HC Deb 11 April 1961 vol 638 cc152-65

(1) Where a person under twenty-one years old has been either convicted by a court (not being a magistrates' court) or committed to that court, for sentence the court shall before sentencing him consider—

  1. (a) any information provided by the Secretary of State about the types and availability of different methods of penal treatment and the kind of offender for whom they are likely to be suitable; and
  2. (b) any reports submitted by a probation officer or by or on behalf of the Prison Commissioners in respect of that person.

(2) In the case of a person to whom sub section (1) of this section applies, the probation officer assigned to the court by which he is committed for trial or for sentence or any other probation officer acting on his behalf shall as far as practicable make a report for the use of the court to which the person is committed, containing information about—

  1. (a) the social and domestic background of the person which is relevant to an assessment of his culpability;
  2. (b) the person and his surroundings which is relevant to the consideration of how his criminal career might be checked; and
  3. (c) the likely effects on the person of the methods of treatment available;
Provided that where the person has been committed for trial no report shall be made without his consent.

(3) A report made by or on behalf of the Prison Commissioners for the purpose of this section shall provide information about the physical and mental suitability of the person for a sentence at a borstal training centre or of committal to a detention centre and whether any other form of penal treatment is likely to be more suitable.

(4) Subject to subsection (5) of this section in any case where no reports have been made under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section or in the opinion of the court the information is inadequate the court shall remand the person in custody or on bail for such period or periods, no single period exceeding three weeks as the court thinks necessary for the information to be obtained.

(5) A sentence under section two or paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section three of this Act shall not be passed unless the court has considered reports by a probation officer and by or on behalf of the Prison Commission under this section.

(6) A remand under subsection (5) of this section may be a remand to appear at any other count with jurisdiction to try the offence for which he has been convicted.—[Mr. MacColl.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. MacColl

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

I am aware that on both sides of the House there is an understandable desire to get on to the dramatic subject which is to follow the debate on this Clause. But I make no apology for moving it, and for doing so with care, because the truth—if we really want the truth—is that this Clause is very much more important than the one we have just debated for over five hours, because that one was the emotional reaction to a very serious situation and was not really constructive.

The Clause I am moving goes to the root of the question of the working of the courts in sentencing policy. If, by this means, we can make the courts more efficient, more effective, and more knowledgeable in their estimates of prisoners, then the kind of debate we have just had, and, for all I know, the kind of debate we shall have later, may prove to be redundant.

The history of this matter is that upstairs, in Committee, we had a discussion on the kind of reports which should be available to courts, and on the kind of procedure they should adopt in obtaining such reports, particularly referring to persons being sent to detention centres. I got into a certain amount of hot water and criticism for desiring, in some cases, to remand people in custody for the obtaining of these reports. We were told, particularly by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Joint Under-Secretary of State, that we were being rather hypercritical in our doubts about the reports, that the system was working quite well, and that the reports were adequate.

That debate took place early in the Committee proceedings on the Bill, but between that debate and this the very important Streatfeild Report has been published—the Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Business of the Criminal Courts, Cmd. 1289. Part B of that Report deals specifically with arrangements for providing the courts with the information necessary to enable them to select the most appropriate treatment for offenders.

It is fair to say that that very interesting and careful Report of a Committee under the chairmanship of one of Her Majesty's judges, whose views are frequently quoted with awe and respect, is an extremely valuable document. In the new Clause we have attempted not to make any constructive contribution of our own, but simply to set out what seemed to us to be the subject of the Streatfeild recommendations in that part of the Report.

The best and quickest way I can develop the argument is probably to make some comments on what those recommendations are. The first line of the new Clause deals with persons under 21 years of age. That is partly to bring the Clause in order, because the Bill deals only with persons under 21, but also because everyone agrees that the treatment of young people is a more difficult and anxious problem than that of dealing with older people. The most worrying problem for those exercising judicial functions, in the High Court or elsewhere, is how best to deal with young people, because mistakes made early in the life of a young offender may have the most terrible results later and it is, therefore, all the more important, in dealing with young people, that we should be certain that the courts have adequate information about them.

