Clause 6.—(APPROVED SCHOOL ORDERS.) (Hansard, 23 May 1952)

§ Mr. H. Hynd (Accrington)
I beg to move, in page 3, line 32, after "then," to insert: unless the court is able to make its own arrangements for classification at a remand home where adequate facilities for observation are available. I think this Amendment is self-explanatory. It deals with a point which was discussed to some extent upstairs in Committee. On that occasion my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) decided to accept what he called half a loaf, and I have no quarrel with that. The Government agreed to give a certain amount of elasticity to the Clause as originally drafted. What I am suggesting this morning is that they should give a little more elasticity, for reasons I hope to explain.
In the first place, it seems to me that there is a certain amount of overlapping. The new wording accepted by the Government in Committee will not eliminate that overlapping. It will mean that it still remains possible for children to be sent first to a remand home, then there will be inquiries and then the children will come before the court again and be committed to an approved school. Then they will go to a classifying school. I see no reason for that if it is possible to carry out the observation at the remand home.
This matter has been discussed by the most representative body of magistrates in the country, the Council of the Magistrates Association, and they are strongly in favour of the Amendment I am proposing. It is contended that the work is already being satisfactorily carried out at certain remand homes. I emphasise the word "certain ". It is not suggested for a moment that all remand homes have the necessary facilities for carrying out this special observation and classification work, but it is contended, very strongly, that where those facilities exist it would be wasteful, and worse than wasteful, to send children to a classifying school.
There are not many of these classifying schools—not sufficient of them—and those that do exist are overcrowded. There are some evil results from that overcrowding. There are some evil results, as we see reported in the Press recently, of some undesirable boys and 863 girls, particularly girls, being sent to these classifying schools where they mix with other children there for other reasons not so blameworthy and, therefore, influence them in a very undesirable way.
Furthermore, the kind of skilled observation that is required at these classifying schools is only required in a minority of cases. In most cases the justices who have dealt with the case have a fairly good idea, having had the advice of their probation officers and others, as to what is the best kind of approved school to which to commit the boy or girl concerned. It is in the minority of more difficult cases that the classifying school is required, and only in that minority. We suggest that it is quite wrong to send all the children to a classifying school.
There is just one other reason which I wish to mention. It is that when a boy or girl is being sent to spend what is usually a fairly considerable time at an approved school, it is desirable that he or she should settle down in the new surroundings as early as possible. To be sent first to a remand home for a short time, then to another institution and then eventually to finish up in an approved school is unsettling and is not calculated to put that boy or girl on the new right road of training required. It is postponing the time when they can settle into their new surroundings, with their new advisers and be directed into what should be a better path.
These are the only reasons which I need advance now, in view of the fact that the general principle was previously discussed fairly fully.

§ Mr. Janner
I beg to second the Amendment.
I hope that it will be accepted because, after all, it does not go by any means as far as an Amendment should go in order to meet the present position. It is not yet recognised that the task which is put in the hands of the magistrates of the juvenile courts is one which they have hitherto carried out, in the main, with complete satisfaction to the community.
I hope that the House will forgive me if I repeat the fact that juvenile courts stand in a very special position. The 864 people who preside over them are specialists who have been chosen in the first instance because of their social work or specialised knowledge of juveniles. The Home Office carries out in the first place the vetting of people whom they appoint to these positions, but the matter does not end there. At a later stage the Home Office appoints, or has within its jurisdiction, the appointment of the chairmen of these courts.

§ Mr. Ede
That applies only to London, not to the Provinces.

§ Mr. Janner
Let us deal with London first because this point deals to a considerable extent with London. I will speak about the Provinces in a few moments. I know the methods of appointment there.
In London, in consequence of the procedure I have mentioned, we have a body of people who understand their work and who are in a position to decide what is best to be done with these juvenile cases that come before them. They have, at their disposal, in addition, the advice of specialists as officers—probation officers, etc.—of the court. They examine the cases from time to time and follow up every individual case with considerable diligence, and certainly with considerable understanding. I agree that here and there one may find an exceptional case.
When we turn to the question of using the classifying schools, I cannot understand why the Home Office wants to interfere with the jurisdiction of those magistrates in that respect. My view, which I believe is that of a large number of people, is that not only are the London magistrates of juvenile courts in a position to deal with these matters, but that those who deal with juvenile cases in the Provinces, even though the same form of appointment may not apply there, are similarly placed, and have an understanding which is of special relevance in this matter.
The Clause means that the Home Office shall direct that a child shall be sent to a particular classifying school. It means that the Home Office itself wishes to exercise the jurisdiction or the discretion which otherwise is a matter for the magistrates. Why should not the magistrates, having examined the home conditions and all the other circumstances relating to the case, at least be given the 865 benefit of the doubt about their being in just as good a position to decide to which kind of approved school the child shall be sent?
As my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) has said, there are not at present many classifying schools. The magistrates know perfectly well what schools there are. They understand what benefit can be derived from the child being sent to one of those schools or otherwise. Why not leave the decision in the hands of the magistrates?
Our Amendment does not go as far as that. I should have liked to have gone to the extent of having the Clause removed altogether. This is a very reasonable Amendment, and I hope that we might have a word from the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) on it. He has done an extremely valuable service to the community in introducing this Bill, and I am sure he would like it to be as comprehensive and to meet as many cases as possible.
I hope that in those circumstances the Home Office will show its confidence in the magistrates who have been selected to do this work, and in the officers who help them in arriving at decisions; and that they will not, more than they can possibly help, tie the hands of those who are not concerned with any advantage to themselves but whose concern is for the benefit of the children who come before them, for their future and for the interests of the community.

