Commons Sitting of 5 July 1963

Preamble
The House met at Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the chair]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS BILL [Lords]
  Order for consideration, as amended (in the Standing Committee), read.
  Bill recommitted to a Committee of the whole House in respect of the proposed Clause (Adjustment between local authorities of expenses of maintaining persons in remand homes) standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. H. Brooke.—[Mr. H. Brooke.]
  Bill immediately considered in Committee,
  [Sir Robert Grimston in the Chair]

  CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS BILL [Lords]

    New Clause.—(ADJUSTMENT BETWEEN LOCAL AUTHORITIES OF EXPENSES OF MAINTAINING PERSONS IN REMAND HOMES.)
    (1) The Secretary of State may, after consulting such local authorities or associations of local authorities as he thinks fit, by statutory instrument make regulations providing, in such cases as may be prescribed by the regulations, for the recovery, by a local authority providing a remand home from such other local authority as may be so prescribed, of such sum in respect of a person detained in the remand home as may be determined in accordance with a rate prescribed from time to time by order made by the Secretary of State by statutory instrument; and any such order may prescribe different rates for different circumstances.

    (2) No sum shall be recoverable under such regulations in any case where the expenses of maintaining the person detained in the remand home are treated under section 11(3) of this Act as if they were expenses incurred by the authority as managers of an approved school or are recoverable under section 51(3) of the Children Act 1948 (which provides for the recovery of expenses where a child is removed to a place of safety); but where regulations under this section are in force, any expenses incurred by a local authority in maintaining a parson in a remand home and recoverable under the said section 51(3) shall for the purposes of that section be taken to
    730
    be equal to such sum as might, but for this subsection, be recoverable in respect of that person under the regulations.

    (3) Any payment by a local authority which is made or determined in pursuance of this section shall be treated for the purposes of Schedule 1 to the Local Government Act 1958 or, as the case may be, Schedule 1 to the Local Government and Miscellaneous Financial Provisions (Scotland) Act 1958 as expenses incurred in respect of remand homes (and accordingly as excluded from relevant expenditure for the purposes of general grants).

    (4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.—[Mr. H. Brooke.]

    Brought up, and read the First time.
    11.6 a.m.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Henry Brooke): I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    This is a somewhat technical matter, but I think that without going into great detail I can fairly briefly explain the purpose of this Clause, which is an enabling Clause.
    As the Committee may know, the system of financing approved schools is different from the system of financing remand homes, although in each case there is a 50 per cent. Exchequer grant. The system of financing approved schools on the local authority side is such that each local authority will pay the same amount throughout the country in respect of each boy from its area who is in an approved school. Therefore, no special burden will fall on the local authority which is actually providing a particular approved school. Consequently, when it is a question of asking or negotiating with a local authority as to the setting up of a new approved school, the local authority has not to have at the back of its mind that the establishment of the school may cast a special financial burden on its own ratepayers.
    That, however, does not work out in quite the same way with remand homes. The remand homes are financed by agreement, or series of agreements, between the local authority, which is actually providing the remand home, and the other local authorities from which children may go to it. Consequently, the authority which is considering establishing a remand home may very well have on its mind that in certain circumstances, if,

    731
    for example, there was a falling off in the number of boys or girls going into that remand home, a particular financial burden might fall upon it, and this is liable to be a deterrent to the setting up of new remand homes.
    This question was raised by my predecessor with the local authority associations two or three years ago at a time when it was quite clear that an expansion of remand home accommodation was needed, and it is generally recognised throughout the local authority world that this method of financing remand homes may have some effect in frightening off a local authority which otherwise would be willing to provide one. The local authority associations, however, were good enough, after discussions, to bring to the notice of local authorities generally the great importance of expanding remand home provision, and I certainly am not aware of any recent case where the provision of a new remand home has been seriously held up through financial difficulties.
    But I must look ahead to the future. At present there is a very rapid increase in approved school accommodation going on. We are providing new approved school places at the rate of about 500 a year. Approved school accommodation in total is much more important than remand home accommodation. If we can rapidly improve the capacity of approved schools that will"drain off" from the remand homes children who are waiting in remand homes for approved school places. Therefore, it is the expansion of the approved schools that we have to keep our eyes on particularly.
    But none of us can tell what the rate or trend of juvenile delinquency in the future will be. In the early 'fifties we had a decline, and remand home and approved school places were empty. In the last five or six years we have had a rapid increase. No one can tell what the future will hold. Also, there will not be another Children and Young Persons Bill every year. Therefore, I am looking ahead over a period of time, because it may be that at some time in the next decade we shall need a substantial increase in the number of remand home places beyond the programme of expansion which is now in progress, and it might be that we should run up against
    732
    this financial difficulty, particularly if juvenile delinquency seemed to be at a peak and some local authorities thought it might fall off.
    It seemed, therefore, to the Government that it was wise to take this enabling power. Under this Clause, if the Committee accepts it, it will be possible for the Secretary of State by Order, after, of course, full consultation with the local authority associations concerned, to establish what I might call the approved school method of financing, which, by common agreement, is absolutely fair as between one local authority and another, in place of the existing system upon which we depend for the financing of remand homes.
    I can assure the Committee and the local authorities that I have no present intention of implementing the new Clause. I can assure them that there would be, as I have said, the fullest consultation before any proposal was brought forward under this enabling power. But I hope that the Committee will agree with me that we should look ahead and should take this power in case at some future date we were to run into a situation where local authorities in areas in which remand homes were needed felt that they would be overburdening their ratepayers if they were to agree to provide a new remand home. That is the sole purpose of the Clause, and I hope that it will commend itself to the Committee.
    Miss Alice Bacon: On the face of it, this appears to be a much fairer way of assessing the cost of new remand homes, and no doubt it will be welcomed by local authorities. We note what the right hon. Gentleman said, that he will have consultations with the local authorities before he lays the Order, and we should, of course, then be able to debate the Order when it came before the House. Therefore, I advise my hon. Friends not to oppose the Clause.
    11.15 a.m.
    I was rather surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that in the future there might be a difficulty with regard to remand homes. He did not say very much about the present position. He has said that there are many new places in approved schools being provided and that this should lead to a falling off in

