METROPOLITAN POLICE ACT, 1839 (AMENDMENT) BILL

HC Deb 07 March 1958 vol 583 cc1579-632

Order for Second Reading read.

11.7 a.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Stevens (Portsmouth, Langstone)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The purpose of the Bill is to amend Section 54 of the 1839 Act, which fixes at a maximum of 40s. the penalty which may be levied for certain offences, but the Bill relates only to those offences described in paragraph 13 of Section 54 of the 1839 Act. In that paragraph, these offences are described as follows: Every Person who shall use any threatening, abusive, or insulting Words or Behaviour with Intent to provoke a Breach of the Peace, or whereby a Breach of the Peace may be occasioned. The first thing we have to consider is what sort of behaviour is meant by the words "threatening, abusive, or insulting". The sort of behaviour which I had in mind when considering the Bill can be summed up in the one word "hooliganism". When the Short Title of my Bill was first announced last November, some people picked it up as an anti-Teddy boy Bill. I am bound to say that I had Teddy boys in mind. They are included within the framework of paragraph 13, but it is not exclusive to them.

What we have to consider in a matter of this kind is, first, whether offences of this nature are on the increase; and secondly, if they are on the increase—or, indeed, if they are not on the wane—whether the maximum penalty of 40s. is enough. We know from our own experience in the constituencies and by reading the newspapers that offences of this kind are tending to increase very considerably.

I obtained from the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolitan Area figures showing what has been happening in recent years. I have the figures of proceedings under paragraph 13 of Section 54 of the 1839 Act for the last three years, 1955, 1956 and 1957. In those three years the charges brought have been in 1955, 3,261; in 1956, 3,400, a small increase; but in 1957 the figure had risen to 4,294, an increase in charges brought under that paragraph (13) of nearly one-third, nearly 32 per cent., in three years.

It is not without interest that of those total figures three-quarters relate to male persons and only the other one-quarter to female persons. The actual difference in number between the two sexes in 1957 was: males 3,399, females 895. It would appear that the female of the species in this respect at any rate is better behaved than the male.

The convictions obtained in respect of those charges are a very high proportion of the total charges brought. In the last year, 1957, of 4,294 charges made, 3,767 persons were convicted.

What is the reason for this—as I think —staggering increase in the number of offences of this kind? It is the fact—I think there is no doubt about this at all —that many of these offenders are minors. I do not think we should forget that the person who is 18 years old today spent the first six years of his or her life in the stress and anxiety of war time. Father was away, in uniform no doubt, possibly on some front many hundreds or thousands of miles from this country; mother very possibly was employed in a war factory on essential work; and possibly the family home was bombed. The childhood of these young people of today —some of their formative years—was spent in very difficult conditions indeed. During those years they lacked the guidance, the sympathy and the discipline of their parents.

I myself am old-fashioned in some ways. Perhaps that is why I sit on these benches and not on the benches opposite. I do not know. [Interruption.] There is no room today to join hon. Members opposite, as one can see. However, I just wonder whether the modern relaxation of the Victorian motto, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," has not gone a bit too far. I think those two are the main causes for the increase in this kind of behaviour. I would not myself refer to most of these cases as criminal cases at all. I think they indicate increased irresponsibility, decreased thought for others.

I talked of the Victorian motto, "Spare the rod and spoil the child". If one looks back fifty years one finds that a phrase used quite frequently was "the submerged tenth", a reference to those children who were living in homes in which there was an appalling degree of poverty, the sort of circumstances no one would tolerate in this country today. But that phrase certainly has no true application in 1958. No question of a submerged tenth could possibly arise.

Indeed, I have no doubt whatsoever but that of those 4,294 offenders in 1957 the vast majority, if not all of them, were earning good wages or were potentially perfectly capable of doing so. As I say, those who are 18 years of age today had a difficult childhood. It may be a passing phase, and it may be that time will take us away from the era of the war babies and that we may see an improvement in the behaviour of young people as the years go by.

Meantime, however, it seems to me that we in this House have a double duty to perform. First of all we have to consider whether or not the penalty is a sufficiently high penalty for this kind of behaviour, and if we decide it is not sufficiently severe it is our duty to stiffen it, to increase it; and that for two reasons, first of all, to deter the potential wrongdoer, and secondly to protect the public.

The first obvious consideration, I think, is the change in the value of money since this maximum penalty of 40s. was fixed. Forty shillings was appropriate 119 years ago. Is it appropriate today? In 1839, 40s. was probably a good week's wages, but in 1958 it probably is not as much as a good day's wages for a great many of the people who are prosecuted under Section 54 (13) of the 1839 Act. It would appear that there is a very strong case on this ground alone for increasing the penalty.

What are the objects for which the penalties are imposed? As I have rather indicated already, it is a two-fold object, firstly, to deter the potential wrongdoer, and secondly, by so doing, to protect the public. Just as the value of money has changed since 1839 so has modern thinking about the object of penalties, and today our thoughts are directed considerably more towards the reform of a wrongdoer or of a potential wrongdoer than merely to retribution. There is no doubt at all in my mind but that to a certain type of person, who is by no means rare, a fine of 40s. is something to boast about.

I was rather staggered the other day to read in a newspaper article that one of the reasons why this ersatz musician, Elvis Presley, has such a hold over too many teenagers is a queer kind of aura about him because at one stage in his career he spent, as I understand, twelve months in an American State prison. I do not know whether that is true or not. I was absolutely amazed to see it. However, there is no doubt at all but that to a certain type of person the very fact of being fined 40s. and the ability of being able to incur it is something to boast about and not something to be ashamed of.

However, as I said earlier, I have very much in mind, in considering this paragraph of Section 54, that this sort of person is not really a criminal type of person. He is the sort of person who wants to show off. He has the exhibitionist mentality. If that be true, as I believe it to be, then a 40s. penalty means very little, and so the possibility must exist that that person will commit the offence again, and possibly it may be a worse offence next time.

In other words, if the 40s. shock to the system is not great enough, the person goes down hill and may indeed develop into a criminal, and the public, therefore, faces the dangers of serious crime. On the other hand, if the shock to the system on the first occasion is sufficiently great, that person will not commit the offence again, a potentially criminal career is halted, and the public will be protected.

I have taken a great deal of advice about this Bill, and it has been suggested to me that the Public Order Act, 1936, already prescribes very much severer penalties for this type of behaviour and that there is, therefore, no necessity for the Bill. I am not a lawyer, and I am venturing this morning upon a legal subject, and so I speak with some decree of bated breath, but I do not accept the suggestion that the Public Order Act, 1936, is an Act which can be used in cases such as I have in mind.

If one looks at the Title of the Public Order Act one sees that it is an Act to prohibit the wearing of uniforms in connection with political objects and the maintenance by private persons of associations of military or similar character … It may well be that the kind of clothing worn by Teddy boys and Teddy girls might conceivably be described as a uniform, but I do not think they themselves could be described as associating in a military manner. I do not think any serving person, or anyone who had served in one of the Services would suggest that, but the Long Title of the 1936 Public Order Act concludes with these words: … and to make further provision for the preservation of public order on the occasion of public processions and meetings and in public places. If one looks at Section 5 of that Act, one finds there language almost identical with that of Section 54 (13) of the 1839 Act, because Section 5 of the 1936 Act reads: Any person who in any place or at any public meeting uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour … those words come straight out of the 1839 Act— … with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned, shall be guilty of an offence. Section 7 of the 1936 Act, where these offences are concerned, provides as a penalty … imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds, or to both such imprisonment and fine. On the other hand, if one looks back to 1936, when the then Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, as he then was, introduced the Bill, and looks at the carefully chosen works which he used on that occasion, I doubt very much indeed whether it can be said that the sort of offence which I have in mind can really be the subject of a prosecution under the 1936 Act. On the occasion of the Second Reading of that Bill, Sir John Simon, referring to Clause 5, said: Under this provision there may be cases such as some which have taken place within the memory of hon. Members—some which have recently been dealt with by Metropolitan police magistrates—in which the most violently abusive language has been used, say, in a Jewish quarter for the purpose of arousing racial feeling. That is not the sort of offence which I have in mind at present. Later on, Sir John Simon said: The only thing that remains is that at present even though the language may be used deliberately for the purpose of insulting a section of the population or a religious view which is prevalent in the district where it is used, however serious a case may be and however serious the consequences, the maximum penalty under the Act of 1839 is 40s. In the case of a man who perhaps has a great organisation behind him a fine of 40s. is not enough." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th November, 1936; Vol. 317, c. 1363.] I draw the attention of hon. Members to those words: In the case of a man who perhaps has a great organisation behind him That seems to indicate quite clearly what the then Home Secretary had in mind in connection with Clause 5 of the 1936 Bill, and that most certainly was not the Teddy boy behaviour or the hooliganism that I have in mind.

Mr. Glenvil Hall (Colne Valley)

As probably the hon. Gentleman will remember, the 1936 Act was passed deliberately by this House to meet the special difficulties of the clashes which occured between Mosley's Fascists and Jewish residents living in the East End of London.

Mr. Stevens

I am very grateful to the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) for supporting the case I was trying to make. I have referred to the 1936 Act because it was suggested to me that under that Act provisions already exist for imposing a heavier penalty, so that this Bill was not necessary. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The sort of thing I have in mind is not either Mosley's Fascists or Communists, but—I am sorry to use the words again, but they are convenient—the sort of Teddy boy gang, which is a vastly different proposition and composed of a different type of person.

Mr. Albert Evans (Islington, South-West)

I quite follow what the hon. Gentleman is trying to say. He says that the Public Order Act, 1936, was designed to deal with a situation such as that created by the Fascist organisation existing at that time. Has he searched the records to find out whether the Public Order Act has been used to prosecute in the cases which he has in mind?

Mr. Stevens

No; I think that is not so. Indeed, the figures which I gave earlier, showing that in 1957 there were 4,294 prosecutions under the 1839 Act, indicate beyond any shadow of doubt that the 1839 Act is still essential, and that Section 54 (13) is still one under which prosecutions can take place for the sort of exhibitionism or showing off—the kind of offences which I have in mind.

Mr. Evans

Has the Public Order Act been used in any single case?

Mr. Stevens

Where appropriate, of course, it has been used, but not for the kind of offences that I have in mind, and further reference to it will not, I think, help us very much.

I took advice on this subject, and it was suggested to me that in this Bill I should include, as is included in the 1936 Act, the power to imprison the offender. It seemed to me that imprisonment was not appropriate for that type of offence—hooliganism and things of that sort—and certainly not on the occasion of the first offence. On the other hand, I was very strongly attracted by the suggestion made to me that power should be taken in the Bill to send offenders to detention centres.