§ Mr. Norman Cole (Bedfordshire, South)
In view of the great co-operation, help and zeal which has been accorded to the consideration of this Bill by the hon. Members for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) and Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner), it is with regret that I find myself having to oppose this Amendment. I shall endeavour briefly to give my reasons. The hon. Member for Accrington referred to the fact that there was a small number of these classifying schools. There are three for boys and two for girls situated in strategic parts of the country but not altogether covering the country.
This classifying school procedure has been in existence for eight or nine years, so I took it a little hard when I heard the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West say that he would have liked to see 866 the Clause taken out of the Bill. To do so would be to upset something which is now taking place. This is not entirely new. It is clearly—

§ Mr. Janner
The hon. Member quite misunderstands my position. No one is suggesting that classifying schools should be dispensed with. We are asking that the magistrates, who know the whole circumstances, shall themselves, without interference by the Home Office, without the compulsion of the Home Office, send a child to a classifying school if that is desirable.

§ Mr. Cole
I understand the point of the hon. Member, but I want to make it clear to the House that these classifying schools have been in existence for a long time.
The suggestion that these remand homes might be turned, as it were, into classifying schools would mean that their uses will be extended. There are 70 of these remand homes. The effect of the Amendment would be that each one would be carrying out, with a differing point of view and with complete lack of integration, its own classification in its area. The special catchment area covered by the home would necessarily be small, and if this Amendment were accepted it would mean the whole underlying principle, the whole spirit and virtue underlying classified schools, would be spoilt by being taken into these 70 constituent parts.
The hon. Member for Leicester, North-West made a great point of the variety of expert advice available to magistrates in the courts—the probation officers and other people who could advise about schools. I would point out that if this Amendment were accepted it would mean that those courts, which after all are judicial bodies and not administrative bodies, would be forced to carry out negotiation arrangements with some 70 different bodies in the country. I think the hon. Member would admit that would be taking away the function of the court in a judicial and juvenile capacity and turning it into an administrative body, which would be undesirable.
I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that at the bottom of page 3 of the Bill it states that in the case of those magistrates who have a special 867 reason for not making use of one of these schools, the court may specify some other approved school … if—(a) the special reason for so doing is stated in the order; and (b) the managers of the approved school … are willing and able to receive … the child. That was inserted in the proceedings in the Standing Committee, and in those cases where it is the view of the hon. Members supporting the Amendment that the magistrates should have power to exercise discretion, that discretion and its implementation is adequately covered by what has been inserted in the Bill.
I must resist this Amendment, because I feel that to break up the system which has existed for the last eight or nine years and which may continue to develop as other schools are found necessary will spoil the whole idea of classifying schools. If it were found that the view expressed in this Amendment about the use of some special remand home for classifying purposes was desirable, it would be possible, and in order, for that remand home to be used for this purpose. All that would happen would be that the classifying school principle would not be exercised in that area. I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will feel that that meets their point in some way, but on the general principle of classifying schools I do not believe that 70 remand homes should be turned into classifying schools.

§ Mr. Pannell
It may be that in part the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) has met the case I am proposing to put. It does happen that the Chairman of the Remand Home Association is a constituent of mine and that within my constituency I have the remand home at Leeds.
I have had long conversations on this matter. It is one which I approached completely de novo, because though I have had considerable experience as a magistrate and a member of a local authority, I cannot say that I have ever served in a children's court. I do not agree, as was stated earlier by one hon. Member, that the people who are chosen as magistrates for children's courts are always suitable to try children, but that is entirely another matter. One lady well 868 known to me, who has passed the allotted span of threescore years and ten, who presides over a magistrates bench and seems to drink in fresh draughts of life from the sheer misery she can see in others, seems to think she should still sit on the juvenile court Bench—[Interruplion.] I know that does not happen now, but this lady was so impervious to the law that she thought she was above it. I hope it will be appreciated that there is not necessarily the confidence in these magistrates which my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) and distinguished members of the Council of the Magistrates Association seems to imagine.
Generally speaking, the Remand Home Association say: Total classification leads to much unnecessary duplication in the majority of cases which pass through our hands. The child is uprooted twice with the same object in view. The cost of classification as used today, is much higher than the cost of maintaining remand homes. The results of classification have not justified the extra priority given to classifying schools. Classification is being carried out in the L.C.C. Remand Home at Stamford House. If it is being attempted in one remand home, then we feel that other remand homes could be given the same facilities with very little extra cost. The hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South seemed to imagine—I hope I have not understood him wrongly—that this question of classification was an almost exact science, though he did refer to passing things over to 70 remand homes.

§ Mr. Cole
The point I was endeavouring to make was that if it was intended to use these remand homes as classifying schools negotiations with the homes would be necessary to make certain that vacancies were available.