    733
    the shortages in respect of remand homes. I should like to remind him that on 14th May, during the Committee stage of the Bill, he gave the members of the Standing Committee some homework to do. I was rather surprised that he felt it necessary to ask members of the Standing Committee to do this homework, because I should have thought that through all his children's officers and all the facilities which he has, he would have been able to find out for himself the present position in remand homes rather than asking the very busy members of the Standing Committee to do the work for him. He said in the Standing Committee on 14th May:
    "These stories which I hear from time to time of magistrates' clerks having to telephone all over the country to secure remand home places seem strange. I have little doubt that they were true a short time ago…but they are no longer being reported to us at the Home Office….Hon. Members would do me a service for which I should be grateful if they would check up locally to find out whether the situation is as acute as it was some months ago, or whether my impression is correct; that is, that the situation is not now so acute because of the increased number of approved school and remand home places. I attach a great deal of importance to this, and I give it a great deal of attention, and it is quite right for me to put on record that we in the Home Office are not getting complaints about this matter as we were, say, at this time last year. I want to know the facts."—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 14th May, 1963; c. 503–4.]
    If the right hon. Gentleman has not received the facts, perhaps we can give them to him now. I believe that he himself received some facts almost the same day. Indeed, I believe that one local authority immediately sent him a telegram to tell him that what he was saying was absolutely wrong in respect of its area in the North-East. I have not been doing very much homework on this. I just sat back, and the information rolled in to me. I have information here from all over the country, but I will not weary the Committee with it.
    However, the fact is that there is a very serious shortage of remand home places. Just to let the hon. Gentleman see that I am not talking generally but that I have evidence of this, I will quote one or two instances. At Reading Borough Juvenile Court on Thursday, 20th January, a 13-year-old boy was remanded for full reports. The children's department made inquiries, and on
    734
    the day of the hearing announced to the court that there was no vacancy at any remand home in England or Wales; but later a vacancy was found in Devon. The expense that falls on local authorities is not only that of keeping children in remand homes but that of sending children and escorts to the other ends of the country and fetching them back again to the courts for the hearings.
    I have evidence here from North and South Shields, where it was necessary to go a long distance to find a place. In Kent the general position has been a little better than in the past, but only five weeks ago a boy had to be remanded on bail for a few days until there was a nearer vacancy, as the only other vacancy in the country was at Swansea. In York the girls' remand homes problem is very acute. Although it is rare that girls are sent to remand homes, the police have had to do a great deal of telephoning to find a vacancy, and remand homes many miles from York have been used. Seaham Harbour has been used more than once. In Cumberland, in May, a boy had to be sent to Swansea for a remand home place.
    As I say, we welcome the Clause, but I do not think that it will have a great deal of effect in the present situation. I hope, therefore, that when the right hon. Gentleman has this new Clause he will not think he has done all he possibly could do about remand homes and will appreciate that much more drastic action needs to be taken if we are to remedy the situation which I have outlined.
    It seems very strange to me that the right hon. Gentleman should make that statement in May and should not know—he genuinely did not know—what the position was in the country, when every magistrate seems to know what the position was. As we have said many times, he seems particularly ill-informed about what is happening in approved schools and remand homes.
    Mr. Charles Mapp: I am not out of harmony with the Home Secretary's new Clause and with the intention to modernise the machinery in respect of the expense of these remand homes. I am glad that he mentioned the point—although I think that he is

    735
    being too optimistic—that the straightening out of the financial basis would lead to the initiation of new remand homes. He is a super-optimist. There is no evidence that that will happen. There is an acute shortage of remand homes throughout the country, but it is probably most acute in the North-West and Lancashire area.
    The comment of the Home Secretary in Committee, in asking hon. Members to try to ascertain what the position was, was the more remarkable in that two years ago, in response to a request from me, his Department made a survey of the North-West and was in a position to state in terms what the figures and shortages were. Surely that survey should be continuing now. It should not be left to hon. Members to discover the position through the protests coming from their constituencies.
    Admissions to remand homes on a national basis increased from roughly 12,250 in 1957 to nearly 16,000 in 1961. That is a numerical increase, but there was also an increase in the number of days during which people were in remand homes, from an average of 22 days to 26 days. The situation has thus worsened in that respect. On a percentage basis the average use increased from 59 per cent. to 87 per cent. In the North-West the 1956 intake of new admissions was 1,300, and the Home Office told me that for 1960–61 it was over 2,000, which is an even greater increase than the average for the rest of the country. The average user is just as bad at present. In fact, on the boys' side there has been a 101 per cent. occupation. This fact has been known to the Home Office for many months.
    I have not the slightest doubt that the Committee will accept the Clause, but in local authority administration the Clause will be a.matter for the care and attention of the accountant. Administratively, the Clause is concerned with finance, and the children's committees, as such, will not regard it as a piece of policy. The initiation of new remand homes is now left to county authorities and county boroughs. That is the main weakness of the situation.
    There it is. The Home Secretary is trying in this indirect way to get round it. instead of facing the central issue
    736
    But if the issue is to be evaded in this way, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take the matter in hand vigorously, in order to make sure that the authorities are provided—by way of consortia if necessary—with the new remand homes that are long overdue.
    Mr. Charles Royle: I am in complete agreement with what my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp) have said about the principle of the new Clause. It is right that any local authority which is involved in sending children to remand homes, wherever they may be, should take its share of the burden. But I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that in Committee, in respect of another subject, I moved an Amendment involving the same principle, namely, a sharing of financial responsibility—and the Home Secretary rejected it.
    I am most concerned about the latter part of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South-East concerning the need for more remand homes. It is ridiculous to suggest that what is now proposed can come into operation until strong action is taken to provide more homes. Everywhere I go—and I go to most parts of the country on magisterial work—the same complaint reaches me, from almost every county, that the lack of accommodation in remand homes is making the work of juvenile court magistrates almost impossible.
    I have here a cutting from the Press of the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) reporting the remarks of a magistrate of a juvenile court in South Shields in connection with the problem facing the juvenile court there when there was no vacancy in a remand home anywhere in England, with the result that two boys had to be remanded in custody at the town's police headquarters. There was not one vacancy in the whole country.
    I know that the Sunderland authorities have sent the right hon. Gentleman a telegram calling attention to the problem they have had to face every time they have had to find a remand home for a young boy or girl coming before their court. In answer to that telegram the right hon. Gentleman pointed out that