The National Association of Probation Officers, from which I received valuable advice, suggested that power to send these people, particularly young people, to detention centres would give the opportunity for corrective training, and, after all, if we have in mind, as we undoubtedly ought to have, the desirability of reforming the offender, quite clearly we must seriously consider the possibility of sending him to a detention centre, where reformation can take place.

The power of the court to commit offenders to detention centres is governed by Section 18 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948. There are certain conditions: firstly, that the offender is between 14 and 21 years of age; secondly, that if the offender is 17 years of age or over he should not previously have been sent, since he was 17, to a detention centre; and, thirdly, provided that every other means of dealing with the offence has been considered and has not been thought appropriate. These three conditions fit in completely with some of the ideas I have formed on this subject, but there is, in my view, a kind of Achilles heel in them.

The 1948 Act gives power to send an offender, on conviction to a detention centre if, and only if, the offender, being adult, could be sent to prison. For reasons which I have given, I do not think that imprisonment for offences of this sort is appropriate. I feel that in a very large number of cases, imprisonment would do more harm than good. I think that in more cases than not it might convert a frightened and insecure person, an exhibitionist, into a criminal, rather than reform him, and for that reason alone I discarded the idea of imprisonment.

There is another and completely different consideration which was not in my mind at all when I considered Section 54 (13) of the 1839 Act. It is that prosecutions for soliciting may be made under that Section. So far as common prostitutes are concerned, I discovered when making my studies of the 1839 Act that the law does not recognise such a thing as a prostitute, but only a common prostitute—a person, I understand, who has been established in law to be earning her living by that particular means. The initial prosecution for soliciting may be made under Section 54 (13) of the 1839 Act. Quite obviously, as consideration is being given by the Government to the Wolfenden Report, it would be inexpedient at present to recommend imprisonment for that kind of offence.

Therefore, on balance, it seemed to me that imprisonment was not suitable. If that was so, the only thing that remained was the proposal, at present incorporated in the Bill, for increasing the penalty from a maximum of 40s. for each and every offence to a maximum of £10 for the first offence and £20 for subsequent offences. It seems to me that a £10 shock is quite a healthy shock even today, and there is also the fact that whereas, at present, if an offender is brought before a Metropolitan magistrate, the magistrate can only say, "Forty shillings" then and every other time, if there is an increased penalty of £20 for a second and subsequent offence the magistrate can say, "It is £10 this time but if you appear in the Metropolitan police district again, it may well be £20," which I think is a healthy kind of threat to hang over the head of offenders.

This Bill applies only to the Metropolitan police district, and it may well be asked what a Portsmouth Member is doing interfering in the affairs of London. I accept that implied rebuke at once. I considered extending the Bill to apply throughout the country, and indeed the 1936 Act applies not only throughout England and Wales but also to Scotland, though Northern Ireland is excluded.

Mr. A. Evans

I may be the only representative of a London constituency in the House at the moment, but I would point out that I always understood that we not only represent constituencies but we are also Members for the country as a whole.

Mr. Stevens

I accept that, but I felt a little guilty as a Portsmouth Member in poaching on London's preserves. The point is that it is only in the Metropolitan police district that penalties for this kind of thing are fixed by statute. Outside the Metropolitan area, penalties are fixed by local bye-law and regulation, and it is not without interest that whereas in the Metropolitan area the maximum penalty is 40s., outside that area the penalty is very frequently, and, indeed, nearly always, a maximum of £5.

It seems to me that not only are there certain difficulties in making the Bill apply to England and Wales but that if it were applied that would take responsibilities away from local authorities, which we are loth to do unless it is absolutely necessary. It would also take away from them the power to impose penalties suitable to their own local conditions, which may well vary from one part of the country to another. If the House gives a Second Reading to the Bill and it then passes through its subsequent stages and becomes part of statute law, it may well be that what London does today, other parts of the country will do tomorrow.

When I had notice of my good fortune in the Ballot I considered whether I could do something to reverse the growing trend of these offences, about which I gave figures earlier. I believe that the increased penalties provided by the Bill will do something in that direction. I believe that they may deter some possible offenders and provide the public with some increase in protection. For these reasons, I hope that the House will agree to give the Bill a Second Reading.

11.35 a.m.

Major W. Hicks Beach (Cheltenham)

I beg to second the Motion.

I confess that as a lawyer I have certain misgivings about the Bill, which I shall outline to the House. Before I proceed to do so, I am sure it would be the wish of both sides of the House that I should congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Stevens) on the able way in which he has introduced the Bill. He said that he was not a lawyer, but I think I would be speaking on behalf of most members of the legal profession if I said that, having heard his opening remarks, we would certainly have welcomed him into that profession and that he would have made a great success of it. What is a loss to the legal profession is, of course, a gain to the accountancy profession.

I am frankly disappointed by the scope of the Bill. I should have liked to see it apply to all parts of the country, but I fully appreciate the difficulties of this matter, which arise from the question of local byelaws. I have been looking into the position in my own constituency, and I find that the byelaws in Cheltenham have not been revised since 1882. Curiously enough, they provide the same penalty as this Bill provides.

I have been into the matter very carefully and, with all due deference to my hon. Friend, I have great doubts whether it would not be possible for prosecutions of the nature which he has in mind to be brought under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, 1936. I want to give the House at least some of the evidence upon which I base my statement. In the Metropolitan Police Guide, Ninth Edition, 1939, there is a note of some importance.

Section 5 of the Public Order Act, 1936, reads as follows: Every person shall be liable to a penalty of not more than forty shillings who, within the limits of the Metropolitan police district shall, in any thoroughfare or public place, commit any of the following offences … There follows a list of about sixty offences, and subsection (13) says: Every person who shall use threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, or whereby a breach of the peace may be occasioned …. An editorial footnote, which, of course, is not law, states under this subsection: See Public Order Act, 1936, Section 5, as to insulting or abusive words or behaviour in a public place or at a public meeting. The maximum penalty is £50 and/or three months imprisonment. That certainly leads me to think that there are those who are versed in the law who share my view that Section 5 of the 1936 Act would be and could be applied to the case which my hon. Friend has in mind.

I accept entirely what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) said in his intervention that the intention of the 1936 Act was to deal with a specific situation which arose out of clashes which took place at that time.

The title of the Public Order Act, 1936, reads: An Act to prohibit the wearing of uniforms in connection with political objects and the maintenance by private persons of associations of military or similar character; and to make further provision for the preservation of public order on the occasion of public processions and meetings in public places. Admittedly it adds "and in public places". The heading of the Bill does not lay down the law; that appears in Section 5, which is extremely wide and reads as follows: Any person who in any public place or at any public meeting uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned, shall be guilty of an offence. that is to say, an offence under the Act. If we turn to the definition Clause we find that the definition of a public place is as follows: 'Public place' means any highway, public park or garden, any sea beach, and any public bridge, road, lane, footway, square, court, alley or passage, whether a thoroughfare or not; and includes any open space to which, for the time being, the public have or are permitted to have access, whether on payment or otherwise: I raise this point because, like all hon. Members, I am against unnecessary legislation. I hope the Minister will clarify my mind on this point. I hope I am wrong, because I am seconding this Motion, but it is an important point which should be clarified by the Minister.

Mr. A. Evans

May I ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman whether he has taken his inquiries one stage further and en- quired whether or not prosecutions for the offence he and his colleagues have in mind can be taken under the Public Order Act? I suggest that the sponsors of the Bill should have made that inquiry in order to satisfy themselves whether or not the Public Order Act can be used for the type of offence they have in mind.

Major Hicks Beach

I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman that I have made inquiries on that point and as far as my researches have revealed, no prosecutions for offences of the nature which my hon. Friend has in mind have taken place under Section 5 of that Act, but this does not mean that they could not do so. The point I want to get clear before giving unqualified support to this Bill—

Mr. Barnett Janner (Leicester, North-West)

The hon. and gallant Gentleman is seconding the Motion.

Major Hicks Beach

Yes, I am seconding it because I support the Bill in principle.

Mr. Charles Pannell (Leeds, West)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can we know where the House stands? I have never yet heard a seconder of a Motion make reservations.

Mr. Speaker

It is unusual, but as a matter of order there is nothing inconsistent in what the hon. and gallant Member has said. After all, the important part of his speech, from the point of view of the House, is that he actually seconds the Motion for the Second Reading of the Bill.

Major Hicks Beach

I have already indicated, Mr. Speaker, that I am seconding the Motion for the Second Reading of the Bill. Perhaps I may now give further evidence of the considerable doubt there is on this point. I do not say for the moment that a quotation from a newspaper is conclusive evidence, but I will quote from our local paper, the Cheltenham Echo.

Mr. Pannell

Is that a legal document?

Major Hicks Beach

Curiously enough, in its issue of Monday night, there was an article discussing this Bill which supports my argument. It read as follows: The position in Cheltenham is very different, however, for the prosecution can bring similar cases under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, 1936. By this a fine of £50 and/or three months' imprisonment may be ordered. So in the view of the writer of that article my contention is correct, and all I am asking is that the Minister will clarify the position when he replies.

Having raised that hare, which I think is an important hare. I now turn to the general principle of increasing penalties. I endorse every word said by my hon. Friend to the effect that many penalties in Acts of Parliament are out of date today and should be increased. The whole object of the penalty is that it should be a deterrent, and I do not think that small penalties based on the situation in 1839 are sufficient deterrents. Therefore, I support this Bill in principle because it seeks to increase the penalties.

My hon. Friend mentioned juvenile delinquency, and one reason why I support increased penalties in the cases he has in mind is because the latest figures give cause for alarm. Juvenile delinquency is definitely increasing, as is shown from figures given in a Joint Circular from the Home Office and the Ministry of Education dated 20th July, 1953. I will quote from that circular because these figures should be carefully considered. Paragraph 8 reads as follows: All those interested in the welfare of young people must be gravely concerned at the continued high level of juvenile delinquency, as exemplified in the following table of children and young persons found guilty of indictable offences in England and Wales … Then follow figures showing that between 1948 and 1952 there was a slight decrease in juvenile delinquency in the case of boys between the ages of 8 and under 14 and a large increase between the ages of 14 and under 17, namely, from 15,980 to 17,093, and there has been a steady increase ever since. In the case of girls of similar age groups to those of boys, the figures remained steady.

I do not shrink from using the term "Teddy boys", which has been used this morning. In my opinion, the Teddy boy criminal needs a more effective deterrent than is available at present. The Act applies not only to juvenile delinquents, but I have referred at length to Section 5, because undoubtedly heavier penalties are required for the Teddy boy type of delinquent.

