HC Deb 29 June 1961 vol 643 cc852-3

Lords Amendment: In page 17, line 43, at end insert new Clause "A":

  1. (1) The Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament—
    1. (a) in every year, a statement of statistical information relating to approved schools, remand homes and attendance centres in England and Wales;
    2. (b) in the year nineteen hundred and sixty-four and every third subsequent year, a report on the functioning of the approved school system in England and Wales (including supervision after release) and of remand homes and attendance centres in England and Wales, and on the work of the Home Department in relation thereto.
  2. (2) The information to be comprised in any statement laid in pursuance of paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section shall include the following particulars, that is to say:—
    1. (a) in the case of approved schools, the number of such schools, and the numbers of admissions, releases and recalls during the period covered by the statement;
    2. (b) in the case of remand homes, the number of such homes and the number of admissions during that period;
    3. (c) in the case of attendance centres, the number of such centres, and the number of orders for attendance at such centres made during that period,
    together with such additional information as the Secretary of State thinks appropriate in each case.

Mr. Renton

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Miss Bacon

I wonder whether we could be told precisely how this proposed new Clause differs from Clause 20, which has been left out of the Bill.

Mr. Renton

Yes. I should explain that at first there was no requirement in the Bill at all about the making of reports or, indeed, about the giving of annual statistical returns, but as a result of undertakings that I made in Committee a new Clause was put down in the Commons on Report which laid on the Home Secretary an obligation to lay before Parliament an annual return of statistics relating to the approved school system in England and Wales in 1964, and every third year thereafter, and a report on the work of the Home Office in relation to approved schools and generally in relation to the workings of the approved school system in England and Wales.

During the Report stage in the Commons, I accepted a suggestion that the scope of the annual return and of the triennial report should be extended so as to include remand home and attendance centres, and that is what this new Clause does. It extends the obligation both with regard to statistics and reports, so that they will include not only approved schools and not only a report of the working of the children's department, but specific information relating to remand homes and attendance centres as well.

Question put and agreed to.