports floating about and we do not want copies made."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th May, 1948: Vol. 451, c. 236]. Now he is telling us that we cannot trust the parents, we are too meticulous, we are making heavy weather—and all because we are in this Lords Amendment doing exactly what he asked us to do. He also said: We also feel that it should apply for a limited period, and that when it has outlived its usefulness it should be destroyed and not hang as a millstone, possibly, round the neck of the boy or girl throughout his or her life."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A. 11th May, 1948; c. 67.] The hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Langford-Holt) also urged very strongly—and we accepted it—that these reports should be destroyed at some given period. For that reason we agreed that the reports should be restricted as closely as possible to the officers concerned, and should not be distributed around. We had a long discussion on the merits or demerits of this question. I do not propose to go over that Debate again. I am confining myself now to the request that was made and the promise that was given. I will only draw attention briefly to what was said by six hon. Members who took part in that Debate. The hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay) said they wanted the parents to have the advantage of seeing the document. The hon. Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin) said that parents would request to see the report and say: Can I have a look at the report?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th May, 1948; Vol. 451, c. 224.] The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) said there was an absolute right to see a copy if the report was seen by the parent. The right hon. Member for Epsom (Mr. McCorquodale) said that it should be shown to the parent, and the hon. Member for Shrewsbury also said that the Committee could see what the child's parent could not. The hon. Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. Mellish) said that there must be the right to look up the document.

All the way through there was a direct demand to see the document. At the end of it, the right hon. Gentleman said: The parent should go to the Employment Officer or the headmaster or this meeting, and when he is there he should be allowed to know what is in the report. If the Minister would go that far, I should be with him."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 26th may, 1948; Vol. 451, c. 236.] We have gone as far as that. My right hon. Friend, winding up the Debate, said: I think it is agreed on both sides that copies of this report ought not to be made. At the moment the feeling of the House is that the information ought to be made known in the discussion. I undertake, if the Amendment is withdrawn, to give effect to that view before the Bill goes to another place, or in the regulations; that is, that when the parent is present at the interview all the information contained in the report shall be divulged to the parent in conversation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th May, 1948, Vol. 451, c. 236–7.] The hon. Member who was moving the Amendment said he thought the Debate had been useful and asked leave to withdraw it. We were asked to do a certain thing. We have done precisely that, and we are asking the House to agree that it should be accepted. If the words that are proposed to be left out are left out, there will be such a wide open door that we shall not know where these reports are going to. It is not stated whether the reports should be examined in the Ministry's office or in the education office. If the parent says, "I want to examine that report" we have no power to say, "You must come here to examine it." He might even ask for it to be sent to him. I am sure that if a parent saw something in the report of which he wanted to make a note he could easily bear it in mind and write it down when he left the room: or he might say to the officer, "That is an interesting thing, a nice report about my youngster," and ask to make a note of it. I can see a great deal of difference between an officer allowing extracts to be made and what is proposed in this Amendment. What hon. Members are asking does open the door too wide.

I have given my reasons for the rejection of the Amendment. I acted in good faith and gave the undertaking for which I was asked and that should be honoured.

11.0 p.m.

Commander Maitland (Horncastle)

While there is a good deal of logic in what the right hon. Gentleman said, I want to support the Amendment for a slightly different reason. I entirely agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said about the position of the parent. I should not like as a parent to see my duties so strictly written down as they are in the Lords Amendment as drafted. I think when we are considering one small Amendment to this Bill we are apt to forget the whole picture of what the Bill is about. This matter deals with what may happen at an entirely imaginary interview and the only point I want to make is this. I am very anxious that this Bill shall succeed and that the arrangements under it should be used to the best advantage of the boys and girls of this country, but the House must remember that it is entirely and solely up to the parents. We have to get the good will of the parents in order to make them use what is in this Bill and if we do not do that, then the Bill will not work. They will not go along and we shall not be able to make the mechanism of the Act function.

think that for the sake of the Bill it is worth while reconsidering these points and taking a bit of risk as to where the report may go. I am sure it would not be scattered about except possibly in a very few cases. In order to get the good will of the parents we should accept the Amendment that was suggested.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)

I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman should have adopted the attitude he has adopted, the more so as I fully recognise that he has made an attempt to meet the point which was urged from both sides of the House on the Report stage. Really, the right hon. Gentleman in his references to the requests made from this side of the House took what I must describe as a legalistic attitude. [Interruption.] I appreciate that hon. Members opposite will regard that as a very grave charge. The right hon. Gentleman will recollect, if other hon. Members do not, that at the time these requests were made the issue before the House was whether the parent should even have a glance at the reports. That was refused by the Bill as it then stood. No one, I think, would interpret "seeing the reports" as merely having a physical glance at them without the necessary facilities for making use of that sight. To comply with the request to see the report simply by giving a physical opportunity to see without any opportunity to make use of the information contained therein is, quite frankly, a legalistic attitude in the worst sense of the term. Perhaps by way of illustration I may remind hon. Members that when the late Herr Von Ribbentrop at last interviewed Sir Nevile Henderson just before the outbreak of war, he allowed Sir Nevile Henderson to see the terms which the German Government were offering to Poland in precisely the same way as the right hon. Gentleman is going to permit parents in this case. That is to say, the note was simply shown to him, and he was not allowed to make a note or to see it in the absence of Von Ribbentrop. This is just allowing him to see it in the same narrow sense.