We have all studied the Wolfenden Report, and I want to place on record that I disagree profoundly with most of its recommendations, particularly those affecting male offenders. There is, however, one useful paragraph in it about public opinion on penalties. Paragraph 16 reads as follows: We have to consider the relationship between the law and public opinion. It seems to us that there are two over-definite views about this. On the one hand, it is held that the law ought to follow behind public opinion,— That is the view I take. —so that the law can count on the support of the community as a whole. On the other hand, it is held that a necessary purpose of the law is to lead or fortify public opinion. Certainly it is clear that if any legal enactment is markedly out of tune with public opinion it will quickly fall into disrepute. Beyond this we do not want to dogmatise, for on the matters with which we are called upon to deal we have not succeeded in discovering an unequivocal 'public opinion', and we have felt bound to try to reach conclusions for ourselves rather than to base them on what is often transient and seldom precisely ascertainable. I read that because I am certain from the inquiries that I have made that public opinion as a whole believes that the deterrent of the penalties for Teddy boy offences at the moment is too small. That is why I welcome my hon. Friend's attempts to increase the penalties, and for this reason I hope very much that the Bill will be given a Second Reading.

Public opinion is best ascertained by asking people what they think. I have had a great number of interesting letters on this subject from people who have, I know, given the matter very careful study, and I find that in every single case the view is held that the type of offence that we have in mind must be dealt with by increased penalties.

Subject to clarification of the position in respect of Section 5 of the 1936 Act, I give the Bill my full support and hope it will have a Second Reading. Frankly, however, I feel that several Amendments may well have to be introduced in Committee.

11.52 a.m.

Mr. Barnett Janner (Leicester, North-West)

I listened with very considerable interest to the hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Stevens). I compliment him upon the way in which he expressed his point of view, and also upon introducing this Measure. I think he will probably render a greater service than he realises by having introduced it.

I was a little worried about the hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach). I was not sure whether he was supporting the Bill or endeavouring by faint praise to kill it. I think he is wrong in what he says. I do not think—I hesitate to say it about a fellow lawyer; it is difficult, particularly when a layman has introduced the Bill—that he need worry very much about having some duplication on the Statute Book. There are Acts which might not have been passed if people had known that previous Acts covered the circumstances. One never knows under which Act a prosecution will be taken. Consequently, if the Metropolitan Police choose to take action under the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839, instead of under the Public Order Act, 1936, the penalties available will be those laid down in the Metropolitan Police Act.

I should have preferred a little wider Bill, although I appreciate that the hon. Member for Langstone has probably been cautioned that the less he puts into his Bill the more likelihood there is of the Government accepting it. While I appreciate that difficulty, I think that if he had considered the provisions of Section LIV of the 1839 Act, he would have been rather intrigued and might have been persuaded to include some further paragraphs from the Section.

Section LIV is a very wide one, and includes a paragraph which the hon. Gentleman might have covered in the Bill. I do not know whether there is a possibility of his doing so later. It reads: Every Person who, without the Consent of the Owner or Occupier, shall affix any Posting Bill or other Paper against or upon any Building, Wall, Fence, or Pale, or write upon, soil, deface, or mark any such Building, Wall, Fence, or Pale with Chalk or Paint, or in any other Way whatsoever, or wilfully break, destroy or damage any Part of any such Building, Wall, Fence, or Pale … Other offences covered by the Section include prostitution, which might very well be regarded as a matter in respect of which penalties should be increased.

Writing on walls is a very obnoxious practice; it creates a considerable amount of trouble and difficulty. Sometimes it amounts to insulting behaviour, particularly in the case of, for example, anti-Semitic and other offensive statements. Often these things are done on walls from which they cannot easily be erased. If they are done on private property, the owner may himself have to take steps to erase them. I do not suppose that in 1839 there was available the indelible writing material which is used these days. If the Bill can be extended in Committee, probably the Home Office would agree that some of the other provisions of the 1839 Act might be covered. It may be that what I have referred to amounts to insulting behaviour.

Mr. Stevens

I was about to ask the hon. Member whether the writing of anti-Semitic slogans would not constitute insulting behaviour or even threatening behaviour. I should have thought that was so.

Mr. Janner

I should not like to give an opinion on that straight away. In my capacity as a lawyer, I should probably have to ask my client to come back tomorrow so that I might in the meantime refer to any cases which might have been heard. However, I think that might well be so. The word "behaviour" was not referred to by the hon. Member or his hon. and gallant Friend.

In recent months I have been endeavouring in the House to secure the prohibition of the use of flick knives, and I propose to pursue the matter further. I am sorry to say that I opened a flick knife in the House and I was placed in a very serious position in that you, Mr. Speaker, could have insisted, I suppose, that I be put in the Tower. At any rate, I could have been thrown out of the House for opening the knife in the way that I did. Why? Because the very opening of the knife could itself have been a form of threat against an hon. Member. Let hon. Members imagine a person using such a knife as a form of threatening behaviour towards an individual. It would be absurd if proceedings were taken under an Act permitting a maximum penalty of only £2. Other forms of behaviour which are of an insulting nature and are conducive to the commission of a breach of the peace are referred to in Section LIV. One paragraph reads: … insulting Words or Behaviour with Intent to provoke a Breach of the Peace, or whereby a Breach of the Peace may be occasioned … No one would deny that the opening of such an instrument as a flick knife in any place would be behaviour of such a nature that a breach of the peace would ultimately arise.

Violence and abusive language may be even more dangerous and more upsetting than the use of such an instrument or the threat to use it. The House will recollect that an attempt was made to introduce a Measure to prevent people from defaming a group. I speak with some knowledge of it, because my own religious denomination was involved. There was a view, although I could not accept it, that although it was essential that abuse of groups should be avoided if possible, there were certain difficulties in the way of legislation. Consequently, a person can abuse a group with impunity. There is no method by which he can be stopped. He can say things about a group which he may not say about an individual and in such terms that they may lead to the most serious consequences to the group as a result of these views being spread. If action were taken under the Act as it stands the only penalty would be a fine of 40s.

I am not a believer in imposing heavy sentences. In my view, to a reasonable person the fact that he has to appear before a court and is fined is a deterrent for the future. In many cases, where decent, respectable people are involved—and they form the vast majority of people in this country—the very fact that they have to appear in court at all, even though the fine may be only 5s. or 10s., is sufficient deterrent. The very fact of going into court and of being accused of a minor offence is objectionable to them, and they feel unhappy about it.

On the other hand, we have the problem of the young group of hooligans who today are making life intolerable for their fellow young people and who, for the sake of hooliganism itself, penetrate not only into neighbourhoods but into dance halls and interfere with the normal, healthy and reasonable pastimes of their fellow young men and women. This ought to be stopped, and it ought to be punished by more than the threat of a £2 fine.

For cases which do not come within that or similar categories the court will still have and should exercise the discretion of being reasonable and not imposing a fine. It can even bind people over or use such provisions as exist for the probation of offenders, in which I believe and which, Mr. Speaker, I am sure that you and anyone else who has to do with these matters realise are extremely important. Such provisions should be used as substantially as possible.

I hope that the hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham will not feel uneasy and will not be unable to sleep tonight because of this Bill. I think that the Bill can do no harm. The possibility of a higher penalty should be available and it might help considerably.

12.5 p.m.

Mr. Peter Remnant (Wokingham)

May I join in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Stevens) for three reasons—not only on his luck in the Ballot, but on his choosing this Bill to help the police and on the extremely able and clear way in which he has put the case for it. I hope I shall not start a rift or widen any difference which may exist between an accountant and the hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) who is a lawyer. I am not versed in either profession, except in so far as I have been advised that if I wish to understand what the law means I should consult one lawyer only, because if I consult two I shall be given two entirely different opinions.

Mr. Janner

May I interrupt the hon. Member to offer my apologies for not remaining in the Chamber to hear his speech? Unfortunately, I cannot remain.

Mr. Remnant

I appreciate that apology and understand the position.

When he goes to two lawyers it is difficult for the layman to understand the position, except that probably the right answer is that it would have been better to have reached his own decision and certainly much cheaper than going to a lawyer.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham said that the Bill was not necessary because the appropriate action could have been taken under the Public Order Act. Surely the point is that it was not taken under that Act. It was taken under the Metropolitan Police Act, which suggests that in the view of those concerned the Metropolitan Police Act is much more convenient and suitable to deal with the offences in question. If that is accepted, then, despite the parts of that Act which give too small a power of punishment, it is right and proper that the House should address itself to the appropriate Sections of the Metropolitan Police Act and put the powers of punishment into proper relation with the value of money today.

One cannot but make comparisons between the punishment for the offence of exceeding the speed limit and that for other offences for which the Act is used. Admittedly a man who exceeds the speed limit has his driving licence endorsed, too, but the fine is almost universal at 40s. and if it is a first offence the driver may get away with it altogether. To me, the two types of case are not comparable at all.

I share the doubts of the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr[...] Janner) whether the Bill is wide enough. Having been fortunate myself once in the Ballot, I realise that one wishes to see the Bill one introduces placed on the Statute Book, and one is therefore tempted, if low down on the list, to select a non-controversial Bill, and, if high on the list, to select one which is likely to raise the least objection. Nevertheless, I think that either now or later, and not necessarily on this Bill, the House will have to consider other aspects of insulting behaviour and assaults and to consider whether in its view—I say this with all respect to those excellent people, our magistrates—the magistrates use the powers available to them in appropriate cases to an extent which is likely to deter the offender from doing it again.

Perhaps I may be forgiven if I explain what I have in mind. A man in a public house may have come from other public houses and may have had slightly too much to drink. The licensee of the house may decline to serve him, and he may then commit a savage assault upon the licensee. Very often his friends in the house will create a disturbance. He is then fined 40s. That is a grossly inadequate penalty for that type of offence. If the Bill meets with the Government's approval, I suggest that between now and the Committee stage my hon. Friend should see whether it is possible to table appropriate Amendments which would have the effect of widening its scope by covering a greater number of offences.

It is remarkable how often a Bill is introduced by a private Member to render assistance to the police. I should imagine that my recollection in this matter goes back rather further than that of most hon. Members. I recall that in the early years of this century it was a private Member who ultimately persuaded the House to give the police one day's rest in seven. That private Member was my father. I know how his interest in the police from that moment onwards was very greatly appreciated by the force.

I consider that he was right, as my hon. Friend is right. The police form the basis of our system of law and order. If they are not protected while carrying out their duties in respect of both major and minor offences the basis of our system is likely to disappear. In the last few years I have had the good fortune to meet many people from abroad. I have been able to give them hospitality and, on occasion, a night's lodging. There are two things which have nearly always impressed them about this country. First, they are impressed by the fact that although we are so orderly our police are unarmed. Most people would agree that the fact that we are orderly is partly due to the fact that the police are unarmed. But if an attack on the police—not necessarily a physical attack—is not checked in its initial stages our system of law and order, upheld by unarmed police, may to some extent go by the board.

