HC Deb 12 April 1961 vol 638 cc289-98

The wardens and officers of a detention centre shall have the same rights and power of administering corporal punishment to an} person serving a sentence at a detention centre as if he were a schoolmaster responsible for the education of the person concerned.—[Mr Deedes.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. Deedes

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

I hope that I shall be acquitted of seeking to revive the subject of corporal punishment by a side-wind. The last thing I want to do is to revive the arguments on judicial corporal punishment which we rehearsed here adequately yesterday.

On the other hand, I am a strong supporter of the régime of the detention centre and the prospects which it offers of remedial treatment for certain types of offender, and as an alternative to corporal punishment. Ever since the institutions were set up I have believed that the short, sharp shock which was originally associated with them, and the consistently disciplined régime of the detention centre, was more closely related to the needs of some of these young men than a few strokes of the birch. It follows that if the detention centre is to be a satisfactory substitute for corporal punishment, as some of us hope that it will be, it must maintain a high standard of discipline.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, stressed that aspect in our discussions yesterday, and he assured us that it was not his intention not to have a strict régime. I accept what he said, and I am very glad to hear it. Commenting on something which he said later, I admit that I have been one of those who have suspected of late that the detention centre is losing its sting and is not quite what it was when it started seven or eight years ago. If I am wrong in that belief, I am only too pleased to learn it. I know that my right hon. Friend accepts that if we do not keep a strict standard of discipline in the detention centre we shall not only fail in our purpose there but shall also break faith with a great many people in this country who at the bottom of their hearts want to see the birch back but can be persuaded to give this alternative a fair trial.

If we accept what my right hon. Friend said at its full value, the fact remains that in future the detention centre will have to deal with a much wider range of subjects. They are to have a very mixed bag of offenders, due not least to the proposals contained in the Bill. They are to become a comprehensive school of penology. The danger is not that discipline will be deliberately relaxed but that the régime will be increasingly geared not to the young thug who was envisaged when the detention centre was set up but to the majority, to the run-of-the-mill characters, to the juveniles who have committed a wide range of offence meriting detention to up to six months. That is to be the rode of the detention centre. There the problem arises—and it will arise more acutely in future—of preventing a minority of tough characters from interfering with the main purpose of the detention centre. There is already a number of these tough characters in the detention centres, which are no longer places where first offenders go for, it is hoped, their first and their last taste of detention.

I am well aware that to deal with the recalcitrants there is a series of deterrents at the detention centres for such offenders, and those have been described and include removal for up to 14 days from corporate life, extra work or fatigue, stoppage of earnings, solitary confinement, restricted diet, and last, loss of remission of up to seven days. On paper that makes an impressive list. I wish I could feel sure it would make as strong an impression on the minds of the young men—

Mr. Scholefield Allen (Crewe)

The hon. Gentleman has just said that these detention centres are for recalcitrant persons, people who have records behind them, but is he aware that many conscientious objectors have been sent to these detention centres? I have protested about it, quite without avail. Men of unblemished character, and standing for a principle, have been sent to detention centres.

Mr. Deedes

Yes. I do not think the hon. and learned Gentleman has quite got my point. What I am saying is that the variety of characters in the detention centres is going to be much wider than it has been, and it will include a minority of characters who will be very tough to handle indeed.

It may be asked, talking of the impression which the existing penalties make upon them, will the cane make any greater impression? I am not going to exaggerate the contribution which I think this new Clause would make, and I ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite not to exaggerate the drawbacks, either. It is, in my opinion, a small rôle which this would fill, not a large one, and I am not thinking of severe pain to be inflicted, or even the fear of it. I have in mind the young touch, the bully, and there are one or two of them in the detention centres, who consistently demonstrate contempt for the régime and by infringements large and small have a consistently bad influence on the other inmates. I think that the ego and the influence of that sort of young man can be deflated by the cane as by no other means. I think that the cane in this context can be a deflating agency; not a pain inflicting instrument, not any one of the adjectives some people might apply to it, but a deflating agency.

This new Clause does not prescribe—as I have accused some of my hon. Friends for failing to prescribe yesterday—the offences for which it may be used. That is left to the staff. I think that is right. It may be said the staff have not asked for it, to which I would say that we are not compelling the staff to use it. We are only saying that the cane should be in existence and in reserve; no more than in reserve. It is there if wanted; and since it is there if it is wanted in some of our national schools I cannot see—although I can see administrative difficulties in giving effect to the Clause—that any great new principle is involved.

As I said, I do not want to make a long speech on the matter, but I think that this really must be added, that the cost of keeping a boy at a detention centre today is £562 9s. 1d., that is, £18 more than the cost of keeping a boy at Eton, and I would add in all seriousness that it is more difficult—this is one of the tragedies—to get a boy into a detention centre today than to get one into Eton. Magistrates in many parts of the country will confirm that. [An HON. MEMBER: "But who wants to go there?"] I do not see why a detention centre should be denied the advantages, as I believe they are, of the more privileged penalties of a public school.