    737
    more provision was to be made in the North-East, and that there were plans to provide 27 additional places for boys, of which 15 should be available by the end of this year or early next year. He goes on to say that plans are being made—we never know what really happens about these plans—for a new remand home at Newcastle. This is totally inadequate for the needs of the country, and this is happening everywhere. The bench of magistrates on which I sit in the south of England is faced by the same problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East has instanced the situation in the North-West.
    It is a long time since the 1948 Criminal Justice Act was passed. Since then the Government have utterly failed in their endeavour to provide this kind of accommodation. If the right hon. Gentleman is now introducing a Clause to share the financial burdens between the local authorities involved he should see to it that the provision of these establishments is in preparation.
    We had a Criminal Justice Bill only last year, and during its proceedings we repeatedly pointed out to the then Home Secretary the difficulties which prevailed in every kind of institution dealing with young people. The Government have been very lax in this matter. In those circumstances I hope that the right hon. Gentleman can give us some assurance that efforts will be increased to provide this kind of accommodation. If he cannot, what he is now suggesting is just a waste of time, like many Clauses of other Bills that we have had dealing with this subject.
    Mr. George Craddock: I want to make one brief comment about remand homes, in relation to a case which occurred in Bradford not long ago. A young girl of under 15 years of age was for one period in a remand home in Kent, then for another period in Derbyshire, and for some time I was trying to find out where she was. The comments made by my hon. Friends are absolutely true. These young boys and girls are lost almost without trace for months and months. It is disgraceful that the Home Office has not got down to the question of the proper provision of approved schools. If it had looked into the matter and resolved upon some sort
    738
    of a policy we would not be in our present position in dealing with young people waiting on remand.
    11.30 a.m.
    I should like to say, too, in view of the financial aspect that was touched upon by the Home Secretary in regard to approved schools, that in this case his Department, before he became Home Secretary and for less than a month, had on remand a young person, the father of whom, who was a member of the Forces, was charged £70. Another bill was forwarded for £10, making £80 in all. The Home Secretary assisted in the return of that money to the father and the difficulties of this family have now been resolved. But I think it very important that that case should go on record.
    I want to deal for a moment with approved schools. I think that the Government are definitely responsible for the condition in which we find this almost complete lack of accommodation. The new Clause, of course, makes a slight improvement, although the Home Secretary himself, I believe, did not attach very much importance to it. I think that this, too, should be said for the record.
    I do not believe that in the case of adult offenders who are put in prison there is any charge by the local authority, and yet the right hon. Gentleman mentioned that the grant in aid was on a 50–50 basis and that therefore the local authorities are expected to make a financial contribution to approved schools. I think that this might be a consideration—
    The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Robert Grimston): I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I think that he is getting too wide of the new Clause by talking about the financial contribution to approved schools. While I am on my feet, I would point out to the hon. Member that neither can he turn this into a general debate. I have allowed some discussion of approved schools in connection with the Clause, but it was not connected with the financial liability of local authorities.
    Mr. Craddock: All I wanted to say, Sir Robert, was that in order to get the essential financial support we may in the

    739
    future have to consider the question of the Government providing the whole of the money.
    Mr. William Hannan: I shall be very brief. Clause 1 of the Bill, of course, applies to the United Kingdom, and, therefore, that explains why a Scottish voice is being heard here on a Friday morning. I should like to ask the Home Secretary if he could, perhaps, have a word with his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and thus avoid having two Ministers replying.
    I should like to know in this matter of the responsibility for remand homes whether a decision has now been made, in respect of the Report on Remand Homes in Scotland, as to which Department is to have the oversight of them. The Under-Secretary of State will be aware that the Committee proposed that the responsibility for remand homes should be transferred to the Secretary of State. Such a decision would have been deplorable and would be deplored by us. If, of course, it is to be the local authorities, then we can agree at once with the announcement of the Home Secretary that the financing should be, as it is at the moment in Scotland, the responsibility of the local authorities either by themselves alone or jointly.
    The proposal of the Home Office is, of course, in keeping with what obtains in Scotland, but I should like the assurance that if such changes are proposed for the transfer of responsibility for these homes to the Secretary of State—and much of what has been said about the shortage of places applies also to Scotland—the Under-Secretary will have regard to the point made.
    Mr. Charles A. Howell: Your intervention, Sir Robert, has prevented me from deploying an argument which I had hoped to put forward, although I know that your Ruling is quite correct. I will try to keep within the bounds of order, even though I know that it is a wrong thing to warn the Chair that one is going to try to keep in order.
    Subsection (1) of the new Clause reads:
    "The Secretary of State may, after consulting such local authorities or associations of local authorities as he thinks fit, by statutory instrument make regulations providing
    740
    in such cases as may be prescribed by the regulations, fox the recovery, by a local authority providing a remand home from such other local authority as may be prescribed."
    I cannot imagine any local authority providing accommodation just for its own cases. It is just not possible for a local authority to do that, because it would immediately be plain to every local authority throughout the country. The right hon. Gentleman said in Committee that he was now getting no complaints. I hope he will be able to tell us that some local authorities have decided to send him their complaints.
    As soon as one local authority opened such a home every other local authority would want to use it. This is a cuckoo in the nest business. A remand home cannot be kept selective for the people in a given area. Once it was subject to Government grant it would become available to local authorities throughout the country. I have never sat in a Committee if I could not make a suggestion which was constructive. I should never wish to do that. I suggested in Committee how this matter could be overcome. I wonder if the Minister asked anyone to consider what I proposed.
    When on holiday recently I saw a children's home which had been closed and which was up for sale to any speculative buyer. I should have thought that in that case the local authority would have sought permission to buy it and would have asked the right hon. Gentleman either to provide a loan or to meet the cost.
    The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member is really outside the subject of the Clause.
    Mr. Howell: I am sorry, Sir Robert, but I thought that I was not. Perhaps I can put it this way.
    If the new Clause is agreed to, would such a local authority be able to recover the money if it purchased a children's home which had been closed for lack of clients and which could be used as a remand home? Would it be entitled to approach the Minister on the subject, and, if it could, what under the Clause would he be prepared to give it?
    Mr. Brooke: I will, first, if I may, reply to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan). He will be aware that a circular was sent out by