Secondly, people from some of the European countries are impressed by the fact that a seller of evening newspapers is quite prepared to leave his pile of newspapers unattended, knowing that people who want to purchase the newspapers will put down their 2½d. when taking them, or give themselves any necessary change, and that when he returns he will find the right money there.

Mr. C. Pannell

He usually finds he has some money over.

Mr. Remnant

Yes—very likely he has some money over. That is an example of the honesty of our people, and it arises from our system of law and administration of justice.

Even if I were critical of the Bill because it does not go far enough, I would say that it cannot possibly do any harm and it might do quite a lot of good. If the House is not very largely attended, I think that we might be allowed to assume that most hon. and right hon. Members have indicated their approval of the Bill by their absence. I wish it good luck.

12.15 p.m.

Mr. Charles Pannell (Leeds, West)

I do not share the opinion of the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Remnant) as to the reason for the sparse attendance in the House today. When people mention the sparse attendance they should remember that many hon. Members have just finished a long sitting. The proceedings on the Army Estimates continued almost until four o'clock this morning. After having considered the imponderables of the Army in different parts of the earth it is reasonable that the hon. Members concerned might leave the Metropolitan Police area to those people who have an interest in it.

Mr. Remnant

I was not intending to be critical of hon. Members.

Mr. Pannell

I do not suggest that the hon. Member was. I am merely putting the facts on record for the benefit of anybody who might hear, because it is sometimes felt that a sparse attendance in the House on Friday morning indicates that Members are not being very assiduous in their duties.

The point that intrigues me is the reason why the hon. Member for Lang-stone (Mr. Stevens) introduced the Bill. He admits that he is not a Londoner. He comes from Portsmouth, which is a fairly lawless place on occasions.

I remember that when I first invested in an Austin Seven I took delivery of it on a Saturday afternoon. My wife said, "Where are we going?" I said, "We will go to the Isle of Wight." We were then young enough to think of going to any place. We got as far as Portsmouth and went into an hotel. Afterwards, when I was telling my friends about this triumphal tour, they asked me where I had stayed in Portsmouth, and when I mentioned the name of the hotel, they said that a sailor had slit a woman's throat there a week before. It therefore seems to me that Portsmouth might need a Bill of this sort more than London.

The hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) was very hesitant in seconding the Bill, and he had many reservations to make. I am surprised to see the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department here this morning: I expected to see the Home Secretary after his recent experience of public disorder north of the Tweed. It was not Teddy boys who set about the Home Secretary; it was university students.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton)

I would remind the hon. Member that the Home Secretary has no responsibility for public order in Scotland.

Mr. Pannell

It seems to me that the hon. Member has no responsibility for a sense of humour. At any rate, I should have thought that the Home Secretary would be able to tell us at first hand about public disorder, having experienced it north of the Tweed. He could have brought his weighty intellect to bear upon the question of how it should be dealt with in the Metropolitan Police District. I have never seen in London such scenes of disorder as occurred, according to reports, in connection with the Home Secretary's reception in Glasgow. He stood up to it for a long time, but he could not speak.

We all regret what happened to him there. It is an absolute disgrace that a public man should be submitted to this sort of treatment. I think that the chairman should have got off the platform at the earliest opportunity in order to protect his guest. I can appreciate the difficulty of the Home Secretary, being a guest, but I think that he would have been well advised to consider his own dignity, and that of the House, not by standing up to that sort of insult but by getting out, and I hope that he will do so in future. People who treat their guests in that way ought also to be treated with contempt.

This brings home to my mind very forcibly the fact that the police and those charged with the conduct of public order usually have one standard for students and another for Teddy boys. This is not the sort of thing that would have been tolerated by the police in regard to members of my union when demonstrating for increased wages on the Clyde. Everybody knows what happened in Glasgow in the past. A very revered hon. Member of this House, the late David Kirkwood, was, of course, submitted to a good deal of brutality by the police when demonstrating on behalf of my union many years ago.

I say to the Joint Under-Secretary of State—and he might pass it on to his chief—that, generally speaking, it is not only the insult to the Home Secretary that matters, but the fact that the public generally do not like this sort of thing, and that it is something that should be stopped. Though we are speaking about this limited Bill which deals only with the Metropolitan Police area, a similar disturbance happened in Liverpool only a few days before.

Mr. Speaker

Though I may have every desire to permit a wide discussion on the matter, I think that the hon. Member ought to come a little nearer to the Metropolitan Police area, to which the Bill refers. I do not think that Scotland comes into it, or Liverpool for that matter.

Mr. Pannell

The Bill, of course, amends Section 54 of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839, and I should have thought that my remarks were relevant, bearing in mind that the Metropolis is the place to which so many provincials come. There ought to be some sort of uniform order throughout the country. I am trying to make the point, seeing that the hon. Member for Langstone and the hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham have addressed themselves to increased penalties in London, that the Bill is probably misconceived. I think we ought to use the opportunities under the Bill to bring in legislation which will affect more turbulent parts of the country.

I want to make only one other reference to the matter. I know that the antecedents of the Chair must never be referred to, however lurid, and lest you think that I am being unfair to those north of the Tweed, Mr. Speaker, I would refer to the incident at Liverpool. There, again, we have an example of students breaking up a matinee performance for the benefit of crippled and spastic children and where people's enjoyment was completely wrecked. I should have thought—

Sir Eric Errington (Aldershot)

I would remind the hon. Gentleman that as far as the occasion when the theatre performance was broken up in Liverpool is concerned, that, of course, was not in a public place within the meaning of the Act.

Mr. Pannell

I fully appreciate that, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman with his legal training will not put forward the idea that, though it may not be a public place within the meaning of the Act as lawyers understand it, it is still not a public place of entertainment as the public understand it. I should have thought that a place in which 1,200 people were gathered was a place where public disorder could occur, and where on this occasion public disorder did occur, and that it was a form of public disorder that we all regret.

On the other hand, I think it worth while referring to this sort of thing because, as I say, a provincial hon. Member is proposing in the Bill to deal only with London. I have an interest in the matter because among those representing Leeds I have probably a better title to speak for London than some others. After all, I am an Essex boy, a near-Cockney, domiciled in Kent, and I represent a Yorkshire constituency.

Mr. Stevens

I have even a better title than that. I was born within the sound of Bow Bells.

Mr. Pannell

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman. He probably believes, with the poet, that he who is tired of London is tired of life, and, consequently, he has had to take himself to Portsmouth.

The last time that I saw celebrations in Trafalgar Square on New Year's Eve —and this was confirmed by someone else—it seemed to me that the police were far tougher on the Teddy boys than on the students. Students, somehow, appear to be allowed a licence in this country that other people are not. I hold no brief for Teddy boys in this sort of business, and I shall support the Bill in so far as I support public order. I fully appreciate that many of the penalties of the Act of 1839 have become thoroughly outmoded. When one reads Sections of that Act one realises the change in climate since that time. I will not read those parts of the Act which have already been read by the hon. Gentleman opposite and which could apply to today. Section 54 (14) of the Act states: Every Person, except the Guards and Postmen belonging to Her Majesty's Post Office in the Performance of their Duty, who shall blow any Horn or use any other noisy Instrument, for the Purpose of calling Persons together, or of announcing any Show or Entertainment, or for the Purpose of hawking, selling, distributing, or collecting any Article whatsoever, or of obtaining Money or Alms. Those sort of things have no relevance today, but, apparently, offenders against this provision were liable to a penalty under the Act.

Section 54 (16) states: Every Person who shall wilfully and wantonly disturb any Inhabitant by pulling or ringing any Door-bell or knocking at any Door without lawful Excuse, or who shall wilfully and unlawfully extinguish the Light of any Lamp. I could imagine Guy Fawkes Day in certain provincial places, including Leeds.

Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth (Hendon, South)

The hon. Gentleman will note that the next subsection deals with the case of the person who shall fly any Kite or play at any Game.

Mr. Pannell

That is so. The subsection reads: Every Person who shall fly any Kite or play at any Game to the Annoyance of the Inhabitants or Passengers,"— passengers of what?— or who shall make or use any Slide upon Ice or Snow in any Street or other Thoroughfare, to the common Danger of the Passengers. I suppose that in those days that referred to horse traffic. And so we could go on. Of course, we have to bear in mind the changed value of money.

When we consider the Public Order Act we particularly have in mind the difficulties that occurred in the inter-war years, particularly in 1936, when Sir Oswald Mosley made his famous, infamous or notorious march on the East End of London with the deliberate inten- tion of stirring up the populace. I do not want to be unkind to hon. Gentlemen opposite, but there were one or two of them who had their feet in that camp and who, no doubt, have since regretted it. I think that most of us in this country would still be against any form of political uniform and any sort of uniformed demonstration. We wish to leave uniforms where they belong, to the people in Her Majesty's Forces and other public servants.

I should like the Home Secretary to say a word on another point. I hope it will be clearly laid down that this Bill will make no difference at all to any penalties that may arise from picketing in industrial disputes, because it sometimes seems to those concerned with the matter that public order Acts of different sorts are invoked in times of industrial dispute and excitement.

Though I may have appeared to be a trifle officious when I began my speech, I wish to say that we have had a long tradition of public order in this country. Our people are brought up in that tradition. I have never understood that an unarmed police force which is possible in this country is necessarily a possibility in other parts of the world. Our police force is the best in the world not simply because it is unarmed, but because it happens to be the best sort of police force. No one going to certain cities in America could imagine that public order could be maintained in them with an unarmed police force.

It appears to me that the public are set a bad example when young gentlemen who should know better, and who have received the benefit of the best education the country can provide, behave abominably towards distinguished public men who are their guests. It is difficult to convince Teddy boys that they should behave when so much publicity is given to that kind of conduct. After all, law and public order are based on equity and the fact that there is justice as between man and man irrespective of the social class to which they may belong. Only by that means can we maintain the tradition of public order of which we are so proud.

12.30 p.m.

Mr. Ray Mawby (Totnes)

There have been many occasions when I have had the privilege of following the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) or he has followed me, but today we may reach a greater degree of unanimity than on previous occasions. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lang-stone (Mr. Stevens) on producing this small Bill which may cause great repercussions in the future.

I agree with a number of things said by the hon. Member for Leeds, West particularly about the difference in the attitude adopted towards Teddy boys and those who are regarded as more highly educated. Students who are enjoying the benefits of a higher education should be prepared to set a higher standard. We must take account of the fact that the general public feel there should be no abusive or insulting behaviour by the members of any section of the community.