This innovation meets, in my view, the two principal objections, which I accept, to judicial corporal punishment. The first is delay. There will be no delay, or there should be none. The second is the lack of continued relationship with the man who administers the punishment. The offender will be there for three months with the man who administers the punishment and there will be a continuing relationship with the man administering the punishment.

I do not put the proposal forward as a supreme deterrent or anything like that. I put it forward because I believe, as, indeed, I believe my right hon. Friend does, that it is crucial to make the detention centres successful, and that we ought not to overlook any suggestion which might help to make them so. I know from my own researches that this is not as simple to implement as it may appear. I am not going to pretend to my right hon. Friend or to my hon. Friends that I do not know that. This looks beguilingly simple on the Notice Paper.

Administratively, it will be a fairly complicated matter to incorporate the cane into the disciplinary system, and so I do not expect a complete acceptance of the Clause as it stands by my right hon. Friend—quite apart from the fact that, upon inspection, I find that the standard of the grammar is very defective, for which I express regret. I would, however, like an assurance that this rule involved here will be examined by the Government in the hope and expectation that a way can be found to incorporate this principle. It is for that reason I urge my right hon. Friend to accept it.

Mr. R. A. Butler

The reason I rise now is that I feel that the Government are bound in this matter by a statement made by the Attorney-General in the Standing Committee when he said: I undertake…to give further consideration to the question in relation to detention centres to see whether, on further inquiry, we think that there is any ground whatsoever—although on our present investigations we do not think there is—for the inclusion of such a provision."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 28th February, 1961; c. 756.] I mention that because I do not think it possible to accept the new Clause as it stands for two reasons both given by my hon. Friend. It says: The wardens and officers of a detention centre shall have the same rights and powers of administering corporal punishment to any person serving a sentence…as if he were a schoolmaster… That is very hard on the teaching profession and might lead to a grave deterioration in the standards of the Bill if we were to include in it the new Clause as it stands.

I am sure that my hon. Friend will not wish to press this, although he does wish to have an answer from me on the subject in general. I could not accept the new Clause as it stands for that reason, and I could not accept it for other reasons he gave, for the situation is very complicated indeed in relation to this subject. What is clear, however, is that my hon. Friend and I both object to judicial corporal punishment. On the other hand, I think that he and I and many others—taking my speech of yesterday—did not disagree when I said: Many of us have less difficulty, as I have made clear in public statements and at conferences, with a personal relationship in beating with the cane or otherwise performed by a parent or schoolmaster in which there is a personal relationship and where there is no delay."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th April, 1961: Vol. 638, c. 90.] I remember that when I said that in my speech yesterday there was general acceptance on all sides. I did get a nod of assurance from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). I think that there is general agreement that beating of that sort is reasonable and different from judicial corporal punishment.

However, what my hon. Friend wants to do by this new Clause is to introduce the schoolmaster relationship in the detention centre with the use of the cane. I think that there is one very useful analogy to back his own argument, and that is that we do permit use of the cane, with, I think, altogether reasonable results, in approved schools. This is recognised on all hands.

6.0 p.m.

My hon. Friend wants to see it used if necessary in detention centres. The inquiry which my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General offered in Committee in the words which I have read out has only partially been completed, and that is another reason why I could not accept the new Clause today. But the preliminary results of conferring with those who run detention centres, with prison commissioners and with the Chairman of the Prison Commissioners is that if this power were to be taken it could only be regarded as being at all analogous with the schools if it were taken in the junior detention centres for those between the ages of 14 and 16 years. Even here, there are two difficulties that must be overcome. One is that the period of stay is normally three months and sometimes six months.

The second is that there are certain disciplinary procedures under the detention centre rules made under the Prison Act, 1952. If we, therefore, were to try to use these under the present system of these rules in the junior detention centres, there would be all sorts of delays, leading through a formal report and hearing for punishment by the governor under Rule 32, a hearing for serious offences by the board of visitors under Rule 33, and final confirmation or mitigation by the Secretary of State under Rule 36. If we were to introduce corporal punishment under these rules under the Prison Act, 1952, it would result in delays and might result in what I call the revulsive practice under which every single case of birching in prison has to come finally to the Secretary of State and has to be signed by him and he has to read at least seven or eight pages of minutes before he can agree.

I do not think that that is what my hon. Friend wants. It would lead to delay, it would not be the relationship between schoolmaster and the young, it would be quite out of place, and it would be getting back to all the problems of yesterday's debate on judicial punishment. We should be all unhappy about, such a development.

This matter can be considered in relation to Clause 23 which deals with the position of detention centres particularly in the junior range and which brings the Prison Commission and the Secretary of State closer together. One of the advantages of that Clause is that the Secretary of State may be able to do a little more in relation to bringing some of our methods of detention and the treatment of the young a little more in line with one another. I had had it in mind even before my hon. Friend raised this matter in Committee to review this extraordinarily rigid series of rules for junior detention centres, because the present series is really too much for young people of that age and is more suitable for older boys and for prisons.