§ Mr. Pannell
I do not consider that a great administrative difficulty. Hon. Gentlemen opposite constantly harp about individuals. They are the party who never see mankind in the mass. Every one is a sacred individual personality who has to be caned for. We should not imagine that psychology is an exact science today. We are not dealing with something of a medical nature—which reminds me of the story of two psychiatrists who met, and one said to the other "You look all right, how am I?" 869 I suggest in the case of a city as big as Leeds, which has a remand home which, in the opinion of people within the city, would be suitable for this purpose, it would be unnecessary duplication to insist that children should be sent to a classifying school. I take it, according to the spirit in which he mentioned it, that the hon. Gentleman suggests that in Leeds it would be possible to go on using the remand home as a classifying centre?

§ Mr. Cole
The point I was making was that where there was a special case of a remand home, such as I imagine is referred to by the hon. Gentleman, which was appropriate for the purpose, the matter could be met by making no classifying school available in that area. But it does not necessarily mean that every large remand home in the country would be suitable to the same degree.

§ Mr. Pannell
I must let the matter rest by saying that I do not think the hon. Gentleman has made out his case, though I pay credit to his intention to meet the commonsense of the Amendment.

§ Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Pannell) was right when he said that we must consider this matter in the light of what is best for the child. I do not think we can learn very much by talking about the powers and abilities of magistrates, and all the rest of it. The idea of the classifying school is fairly new. It has come to the fore in the last few years. It was something that we in this House insisted upon. We in Scotland have been pressing for such a type of school for a number of years. We have had the promise, but we have not yet got one.
As a Member of the Select Committee on Estimates which considered the question of approved schools about three or four years ago, I can say that we were much in favour of the extension of the system of classifying schools. It is not right to say that as a result children are uprooted. The fact that a child has to go to a remand home shows that he or she has had no roots.

§ Mr. Janner
I think that the hon. Gentleman is mixing up one matter with another. Nobody has yet suggested that the classifying school should not be used and extended. The only matter at issue 870 at present is whether the Home Office shall have the right to say, "You must send a person to such and such a classifying school," or the magistrates should have the right to say that they will send a child to one or another classifying school or to some other institution.

§ Mr. Ross
Which place and which person is best qualified to do the right thing for the child? Is it the classifying school?

§ Mr. Janner
No.

§ Mr. Ross
What the hon. Gentleman has said will not mean anything if he does not accept this argument. He suggests that all the power should rest with the juvenile magistrates who should decide whether or not to by-pass the classifying school. Previously, the House has insisted that no one should play around with the future of any child.
Already there are one or two classifying schools in England. It would be a retrograde step to accept an Amendment to permit the by-passing of the classifying school and to allow children to be sent willy-nilly to any approved school which the juvenile magistrates suggest.

§ Mr. Janner
It does not say that.

§ Mr. Ross
I can read just as well as the hon. Gentleman. That is my interpretation of the Amendment.

§ Mr. Janner
Then we will amend it.

§ Mr. Ross
It is rather late for that. What will happen before the magistrates make up their minds? The child will have to wait longer at the remand home, if this Amendment is accepted, and then probably he will go to the wrong type of approved school. That would be all right if the child was likely to stay there for only about six months, but he or she will be there for years. It is most important that we should select the right type of approved school not merely from the point of view of the offence and the psychological approach, but also from the point of view of education. The specialist work done by these schools is such that they are best fitted to decide what is the best future atmosphere for the child.

§ Mr. Ede
I am very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) intervened in this discussion. He brought a sense of proportion into our debate. One of the matters that distressed me most when I was at the Home Office was the rapid way in which vested interests grew up in every effort to secure reform of our penal system. Let us make no doubt about this. This is an effort on the part of some people, who have not been in existence for very long themselves, to maintain that they are the people and that wisdom perishes if anyone else is consulted about the task to which they have been appointed.
I intend to be outspoken. If there is one consideration likely to damage all efforts to ameliorate the penal system of this country, it would be if it became the rule that people who manage to get in first are to be there all the time. Even a cricketer who goes in first is lucky if he is not also first out. This is an effort to ensure that these children, whom it is most important to deal with properly, shall, at this stage, when they first get into the serious part of the penal system, receive treatment which is really suitable not for them but for him or her.
If we are to cut off the supply to the criminal population of this country, which grows too rapidly in spite of what we try to do, it is essential that these children, who are now beginning to give the indication of having criminal tendencies, shall be dealt with in an institution, and by people best suited for their special needs. That is the justification for the classifying school.
I regret that, owing to the difficulty of getting premises in recent years, it has not been possible to do more to establish classifying schools. Three for boys and two for girls in the whole of the country are totally inadequate in view of the conditions of our time. I hope that more may be established. I should not rule out a large remand home if I could be assured that I had at the head of it the proper person for this task of classification.
I do not want very profound psychologists in charge of these places. I share the view expressed satirically by my hon.
872 Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Pannell) about a good many psychologists. There are psychologists and psychologists. I have not yet had an opportunity to discover to which group the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) belongs. What we need in these places are men and women who can adopt the elder brother attitude, who can gain the confidence of the young person—the boy or girl committed to their care—and who can then, with a knowledge of the various approved schools and the different curricula and staffing of those schools, indicate the one most likely to be helpful to the child.
That cannot be done by the best juvenile magistrate in the country. That can only be done by a person who lives with the boy or girl for three or four weeks at the least, in order that the first acquaintance and strangeness shall have worn off and the boy or girl can behave naturally and can be observed sometimes without knowing that he or she is being observed.
I should very much regret to see anything that would hamper the development of these classifying schools. The number of people suitable for employment in such schools is very limited, and the training for such employment has not reached any very advanced stage in this country, but for the House now to indicate that it distrusted the classifying principle would, I think, be a disaster.