As well as being the nuclear age this is also the age of the "angry young man." My hon. Friend instanced a number of reasons for that. Many of these young men were born and lived their early years in upset conditions due to the war in which this country was engaged and, consequently, their family life was affected. They did not have the steady and protected childhood which others of us were fortunate to enjoy. Many "angry young men" feel that they have an excuse to flout the accepted rules of behaviour. Their general attitude may be summed up as, "We did not ask to be born. Our fathers have placed a burden upon us and it is up to them to do something about it. We have no responsibility at all, and we may criticise action which has been taken rather than try to build up some form of self-discipline."

Mr. C. Pannell

Does the hon. Gentleman think there is any difference between the "angry young men" of today and the "angry young men" of thirty years ago, except that they were angry for different reasons and were probably better at saying what they had to say than the "angry young men" of today?

Mr. Mawby

Thirty years ago I was at an age when I did not completely understand what was going on. Therefore, I can discuss only the situation as I see it now. Older members of the community may say that there is nothing new about it.

Today the psychological alibi is trotted out by many people. They use it as an excuse to break the laws of society and indulge in behaviour which would not have been accepted years ago. In my opinion, self-discipline can be achieved only by having the right type of discipline during the formative years. I disagree with many learned authorities who argue that if you strike a child it is possible that in the future the child may murder his grandmother because of some psychosis resulting from the blow. In my opinion, we have gone too far in that direction.

Bringing a person to court and imposing a fine on him may be a blunt-edged weapon, but it is the only one available and we must make certain that its use will deter other people from offending in the future. That presents us with a problem, not only in respect of this offence, but of other offences which it would be out of order for me to discuss now.

The question was asked why an hon. Member representing a Portsmouth constituency should present a Bill which affects only the Metropolis. It has been observed that what is said in Manchester today is said in the rest of the country next week. If this Bill becomes an Act, it is possible that what London does today the rest of the country will do tomorrow. A standard will be set for other parts of the country to follow. At present, the difference in the amount of a fine which may be imposed in the Metropolitan area and a fine imposed in a provincial area is such that it is cheaper to come to London to create a disturbance. That may be too cynical an argument to pursue, but if this Bill does anything, it lays down a criterion for London which most of the provinces could follow.

12.40 p.m.

Mr. Glenvil Hall (Colne Valley)

I do not intend to intervene for more than a few minutes, for two very good reasons. The first is that the Bill deals with a very narrow point and, so far as I know, there is no opposition to it from any quarter of the House.

Sir E. Errington

I have not been able to catch Mr. Speaker's eye, but I would inform the right hon. Gentleman that I am very much against the Bill.

Mr. Hall

I do not object to that interruption. It will be for the hon. Member to voice his objection presently. My point is nevertheless valid that, apart from one or two exceptions, and I will go no further than that, there is no objection to the principle underlying the Bill. In fact, all speakers up till now have indicated that most of us are sorry that the Bill does not go further than it does.

My second reason for rising now and for hoping that the debate will not be too prolonged is that the Bill is to be followed by another which seeks, by the will of the House, to give increases to certain categories of workers who are disabled. They are suffering in one direction from the drop in value of money just as fines, in the other direction, are less than they should be because of the drop in the value of money.

We should like to see the Bill extended, but that may be impossible in Committee because the Preamble is worded rather tightly. That, however, is a point that can be looked at when we come to further action on the Bill.

Mr. Stevens (Portsmouth, Langstone)

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point, I should be obliged if he would indicate in what way he would like to see the scope of the Bill widened.

Mr. Hall

I was thinking of our ability or inability to extend it to other parts of the country. Beyond doubt we shall have to confine it, whatever else we may be able to do with the Bill, to the Metropolitan Police District.

I would like to raise a point which was raised initially by the hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) and which he hoped the Joint Under-Secretary of State to the Home Office would answer. The hon. and gallant Member took the view that the Public Order Act, 1936, probably covered the kind of offence which the promoter of this Bill seeks to cover, and he sought an assurance one way or the other from the hon. and learned Gentleman whether that was so.

The point should be cleared up. If the Public Order Act, 1936, covers offences of this kind, the proposed £50 fine for a Teddy boy is rather excessive. If that Act does apply, it is time that something was done to clarify the position. It is true, as the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Remnant) and other hon. Members have pointed out, that juvenile delinquency has increased. There is no doubt that it is giving considerable perturbation and worry to chief constables and others who are responsible for public order. The hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham said he thought that to increase the penalty in this way was the only way to deal with adolescent offences.

I do not altogether agree, and I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary of State also will not agree. There are additional ways of approaching the problem. The adolescents of the country are, on the whole, very fine types. If any of them go wrong—some of them do—it is not too late at that stage to do anything about it. We have not yet reached the kind of position that exists in the United States, and I hope that we never shall. By providing clubs and otherwise seeking to give a new and more creative outlet for adolescent energies, we shall do far more than by increasing penalties in Bills of this kind.

I welcome the Bill on behalf of my hon. and right hon. Friends on this side of the House. We hope it will pass. Our only regret is that it does not go as far as we would like it to do.

12.47 p.m.

Sir Eric Errington (Aldershot)

I am very unhappy about the Bill. I do not want to refer at any length to the various problems facing those who administer justice. Some reference to them has been made by the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell). It seems a peculiar commentary on our system of education, by which everybody who has ability can reach the highest educational institutions, the universities, that at the same time we do not seem to achieve education in decent behaviour. The thought is always in my mind that the people who benefit from the State education system to the extent that people of that character do should learn the fundamental canons of decent behaviour.

There is a principle in the Bill which ought very carefully to be considered by the House. The Bill, like the man who was seen out with a lady other than his wife, is only a little one, but it is important. It picks out certain offences and proposes to increase the penalties. A very great deal of consideration—if I may say so with respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Stevens)—should be given to this problem. The words, threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour in any thoroughfare or public place cover a very large number of offences. The two main bodies of people who transgress are prostitutes and Teddy boys. Among the latter is supposed to be the "angry young man." Why he should be angry, considering some of the benefits be gets in existing conditions. I am not quite certain.

The point that we have reached in our criminal views is that we have not to consider increasing fines or, indeed, necessarily increasing penalties. That was the point made by the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall). This is part of the criminal law—we have to consider whether we can deal with it in such a way as to reform those who transgress against it. Although I do not agree with many of the views expressed in the Wolfenden Report, there is a thought in paragraph 277 of that Report which the House ought to have in mind. It refers to the alternative of imprisonment for third or subsequent offences. The paragraph says: For this reason, therefore, that increased and even graduated fines might in themselves prove inadequate, the sanction of imprisonment must in our opinion be available, in the last resort, for repeated offences. The Report is dealing with prostitutes only, but in my submission this might just as well apply to Teddy boys. The paragraph goes on: In making this recommendation we have two purposes in mind. The first is straightforward deterrence. I leave out some unimportant words. Then the paragraph says: But equally important is the other strand in our thinking, which may be called the reformative element in punishment. We do not deceive ourselves into thinking that a short term of imprisonment is likely to effect reform where repeated fines have failed. But we believe that the presence of imprisonment as a possible punishment may make the courts anxious to try, and the individual prostitutes more willing to accept, the use of probation in suitable cases. As the law at present stands, a probation order can be made in the case of an offender over fourteen years of age only if the offender expresses willingness to comply with its imposition and conditions. Since, as is at present the case, the alternative to probation is a fine of forty shillings, the prostitute … I would add the Teddy boy— frequently declines even to see the probation officer. This is regrettable, for we feel that many women who have adopted a life of prostitution could be led to renounce it by enquiry into their personal problems and by advice and treatment which the probation service is well equipped to give them. If the alternative to a probation order were not an insignificant fine but the possibility of ultimate imprisonment, it is probable that some of those who now refuse the help of the probation officer would be more ready to respond to the opportunity of probation if it were offered. The possibility that help of this kind might he accepted by some even of the most persistent offenders seems to us to be a strong argument for including imprisonment as an ultimate penalty. My opposition to this Bill is quite definite and quite clear. I do not think it enough to make a £2 fine £10 and then to make it £20. That is quite inadequate for dealing with problems and difficulties which exist in the country today. Developments which have occurred since 1839 and since the previous Act have caused a much more enlightened view on these matters.

A Bill that stops short at the fine not exceeding £20 is quite inadequate to deal with these problems. I agree with the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) that disturbers of the peace are not confined to any one class of society, but I think disturbances are increasing all the time. The problem of the prostitute, with which we should have no doubt this Bill is intended to deal, ought to be approached from a much more enlightened and, if I may say so without disrespect, a more intelligent and up-to-date view.

This is a small Bill because it deals only with London. It is a small Bill because it deals only with a very limited set of circumstances, but the principle behind it is of vital importance to the administration of justice. We have built up a magnificent probation service. I have the privilege of sitting on a bench. We try to use the probation service to the absolute maximum. By doing so I think we get many cases of reformation which otherwise would become desperate and hopeless.

Mr. Glenvil Hall

If I thought this Bill and its passage to the Statute Book would do anything to harm or prevent the probationary system and probation officers doing their job, I would be against it, but, as I understand it, it will not affect that work at all.

Sir E. Errington

As I understand the position, magistrates are in the difficulty that if there is no provision for imprisonment there is no possibility of using the probation service properly and to the full. This is an indication of the difficulty we get when we pick out a particular item from the criminal law and seek to deal with just that one matter. I hope I have made clear to the House the importance of this question. If I am correct in my view that the probation system cannot be adequately used to deal with the two very important purposes I have mentioned, the Bill is useless and ought to be rejected.

12.58 p.m.

Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth (Hendon, South)

My attitude to this Bill is similar to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington). I am not opposed to what is proposed by the Bill, but I think it is defective. By being defective it not only misses an opportunity but may actually work some harm, for the reasons my hon. Friend has given. I think the quotation he made from the Wolfenden Report is exactly in point in this connection. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Langstone (Mr. Stevens) on his good fortune in winning a somewhat higher place in the Ballot than I did, my Bill being third in the list today, and also on his eloquence in introducing this Bill. I am bound to tell him, however, for the reasons I have mentioned, that I am not persuaded that the Bill is the right remedy to deal with Teddy boys.

That is not the matter about which I want to address the House. If hon. Members examine the Bill, they will find a certain discrepancy between the Long Title and the body of the Bill, a discrepancy between title and text. One is rather apt to find that in Bills introduced under machinery for Private Members' Bills. We have to produce a Title first, and the Bill comes some time afterwards. It is rather like the prospective parents who put down the name of their expected son for an educational establishment and then had to send a telegram to say, "Many regrets. John is Joan." It often happens with us private Members that we put down a Long Title but that when we draft the Bill it is not easy to get within the Long Title exactly what we had intended to set out.