    741
    the Scottish Education Department at the end of last year in which it was said, on behalf of the Secretary of State, that he was not convinced that a satisfactory service of remand homes could not be provided under the present system of control by the local authorities. In fact, the difficulty which this new Clause is designed to overcome, if need be, is, I am informed, not one which has hitherto arisen in Scotland. Yet I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not oppose the powers existing in Scotland in case the situation were ever to arise.
    In answer to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Charles A. Howell), this new Clause would allow the existing financial provisions to apply to any remand home whether it was a new building or a converted building. I would only utter this word of warning, that not every building which has been given up as a children's home because it was considered unacceptable for that purpose would be ideal for conversion into a remand home. I think that it is necessary, in every case where a new remand home is needed to examine whether that can best be provided by a purpose-built building or by the conversion of an existing convertible building.
    With regard to the general position, I would put the situation thus. Last summer, there were a great many complaints, and justifiable complaints, about the shortage of places in remand homes. Last winter, those complaints died away and the position seemed to have materially improved, and I was hoping that it would continue to improve. But there is no doubt that it has been worsening again in these last few weeks. When I spoke in May I was being optimistic, based on the experience which we had had during the winter. It is clear that that was a temporary, not a permanent, relief, and that the pressure is now building up again.
    My aim is to have no more than a 70 per cent, occupancy of remand home places throughout the year, on the average. My judgment is that if we have an average occupancy of 70 per cent. of all the remand home places throughout the year, we have the necessary margin to deal with every emergency. Last year, the situation built up to over 80 per cent. and it is probably in the neighbourhood of 80 per cent. now. My con-
    742
    cern and purpose is to reduce that to the neighbourhood of 70 per cent.
    I do not want to go into the approved school position at length, but the Committee realises that a great deal of the pressure on remand home accommodation is due to boys having to stay in remand homes because there is not sufficient room in approved schools. We are now getting the fruits of the work which has been done in recent years to increase approved school accommodation. During the last 2½ years up to this date, 570 additional approved school places have been provided. We are expecting another 280 in the next six months, about 500 next year and 500 in the following year. In other words, the total capacity of approved schools will rise in the next months and years at an unprecedented rate. This is bound to relieve remand home accommodation.
    But I am not satisfied with that. Quite clearly, we have to continue with the expansion of the remand homes. The total number of remand home places is little more than one-tenth of the total number of approved school places. Not very long ago the total number of remand home places was 1,200. Thanks to the expansion which is going on, that figure is now 1,475, and within the next year or less we shall be getting another 108 places, bringing the total to nearly 1,600.
    This is not a matter which the Home Office leaves to local authorities to get on with, showing itself disinterested. On the contrary, both the local authority associations and individual local authorities would confirm that there have been frequent discussions about the expansion of the remand home programme. Indeed, the figures which I have just given to the House reveal the results of that.
    The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. George Craddock) must not say that the Home Office has no policy. It has a policy, and that policy needs to be carried out in collaboration with the local authorities. It is to ease that collaboration that this new Clause is being introduced. I am grateful to the Committee for the general welcome which it has given to the new Clause, and I pledge myself that I intend to do everything that I can to ensure that this shortage of remand home places is permanently relieved.
    11.45 a.m.
    Mr. James McColl: I congratulate the Home Secretary on succeeding in making a speech on approved schools on a new Clause which deals with remand homes. That is a lesson which all of us can learn for the rest of the debate this morning.
    I do not criticise the right hon. Gentleman for it, because I agree that the whole problem is very closely integrated and that one cannot solve the problem of remand homes unless one looks at all the alternative methods of dealing with children—and that includes not only approved schools at the other end. It includes reception homes, places of safety and all the variety of alternative places which can be made available to the courts for dealing with children.
    Very often the waiting list in remand homes arises from the fact that the courts are not given adequate information about the alternatives which could be used for some of the children. Often, I am sure, a child has to be sent to what may seem to him to be the end of the earth—from the North-East to the South—to find a place in a remand home when all that is required is a roof over his head for a week or two. He does not require very specialised treatment or very complicated reports.
    The right hon. Gentleman was very straight with us and said that he had been very over-optimistic when he spoke in Standing Committee. I do not hold him responsible for the difficulties of this problem, but I hold him responsible, as we held the then Minister of State responsible on the Criminal Justice Bill, for making rather complacent speeches in Committee which the facts did not bear out. That is very much the situation which has been revealed here.
    The value of this discussion is, first, that we can give the right hon. Gentleman assistance in getting the Clause through—and he ought to get it through. Secondly, it is good for the morale of magistrates, clerks of court, police and children's officers to understand that the House realises the difficulties of the problem. What sends magistrates and clerks of court"round the bend" is when, having spent pounds in trunk calls round the countryside trying to find a vacancy in a remand
    744
    home, and having had to hold a special court in order to commit the child when a vacancy is found, they read a statement by the right hon. Gentleman in the newspapers that there is no problem. This is what nettles people. As long as they feel that the right hon. Gentleman is making a drive to get more remand home places, everybody will give him all the support they can. I therefore hope that my hon. Friends will accept the new Clause.
    Mr. Ede: I sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman in the fluctuations which occur in the statistics about the need for this sort of accommodation. In the late 1940s there was a similar drop in the demand, and we were even able to close some institutions. Then, with no apparent reason being available to convince one that the tide had turned, there was a sudden increase in the demand. Apparently the same thing has been happening in the last two or three years in the right hon. Gentleman's administration.
    In those circumstances, it is very difficult for a Secretary of State to deal with the problem of accommodation as I am sure everyone wishes him to be able to deal with it. From my own experience as a magistrate I know the difficulties which arise from time to time when one has to telephone all round the country to find a single place to which a child can be sent.
    I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. C. Royle) mentioned the situation which has arisen in my constituency, and I am glad to be able to urge the right hon. Gentleman to take particular steps to deal with the complaints which will come to him from the court there. The magistrate mainly in charge of it is a gentleman who has been the Conservative candidate there unsuccessfully on several occasions, and I understand that he intends to pursue that somewhat unprofitable form of existence in a constituency which has never returned a Conservative to the House since 1832.
    Sir John Eden: It is time for a change.
    Mr. Ede: He is a man who takes a great interest in the juvenile life of the borough. He is prominently connected with the Boys Brigade movement. Apart

    745
    from politics, he is eminently to be commended for his interest in the juvenile life of the place. When he speaks as quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West, it reveals a state of affairs on which I hope the Home Secretary will be able to give some assurance when representations are made to him.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
    Bill reported, with an Amendment; as amended (in the Standing Committee and on recommittal), considered.

    New Clause.—(Failure to return CHILD WHEN REQUIRED BY LOCAL AUTHORITY.)
    (1) Where a local authority have, in accordance with either—

    (a) section 3 (3) of the Children Act 1948, allowed any person to take over the care of a child in respect of whom a resolution under section 2 of that Act is in force; or

    (b) section 13 of the Children Act 1948, boarded out with any person a child who is in their care under section 1 of the said Act or who has, by an order of any court under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, or the Matrimonial Proceedings (Children) Act 1958, been committed to the care of the authority as a fit person,

    and the authority have by notice in writing required that person to return the child to the authority at a time specified in the notice (which, if that person has been allowed to take over the care of the child for a fixed period, shall not be earlier than the end of that period) then if that person fails to return the child the following provisions of this section shall apply:—

    (i) the child may be recovered without warrant in any part of Great Britain and brought back to the authority;

    (ii) the person failing to comply with the terms of the notice or any other person harbouring or concealing the child or preventing him from returning as required by the notice, shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two months or to both.

    (2) In this section"child" has the same meaning as in the Children Act 1948.—[Mr. Charles A. Howell.]