§ Mr. Janner
My right hon. Friend really must not believe that anyone is opposing classifying schools. That is not the point. On the contrary, classifying schools have had children sent to them, and this interference, to which we referred, has not been exercised. It is a very different matter. It is a question of who should send them.

§ Mr. Ede
At the moment, I am criticising the people whom my hon. Friend calls the juvenile magistrates.
I am not criticising them because of the work they do, because it is of the highest, but I am suggesting that they have limited opportunities, as compared with the staff of the classifying school. They do not get reports from people who have lived with the juveniles who come before them. They get reports 873 from people who see them in very artificial conditions, when the child is already in full knowledge of the fact that its habits of life, its actions and to some extent its thoughts are under close inspection. There is nobody more capable than the child who is just about to drift into criminal ways of producing what he thinks the beholder wants to see.
I recollect that a very small child was being examined by a school attendance officer, who was very fond of using long words. The small child denied what the school attendance officer had averred. The officer was an ex-inspector of the Metropolitan Police, and, drawing himself up to his full height, he said, "Do you mean to say that I am a prevaricator?" The child, looking up at him and, thinking that he knew the answer which the man wanted, said, "Yes."
I sincerely hope that my hon. Friends will not persist in this Amendment. The work of dealing with the juveniles in this country is difficult enough in all conscience, and the effort to ensure that, before they are sent to an approved school, we get a chance of making as reasonably certain as we can that it is the proper approved school is something that ought to be welcomed. When we talk about uprooting, there is nothing worse than to get a child into an approved school and then have to uproot it. That is infinitely worse than sending the child to a classifying school and then sending it on to the proper approved school.
I apologise for having spoken at such length, but I hope the House will realise that, after six years at the Home Office and over 30 years as a magistrate, this is a subject on which I feel very keenly. I believe that if this Amendment were carried it would do an incredible amount of damage to the system that we are slowly building up.

§ Mr. Doughty
I wish to speak against this Amendment, not by way of criticising magistrates in juvenile courts, because I think they carry out their extremely difficult task painstakingly and with considerable skill. This is a question of dealing with juveniles, whether they are what are called juvenile delinquents, children who have made one slip or others who are on a further stage of a criminal career. These magistrates exercise an extremely difficult task, and one which cannot be fully carried out, 874 under the wording of this Amendment, in the very short time that is available to them.
The right way to deal with these juveniles is to send them to classifying schools, where, in the course of a period of time, when the fact that they have to appear in court is known, the school can choose the proper category and can discover the proper approved school which is suitable.
I would stress the point that we must have, in charge of these extremely important places and in charge of these children, people who are fully qualified for the task. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) referred to psychologists, but I think he used the wrong word. Let us avoid the type of person who calls himself or herself a psychiatrist and who thinks that he or she is most important. I am quite certain, and I speak entirely for myself, that they are a menace in dealing with young children.
We have seen them so often in the Army making bad soldiers into criminals, so that every soldier, when convicted by a court-martial, said, "I want to see a psychiatrist." The psychiatrist promptly found facts which had never taken place in the whole of the life of a soldier, and demonstrated that he never ought to have been convicted, but should receive a pat on the back or even a week's leave.
Let us not allow these psychiatrists to interfere with these children, or to allow them to get away from the use of ordinary, commonsense expressions, such as "This child is really all right, if dealt with more forcibly at the start." As soon as a child learns that it has a psychopathic personality, the meaning of which word the child does not even understand, but which is the usual expression used by these people, it feels that it is something much more important, whereas, in actual fact, a pennyworth of commonsense is worth 40s. worth of psychiatry.

§ Mr. Somerville Hastings (Barking)
I want to oppose this Amendment for one reason only. I have some experience of a large remand home; indeed, I have been chairman of it for some years. The conclusion which I have reached is that, although I think it is useful, and it is one of the best remand homes in the country. the sooner the children get out of it the 875 better for them. There is a constantly shifting population and the child is very often not at all himself, at any rate, for the first few days or weeks after entering that remand home.
The last time when I was in Stamford House, I came across a small boy of 12 whom not only I but officers of the home regarded as a perfect angel, but, when we looked up his history and got the full facts, we found that we were very much mistaken. I do not believe that, in the atmosphere of a remand home, we are likely to get the right classification that we want and which we are much more likely to get in the less hurried atmosphere where those concerned can watch a child more carefully and take a reasonable time with the child before giving an opinion.
A great deal has been said about psychologists and psychiatrists today. I do not know whether or not they can ascertain what is in mind of a child, but, certainly, I cannot do it in the slightest, and I admit that fully. If any of these good people can give me any help, I am grateful for it, whether that help is given in a remand home or in a classifying school. I want the remand home to be used as little as possible and for as short a time as possible. I believe that most of these children, the real doubtful cases about which we are uncertain, are much better ascertained in a classifying centre than in a remand home.