In this case, the body of the Bill refers to paragraph 13 of Section 54 of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839. The Long Title refers to the whole of Section 54. Although there are other words, they do not apply to any particular paragraph. Indeed, they are equally applicable to paragraph 11, which deals with common prostitutes. The Bill, therefore, is effective to cover that aspect, and it could be so amended in Committee.

Mr. Glenvil Hall indicated dissent.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I have no doubt that what I am saying is correct.

Mr. Hall

All I meant was that the Preamble is simply an indication of what is to follow. As the Preamble is broader than the actual enacting words, it would be perfectly in order to amend it in Committee. I meant no more than that.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. That is exactly my point. Although the Bill itself is somewhat narrow, it could be amended in Committee to include a great deal more. There is no saying that the Committee might not see fit to make such Amendments.

Mr. Stevens

My hon. Friend is much more experienced in these matters than I am, but would not the first words of the Long Title—"Amend section fifty-four"—be governed by the purpose, which also is stated in the Long Title? The purpose is clearly stated as increasing the maximum penalty for threatening, abusive, or insulting words or behaviour.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

My hon. Friend will be well aware that the nub of paragraph 11 of Section 54, of which I wish to speak, is the question of annoyance, to which these words would, I think, precisely refer. On reading the Long Title of the Bill, I thought that my hon. Friend was dealing with prostitutes and not with Teddy boys.

Apart from that, what is true of the one class is to some extent true of the other. They are related problems. Indeed, they are referred to in almost consecutive paragraphs of Section 54 of the 1839 Act. In this connection, it is of the utmost relevance to consider what was said in the Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution. Various paragraphs of the Report have been referred to, but the one which I consider to be most in point is paragraph 275. I make no apology for reading parts of it to the House.

Paragraph 275 states: The present maximum fine is forty shillings, for the first or any subsequent offence. This penalty seems to us quite inadequate, in two ways. The amount of the fine was fixed over a hundred years ago, when forty shillings was a not inconsiderable sum. We think that this amount should be brought more into line with the considerable change in monetary values since it was first fixed. I quite agree with that proposition, but it bears out the point which I have just been making that we cannot alter the maximum for paragraph 13 of Section 54 without at least seeing that similar alterations are made in the case of other and similar offences.

The Wolfenden Committee continued: Further, it is apparent from the figures of convictions fifty years ago that repeated fines of the same amount, though then an appreciable one, proved futile as a deterrent. They would, in our view, prove equally futile today, even at a higher rate than forty shillings. We therefore believe that if the problem is to be effectively dealt with a system of progressively higher penalties, such as applies in the case of many other offences, must be introduced. I am sure that that is right.

The Bill suggests that in the one instance to which the text relates, there should be a higher penalty for second or subsequent convictions. The Wolfenden Committee, however, in paragraph 275, continued: We accordingly recommend that the maximum penalty for a first offence should be a fine of ten pounds"— that corresponds with the Bill—

that the maximum penalty for a second offence should be a fine of twenty-five pounds"— which is higher than that proposed in the Bill— and that the maximum penalty for a third or subsequent offence should be three months' imprisonment. That is a steeper scale than is proposed by the Bill and I regard it as more satisfactory. In particular, the final penalty of imprisonment is right, for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot. It is not that I wish to see these people put in prison but that I want to bring in, in its full force and effect, the whole probation system, which is of the utmost value.

When we are dealing with this type of offence, we want on the whole to maintain some relationship between the various penalties. In other words, I think it would be quite wrong to pick out one class—either prostitutes or Teddy boys or any of the other classes referred to in Section 54 of the 1938 Act —and deal with it alone, leaving the others with the same penalties as were attached to them in the year 1839.

I do not know that I can take the matter any further. There is nothing in the Bill to which I take exception. For my own part, however, I should be rather sorry to see the Bill make progress in its present form. I would like to see it make progress with some very substantial Amendments. They could, I think, be made within the Long Title of the Bill, although it would be exceedingly difficult for them to be made without some very general recasting. For that reason, I reserve my own position and I should like to hear what my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department will have to say when speaking on behalf of the Government.

1.8 p.m.

Mr. Richard Body (Billericay)

I add my entire agreement to everything my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) has just said. Unfortunately, I was not present when my hon. Friend the Member for Langstone (Mr. Stevens) moved the Second Reading of the Bill, being detained in one of those places whose powers we now seek to increase. Therefore, I have unfortunately missed almost the entire debate, and I apologise for having done so. Perhaps for that reason it would be wrong for me to intervene, but I feel particularly strongly about this matter.

I consider that the House is missing a very great opportunity to bring up to date and into 1958 terms these offences of 1839. It is of some interest to go back to 1839 and discover the reasons for the creation of these offences and why the sum of 40s. was decided upon at that time.

It was in the days of the controversy between Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel, and the whole purpose of that Measure, as the Title of the Act suggests, was to give the police force an adequate income. One of the Sections of the Act provided that the Lord High Treasurer should be authorised to contribute the sum of £20,000 towards the maintenance of the police force.

There was then discussion in the House as to the best way of raising that large sum of money for the provision and maintenance of the police force, and the debate went on for some hours. It was suggested that there might be substantial fines imposed for certain types of offences and that those fines should go directly to the payment of the police force. In the Act, as the House knows, the only offence the fines for which went into that police fund was the offence of drunkenness.

I suppose that if one were to use that criterion that one should punish a man by requiring him to pay 40s. to the police force in terms of 1839, now, when the cost of the police force is astronomically higher, the fines themselves should be astronomically higher than that which is proposed in the Bill, but that would be unfair to many of these people not really of the criminal classes and who do commit this type of offence.

I fear I should be merely repeating the arguments which have already been adduced if I were to labour this point about the provisions of the Act. Certainly I do not wish to delay this House in hearing other hon. Members, but—and I say this with great respect—I think the Bill is a little bit of a twopenny halfpenny Measure at the moment. Here is a great opportunity to extend it to the prostitutes and the others who are continually committing offences within the Metropolitan area and who treat the existing fines with contempt and who will continue to commit the offences they do commit until they are punished in the monetary terms of 1958 instead of 1839. Therefore, I earnestly hope that when the Bill is considered in Committee it can be so amended as to include substantially all the offences with which the Act of 1839 was designed to deal.

1.13 p.m.

Mr. J. A. Leavey (Heywood and Royton)

I take issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Body) for referring to this as a twopenny halfpenny Bill. It would be fairer to to say that this is an exercise, though whether it is carried to its logical conclusion eventually and the Bill embodied in the law of the country is a matter of some doubt; although I say that with great respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Stevens), whom I congratulate on introducing this Measure.

It seems to me that what is significant about it is this. Here and in another place and in many debating assemblies we from time to time adopt a device, putting down an Amendment to a Clause of a Bill in Committee, or, as is done in another place, by moving for Papers, in order to provide opportunity to discuss a point of principle even though it is the clear intention not to pursue the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Langstone has drawn attention to an anomaly in the present law, and I support him in doing that.

What we are considering once again, as we have so often to consider, is whether a decision taken many years ago relating to punishment for offences or crimes is appropriate in present circumstances. I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay who used such insulting words about this Bill—although I know he did not mean them—that one can always argue that a Measure is inadequate to meet the point, that it does not go far enough, and that the realistic thing to do is to realise that, if one were to attempt as a private Member to embark upon wholesale amending of the law, one would very quickly become bogged down, as has been very lucidly explained by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth), on points of law, on margins, on points of overlapping, and in a great mass of detail which would quickly block any progress. So one would be frustrated in what is, I believe, an admirable purpose in drawing attention to a glaring anomaly.

The kernel of this matter is the question of punishment, its significance in our current thinking, and its place in the penal code. I suppose hardly a week goes by without our considering in this House whether the Measures we present and propose to put on the Statute Book will be more effective or less effective for various considerations. I understand that the House is being asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Langstone to consider whether what was decided as appropriate in 1839 as a fine for any threatening, abusive, or insulting Words or Behaviour and proposed by Parliament at that time remains relevant. I wholeheartedly support my hon. Friend in suggesting to the House that it is not relevant and that it should be increased.

The only challenge one can make to that is by questioning whether punishment by fine, whether large or small, remains effective to deter that offender or others who may be like-minded. Of course, one can embark upon a philosophical discussion as to whether punishment by a cash fine is effective in deterring offences of that sort. We have, therefore, to consider, in the context of this Bill, what else one can do about it and the other steps the community must take through the instrument of Parliament to deter people from offending against the principles of normal civilised behaviour.

The range is, of course, limited. I think we all lean over backwards to avoid introducing heavier prison sentences. We have had long and vigorous discussions, and we shall have more, about the ultimate punishment. We feel that long terms of imprisonment are very often the most negative form of punishment and are very seldom truly deterrent; or at least that a term of years does not in fact reflect the deterrent power. Therefore we fall back upon the fine.

I feel convinced that a move in this direction must be accepted on the basis of reason, and even, perhaps, on the basis of emotion. I am well aware that we are seeing every day a clash between these two, with reason being forced back in the face of emotion, but I suggest to the House that if we oppose this Measure because it is not complete enough, or because it only scratches the surface of a great problem, then we must be very ready to devote our time to a vast Measure which will embrace all the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South.

On the general question of what we are trying to do, namely, to increase the deterrent effect of the fine for this sort of offence, I should like to refer the House very briefly, not to the Wolfenden Report, as might be expected, but to an older document—the Report of the Departmental Committee on Corporal Punishment (Cmd. 5684), published in 1938 and reprinted in 1952. On page 22 are these words: Theorists have recognised that punishment may be justified on three main grounds—retribution, deterrence and reform—but the changes which have taken place in our penal methods during the last century have been aimed at subordinating the retributive element to the other elements of deterrence and reform. I think we are bound to fall back on this sort of penalty for this sort of offence, and therefore we must ensure that it is effective.

Sir E. Errington

Would not my hon. Friend think that this class of offence is eminently suitable to be dealt with by probation?

Mr. Leavey

I think the yardstick or criterion by which I must answer my hon. Friend's question remains the same as I am now putting to the House—which is the most likely to be effective? Which is the most likely to deter either the person in question or others who may be like minded from committing this offence? Under the heading of deterrent, I suggest that a monetary penalty is more likely. I concede immediately to my hon. Friend, under the heading of reform, that the scope for probation treatment is much greater, but there are these two elements. I am sure nobody here would suggest that retribution should play a large part. I think that is out, and I do not think anybody would look back over his shoulder and suggest that it is a proper element. We might turn, perhaps, to Biblical writings to find a precedent, but I am not sure that that is a correct interpretation.