    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Mr. Charles A. Howell: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The Amendment to page 25, line 19, to leave out Clause 48, can be discussed with this new Clause.
    Mr. Howell: This Clause is designed to look after the interests of the child. As many hon. Members who have had letters from the Association of Municipal Corporations will know, this meets with the approval of the Association. I must make absolutely clear that I have no connection whatever with the Association. I am not a vice-president and have never attended a meeting, I put this Clause on the Notice Paper from an altruistic motive. It has the support of the Association and of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Sir B. Janner). The Association gave evidence to the Ingleby Committee saying:
    "Attention is drawn to the anomalous position of children in the care of a local authority under the Children Act, 1948, who are allowed home with their parents on trial or are boarded out with foster parents. At the present time, there would appear to be no legal method other than habeas corpus to recover such children if the placement proves unsatisfactory."
    Before going further, I must declare an interest. The case I wish to describe is from Birmingham. I should make clear that I choose a Birmingham case only because I represent a Birmingham constituency and it would not be fair to describe a case arising in some other constituency. A child in Birmingham was placed with foster parents. The local authority, the city council, came to the conclusion that the placing was not in the best interests of the child concerned. Despite the fact that the local authority was what the legal people call in loco parentis, it appears that the council found it almost impossible to obtain the return of the child to its authority. The city council tried to recover the child from the foster parents, but they objected. The council had no option but to go to court.
    The council went to the High Court to obtain a writ of habeas corpus. The town clerk, who is a learned gentleman and has a legal department behind him, gave the advice that that was the only way in which to obtain the return of the child. The application was made at the beginning of August, 1960, and it was heard by a judge in chambers towards the end of that month. Apparently, the foster parent took some legal advice, and incidentally, obtained it through legal aid. She made application to the Chancery Division for the child to be made a ward of court. The hearing of

    747
    the habeas corpus action then had to be abandoned, or at least adjourned, while the Chancery Court was deciding whether to make the child a ward of court.
    In view of the time which had elapsed after the hearing, the council made application in Chancery for the child to be de-warded. The application was made on 16th November that year and was successful. The foster mother appealed and the appeal was dismissed. Immediately the city council made application for restoration of the habeas corpus proceedings which had been adjourned in the High Court. That application was heard in the following February, when the court issued a writ requiring the foster mother to hand the child over to officers of the council. During the whole of this period of months the child was subject to living in conditions which the local authority considered detrimental to it. It appears that a council has to go through mammoth procedure to bring a child back into its custody when it considers that that is absolutely necessary.
    I do not want to see any child made the subject of buffeting about through legal processes. Obviously the local authority must have some responsibility if it is legally the temporary parent of the child. It allocates the child to foster parents. Usually the phrase"farmed out" is used. My experience has been that in many cases foster parents are better than the natural parents. I am only too happy to make that clear.
    It is obvious that with good foster parents and a good home the local authority would not need any particular legislation to achieve what it wants to do. In this House we often talk about making legislation, not to curtail the activities of good employers or good parents, but the activities of bad ones. It is not enough to say that the bad ones are so rare as to make the legislation unnecessary. In my opinion, the welfare of even one child is sufficient to say that the Bill should have a Clause giving a local authority the right to retrieve a child where the circumstances in the opinion of the authority require it.
    Incidentally, I am advised that under Section 85 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, if the child runs away from foster parents or is taken from a person to whose care the child has been
    748
    committed, the child may then be apprehended without warrant in any part of Great Britain. I do not want to labour this matter, but I hope that this new Clause will receive the approval of the Home Secretary.
    12 noon
    Sir Barnett Janner: I wish to support the Clause. The Association of Municipal Corporations, a very important body, representing many people in the country, has no personal interest in the matter. But I feel sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Charles A. Howell) would agree that what the Association suggests would be what it considered in the interests of the community and, in this case, in the interests of children.
    This Clause is an attempt to follow a line which we are all endeavouring to pursue, as the Home Secretary would doubtless agree. It is to ensure that the child is the primary concern of the community and that if a child should be placed in a position, because of its home circumstances or because of other circumstances, where it requires proper care, the correct attention may be given to it. When a child is put into the care of a person by a local authority, or when it is returned to its own home, a responsibility has been accepted by the local authority, and therefore the authority should be able, in the event of a mistaken decision having been made, to remedy that state of affairs without there being any injury to the child. That is all that this new Clause is designed to achieve.
    My hon. Friend gave a suitable and ample illustration of the damage which could be caused by delay when an individual who has care of a child desires to retain that control, although he or she may not be a fit person to do so. I speak from many years' experience and as someone closely connected with juvenile courts. I belong to a group in the community whose members are deeply concerned with home life and the welfare of children. They have shown by their management of home life that young children may be kept out of any kind of criminal mischief and certainly not many children from such homes come within the provisions to which we are now referring.

    749
    I have the greatest sympathy with the desire of parents to retain their children at home, and I believe that in the vast majority of cases the home is the right place for a child. But here we are concerned not with the average child but with the children whose home life, or lack of it, has resulted in the need for a social interest to be taken in their welfare, and their care has been placed in the hands of other people. It is absurd if, after a child has been placed under the control of someone by a local authority, and the authority is of opinion that it should resume its control over the welfare of that child, the law should prevent the authority from so doing.
    We know that there are possibilities arising from delay in the operation of the law—the case quoted by my hon. Friend was an indication—which may result in a child being sadly and badly affected. That, of course, does not happen in every case. But it could happen. I hope that the Minister will agree to accept the Motion, taking account of the fact that similar provisions exist in respect of other legislation relating to young persons and to children. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that it is an anomaly that a local authority, having made a mistaken decision about the suitability of someone to look after a child, cannot put the matter right. I hope that the Minister will readily agree to what is obviously a necessary alteration to the law.
    Mr. Hannan: I support the Motion. I have received representations from my own local authority in Glasgow, which is apprehensive about the existence of a loophole in the law enabling a child to escape or be taken from the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts. Clause 48(1) of this Bill authorises the bringing back of children who have escaped, been taken away or were absent after having been sent to a remand home, reception centre, approved school, or committed to the care of a fit person. The Glasgow Corporation considers that there should be inserted in this Clause a provision to enable the bringing back of children who have left or been taken out of the jurisdiction of Scottish courts after such committal, under Sections 5 and 10 of the Matrimonial Proceedings (Children) Act, 1958.
    750
    The perturbation felt by the Glasgow authority arises from an experience, not connected with this legislation, in a case where, by a trick exercised by a relative of the mother, a child was taken from a corporation hostel and brought to London. The mother had been convicted of running a brothel. Her children were placed under the care of the local authority. But, by means of a trick, they were brought, one by one, to London and out of the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts. Having learned of this, the Glasgow authority communicated with the London County Council and the whereabouts of the children were ascertained. But, to the dismay of the Glasgow authority and the unhappiness of the London authority, the London County Council, even though it desired to do so, could not restore the children to the control of the Glasgow authority. The London authority had no case against the mother.
    In 1956 I had the honour of introducing legislation which became the Children and Young Persons Act, 1956. The Long Title of that Measure was
    "An Act to extend the provisions of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1953"
    that is the Act relating to England and Wales—
    "and the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act, 1937, with respect to escapes from the care of fit parsons, from approved schools and from remand homes or special reception centres."
    The doubt felt by the Glasgow authority, and by me, is whether this Act, which was designed to cover circumstances to which I have referred, will also cover the point raised by my hon. Friend.
    In the interests of safety, I support the Clause. I should be grateful if this point could be covered. There are two cases. The first is that of children who are committed by a court to the care of a fit person. The second case is that of children who are taken under the care of the local authority, not necessarily by a court order. Where the local authority sends the child to foster parents and discovers that the circumstances are not as it thought at one time, the difficulty described by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Charles A. Howell) arises.
    One can understand that children committed under a court order may be more easily recoverable, because the authority