§ Mr. Royle
Because my name is on the Order Paper as supporting this Amendment, I want to make my position in this matter perfectly clear. It is due to an inadvertence which it would take far too long to explain that my name appears there. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) came in and filled the gap because at that moment I was not prepared to second the Amendment.
When we discussed this matter in Cornmittee, what is now Clause 6 was Clause 5, and we had a long discussion on the whole question of classifying schools. I expressed myself in Committee at some length on the subject and I was concerned all the time with the general principle of classifying schools and with how far these juvenile court magistrates could go 876 or would be allowed to exercise their discretion. I expressed some concern about that, but to assume that the present Amendment before the House is trying to carry out some of the things that were said in a general sense about classifying schools just will not do.
The hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole), who introduced this Bill, moved in the Standing Committee an Amendment which we accepted, and in my view, although that Amendment did not go the whole way, it certainly provided the right safeguards as far as juvenile court magistrates are concerned. In his speech this morning the hon. Gentleman reminded the House that there are only five classifying schools in the country, but to suggest that 70 remand homes, which are not equipped at all for this particular kind of work, could make up for the lack of classifying schools is not the right suggestion at all.
Those of us who have had any experience of this matter and who know something about remand homes have a very high regard for the people who run them, but to suggest that as at present established remand homes can possibly take the place of classifying centres is, in my view, quite ridiculous. Although my name happens to be on the Order Paper, I want to make m) view perfectly clear on this point.
The answer to this problem is more classifying schools, and I hope that the Home Office, while subject these days to all the problems of capital expenditure, and so on, will apply themselves to the provision of more classifying schools, because, if they are provided, the problem of the juvenile court magistrate will be very greatly alleviated. Because of that, I suggest to my hon. Friend, who is left carrying the juvenile, that he might, perhaps, see his way to assist the House by withdrawing the Amendment.

§ Sir H. Lucas-Tooth
We have had a useful debate on this Amendment, and I think it has done a lot to ventilate this question. It has, in fact, gone rather wider than the Amendment. Both the mover and the seconder of the Amendment have each been suspected of some hostility towards the classifying school as such, and I think that hon. Members who made that mistake were not altogether unreasonable 877 in doing so. But from an interruption by the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) I gather that he is not now prepared to go to that length and wishes this Amendment to be regarded in a narrow sense.

§ Mr. Janner
With the great respect, there is nothing at all in the Amendment which justifies anybody in making comments of that nature. The hon. Gentleman must really appreciate that this is not an attack on the classifying school at all; it is merely saying that the magistrates shall have the right to do certain things if they consider there are proper facilities for doing them. But this has been ridiculously expanded into implying an attack on the classifying schools.

§ Sir H. Lucas-Tooth
I am very happy to hear the hon. Gentleman say that, but things were said in the course of the two speeches which have at any rate led some of us to think that the classifying schools are not altogether approved of.
I think there are some things which it may be as well that I should say on behalf of the Government in connection with the points raised in this debate. I believe that hon. Members in all parts of the House feel that remand homes are not really suitable for doing the work of classifying schools. Indeed, that must be so because they are necessarily too small to have a sufficiently large catchment area properly to do the work of classifying. The right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), in a speech with which I cordially agree, rather suggested at one moment that we needed, perhaps, as many classifying schools as possible.

§ Mr. Ede
I am not sure what the possibilities are now, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman who is now saying, I gather, that while we could do with more, we do not want one classifying school per remand home, because that, quite obviously, would reduce the matter to an absurdity. But I suggest that five is not really an adequate number for the country.

§ Sir H. Lucas-Tooth
I accept that we need more than we have at the present time, but that there is a limit and that we do not want too many classifying schools because if we did then classifying as such would become an absurdity. For that very reason I think it important that we should have a single system of classi- 878 fication. It would be unfortunate if we had alternative systems growing up side by side, and it might be that if an Amendment of this kind were accepted it would lead to rival systems which would be extremely unfortunate.
The Clause as drafted does not rule out the possibility of using suitable, large remand homes, but I do not think the House would wish to encourage the development of such a system. Of course, if they can be used in the meantime, so much the better, but the system we wish to develop and which has largely been developed throughout the country is the system of classifying schools, and for that reason I recommend the House not to accept this Amendment.
On the Amendment itself, I think it right to point out, as has been suggested by certain hon. Members in the course of their speeches, that the wording is not really appropriate. The Amendment suggests that the juvenile courts should themselves make arrangements for classifying. But they are courts which have to come to judicial decisions; they are not administrative bodies, and I think it would be quite wrong to lay upon them, if not the direct responsibility for administrative action, at all events responsibility for seeing that administrative action is taken.
For that reason I think the Amendment is inappropriate, and it may be that that is the best argument against the substance of it. We do not wish to confuse these two functions. I think that the debate has shown that there is a very large body of opinion in the House against the Amendment, and I hope that it will be possible for the Amendment to be withdrawn, so as to indicate that the House is unanimously against it.

§ Mr. Janner
I understand that there is some difficulty about withdrawing the Amendment as the mover of it is not in the Chamber.

§ Mr. Cole
I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
In moving the Third Reading of the Bill, I should like to detain the House for a few minutes to pay certain tributes, and also to deal with one or two points in the Bill which have not been referred to this morning. I would be less than 879 courteous if I did not express my earnest thanks to the Secretary of State for the Home Department and to the Joint Under-Secretaries and the officials of the Home Office for something more than co-operation which I have received in introducing this Bill to the House. May I aso pay tribute to the co-operation and information which I have received from a number of societies and associations who are vitally concerned in the matter of child welfare. I should like to place my thanks on record to all those whom I have mentioned.
I think that it says much for the strength of our Parliamentary institution that, as we have seen this morning, there can be a clear disparity of opinion on certain points, quite apart from matters of party on either side of the House. That has been so during the progress of this Bill, and it has been very clearly demonstrated this morning. I hope that it may be noted not only in this House, but also in the country, that there are occasions when hon. Members of the House of Commons do unite to give of their best in matters of very great interest and for the welfare of all.