The Clause refers, secondly, to young offenders who have been convicted by a court not being a magistrates' court, or have been committed to that court for sentence. In other words, it deals not with magistrates' courts, but with quarter sessions, assizes and Crown courts. The reason for that is that the Streatfeild Committee dealt with those courts and it seemed reasonable that we should limit ourselves to that problem. There is another practical reason which is that all cases which go to the higher court have already been before the lower court, so that there is a period between the original committal for trial, or for sentence, and a final decision. There is a pause, and the argument that asking for more detailed reports in a magistrates' court delays justice and leads to unnecessary remands, and so on, does not apply in this case.

The kind of information which we say should be available to the court is of two kinds. First, there is the general information about the types and availability of different methods of penal treatment and the kind of offender for whom they are likely to be suitable. In other words, this is not something specific to the individual offender, but is general information about the difference between detention centres, what types of detention centres are available, whether they provide short sharp shocks, whether they are tough, whether they provide adequate treatment for unstable or physically defective people, and general questions of that kind about which it is difficult for those who are passing sentences to have up-to-date information. We suggest that there should be a specific obligation on the courts to consider them.

In doing that we are in conformity with what the Streatfeild Committee says, because, in talking about general information relevant to sentencing, the Report says that this general information is, in scope and quantity, different from the general information now pro- vided for sentencing. This is a consequence of a wider appreciation of the complexity of sentencing and the greater attention given to the different objectives at which sentences aim. Courts will increasingly need to assimilate more information of a new type. In other words, this is not something which a lot of theorists, or a lot of academics are saying. The Streatfeild Committee, the expert Committee, is saying that what is required is different in scope and quantity from what is available at the moment. The second type of report is the individual report dealing with the individual offender who is to be sentenced. We say that the courts should consider reports submitted by a probation officer, or by and on behalf of the Prison Commissioners, in respect of that person.

May I deal with those two points. First, there is the question of the report of the probation officer. I had almost a scratching match with the hon. and learned Gentleman the Joint Under-Secretary of State because he thought that I was being a little unfair to him when I suggested that it was his opinion that police reports about offenders were, in some cases, all that was necessary. Be that as it may, I want again to quote—and this has come out since our little argument—what the Streatfeild Committee said. Talking about a detailed study of the offender's social and domestic background, the Report says in paragraph 327: This deeper study of the offender is better entrusted to a probation officer, as a trained social worker serving the court; and in any event it would be inappropriate for the police to enquire into some of the background matters which a probation officer finds it useful to examine. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Streatfeild Committee places the work of a probation officer in its proper context and draws attention to its expert quality which cannot be paralleled by any of the other services dealing with this kind of offender. We therefore mention the importance of the probation officers report.

We go on to say which probation officer should deal with the matter, and we outline the kind of case with which a probation officers report should deal, and here again we have kept strictly to the words of the Streatfeild Committee's Report. The words in subsection (2, a, b and c) are taken from paragraph 335 of the Report. They are, therefore, not a lot of wordy verbiage which we have put in. This is something which the Committee picked out as being essential to be covered by a probation officer's report. We have, however, put in a proviso, which is that these reports should not be obtained without the consent of the person committed for trial. One of the controversial questions often under discussion is how far it is right for inquiries to be made by probation officers where the person has not yet been convicted.

9.30 p.m.

We say that the right procedure when a person is committed for trial is that if he consents there should be presentencing inquiries made between the lower and the higher court. If he says, "No, I am innocent. I shall not have any officer of the court asking me how much I drink, whether I beat my wife—"and so on, he is entitled to take that attitude, but he runs the risk of delay in the final disposal of his case and of further remands.

We go on to deal with what should be included in the report by the Prison Commissioners. We were all skating on rather thin ice because many of us were rather uneasy about reports by Prison Commissioners, yet, on the other hand, we had not much evidence and did not want to be too critical on a subject over which some of us had not much information. I draw attention to paragraph 374 of the Report, which says: The courts often derive little help from the governor's opinion on suitability which is couched in a stereotyped form laid down by the Prison Commissioners. We say that the Prison Commissioners' report should include information about the physical and mental suitability of the person for … borstal … or … a detention centre and"— This is important— whether any other form of penal treatment is likely to be more suitable. Often reports give a formal statement of whether an offender is suitable for borstal training, but not whether, in the view of the Commissioners, that is the best form of training available. It is important that the court should know, first, whether borstal is, in fact, suitable and, secondly, whether or not there are more suitable forms of treatment. That, again, is something taken from the Report of the Streatfeild Committee.