    751
    of the court is behind the local authority. As I understand it, the doubt is whether the local authority, as the person standing in loco parent is, sending the child out to foster parents, can as with a court order get the child back. The Clause is moved to resolve this doubt. If it covers this point, I hope that it will be accepted.
    Mr. Leslie Hale: I want briefly to express some hesitation about the Clause. I do so with some reluctance, because my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Charles A. Howell) moved it with conspicuous fairness and ability. The one basic conception of the law of the guardianship of infants which distinguishes our law and which is, as hon. Members on both sides will agree, one of the finest conceptions in our law is that the welfare of the infant is to be the dominant test and the determining factor.
    I heard what my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr said. I agree almost entirely with what he said, except perhaps his encomiums upon the collective wisdom of local authorities in these matters. I know that they are doing great work. They have often to rely on the advice of their children's officer. The complexity and abundance of duties of a member of any large authority are now such that few of them would claim to have an intimate personal knowledge of each individual case that comes before them on 60 or 70 pages of minutes. In the end, it is a question for the children's officer, and the members of the local authority are there to supervise the children's officer and see that he behaves.
    Sir B. Janner: In pursuit of my hon. Friend's argument, would he also say that he is against committing any child to the care of a local authority? If my hon. Friend's argument is correct, the local authority is not fit to have a child in the first instance because there is no possibility of it looking after the child.
    Mr. Hale: I utterly fail to understand the relevance of that interruption to any word I have spoken. I do not regard this as a laughing matter. I merely said that the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr that one had the right to assume that the local authority would take the right decision goes much further than any Act of Parlia-
    752
    ment has ever gone before. I think that it goes much further than I want any Act of Parliament to go.
    What are the circumstances we are discussing? We are discussing the case in which a local authority has selected a foster parent. According to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Sir B. Janner), who has just made a somewhat irrelevant interjection, that selection must have been of superb quality in the first instance. My hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr said—I agree—that those who act as foster parents often do not do it for money; they do it out of a desire to serve and for love.
    In the Clause we are not dealing only with delinquent children. I am not sure what will happen to the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers). We are not dealing with maladjusted children. We are dealing with the children of maladjusted parents. We are dealing often with children who have never had a home before. Children are committed to the home of foster parents. They develop an affection for the foster parents. The foster parents develop an affection for the children.
    12.15 p.m.
    The local authority may, for perfectly good and sufficient reasons, as it thinks, serve a notice to terminate the maintenance. The immediate effect of that when the notice operates is that the foster parents will cease to receive any payment for the maintenance of the child. If they wish to retain the child after that, there is at least a prima facie reason to think that they have some affection for the child, that there is a desire to serve, that it might be a good home, that they might be the people with whom the child would desire to remain. Perhaps they are the first real parents the child has known.
    I do not dispute for one moment the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr. There may be other cases where provision should be made for the enforcement of the order. I suggest that at least the foster parents should have a right to be heard. The law on this matter is difficult. There is no question but that one can apply to the court for an order varying the

    753
    guardianship. The real question is whether there are adequate powers to enforce it.
    I myself have taken part in cases in which certain organisations—I do not want to mention reputable charitable organisations—were appealing for the restitution of children. This was in the days before the Adoption Act, when there could not be a formal legal adoption, when people who had tentatively adopted children might be the subject of this procedure, because until 1926 there was no form of legal adoption of children in this country. I have taken part in cases in which foster parents were broken-heartedly fighting to retain children for whom they had developed a very real affection.
    The Clause says that in these circumstances a notice is sent and then somebody is sent to pick up the child, where-ever it may be, and take it back to the care of the local authority, tearing up all the bonds it has formed in the foster home. The child is taken away. It is removed without any further hearing. Though these provisions may be necessary in some cases, I suggest to the Home Secretary that they would be undesirable without some provision to allow the foster parents to appeal to the court and say,"We have had this child in our custody. We love the child. We do not want to have it torn away from us, from the home that it has come to know, without considering the interests of the child". Subject to that, I have little objection to the Clause.
    Mr. Brooke: I feel sure that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) would far rather have a reply from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland than from myself, and that my hon. Friend would give the hon. Gentleman a much better and more convincing reply than I could. Therefore, I will not deal with that aspect and perhaps my hon. Friend will be able to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, after I have sat down.
    On the main point, if I do not advise the House to accept the Clause it will not be because I am entirely without sympathy for what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Charles A. Howell) has said. We must keep this in perspective. This was, in a sense, the theme of the speech of the hon.
    754
    Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale). We must be sure that all points of view are properly regarded. We must strike a balance.
    The point which I think did not come out wholly clearly from any of the speeches which have been made is that the Birmingham case is, as far as anybody is aware, unique. It occurred three years ago. There has been no similar case anywhere, at any rate in England and Wales, since then and there is no record of any previous case. The fact that in the end the Birmingham Corporation was able to recover the child suggests that, even though in that particular and difficult case the proceedings were protracted, it is possible in the end for a local authority to recover a child.
    I would certainly judge from my knowledge that, as the Birmingham case is now well known to local authorities throughout the country, and will be better known as the result of this debate, the likelihood is that in future local authorities will be able, by the Birmingham method if not by any other method, to recover a child in similar circumstances.
    We must bear in mind the need for more foster parents. Over the years thousands and thousands of children have been successfully and happily boarded out with, in the main, good foster parents. In this way children have found the affection and home ties which they lacked from their own parents.
    I should be very reluctant, as, I think, would be all hon. Members, to do anything that was liable to scare off foster parents. I do not like the idea of having to tell someone whom one is hoping to induce to become a foster parent,"If you do not comply at once with a notice from the local authority you will be liable to go to prison for two months", for that would be implicit in the Clause.
    While I have every sympathy with the Birmingham Corporation over that unique case, the House should hesitate before complicating the Statute Book with provisions to deal with one case which occurred in the past and which has so far not recurred, particularly when I cannot help thinking that the new Clause would reflect a wrong attitude towards foster parents as a body. In the main, they are very good, they co-operate with the local authority and, in the main, there has been no difficulty except in this one,