§ Mr. Pannell
Perhaps they are casting their minds back to their own juvenile delinquency.

§ Mr. Cole
I was hoping that my tributes might be regarded a little higher than that, although I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Leeds, West, about the question of juvenile delinquency. I hope, however, that he will not argue from the particular to the general.
In dealing with various points of the Bill, may I make it clear that various matters which find their expression in the Clauses of the Bill reflect the many aspects which those who have been concerned in child welfare find a rise? Child welfare is not a single-thread subject; it is something which affects many different characteristics of the whole matter, and this Bill is an example of that. There are Clauses dealing with various points on the whole matter of child welfare. Quite briefly, I want to refer to some of them.
Clause 1 of the Bill adds a fourth category of children who may be "in need of care and protection." That is where 880 a child is ill-treated or neglected in a manner likely to cause it unnecessary suffering or injury to health. That has not been referred to in the House this morning, and it may be of interest to call attention to it.
May I particularly draw the attention of the House to Clause 3, which deals with something which, of all the matters in this Bill, has commended itself most strongly to me. That is the question of codifying the existing arrangements for the use of reception centres. I would say that the practice is taking place at the present time, but this Clause will put on the Statute Book the practice of using reception centres, for children of 12 years of age and under, where such reception centres have been declared as available by the local authorities. I think the House will agree that that is a great step forward, not so much from the point of view of discipline as regard the welfare of children, but to make certain that they are not influenced by the wrong things.
Much has been said about the classifying schools, and I will not add to that, except to reiterate that I firmly believe, in the same way as was expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), that in this all-important matter of child welfare we must introduce a high measure of classification. It is not possible to treat alike all children who may come within the confines of the law at an early age. They need classification with regard to the respective treatment necessary to make them good citizens. I think that the classification school provides for that, and I hope that it will go on developing and will make contributions in that regard.
There is one thing which appears in this Bill which is not in the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933. Clause 1 of the Bill adds a new category of children who may be in need of care and protection. The Act of 1933 lays down certain facts and penalties about child cruelty and neglect generally. I want to make clear to Members of this House, and I hope that the people of the country will also have regard to this, that however much legislation we have on the matter of child cruelty and neglect, it is of little use unless we have the complete co-operation of members of the public. That is necessary at all times.
881 The public, by and large, do not take proper action to bring these things to the notice of the authorities concerned. I do not believe, as was suggested in one Amendment which was not moved, that it is so much a matter of the public not knowing where to go to place information. I think that the public must realise that in dealing with cases of criminal neglect they have a large measure of responsibility for bringing these cases to the notice of those best able to deal with them. I hope that message, together with the proposals contained in this Bill, will do something to ameliorate the position of child cruelty and neglect in this country.

§ Mr. Royle
I beg to second the Motion.
I think that some of us on this side of the House would be remiss if we did not on this Third Reading offer our congratulations to the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) for having brought the Bill to this stage. He had no opportunity of speaking on the Second Reading and, therefore, the points which he has just been making are very necessary, if only for the purposes of record.
We congratulate him on introducing a Bill which, in spite of some of our criticism of the detail, is in fact a very fine little Bill. If this Bill reaches the Statute Book, it will have made a great step forward in dealing with this great problem. Those of us who have been associated with the organised magistrates of this country for some time offer a very sincere welcome to the general principles of the Bill and thank the hon. Gentleman for having introduced it.
We also join with him in thanking the Minister and officials of the Home Office for their help and consideration during the passage of the Bill. I hope that what we have done in Committee and on Report stage has been helpful, and that this Bill will quickly become the law.

§ Mr. Janner
I wish to add my humble congratulations to the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole). Everyone concerned with the question of juvenile delinquency and the treatment of juveniles will agree with most of what he said, and particularly with his last 882 few words. There is no question at all that in the main children ought properly to be dealt with at home, but unfortunately many parents do not realise their obligations, and consequently it is essential that a Bill of this nature should be introduced to deal with problems which have not been satisfactorily provided for in existing legislation.
There is one question I ought to refer to, because I put up a somewhat single-handed fight over one Clause. I should like to clear up any misunderstanding which may exist. I should be the last person to suggest that it is not in the highest degree essential that the interests of the child should be considered and that proper treatment should be alloted according to the needs of the child and to the necessity for making him a useful and important member of society, a useful citizen.
I have lived too long not to have appreciated the importance of that, but, on the other hand, it is no good appointing people to do a job if you have not got full confidence in them. I said earlier in the debate that the task given to magistrates who preside at juvenile courts is a highly specialised one. If the right people are not appointed, methods should be devised whereby the Home Office can ensure that the right people are obtained.
I believe the method adopted in London is a good one. It may be that in some provincial centres the magistrates are not chosen with the same meticulous care as they are in London, and perhaps some improvement is required. But once we have appointed these magistrates it should be left to them. In the main they are doing the work voluntarily. I agree that stipendiaries sometimes sit as the chairmen of juvenile courts, but the work is largely voluntary.
The juvenile magistrates devote their full attention to their duties. Their work does not just stop when a case has been heard, as does that of the other magistrates. They pursue the matter further. They follow up the case history of the individual. It is not just a matter of waving aside information or of not being able to penetrate into the real history of the child. On the contrary, the fullest investigation is made into the antecedents of the child before the magistrates arrive at a decision.
883 This work is done by experts, not only official experts but also by experts in the sense that on the juvenile bench are usually found people with a vast experience in youth club movement, in educational circles and in rearing children themselves. It would be an unfair reflection on those who have been appointed because of their special qualifications to suggest that they are not capable of deciding on a very large number of questions which are perhaps later on dealt with administratively.
What is the real point of Clause 6? I do not want to be regarded as a person who wishes to fight to the last ditch for the sake of doing that. There is no question of that. I hope the House will know by this time that I do not adopt that type of attitude. I am not prepared to damage the chances of the Bill be-coming an Act. It will be readily under-stood that some of us have certain experience of our own which possibly can be of benefit to those who have had a much longer but perhaps rather different experience. I am not considering the vested interests of magistrates. I do not think it is fair to talk about the vested interests of magistrates.