I realise that I have not dealt with the details of the Clauses which are put before us for consideration, and I make no apology for that, because I believe that embodied in this Bill is a matter of principle which is much more important than the amount of penalty which it proposes. I think it is a most dangerous suggestion that, because we do not go far enough in this Bill, we should therefore regard the Bill as a disappointment or should say, "Let us set it aside and wait until we can take one whole bite at this cherry".

There is always a long list of reasons why we should not take specific action, and very often one of my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench will come to the Box and very rightly point out to us that some proposed Measure cannot be accepted because it deals only with part of the problem and would create fresh anomalies. I do not believe that that is a criticism that we can level against this Bill, and, for the reasons I have given, I welcome it and hope that we shall see it make progress.

1.23 p.m.

Brigadier Terence Clarke (Portsmouth, West)

I put my name to this Bill, which has been introduced because my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Stevens) had the good sense to provide the means of bringing it in when he was lucky in the Ballot. I have a personal interest to declare. Although I am never before the police for using insulting words or behaviour, I seem to be permanently having my motor car towed away or finding it parked in the wrong place, and this has given me considerable cause for thought on this subject generally.

I find that policemen seem to be used for all sorts of purposes other than those for which they were originally intended to be used. They were intended to see that people kept the law, and that they did not hit old ladies over the head or murder people. Nowadays, half the Metropolitan Police seem to be walking round the streets of London—and there are almost as many as there are street walkers, also dealt with in this Bill—doing nothing but taking the numbers of the cars of harmless people who, for business and other reasons, have to park their vehicles.

If this is really a very heinous crime, let us increase the penalty. I know that I shall be penalised in a few days, and, perhaps, it would be a bad thing, just at this moment, to suggest that the penalty should be increased; but the Bill will not go through before I come up. [An HON. MEMBER: "Or go down."] I am coming up in a few days. Nevertheless, we really do seem to have too many policemen going round taking the numbers of people's cars.

Having done that, next day the policeman arrives and personally delivers a bit of paper stating that he discovered that one had left one's car for more than half an hour in some street or other the day before. I am not in my office all day. Sometimes I am here, sometimes I am at the office, and sometimes I am in neither place. I have known this business to mean that the poor Metropolitan Police have had to pay no fewer than three visits to get that bit of paper delivered to me, telling me that I have to answer a summons for this very minor offence. Having done that, the policeman then gives one another paper telling one to appear at Marlborough Street on a certain day and at a certain time, and, if the case is not reached on that day, one receives a letter to say that one must go on another day. All this means—

Mr. Glenvil Hall

On a point of order. We are fascinated by this account of the crimes of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, but, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, do his crimes and misdemeanours come within the scope of the Bill?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche)

I understand that the Bill would amend the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839, which is very widespread in its provisions, and I should not like to rule that the hon. and gallant Member is out of order so far, but I hope he will not pursue the matter too far.

Mr. A. Evans

Further to that point of order. I understand that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has been talking about his motor offences and the police actions in regard to those offences. Of course, the Bill before the House certainly does not cover that type of offence.

Mr. Stevens

Further to that point of order. I am not sure that the hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. A. Evans) is right, because Section 54 (6) of the 1839 Act does, in fact, refer to: Every person who shall cause any Cart, public Carriage, Sledge … to stand longer than may be necessary for loading or unloading … and so on. I think that would cover the actions of my hon. and gallant Friend.

Mr. Body

Or Section 54 (4).

Mr. A. Evans

Further to that point of order. I am sure, that you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and hon. Members opposite, know very well that motor offences are covered by regulations relating to public highways, and are certainly not covered by the Bill.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman is in order so far.

Brigadier Clarke

I will try not to overstep the bounds of what one is allowed to speak about on this Bill. I am glad that the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) was fascinated with what I was saying, but I could not have been fascinating enough, otherwise he would not have stopped me.

In my view, whether it is a case of motor offences, prostitution or whatever else, there are too many policemen going round looking after that sort of thing, when they should be stopping old ladies from being hit over the head. The House knows that I am all for flogging and hanging, and I think that if policemen were doing their proper job, there would not be such a necessity for my continually having to press for flogging in order to prevent old ladies being hit over the head. People would then be deterred from hitting old ladies over the head, and the police would be doing their proper job, instead of wasting their time prosecuting people who wish, in the normal sense of the word, to be law-abiding citizens.

I agree that in 1839 there were no motor cars but there were all sorts of other things, including musical instruments, towed along by horses. If someone played a musical instrument in the street and one did not like it, one went out and sent him away or sent a manservant to move him. The fines for all these offences under the Act are very small.

People get away very lightly for drunkenness which leads to abusive speech in the street. If the fines were bigger, there would be far less drunkenness. People would get themselves home, instead of disporting themselves in the street and being abusive in the knowledge that if caught they would get away with a comparatively small fine.

The Wolfenden Report has drawn attention to the number of prostitutes there are on the streets. There are two subjects that Members of Parliament know very little about. One is prostitution and the other is television. One hears the most uninformed comments about television because hon. Members are either in the House doing their job or—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Order. I am sure that television does not come into the Bill.

Brigadier Clarke

These are the two things about which hon. Members are uninformed, and since television is a pleasanter subject than prostitution I linked them together.

If bigger fines were imposed for prostitution we should not have half the present number of prostitutes on the streets and the police would not have to pull in every morning a mass of ladies who automatically get fined a comparatively small sum which they willingly pay, afterwards going back on to the streets the same night.

There should be a progressive fine. I would go even further than the Bill does. I would fine them £10 for the first offence, £20 for the next and then up to £40. We should then not have these ladies parading their wares in the streets. We would never stop prostitution but we should at least get it out of sight. People ask why we should drive it underground, but I would say that it is better to have it out of sight. That does not mean that we should try to pretend that it does not exist, but when it is driven off the streets it does not provide such a temptation to young men who, when they come away from dinners and theatres and similar entertainments, find all these prostitutes on the streets.

This country is one of the worst in the world for prostitution, and especially the Metropolitan area. If one goes to the wicked city of Paris one hardly ever sees a prostitute, whereas in the Metropolitan area one is constantly brought face to face with these women when one goes to the West End in the evening. As I have already said, very few hon. Members have the opportunity of going to the West End in the evening and consequently they try to pretend that the prostitutes are not there. It is high time that we did something about getting these ladies under cover.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Langstone will not disagree with me that £20 is a small maximum fine to place on many of the offences with which the Bill deals. I would have gone much further, but no doubt my hon. Friend took legal advice and decided that £20 must be the figure. I would go further because, though the maximum penalty might never need to be imposed, it would give magistrates an opportunity to try to get people to observe the law and not just flout it by paying a small fine and being able to escape in that way.

1.37 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton)

I should like to join in the welcome which has been given by hon. Members on both sides of the House to the very clear and interesting speech with which my hon. Friend the Member for Langstone (Mr. Stevens) opened the debate. The Bill has had a general welcome, and I am in the happy position of being able to advise the House confidently that it is a Bill to which it would be wise to give a Second Reading.

It is a Bill of very limited scope. It applies to London only, and to only one of the considerable number of offences under the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839. And it is an offence which happens to be punishable by fine only. My hon. Friend the Member for Langstone, however, is to be congratulated on having stimulated a broad-based and interesting debate which has raised a vast number of social problems. Reference has been made to the policy and action of the police and the Home Office on several points and, as far as I can do so within the rules of order, I will endeavour to answer them.

The only doubts about the Bill have been expressed by some of my hon. Friends who feel that the Public Order Act, 1936, is adequate in its provisions, that it covers the same offence as that covered by Section 54 (13) of the 1839 Act and that therefore the Bill is unnecessary. But I hope to persuade them that that view of the law is not the right one to hold.

Then there are those hon. Friends who have criticised the Bill because it does not go far enough. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington), my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) and my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Body) appeared to invite my hon. Friend the Member for Langstone to disown his baby because it was not big enough, but I hope that my hon. Friend will stand by his child like the faithful father he has been so far.

I am sure that the House will agree that on the face of it there is nothing more reasonable than the proposition that fines fixed in 1839 must be too low now. A monetary penalty made when Queen Victoria was a girl is hardly appropriate to the days when her great-great-granddaughter is on the Throne.

Mr. Glenvil Hall

Queen Victoria was not just a girl in 1839. She was Queen. She was nineteen.

Mr. Renton

I think that in law, in 1839, she was still an infant although a sovereign.

The year 1839 was the year in which the stage coach was giving way to the railway train, and the first edition of Bradshaw was published that year. The year 1958, on the other hand, sees not a timetable, I am thankful to say, for journeys to the moon but, at any rate, precursors of such travel. In 1839 a fine of two golden sovereigns was a serious matter. A police constable was then paid 19s. a week, and there must have been many people for whom 40s. represented more than two weeks' pay. Now it scarcely amounts to a day's pay. Indeed, to many of the young people for whom my hon. Friend the Member for Langstone has particular regard in this matter a maximum fine of 40s. would mean little more than a slight curtailment of spare money available for their entertainment.

It is because many of the fines fixed in the last century, especially in the early and middle part, have become unreal in relation to modern values that my right hon. Friend has made a decision which may be of some interest to the House. He has put in hand a review of the old statutory fines, the purpose of which is to see which of them need to be brought up to date and which can be allowed to slumber in peace until such time as the obsolete offences to which they refer are removed from the Statute Book. There are many ridiculous offences. The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) referred to some of them in this Section of the Act.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

My hon. and learned Friend has made an important statement. Can we be told whether the result of the inquiry will be announced to the House, and if so, how?

Mr. Renton

The review has only just been put in hand, and it would be premature for me to say in what form, if any, it will become known to the House. I am sure it is not necessary for us at this moment to consider the removal of those obsolete offences. Many of them will die peacefully, but as and when opportunity arises for removing the dead wood from the Statute Book, it is normally taken by the Statute Law Revision Committee.

The Section of the Metropolitan Police Act of 1839 which my hon. Friend proposes to amend, is a remarkable picture of the teeming, disreputable, rowdy London, or part of London, which is made familiar to us in the novels of Dickens and the illustrations of Phiz—and also the writings of Henry Fielding, who some years earlier had been the first stipendiary magistrate in London at Bow Street Police Court. It was a city of 1½ million inhabitants, many living in indescribable squalor; a city of cesspits and open sewers, of disorderly mobs, in which Sir Robert Peel reckoned—on what statistical basis I do not know—that one in every 22 of the inhabitants was a criminal.