The only other point I mention is that we provide that in two particular cases it shall be mandatory to have these two reports. In other cases where they are available—and we hope that usually they will be available—the court must take them into account, but in two types of cases we say there must be these reports and the courts must have them before they use the two sentences provided. The two sentences are very long detention for serious crime and detention during Her Majesty's pleasure—which has been extended under the Bill beyond cases of murder and manslaughter to any offence at the moment carrying a sentence of fourteen years—and sentences of imprisonment for more than three years.

Before the court sentences a young person to more than three years or to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure, they must have the reports and the views of probation officers and Prison Commissioners on these matters. I should like to have gone into more detail on this question, because I may be challenged on some of the administrative details, but I have tried to bring out the salient points as quickly as I could.

The Streatfeild Committee's Report is a very clear statement both of the weaknesses of the present position and the directions in which it should be improved. We are not doing more than saying that, having set up the Streatfeild Committee—it was not set up by us but by the Government—and the Report having been produced after long and detailed consideration, we do not want to miss the chance of the Bill embodying its main recommendations because it may be a very long time before we have another chance of doing so. It seemed right and proper, in the absence of any move by the Government in this direction, to put down this new Clause.

I return to what I said at the beginning of my speech and emphasise that all this talk about flogging and hanging is unnecessary. The critical question is: do people who have the terrible responsibility of imposing sentences which vitally affect the lives of young offenders have available to them the necessary information to do their job properly in the way in which they would like to do it?

We must get away—and this, again, is only a paraphrase of what the Report says—from the sort of amateur approach to sentences, from the feeling that any good lawyer with common sense knows how to deal with the offender. The whole weight of the Report is against that idea. It emphasises the highly skilled nature of sentencing and the desirability that the people who are charged with this duty should visit institutions and have a clear understanding of the types of treatment available and have all the information they require from court officers and Prison Commissioners before they make their decisions. It is for all these reasons that I have moved the Second Reading of the new Clause.

The Attorney-General

The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) began his speech in support of the new Clause by emphasising the need for courts to be provided with all relevant information before passing sentence. We entirely agree with that proposition and it was for that very reason that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary when he appointed the Streatfeild Committee charged it with the task of considering this problem. On that, so far, we are in complete agreement.

The hon. Member and his hon. Friends have endeavoured to embody in one Clause the whole effect, as far as persons under 21 are concerned, of Part B of the Streatfeild Report, which is a rather massive document. I am sure that the hon. Member will not be surprised if I tell him that his effort to do so, although commendable, is open to certain criticisms which I will make of it in due course. But, first, I should like to express on behalf of my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friends, and perhaps on behalf of the whole House, our thanks to Mr. Justice Streatfeild and his colleagues for producing this Report which is really most valuable. It covers a very wide field and deals clearly, comprehensively and practically with complicated and difficult subjects. It is a long and important document and it deserves careful study. It was published on 28th February. We are now engaged in considering it in detail and in considering what legislation is necessary and what administrative steps will require to be taken.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Widnes will appreciate that if we are to make a big reform following upon this Report it really is not possible to divorce Part B from Part A and to treat them as entirely distinct. The two Parts must fit into the new pattern. Legislation will be required for the implementation of that pattern. Until we have reached final decisions about that pattern, it would be unwise to tackle this problem piecemeal and it would be particularly unwise to tackle it, as does this Clause, solely in relation to persons under 21. I make no criticism of the Clause on that ground, because it is necessary to put it that way if it is to be in this Bill.

We have therefore taken the view that it would not be right to include in the Bill any Clause on these lines limited only to persons under 21 when the Streatfeild Report on the information which should be made available to the courts is a Report which covers the position with regard to all offenders.

