HC Deb 11 April 1961 vol 638 cc49-57

The Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament—

  1. (a) in every year, a statement of statistical information relating to approvad schools in England and Wales, including information as to their number, the numbers of admissions, releases and recalls, and such other matters as he may think appropriate;
  2. (b) in the year nineteen hundred and sixty-four and every third subsequent year, a report on the work of the Home Department in relation to approved schools, and generally on the working of the approved school system in England and Wales (including supervision after release).—[Mr. Renton.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Renton

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

This new Clause is a result of an undertaking which I gave in the Standing Committee in response to an invitation by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) to consider writing into the Bill what, as I expressed in the Standing Committee, my right hon. Friend intended to do: first, to publish an annual return of statistical information about approved schools; and, secondly, to publish every three years a report on the work of the Home Office Children's Department which, of course, has as its most important sections those on approved schools.

That is what the new Clause does. It is self-explanatory, but I should add that the triennial report of the work of the Home Office Children's Department will be very broad. It will not be confined to approved schools, but here we are dealing with matters directly relevant to the Bill, and so the wording of the new Clause refers only to the "approved school system", although the report will be much wider.

We have chosen 1964 as the first year for such a report, because, as I told the Standing Committee, the next report on the work of the Children's Department will appear later this year, and, therefore, it is appropriate to legislate for a report three years later.

There are three Amendments to the proposed new Clause on the Notice Paper in the name of the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon). I wonder whether it would be convenient to the House to discuss them all together. They are in line 2, after "to", to insert: remand homes, attendance centres and". In line 4, after first "and", to insert: in the case of attendance centres and approved schools". In line 7, after "to", to insert: remand homes, attendance centres and".

Mr. Speaker

That may be convenient. I will call them in due course, if requested.

Mr. Renton

If you will allow me, Mr. Speaker, to refer to them, I wish to say that we accept these Amendments in principle, but that we should like to consider them further. They appeared on the Notice Paper only yesterday, and at least one of them is technically defective in drafting. However, I give the undertaking that if the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East decides not to press them now we will have Amendments put down in another place which will have the same substance and effect.

Mr. Ede

As the hon. and learned Member said, I had a new Clause down in Committee along these lines and he undertook to meet it in the way in which he has done. I thank him for doing so. I am certain that it will be a good thing if the House, at the respective periods mentioned in the new Clause, can have some account of the way in which this very important part of our judicial system is working.

I leave it to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) to deal with the way in which the Minister has treated her Amendment. Personally, I welcome the widening in detail of the information to be supplied.

Miss Bacon

I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for accepting the proposal made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) in Committee, and also for accepting the principle of the three Amendments which we have on the Notice Paper. As the hon. and learned Member knows, almost incessantly, during Committee, I drew attention to the lack of information about approved schools and from the Children's Department in general. We had hardly any information on which to conduct our discussions in Committee, and it has been very difficult to consider this part of the Bill relating to approved schools because of the lack of information. The last report from the Children's Department of the Home Office was in 1955, and, had it not been for the Durand Committee's investigations into the Carlton Approved School disturbances and the report of the Ingleby Committee, we should have had nothing on which to base our arguments.

The situation is made worse in respect of approved schools by the fact that so many of them are managed by self-appointed managers who are not responsible to any local authority and whose responsibility to the Home Office up to now has been very loose.

I am very pleased that the hon. and learned Member has put the new Clause on the Notice Paper, and I thank him for including remand homes, of which there are 53 in this country. At the moment, there is a very great shortage of remand homes. It hampers our discussions and activities in this field if we do not know very much about them and what is happening in them. The atten- dance centres seem to be working very well, but, again, we have no information generally about what is happening in them, and unless we visit one we do not know the very good work which they are doing.

I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman again. This will be some improvement, although perhaps we might have preferred an annual report and more information from the Children's Department generally.