    755
    unique case concerning the return of a child where the local authority thought that the foster parents were unsuitable.
    I hope that the hon. Member for Perry Barr will not think me hostile towards him. I simply say that I do not believe that his proposed new Clause would be the right way to deal with a situation which may never recur again in the Birmingham form. We would be wiser to leave the law as it stands and to include in the Bill Clause 48, which he wishes to replace by his new Clause. I hope, with these remarks, that the hon. Member will agree to withdraw his new Clause.
    Sir B. Janner:Would the right hon. Gentleman say what inquiries he has made about the difficulties that have occurred apart from this case in Birmingham? While I appreciate that that was an exceptional case—indeed, we have said it was—what is the position in respect of other applications or notices which have been given? Has he conducted any inquiries to reveal the answer to this question? What length of time has elapsed and has the return of a child been impeded because of obstruction?
    Mr. Brooke:I can but say that this is the only case known to us. If there were any other cases I cannot help thinking that the local authority associations or an individual local authority would have taken steps to bring it to our attention, particularly after the new Clause we are discussing appeared on the Notice Paper. I can, I think say with confidence that serious trouble has not arisen except in this unique Birmingham case of 1960.
    Mr. Victor Yates: Although the right hon. Gentleman keeps saying that the Birmingham case was unique, I hope that he appreciates that the welfare of the child is of paramount importance. Not only Birmingham but many local authorities believe that the type of case which is said to be unique should never recur. It could recur, despite the remarks of the Home Secretary.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) pointed out that foster parents should have the right to be heard, and I am sure that all hon.
    756
    Members would agree with that view. We think that, as a body, they do a fine job, but as has been shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Charles A. Howell), in the unique case in his area it was six months before the child could be recovered.
    In that case the original application was made early in August, 1960, but not until the following 11th February was the child recovered by the corporation. There was no doubt, we have been informed by the Birmingham town clerk, that when the boy was returned to care he was emotionally disturbed. One of the most disturbing features of that case was the delay which occurred before it was possible for the corporation to recover the child, particularly since the reports received in the intervening period made it clear that it was not in the boy's interest that he should remain in the foster parents' home and that he was becoming emotionally upset.
    While the Home Secretary might find it difficult to add the new Clause to the Bill, what steps can be taken to reduce this most regrettable sort of delay when a local authority or children's committee knows that a child is being emotionally disturbed? I do not care if only one child may be affected. We must remember that it is a life and we should do our utmost to see that even only one life should not be emotionally disturbed. Whatever may be said about our desire to encourage foster parents to continue their good work, it is wrong that the law should make it so difficult for a child to be recovered when, as in the Birmingham case, it is well known by the authority concerned that he is being emotionally disturbed.
    In view of the Birmingham experience and the period of six months which elapsed before recovery could be achieved, something should be done to make it possible for a child to be recovered more speedily if it is thought that danger may arise.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. R. Brooman-White): The hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) was good enough to inform me before the debate about his concern in the matter which he raised. Despite what my right hon. Friend said, I am unable on this specific and narrow point

    757
    concerning committal under the Matrimonial Proceedings Act to give a very satisfactory answer today.
    There are three groups of cases. The first occurs when a child has been committed into care. In that case there are adequate legal powers under Section 89 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act, 1937. There was a loop-hole in that Act concerning the possibility of a child crossing the Border. This was covered by a private Member's Act which the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill introduced in 1956. That enables recovery to be made across the border.
    The second group of cases are dealt with by the new Clause. The arguments on this score have already been deployed by my right hon. Friend. There has been one case, in Clydebank, analogous to the Birmingham case.
    Then there is the specific point which was raised by the Glasgow Corporation concerning children dealt with under the Matrimonial Proceedings Act. A case where a child might—I am not aware of it ever having happened—run away and cross the border is not covered under the 1956 Act which was introduced by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill. I am advised that this narrow point raises an extremely intricate Scottish and English legal matter. Investigations into this point are being made and they are still proceeding.
    There is no easy answer to this question. All I can say now is that the Glasgow point is being pursued and that we hope to be able to find an answer in the near future.
    12.30 p.m.
    Mr. MacColl: There is here a very delicate balance between whether or not to legislate, and until the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary spoke I would have said that we should legislate. However, he made the strong point that, as far as he knew, no other case than the Birmingham case has been known. I agree that it is unwise to distort the law for the sake of one hard case, though I was surprised to hear that that was the only case, because my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Charles A. Howell) told us that it was the Association of Municipal Corporations that had prompted him to table his new Clause.
    758
    We therefore have the right hon. Gentleman saying that the local authority associations have not raised this point or produced any other cases while, at the same time, the A.M.C. has invited its friends in the House to promote this new Clause. That makes me a little hesitant about taking the matter to a Division.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) spoke very movingly about the agony caused to foster parents and child by being separated when a great affection has grown up between them, but separation is inherent in the whole principle of boarding out. The dilemma of boarding out is that it is a temporary arrangement, though it may last a long time. It is not adoption, but is essentially a temporary arrangement under which the foster parents' rights in the child are limited, and subject to the rights of the natural parent and those of the children's authority. Foster parents must, therefore, always recognise that unless an adoption order is made, there is always the risk of losing the child.
    As the Home Secretary said, a tremendously preponderating majority of foster parents co-operate with the children's authority and return the children when required, but is it not necessary to do something about what must be the bad minority who do not co-operate? However much my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) may feel about it, those people are a bad minority, because they take the child on one basis and then try to change the basis. By disobeying the law, they seek rights over the child to which they have no legal claim. Therefore, it is questionable whether that kind of approach should be encouraged.
    We must frankly face the fact that although boarding out works very well in a great many cases, the history of child care, ever since the days of Oliver Twist, shows that most of the bad cases have been boarding-out cases. There was, for instance, the tragic case which led to the setting up of the Curtis Committee. That was a case where boarding out went wrong. It is all very well for us in this House to take, perhaps, a rather optimistic view, thinking in terms of the happy foster parent mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for