§ Mr. Ede
I did not allude to the vested interests of magistrates. I referred to the vested interests of certain professional people who are engaged in this way.

§ Mr. Janner
I can assure my right hon. Friend that I have had no intimation and would never had accepted from a professional source of that sort any directive with regard to my point of view.

§ Mr. Ede
My hon. Friend will no doubt recollect that one of our hon. Friends mentioned that he had been approached by the chairman of a professional organisation with very decided views on the matter.

§ Mr. Janner
I am obliged to my right hon. Friend. I am sure he will appreciate that I am speaking from my own personal experience. I have had a fair amount of experience of the youth club movement and so on, and I know many people on the magisterial bench. I am fairly intimate with one of them. She happens to be my own wife, and I have discussed these matters with her and others from time to time.
884 The magistrates who hear the case know all the circumstances and they also know something more than the circumstances. They know the tone in which the replies are given in court and they know the manner in which the child responds at the hearing to the questions which are put. Sometimes that is infinitely more important than the statement which is made. The magistrates see the way in which the child reacts and they are in as good a position as anybody, if they are people who understand the method of inquiring into these cases, to know what is in the child's mind. Their experience teaches them to understand and to assess the reactions of the child in the case itself.
That was why I was anxious that there should not be taken from those experienced people, who have specialised knowledge and information, the possibility of deciding as far as they can the method by which attention shall be given to the child. That does not mean that I am against the use of these classifying schools. On the contrary, the schools are full. That is because the magistrates have sent children there. Up to now, the magistrates have known, or have thought they knew, which classifying school was the right place and have sent the children there.
It is already admitted that they can contract out. Let us not misunderstand that position. My argument is not so weak that it has been rejected entirely, because in certain circumstances magistrates are to be entitled to make an exception in relation to a child when, in their discretion, they think that the Home Office directive should be overlooked-that is what it means. I am not yet convinced that this whole matter of selecting the classifying school or otherwise should not be left in the hands of the magistrates. That is the difference between us. and the only difference.
I do not believe that the Home Office is in a better position to make a decision about a child, whom it does not hear. The Home Office has the evidence and can have full depositions but the Joint Under-Secretary of State knows from his own experience that it is possible to read a deposition many times and still not find the intent of the person who gave the evidence. The magistrates, on the other hand, have an advantage; they see and hear the child. The Home Office has 885 before it simply a document. It can make inquiries, of course, but it has not the opportunity of observing the nuances which can be observed while the case is proceeding.

§ Mr. Cole
Is not the answer in the hon. Gentleman's own argument? Surely the whole point is that a classifying school is allocated to a particular court and the school has that expert knowledge which the hon. Gentleman wants to see.

§ Mr. Janner
The whole point is this: if the magistrates decide that way they will send the child to that classifying school. The magistrates can judge equally as well as the Home Office, and they have the additional advantage of having heard the case in the court.

§ Sir H. Lucas-Tooth
The hon. Gentleman has several times referred to the Home Office. I am not certain what it is that he suggests that the Home Office can do in this matter.

§ Mr. Janner
I will read the Clause: Where any court has been notified by the Secretary of State.… I assume that that means the Home Office.

§ Sir H. Lucas-Tooth
The hon. Member was speaking of the Home Office or the Secretary of State interfering with the magistrates' discretion.

§ Mr. Janner
I meant the Department.

§ Sir H. Lucas-Tooth
I presume he recognises that the interference is limited to designating the classifying school and that he is making no further suggestion.

§ Mr. Janner
Of course not. Far be it from me to cast any such aspersion upon any Secretary of State for the Home Department. I would never do such a thing. The hon. Gentleman can rest assured that I am casting no aspersions on the ability of the Secretary of State in a moral sense. I am merely making this specific point. I may be wrong. No doubt the Home Office thinks that it is right, whereas I think that I am right; and I think that the magistrates, who, after all, have been properly appointed, are in the best position to deal with this matter.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields has had a vast experience of these affairs, both in his capacity as a magistrate and in his capacity as 886 Home Secretary in previous Governments. May I say that, quite apart from party feelings, I have the highest regard for him? On this occasion, however, I am sure that he will accept that it is possible for us to agree to disagree on a matter which affects children very closely indeed.
Those are my reservations, and it is possible that at a later stage someone may consider them quite reasonable and may see fit to meet them by removing the Clause. Things like that have happened before, and it may be that in another place someone will feel as I feel about this matter. I hope that the Bill will become an Act. We are all grateful for the opportunity which has been given for the Bill to be placed on the Statute Book and for the manner in which it has been conducted by the promoter in the course of its proceedings.