I would ask hon. Gentlemen opposite in particular to appreciate what this facility means. A parent is shown possibly a long report affecting vitally the future of his child. He may very well desire for many reasons—one being a desire to correct a perhaps erroneous impression—to study that report carefully, and it is not easy to do so in the presence of a busy employment officer. Secondly, he may desire to make a note. Why should he not? Why should he not copy out a passage? What is the objection to a parent being allowed to do that? It is no answer to say that he has a right to see it, because, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, there is no objection, if he possesses the same fertile memory as the Minister of Labour, to his memorising it and going home and dictating it to his wife. All that is forbidden is writing down a part or the whole of it. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to appreciate how exasperating a restriction of that kind could be to a parent who is seriously concerned about a report of vital importance to the whole future of his child. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the parent should be entitled to make a copy if he wishes.

The Parliamenary Secretary at the earlier stage of the Bill did make a remark which is, I think, mentally connected with the narrow restriction in the present Amendment. He said: Copies of these reports ought not to be floating about anywhere, and least of all to parents, who may not be as careful about what they do with them as they should be."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th May, 1948: Vol. 451, c. 233.] That is a somewhat discourteous reflection on parents. It seems to ignore the fact, which is a fact whether he likes it or not, that after the child himself, the person most concerned is the parent, and that a parent's interest in this child is still not less than that of any Government Department, employment officer, or schoolmaster. I think it is a very serious suggestion to make.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Ness Edwards)

The hon. Gentleman is doing me an injustice. If he recollects these discussions he will remember they followed on an Amendment which had been moved to deal with the destruction of the records, and if he carries his mind back to the Committee stage, he will find that the Committee were keen that the report should not hang like a millstone round the child's neck for the rest of its life. The Committee was so keen on this point that I felt I was carrying out the intention in insisting that no copies except the one should be about.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

The Parliamentary Secretary may have had that in his mind, but what, according to the OFFICIAL REPORT, he was actually speaking to, was the Amendment of which the present Amendment is the fruit, enabling the parent to have a copy of this report available. He must not, when speaking to one Amendment, explain his speech by saying he was trying to speak to another. What I very much object to is, whatever Amendment he was speaking to, or thinking he was speaking to, that there is a perfectly clear implication in his words "least of all to parents who may not be as careful about what they do with them as they should be." There is the perfectly clear suggestion there that parents are not to be trusted with documents relating to their children. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I ask hon. Members to read the hon. Gentleman's words—"least of all the parents."

I do feel that it is just that attitude of mind which is behind the drafting of the present Lords Amendment before the House, which treats the parent not as a fair and equal partner, at the least, in the welfare of his child, but as someone to be kept at a distance, to be regarded by the Ministry of Labour as someone quite unsuitable, unreliable, and unfitted to take a full part in assisting his child. Whatever the Parliamentary Secretary may say, that is the impression which, I regret to say, is going out from this House, and will go out unless the Government are prepared to modify their attitude in this matter. We have not, after all, had from the Minister—we may yet have it from some occupant of the Treasury Bench—any justification of the restrictions imposed in the Lords Amendment upon the right of the parent. We have not been told what harm can be done by the parents being entitled to see these reports in the absence of the employment officer. We have not seen what harm can possibly be done by a parent being given or making a copy of these reports. We have not had the slightest justification of this restriction, and until we get such justification I am afraid that people will form that impression, that the reason is that expressed by the Parliamentary Secretary in that passage of his speech that I quoted.

I appeal to the Minister to think again about this. He is not going to get this extremely valuable reform developing as it should unless he gets the full co-operation of the parents in this country. He will inevitably cause them to suspect that something is being kept back from them about their own children. He will inevitably, therefore, reduce that co-operation which all of us desire should be given in this scheme. I appeal to the Minister, who, I know, has the success of this scheme very much at heart, and who has taken a great deal of trouble about it, not to allow these few words at the end of the Lords Amendment to remain in. I appeal to him to appreciate, as I am sure he can, the ill-effect of leaving in those words and leaving the parents in this country subject to what my right hon. Friend so accurately called the "smear" which this imposes on them.

11.13 p.m.

Mr. Rankin (Glasgow, Tradeston)

I think it ought to be made perfectly clear that those of us on this side of the House who resisted the original wording of the Bill are thoroughly satisfied that the Minister has met the promise which he made on the Third Reading. He stated perfectly clearly then that regulations would be introduced safeguarding the right of the parent—that is being done—and that within the Bill itself provision would be made to ensure that the particulars to be made available to the parents would not be scattered widespread, perhaps to do serious damage later on to the children concerned. Those two promises have been met. The Parliamentary Secretary has honoured the promise which he made on that occasion.

11.14 p.m.

Mr. McCorquodale

I regret that the right hon. Gentleman will not accept our Amendment to the Lords Amendment. We think it would put the situation right. On the other hand, I did say at the outset of my remarks that I thanked the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary for doing what they have done. I do not think they have gone far enough, and regret they have not completely upheld the position of the parents. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment to the Lords Amendment.

Amendment to the Lords Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Remaining Lords Amendments agreed to [Several with Special Entries].