Mr. Victor Yates (Birmingham, Ladywood)

What is the objection to a report being given earlier than every three years? The proposed provision is very unsatisfactory. We have an annual report from the Prison Commissioners. Here we are dealing with younger people and with approved schools, to be the responsibility of the Home Office. This is a new venture; we are entering upon an experiment. We ought not to wait for three years before we have a report.

I know that a lot of work is involved, but I do not know why the figure "three" has been chosen. Perhaps a report every year in this case would be too often, but I cannot see why we cannot have a report every other year. I do not think that an adequate explanation has ever been given of this decision and, if there is one, perhaps the Minister will give it and will tell us why we cannot have this information more often.

It may be that he does not want the Department to be bothered with it so often, but we are dealing with young lives and trying to save young persons from ultimately going to prison. It seems to me that the more information we can get and the more often we can get it, the better.

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Leo Abse (Pontypool)

What type of information is it intended to provide? The information is described as a statement of statistical information … and such other matters"— it being indicated what they are—as the Home Secretary may think appropriate. Many of us are concerned about the type of statistics which will be provided, because it has already been clearly stated in the recent White Paper that the Government are apparently not interested in the deep-seated causes of crime, which they regard as being outside the field of Government action. That is a curious attitude, and those of us who are concerned about obtaining statistics in order that we may relinquish this tendency which exists in discussing crime of taking ex cathedra attitudes, or talking in a manner which is far removed from any knowledge of the clinical material, are anxious that the statistics shall not merely be figures showing who has gone in and who has gone out but shall deal with many other matters.

Before taking a view of the Clause, I should like to know whether the attitude in the White Paper against what some of us, and certainly myself, regard as important—the need for having as much knowledge as possible about the deep-seated causes of crime—will be reflected in the information which is provided.

For example, we have learned—the information has been spelled out from one report or another—that 21 out of the 33 girls approved schools have no psychiatrist visiting them, 24 approved schools for boys have no access to a psychiatrist at all, many schools have only one session a month and many even less time than that.

We know that here are youngsters with a long history of difficulty and anti-social behaviour and that an overwhelming percentage of them—about 40 per cent—are found guilty of offences within three years of being placed out, yet we also know from this type of statistical information that while they are in the hands of the community the possibility of restoring them to normalcy and saving them from prison is substantially ignored.

I want to know what all hon. Members want to know: when the statistics are being provided to show how many people have entered an approved school we want to know whether a psychiatrist has served that school, or whether support has been given to anyone in charge of the school. I know of nothing more distressing, when I have visited a girls' school, for example, than finding that those in charge of the school are at breaking point in attempting to deal with the intractable problems which many of these girls have and yet they have no psychiatric guidance whatever.

If we take the attitude of the White Paper and ignore the unconscious motivation behind our young and older criminals, then the type of information which we can expect will be arid, valueless and useless. It is extremely important to know whether we shall have statistics which will show how many individuals in the approved schools have any special qualifications.

We know that fifteen years ago the Reynolds Committee recognised how vital it was that a healthy day-to-day relationship was formed between the boys in an approved school and a member of the staff. It urged that there should be a social worker type of staff to supplement the traditional methods of training, and the key person to affect the position was the housemaster. I ask whether it is intended to give us the information, in such statistical terms, about how many housemasters there are attached to these schools who have the proper qualifications, so that we may see whether it remains an infinitesimal proportion, as it is at present.

I ask for this type of information, because how can one do research and interpret the information which is provided if all we are to be presented with is only that type of statistics which can make the headlines by indicating whether crime is up or down, but which does not give the necessary guidance to those who wish to interpret the statistics usefully so that they may, perhaps, help to prevent crime?

Since I observe in The Times this morning an editorial adversely commenting on the delay on the part of the Home Office in publishing the Children's Department report I would ask, too, whether it is intended that this report which is now, lamentably, to be postponed till 1964—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I hope that that is not correct, for the sooner and the more readily it comes the better, obviously, for all of us. However, I ask for an assurance that when the report is published we can also have at the same time the report of the Children's Department.