I shall not discuss—I should not be in order if I did so—the recommendations in Part A of the Streatfeild Report, which deals with the reorganisation of the circuits, the constitution of different courts, and quarter sessions ceasing to be quarter sessions and sitting perhaps almost continuously. The House will appreciate that there is a link between Parts A and B of the Report and that the amount of information which can be provided for a court before sentence is passed depends to an important extent on the amount of time allowed for the preparation of the necessary reports by the court's own arrangements.

The hon. Gentleman has made a praiseworthy effort. I shall deal with the detail of it, because he dealt with it very fully and it would be discourteous of me if I made no reference to his observations upon it. He explained his reasons for subsection (1), but subsection (1, a) does not quite follow the Report of the Streatfeild Committee. It requires the court to consider before sentencing any prisoner any information provided by the Secretary of State That is very different. It would delay proceedings immensely if that had to be be done in every sense. The Streatfeild Committee recommended that general guidance should be given to courts, and it is really a defect in drafting.

With regard to subsection (1, b), the hon. Gentleman fell into the error into which he fell in Committee in misquoting my hon. and learned Friend. It was drawn to his attention then, but I am afraid he fell into the same error again today. I will not pursue that matter.

As for reports by probation officers, I ask the hon. Gentleman to bear this fact in mind, which I think he also forgot. Deliberately by Clause 1 (3), while we have made it possible for the Prison Commissioners to make reports if they wish, we have not imposed the obligation upon them to make reports as to suitability for borstal. As I explained in Committee, borstal will become quite a different thing in the sense that, instead of only a selected few going to borstal, it will be the medium term sentence available for young people. There will be no question of unsuitability for borstal if a sentence within that term is the appropriate sentence. I explained that in Committee. The Streatfeild Committee did not, and the Bill does not, impose a requirement on the Prison Commissioners to report as to the suitability of a person for sentence to borstal training. Subsection (3) of the new Clause does. In the view of the Government, that is another defect in the Clause.

Subsection (4), if I understand it correctly, makes it absolutely mandatory that there shall be a remand, in custody or on bail, unless the requirements of subsections (1, a) and (1, b) are dealt with. That mandatory effect of subsection (4) is not affected by subsection (5).

Those are some of the defects, perhaps of a rather technical character, in the Clause. It is a bold and commendable attempt to embody in one Clause all that is recommended in Part B of the Streatfeild Report. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for having made the attempt, because it has given me the opportunity of saying something about it and of expressing the Government's thanks—and, I think, the thanks of all of us—to the Streatfeild Committee for the useful work it has done.

Mr. MacColl

What I intended to do was to provide that it is not mandatory on probation officers and Prison Commissioners to make a report in every case; but if there is not a report from either source, or if the reports are inadequate, there is a duty under subsection (4) to remand. The only cases in which I intended both reports to be mandatory were in the very serious cases, namely, sentences of three years or detention during Her Majesty's pleasure.

The Attorney-General

The hon. Gentleman made that perfectly clear in his explicit explanation of this Clause, but, in fact, it does not, I think, quite tally with the wording of the Clause. Anyhow, we need not trouble about that. The hon. Gentleman has made his intentions absolutely clear, and I can say to him that I think that it has been useful to us—who are concerned with the consideration of this Report, the consideration of what legislative effect should be given to it and the administrative provisions—to have had the advantage in this way of the hon. Gentleman's thoughts on Part B of the Report. Having said that and having dealt, I hope fairly fully, with the points made by the hon. Gentleman, I hope that we might perhaps get on to other business.

9.45 p.m.

Mr. David Weitzman (Stoke Newington and Hackney, North)

I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that we must all be extremely grateful for the very valuable Streatfeild Report. I recognise that there is a great deal in the point that one ought to do this in a logical way, which is to get the whole of the recommendations of the Streatfeild Report put into legislative form after proper consideration, but I want to put one matter to the Attorney-General.

The provisions of this Clause are undoubtedly extremely important. Whether or not the Streatfeild Committee made these suggestions in this precise form does not matter for a moment, but they were put forward as very important matters calling for reform. I am sure that the Attorney-General will agree that it would be a very great pity that when we have a Bill of this kind, which is concerned with juveniles, we should not take the first opportunity of putting in a reform that is so necessary and so very effective.