Nevertheless, the offence which was then created by Statute for London was one which was found to be useful from the moment it was created in coping with the problem I have described. As my hon. Friend pointed out in the figures he quoted, it is still useful today. After all, in 1957 there were 3,767 convictions under Section 54 (13) for using insulting words and behaviour. A variety of offences and offenders were included in that figure, amongst them some prostitutes. Here would be, I think, the right moment to refer to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth). My hon. Friend felt, if I understand his point rightly, that it was wrong for us to be increasing the fine under Section 54 (13) while not at the same time increasing the fine for soliciting under paragraph 11. I will say a few words about that.

It is true that a number of prostitutes are brought up under paragraph 13, but they are charged under that paragraph for an entirely distinct offence, not that of soliciting but of using insulting words and behaviour. What, no doubt, my hon. Friend feels, and I agree with him, is that if it is right to increase the penalty for using insulting words and behaviour, then the fact that it happens to be an offence of which prostitutes are sometimes guilty should not deter us from increasing the penalty for it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South and other hon. Members also seemed to be inviting my hon. Friend the Member for Langstone to deal further with the difficult question of prostitutes. I hope he will resist the temptation, because, candidly, it is a large and difficult subject and not one which ought to be dealt with by small, piecemeal measures. Even if we extended the scope of this Bill by encouraging my hon. Friend to make his Bill refer to paragraph 11 as well as to paragraph 13, that would merely be a piecemeal extension of the law in such a way as to deal to only a very minor extent with the problem of prostitution, and it is obviously a problem which, if it is to be dealt with, should be dealt with in a broader way.

Sir E. Errington

The complaint of those of us who are against the Bill is that it deals with important matters in a piecemeal way. I ask my hon. and learned Friend whether he does not consider that these matters are so important in existing conditions that they ought to be dealt with as a whole by the Government, particularly by the Home Secretary, who takes a deep personal interest in these matters.

Mr. Renton

I agree that the question of what should be the fine for insulting words and behaviour is important, but it is a matter which stands by itself to a great extent. My hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Remnant) referred to the fact that the police in this country go about unarmed; Parliament provides them with their armoury by giving them the power of prosecution and by giving power to the courts to award penalties when the police prosecution leads to conviction. What my hon. Friend the Member for Langstone feels, and I agree with him, is that we must see to it that the important powers of the police on this point are made effective by the penalty being brought up to date and made more realistic.

To some extent that is dealing with the matter piecemeal, but it is dealing with a simple and straightforward matter in a piecemeal way, and this constitutes no argument for also dealing in a piecemeal way with the much more complicated and, from the legislative and social point of view, the much bigger and more difficult problem of prostitution. If I may round off this part of the case, the fact that we should, to a minor and incidental extent, be impinging on the practice in relation to prostitution, whereby prostitutes can be and are prosecuted for using insulting words and behaviour, should not deter us from making this necessary reform.

I will deal next with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot which, if I understood his argument correctly, was this: by all means let us increase the fine under paragraph 13, but let us make sure that the increase is big enough.

Sir E. Errington

We believe that the fine should be increased and that the ultimate should be imprisonment, the object being to produce a situation where probation should operate.

Mr. Renton

Yes, I understand, and, as I shall show, there are opportunities under other Statutes of dealing with the more serious of the offenders which I think my hon. Friend has in mind. The offence of insulting words and behaviour is a useful way of trying to keep some control over the behaviour of those people who are not really criminals for whom imprisonment should be the penalty, but against whom there should be some sanction which authority can use.

The question is whether the obviously right sanction, which is the fine, is effective—whether the maximum permissible fine is large enough. With great respect to my hon. Friend, I do not think that either imprisonment or, indeed, probation is a necessary part of the sanction that we need against these petty exhibitionists who are just a nuisance in the street by being rowdy. As I shall mention in a moment, for the more serious offender we have very considerable powers.

I return to my point whether or not, if we are increasing the fine from the two sovereigns of 1839 to a sum in paper money of 1958, my hon. Friend has chosen the right yardstick by multiplying by five for the first offence, and whether he should go further and say that for second and subsequent offences yet double again would be right—£20.

There is a simple basis of comparison, I am advised. Prices have risen since 1850 by about 400 per cent. A five-fold increase of an amount fixed in 1839 is, therefore, a fairly accurate translation of the money values of that period into the money values of today. Therefore, in regard to the straight increase from 40s. to £10, I should have thought that my hon. Friend had broad accuracy and rough justice on his side.

Next, let us face it that we are introducing a new element into the law as set out in the 1839 Act, because that Act merely provides a 40s. punishment each time the offence was committed, and does not have any provision for increasing the maximum penalty for subsequent offences in the way that my hon. Friend proposes. I hope that I shall not be considered to be taking a Committee point in mentioning this; it is a very important point. It is not a point on which I am prepared to advise the House at this moment, but I think it is one which should receive some attention by my hon. Friend and by the House during the Committee stage. We should have our eyes open to the fact that we shall be introducing a new element in respect of this type of offence. The question is whether it is right to do so, bearing in mind that we are dealing to a great extent with exhibitionists.

It is very interesting to compare life as it was in those days with life as it is today. We are inclined to think that life was more colourful then, but we have heard so much talk about teddy boys, students, hooligans and "angry young men," to say nothing of Members of Parliament who know nothing of television and other matters, that I am wondering whether we really have such very different problems from those which our forebears had to meet when they originally fixed the penalty. I mention this matter because I have just the smallest doubt about the graduation upwards, but I will take advice about it between now and the Committee stage to ascertain the best advice to give my hon. Friend. Meanwhile, hon. Members' thoughts on the matter will be welcomed.

I must now deal with the question of the Public Order Act, 1936. A very serious point was raised, first, by my hon. Friend the Member for Langstone, and then by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham, who has asked me to apologise for his unavoidable absence at this moment because of a public engagement.

Section 5 of the 1936 Act has a certain amount in common with Section 54 (13) of the 1839 Act. Both statutes are intended to ensure public order, both are intended to punish crimes against the peace, and both—this is particularly important when comparing the two Sections—refer to the commission of offences in public places. Therefore, on the face of it, when Section 5 of the 1936 Act says: Any person who in any public place or at any public meeting uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned, shall be guilty of an offence. it looks very much as though it is enacting exactly what is in Section 54 (13) of the 1839 Act.

It may well be a matter over which lawyers would argue, but I am resting myself on the general proposition that the clear intention of the 1936 Act, as expressed in its Preamble and through all its Sections, is to deal not with petty outbreaks of exhibitionism on the pavements but with organised breaches of the peace which have some kind of motive behind the organisation and constitute a serious threat to public order. It is for that reason that the penalties are fixed at a much higher rate in the 1936 Act, even for using insulting words and behaviour, than they are under the 1839 Act. Therefore, for what it is worth—

Mr. James Griffiths (Llanelly)

Might we clarify the point? Surely the 1936 Act was passed by the House to deal with a situation which had arisen owing to the rise of the Fascist movement and what happened in the East End.

Mr. Renton

That is yet another explanation. A slightly narrower one was given earlier by the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall), that it was to protect the Jews from the Fascists. I had always thought that the explanation which the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has just given was the correct one, that it was to protect the community at large from the Fascists. I think that was the main intention.

I ought to remind the House, because this is a matter of considerable importance when dealing with the arguments which have been raised by my hon. Friends, that an undertaking was given by the then Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, later Lord Simon, during the debates on the Measure that the Act would not be used for the purpose of dealing with solicitation, and that Section 5 in particular would not be used for it. In a circular to the police forces about the Act the then Home Secretary indicated that similar considerations applied to people guilty while drunk of disorderly behaviour in public places, and asked chief officers of police to ensure that Section 5 should not be used where the offence could be dealt with adequately under any other enactment.

I was asked whether Section 5 had been used otherwise than in the general way intended when the 1936 Act was introduced, and I can tell the House that as far as we know Section 5 has been limited to its original purpose and has not been used merely for charging people who are drunk and disorderly. This is a serious point, and I felt that I ought to deal with it at some length. I can certainly assure my hon. Friends that the existence of Section 5 of the 1936 Act and the high penalties which go with it does not make it any less useful to increase the penalties in Section 54 (13) of the 1839 Act.

My hon. Friend the Member for Langstone and others expressed a good deal of anxiety about the position of young offenders, a good many of whom have been dealt with under paragraph 13. I have not very much to say about that at the moment, except to remind the House that the Ingleby Committee on the treatment of young offenders is sitting and that it will no doubt wish to pay regard to what has been said in the debate. Even if nothing had been said in the debate it would no doubt have been considering the question how such young offenders as we have in mind here today should be dealt with.

The hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) mentioned specifically the use of flick knives, about which there was some anxiety in his constituency two or three years ago.

Mr. Janner

And more recently.

Mr. Renton

It may be that there has been still further anxiety. I know that last year he raised the matter a number of times, and perhaps he has done so this year.

Mr. Janner

There was a recent case in Leicester in which a flick knife was used by a boy of thirteen who stabbed a girl. It is a very serious matter, and I give warning to the hon. and learned Member that I shall raise it again with him.

Mr. Renton

I feel that I should be going a little beyond the scope of the Bill if I anticipated the occasion on which the hon. Member may raise the matter again. Meanwhile, I ask him to bear in mind that the appeal which my right hon. Friend made to traders not to sell these knives to people who have no legitimate use for them is proving successful, as far as we can see.

Mr. Janner

No, it is not.

Mr. Renton

The difficulty is that these knives are legitimately used in certain types of manual occupation, and it is very difficult for their use to be prohibited completely.

I come to the question of the more serious offences, because I think it necessary to mention them in view of the feeling expressed by a number of hon. Members, especially on this side of the House, that the penalties for collective rowdyism, even if the Bill is passed, will not be heavy enough. Without going into too much detail, I remind my hon. Friends that there are a number of penalties which range, in the case of offences against the person, from two months' imprisonment for common assault and two years' for indictable assault up to life imprisonment for felonious wounding—that is, when any body is injured in the course of a case of collective rowdyism. Of course, if property is damaged, then there are considerable fines under the Malicious Damage Act, and, indeed, the opportunity of imprisonment. The maximum penalty for substantial damage to property rises from two years' imprisonment if the offence is committed by day to five years if it is committed by night.

The type of offence which we are now considering is one for which a relatively small monetary penalty seems appropriate, and the sums proposed by my hon. Friend seem adequate to enable the courts, in dealing with young hooligans to whom they think it is necessary to teach a lesson, to impose penalties which will hurt the offender's pocket.

My hon. Friend has introduced what seems to us to be a useful Measure which will assist the courts in London in dealing with types of offence which can appropriately be dealt with by monetary penalties but which merit a more severe punishment than can be imposed at present. I therefore hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading and that it will subsequently have a felicitous passage through the House. There are one or two very minor drafting Amendments which I must advise my hon. Friend to make in his Bill, but they would perhaps be better left to a later stage.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 38 (Committal of Bills).