After all, it must surely be clear that if we are usefully to interpret what is going on we must know what is going on inside our local authority homes. Anyone who has any experience in dealing with these types of problems knows full well that if we are to deal with the problem of delinquency we have to have some knowledge of what is happening inside the local authority homes where, as a result of the foster parent system which has been introduced, we have the residue of our most intractable material. Everybody who is interested in the problems of crime should know that it is in this pre-delinquent phase that we have the opportunity of rescuing potential delinquents.

Statistical information from one Department will be of very little value unless, at the same time, we can have, for example, information on how far inside the children's homes we have improved the position—

Mr. Speaker

It is true that we are having a general discussion on the new Clause and the Amendments put down to it, but I do not find anything about this matter in the new Clause or the Amendments.

Mr. Abse

I am obliged, Mr. Speaker. All I was endeavouring to do, perhaps improperly, was to draw into this picture the suggestion that these reports should coincide with other reports so that the whole of the statistics which are to be provided will give greater illumination to all Members wanting to do general research.

The main point of my intervention is that I do not want, and I am sure that many other hon. Members do not want, the barren approach which does exist inside the Home Office, the stultifying approach to genuine research. We do not want this to be pursued in such a way that the statistics which are to be available do not give greater illumination to us who, at present, find great difficulty in gaining access to the information which we believe would help us in making some contribution to the prevention of crime.

Mr. Renton

As I said when I moved the Second Reading of the Clause, the next report will be published this year and the one after that will be in 1964. It will be a report covering the whole work of the Children's Department. The interest of the Home Office in research is manifest from the White Paper on Penal Practice in a Changing Society which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) appears to have ignored.

The hon. Member asks what statistics will be included in the annual return. As he will see from the new Clause, the number of releases has to be included and such other matters as my right hon. Friend thinks appropriate. It is proposed to give the average length of stay at approved schools; particulars of transfers to and from closed units and the average length of stay; transfers to borstal; the numbers removed from approved schools under Clause 15 and their disposal; a record of children released from approved schools; the number of schools opened during this year and the number closed; and particulars of expenditure. And we will bear in mind the other suggestions which the hon. Member has made.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. V. Yates) asks why are we not to have in the reports of the Children's Department a section on approved schools more often than three years. The answer is threefold: first, that, in any event, there will be all this information in the annual statistical return; secondly, that the Children's Department does not run any approved schools in the same way as the Prison Commissioners, who produce an annual report, run their own establishments; and, thirdly, that bearing in mind that periodical reports so far of the Children's Department have been about every five or six years we feel that three years is about right.

Bearing in mind the nature of the Children's Department's responsibilities, one should not compare those with the responsibilities either of the Prison Commissioners, who have four times as many people under their charge, and under their direct charge, or of the Ministry of Education. That would be quite inappropriate, for it deals with about 8 million children.

We feel that three years is about the right period. As the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) pointed out, this is a very great improvement on what has gone before. I welcome what she said about this proposal, and I hope that she and others will feel that there is no lack of suitable and adequate information in the future.

Miss Bacon

I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will not take anything I said as meaning that I am absolutely satisfied in this respect. Would he not agree that the fact that children in the approved schools are not under the direct control of the Home Office, or, in many cases, the local authority, is a reason why it is most important that we should get a report as frequently as possible?

The hon. and learned Gentleman has himself referred to the Prison Commissioners and prisons and borstal. What is done there it ought to be as easy to do when we are dealing with the fewer number of children in approved schools. The fact that they are not under the direct control of any elected body or authority is an even greater reason why we ought to have as much information as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time.

Mr. Speaker

Does the Lady wish to move her Amendments?

Miss Bacon

In view of the undertaking which the hon. and learned Gentleman has given, that he will seek at a later stage to have the principle of these Amendments included in the Bill, I do not wish to move them, Mr. Speaker.

Clause added to the Bill.