There may be a number of defects in the drafting of the Clause—the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to a number of them—but it does set out the essentials of the reforms proposed by the Streatfeild Committee. My point is that before the Bill is finished with—and it has to go to another place—the opportunity ought to be taken to deal with this new Clause, if not as it is drafted at least in such a way as to bring into effect at the earliest possible moment the reforms proposed by the Streatfeild Committee.

Is it essential—however desirable it may be in other ways—that we should have to wait for the whole thing to come into being? After all, consideration can take a very long time. We are always told that the Government have not time for many of these matters; here is a very good opportunity to bring in a necessary and effective reform—

Mr. Speaker

Order. I do not understand what the hon. and learned Gentleman is saying. There is a Clause on the Notice Paper. There is no other Clause, as far as I know, bearing on this point and debate is confined, unless I am mistaken, to the Clause.

Mr. Weitzman

With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I am merely urging that the right hon. and learned Gentleman might consider whether the Clause can be accepted by the Government.

Mr. Abse

I would not have sought now to detain the House even for a few minutes if it were not that only three days ago I received a letter from the Home Secretary which illustrates the urgent need for a Clause of this character to come into effect.

On 9th March I asked a Question of the Home Secretary concerning the son of a constituent, a young lad who had been sentenced at the Monmouthshire Quarter Sessions to borstal training. I discovered, about two months afterwards, from my constituent—the boy's mother—that she had been seeking, two months from the time of sentence, to give tablets to the boy who was then in prison awaiting transference to a borstal institution or an allocation centre. On investigating the matter, I discovered that this boy was an ideopathic epileptic. This fact was quite unknown to the chairman of quarter sessions, although the boy had been on bail from the time he was committed from the magistrates' court.

The boy had been for years under treatment, in and out of a local mental hospital, and he was receiving treatment at the time he came before quarter sessions. There was no one before the court, as there would have been if a Clause like this were embodied in the law, to give the facts when this ideopathic epileptic pleaded guilty. There were no investigations made and no report which would have given the true picture to the chairman of quarter sessions. No one knew that the boy was an ideopathic epileptic, and he was sent to borstal on the basis of his record.

The Home Secretary, in his letter to me, says that the boy had been examined—obviously, in a great hurry, which, again, is something the new Clause is designed to prevent—but, although he had been examined by a doctor appointed by the Prison Commissioners at the court, and although he had been examined—again, presumably, in a great hurry—by the doctor in Cardiff Prison, the Home Secretary frankly admits in his letter to me that it was not until you telephoned that the prison medical officer was made aware that this boy was an epileptic". This is a serious case. I am sure that it is an example of many such cases throughout the country which go undiscovered. They go undiscovered precisely because the type of report called for in the new Clause is not made available. We do not know whether that boy would ever have been sent to borstal if the proper reports had been available. If there had been a probation officer's report, which would become necessary if the intention of the new Clause were accepted, clearly, other considerations would have been taken into account. If provisions such as those now proposed had existed, investigations would have been made into the boy's background and the facts would have been put before the court.

Naturally, I feel concerned that any constituent of mine may, perhaps, be in borstal when he should have been receiving hospital treatment. I feel that there is an urgent need for a Clause of this kind because of the extreme pressure we all know to exist in dealing with the unfortunately large number of cases coming before quarter sessions.

I urge acceptance of the new Clause for a further reason. If it were accepted, the Government would have to do something about probation officers. The overworked probation officer is already crushed under the burdens he now has to carry, Undoubtedly, this new Clause would impose more. If it were accepted, the Government would have to make up their mind what they would do to improve the conditions of service of the probation officers who carry such a grievous burden, to improve their salaries and to attract more people into their splendid service.

The technical objections which the Attorney-General has raised are insufficient to justify the Government's refusal to accept the Clause. We have no idea when the Streatfeild Report will be discussed. We have no idea when, or if, legislation based upon it will be introduced. This is an opportunity to deal at least with the young people who are affected, the people who should, perhaps, be given priority. I urge that the Attorney-General should consider further the representations which have been made.

Question put and negatived.