I will tell the House all that I can undertake to do as a result of my hon. Friend's initiative. I appreciate his point. He wants a teacher-pupil relationship. I am quite unprepared to go further than that or to go into the realm of judicial punishment. I had already intended to review the rules of junior detention centres. I cannot accept the Clause, for the reasons I have given. All I can do is to see in the immediate future before the Bill is considered in another place whether we can have a review of these rules and have powers in the future in case we want them. I would not undertake to use those powers, but I think that we should consider whether we ought to take them. I have not finished my inquiries with detention centres, and that is as far as I can go to meet my hon. Friend's wishes. If action is taken by the other place the matter can come back to this House, but if we decide not to take any action it would not come back to us, and this House would have the last word on the matter.

The position, therefore, is that following an undertaking given by the Attorney-General to have an inquiry, with the inquiry not being completed and the problem being presented as I have indicated and with the junior aspect being reviewed and my not being able to give a final answer on that today, I cannot go further than I have done, but I hope that my hon. Friend will feel assured that I have treated the new Clause with a degree of sympathy in the circumstances.

Sir G. Benson

I am sorry to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that he is treating the Clause with any degree of sympathy. Junior detention centres may be very similar to approved schools, but senior detention centres are practically identical, both in the type of individual who goes to them and in the result, with borstals and (prisons. If we are to allow the governor or a warden of a detention centre to administer corporal punishment we cannot possibly deny it to the governor of a boys' prison or the governor of a borstal. The results of Goudhurst detention centre, for example, are identical with borstal or prison. Its population is identical. That is the comparison one has to make, if one must make a comparison, and not with schools. The comparison must be with other institutions where the only people who can decide on corporal punishment are the visiting magistrates. If corporal punishment is to be introduced into adult centres it must be on the decision of the visiting magistrates and nobody else.

Sir T. Moore

I have only one or two comments to make on the Clause. After the vote of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) last night, I am rather inclined to welcome the apparent change of heart on the subject of corporal punishment.

Mr. R. A. Butler

My hon. Friend must not be simple about this. It was clear that yesterday we all spoke from a feeling of great conviction. My views about judicial corporal punishment remain absolutely the same. I am sorry that they do, because I did not like disagreeing with my hon. Friends. I did not enjoy it at all. This is a matter with which I have said that I will try to deal on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes).

Sir T. Moore

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. I was merely referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford. I hate sending young people to prison or even to detention centres. The House knows my alternative. It would be far better to give them a sound whipping and send them off with a warning.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche)

I hope that the hon. Member will deal with the new Clause.

Sir T. Moore

I will come to that. I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

I feel that the Home Secretary agrees with me that the whole thing starts with the parents, and that if parents administered suitable forms of punishment when children misbehaved there would be less chance of their misbehaving later. The same applies to schools. If there were a certain amount of punishment for misbehaviour in schools we should never need to ask for judicial punishment, but where I get out of line with my right hon. Friend is when it is suggested that there should be no corporal punishment when these young people go to the next criminal stage in the junior detention centres.

If it is agreed that corporal punishment should be given in approved schools I cannot see why it should not also be given in junior detention centres and thereby prevent the young thug or possibly a child who has misbehaved as a result of bad management on the part of someone or other from continuing in that way. Why should the child be allowed to pass from one degree of mal-education to another until he finally ends up as a confirmed criminal and possibly needs far more drastic punishment than we have hitherto considered?

However, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford in his moving of the Clause. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend has not seen fit at the moment to accept it, but I hope that, perhaps by a change of the regulations which he undoubtedly envisages later, it may be possible at a later date to have some form of this treatment given in detention centres.

Miss Bacon

The right hon. Gentleman quoted one sentence from the speech made by the Attorney-General, but he did not quote other parts of his right hon. and learned Friend's speech, and he certainly did not quote anything from the speech made by the Joint Under-Secretary. I want to quote some of the other things which were said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the hon. and learned Gentleman in the Standing Committee.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State went through a list of sanctions which could be imposed in the detention centres. After enumerating nine sanctions which could be used, he said: The sanctions have proved effective in practice in maintaining discipline in detention centres, and that is the fundamental point. No demand has been made by the staffs of detention centres for power to inflict corporal punishment. In the absence of any evidence of a need for corporal punishment as a means of maintaining discipline, we say that there would be no justification for introducing it. The hon. and learned Gentleman said a little later: It would be a pity if we were to introduce anything which might, in even a few cases, destroy that relationship."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 28th February, 1961; c. 740.] The Attorney-General, in addition to the one sentence quoted by the Home Secretary, said: The conclusion that corporal punishment is unnecessary in detention centres derives not only from the views of the wardens of detention centres but also from the fact that discipline has been maintained without difficulty without this sanction. That is an important point."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 28th February, 1961; c. 756.] I welcome the fact that the right hon. Gentleman says that before he does anything this will be brought back to the House. I hope that, in addition to the other things which he is considering, he will remember that boys are in detention centres for a much shorter period of time than they are in approved schools, day schools or even borstal, where there is not this power, and that, that being so, there might not be the same relationship between the master in the detention centre and the boy. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will bear all that in mind and also the views expressed by his two hon. Friends during the Committee stage.

Mr. Deedes

In view of what my right hon. Friend has said and the facts given by him, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.