§ Mr. Ede
The penultimate remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) relieved me of the necessity of saying very much about the point which he has twice raised. I was a little surprised, however, to find an hon. Member on this side of the House appealing to another place to do what he has failed to do here. I cannot help feeling that he is not likely to find much sympathy in another place, although he can rest assured that henceforth all his utterances will be suspect, now that we know where his ultimate faith lies.
This is the difference between us. He said that it was right that the interests of the child should be considered. But the law on this matter is that the interests of the child must come first, over the interests of everybody else, magistrates, professional people engaged, and even parents. The interests of the child have to come first and not merely to be considered.
I do not share my hon. Friend's hope that, as a result of the Bill, the way in which juvenile court magistrates are appointed in London will become a rule for the country. In my view, it is deplorable that in London these magistrates should be selected, and their chairman chosen, by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. I wish that in London we had the same rule as we have 887 elsewhere, and that these magistrates were elected by their colleagues, they themselves electing their own chairman.
I still hold the view which I held when I spoke on one of the Amendments. I do not think that the magistrates in the juvenile court see the real child at all. The child in the witness box, the child who is before them, is in a highly theatrical situation. It is necessary to live with the child for a time to find out the real child. When I was a teacher I noticed that I learned more of my boys when I was conducting them on rambles than ever I learned about them in the classroom.
We must live in natural surroundings with a child if we want to get to know the springs of its conduct and the ideals which guide and inspire it. I wonder whether my hon. Friend ever read that very remarkable book which was published some years ago, "High Wind in Jamaica." One of the characters was a juvenile witness who secured the most unjustifiable hanging of a man, a girl who gave the answers that she thought were really wanted.
This witness dramatised her situation to such an extent that the court believed her rather than the clear evidence that existed to the contrary, on the quite unreal theory that a child of that age could not tell lies in court. I doubt very much whether the girl thought she was telling lies. My experience of girls in schools is that they often manage to "kid" themselves that a lot of things that never happened have, in fact, happened.
I join in congratulating the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) on the use he has made of his good fortune in the Ballot. This Measure brings up to date a very important part of the law of this country. It will enable those who have charge and oversight of children and young persons to discharge their duties with fresh opportunities of doing the right and sensible thing.
To have been responsible for bringing such a Measure before the House, and having the pleasure of seeing it moulded in Committee and at no distant date passed on to the Statute Book without too much alteration in another place, in spite of the suggestions of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West, 888 must be very gratifying to a Member of Parliament who has not had many years' experience here. We congratulate him on his success and we trust that it will be an encouragement to him to spend further time in lighting up some of the dark places of the law of the country.

§ Sir H. Lucas-Tooth
The right hon. Gentleman will not expect me to follow his remarks on the subject of the appointment of justices of the peace in London; but apart from that I agree with the sentiments he has expressed, and with those he expressed earlier upon specific Amendments.
There has been a remarkable degree of unanimity. I had hoped it would be complete. The hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) began his speech by picking up a white sheet. He toyed with it, and I hoped that he was going to don it. Unfortunately, he laid it aside, and was left in a state which it is not unfair in this regard to describe as "naked."
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) on his good fortune in getting his place in the Ballot, using it to introduce such a Bill as this, and, in doing so, exercising such skill in piloting it through the House. It is not a very easy Bill. These matters are not controversial, but they have many delicate points which might easily become so. My hon. Friend has handled them throughout with the greatest skill and care.
I would finish by reiterating what my hon. Friend said in moving the Third Reading. Our legislation in this House is necessary to achieve our purpose, which we shall not achieve unless the public realise that they have a large measure of responsibility. I hope that our debate will be widely brought to the attention of the public, who will realise that in doing their part in making the Bill effective when it becomes law they will be adding to the happiness and contentment of the children of this country.

§ Mr. Hastings
In a very few words I want to add my thanks to the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) for having introduced this Bill. All who are concerned in child care will be grateful to him. In that matter, like other matters such as science or art, changes 889 take place and, valuable as the Bill certainly is, it is only a step, only one in a series of Bills which will have to be produced as our minds are brought up to date and fresh experience is obtained.
I regard Clause 2 as the most important Clause. It states: if a local authority receives information suggesting that any child or young person may be in need of care or protection it shall be the duty of the authority to cause inquiries to be made into the case unless they are satisfied that such inquiries are unnecessary. I look upon that as exceedingly valuable and I hope it will induce local authorities to go forward and make it easy for the necessary information to reach them.
When things go wrong, when a child's training is deficient, or it is treated improperly, carelessly or cruelly, the facts should be known early. The Under-Secretary suggested that in cases of cruelty people who wish to give information should go to the nearest policeman, but some people are not inclined to do so because they associate the policeman with conviction and imprisonment. They have a rooted objection to policemen.
I therefore hope that local authorities will make it easy for anybody suspecting that anything is wrong to report the trouble to the local authority. We are all grateful to the hon. Member who introduced the Bill. Perhaps he will give his attention further to the needs of children, and will introduce another instalment of the valuable work that he is doing.