    759
    Perry Barr, who is a better parent than the natural parent, and of the happy relationship of family life that grows up.
    Fortunately, that represents the great number of cases but, on the dark side of the picture, we have foster parents who are not good to the children, do not understand them, or are cruel to them, or get themselves into such a distorted emotional relationship with them that the children do not get a balanced outlook on life. It is on the children's authority that responsibility has been placed. It is true that the authority may make mistakes, but it is responsible for the child's welfare, and it should be able to obtain that possession of the child which is its legal right.
    My hon. Friend said that the rights of the foster parent should be deployed before an impartial body, but a foster parent has a clear power to apply for the revocation of a"fit person" order and the making of a new one. That would raise the whole issue of rights and wrongs of the state of the home, it would be possible for the probation officer to report, independently of the authority, and the problem could then be dealt within a judicial way. That right is available to the foster parent and that is the proper way to treat this kind of case—not having the child virtually kidnapped and the door locked on the children's committee.
    We should, therefore, remember that in"fit person" cases there are remedies, but in the case of a child in care and boarded out there are not those remedies. The powers under Section 1 of the Children Act are very limited indeed, and the natural parent has the right at any time to take the child from the foster parent. The rights of foster parents over children are limited, and were there any evidence that there had been cases other than the Birmingham case I would be extremely reluctant to advise my hon. Friends to let this new Clause go.
    If my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr feels that he should take it to a Division, I would support him, because I think that in principle this Clause is right. However, if, in view of the lack of evidence, he does not want
    760
    to press the matter, he will be acting with discretion. I leave it there.
    Mr. Charles A. Howell: I have heard the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary reject many proposals, but his rejection of mine just now was the nicest. He merely said that he could not whole heartedly approve of the new Clause, so he could not recommend it. He did not really reject it, but said that he did not think that it was quite the right way to tackle the problem. I take comfort from that; it shows that he is in doubt, and as this Measure started in another place it may yet be possible for second thoughts to prevail. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I do not want to make a party issue of this question or press it to a Division—I am concerned only with the children.
    The Home Secretary said that the Birmingham case was unique, but in what way did he mean that it was unique? It may be unique in that the local authority started habeas corpus proceedings and then found itself frustrated by the foster parent getting legal aid to get the child made a ward in the Chancery Court. That held up the habeas corpus proceedings, and the local authority had to use all its power and finance to have the child de-warded and then go through the whole procedure of habeas corpus.
    If he means that the Birmingham case is the only one of that kind, he is probably right, but he surely does not think that it is the only case in which a local authority has found it impossible, or difficult, to got a child back. It may well be that the individual foster parent has not been able to convince the local legal aid committee—because I do not think that the Birmingham case would have gone to the Chancery Division if the foster parent had not been granted legal aid, and I take some comfort in the thought that legal aid committees may use the Birmingham case as a criterion for refusing aid to a foster parent who wants to fight a local authority.
    It is an Englishman's prerogative to be on the side of the under-dog, to be on the side of the individual ratepayer fighting the local authority big machine, but that is not the case here. My concern is for the emotional condition of the

    761
    child, and I am sure that it is wrong for the local authority machine to have to work for six months before a child's destiny is determined.
    It would be wrong for me even to try to quote legal authorities. I have no legal training whatever, but I had cause to look this up in the Library some months ago and I found that the local authority has the right and the power to delegate its own power. I found that in the same case in the Queen's Bench Division, where it is laid down that a local authority has the power and right to delegate its powers, the authority also has the right to retrieve the powers which it has delegated.
    The Birmingham Corporation can delegate some of the powers with which it is invested to its children's committee and if the committee did not carry out what the council thought it should do the council is entitled to withdraw the delegated powers. It is entitled to make a decision of its own and then delegate the powers back to the committee. It is remarkable that if a local authority can do that, a local authority, acting in loco parent is for a child whom it has handed over to foster parents, should no longer have that power when it finds that the foster parents are not suitable.
    The Home Secretary stressed too much that this was a unique case. It has been quoted to me many times that in this House we are not entitled to interpret the law. Our job is to make it. If there is even a hypothetical case which makes it necessary to put something in the law, it is our duty to make some provision in the Bill. We are legislating for the future, not for the past, but we take into account our experience in the past so that we may be guided for the future.
    I was surprised at the right hon. Gentleman's view that he would hate to tell foster parents that they could be put in prison for two months. Surely it is obligatory upon a children's committee or upon whoever is delegated the powers of appointing foster parents to tell them what their duties are and what will happen if they fail to carry them out. It should be obligatory upon a children's officer to interview foster parents and say,"You will be expected to do this and that. If you fail the child will be retrieved and under a properly constituted order you will be transgressing the
    762
    law and will be subject on conviction to two months imprisonment."
    Mr. John Harvey: Is the hon. Member not missing the one factor involved? One of the things which must worry us, as he himself said, is finding a larger number of foster parents who will give a child not only a home but the love and affection which children who find themselves in these circumstances so greatly need. If we encompass all this with regulations and threats, are we going to obtain that kind of foster parent and provide that sort of home background? This is what concerns a great many of us. I can see what the hon. Member is trying to get at, but we are concerned that at the other end regulations of this sort may frighten prospective foster parents away.
    Mr. Howell: I do not think that I have missed the point. I would be the most disappointed man in the House if anyone thought that my motive was other than the protection of the child. I do not think that the new Clause would exclude one decent foster parent. I do not believe that people always study the law before they decide to become foster parents, and I know foster parents and people who have adopted children after becoming foster parents. In nine cases out of ten they do it because they cannot have children of their own and are imbued with parental love. The only alternative for them is to become foster parents or to adopt a child.
    I think that I said in my opening speech that I knew many foster parents who are better than the natural parents, but there is the odd one out. Surely we have the right to say that if a local authority delegates its powers to foster parents and the foster parents turn out to be inadequate the local authority should have the right to take the child back. I am sure that the hon. Member is not trying to persuade me otherwise.
    12.45 p.m.
    Mr. Harvey: I am certainly not, but I am concerned whether, in trying to keep the odd one out, which the hon. Member has conceded to be his argument, we frighten away by the threat of this sort of legislation a great many good foster parents who might be worried that after the love which they had developed for the child it might be

    763
    taken away, not because they have been bad foster parents but for some other administrative reasons. They could be frightened away by the very restrictive and punitive addition to the legislation which the hon. Member suggests.
    Mr. Howell: I still think that it is the hon. Member who has missed the point and not I. I do not think that a genuine, sincere foster parent, or even a sincere person who wants to become a foster parent, will be deterred from doing so by being told,"If you turn out to be a bad parent, we will take the child away". The person will say,"That cannot happen to me. I love children far too much". Surely the hon. Member is not trying to persuade me that we should allow bad foster parents to come in lest we should lose a few good ones. I know that I shall be liable to be hanged if I commit murder, but I do not intend to commit murder if I can avoid it. This proposal cannot apply to the good foster parents or to the person who is thinking of becoming one.
    I do not intend to pursue this matter to a Division because this is a case in which we should not try to hold up hon. Members as either being in favour of foster parents or in favour of children. This is too important and too human a situation. I take comfort from what the Home Secretary said about this not being the right way. I pray to God that he or someone will find the right way to protect the child from a person who has turned out to be an unsuitable foster parent so that the child's welfare can be protected against the foster parents and the machine of the municipality. Having said that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
    Motion, and Clause, by leave with' drawn.

    New Clause.—(POWER TO PROHIBIT PUBLICATION OF CERTAIN MATTERS IN NEWSPAPERS.)
    (1) No newspaper report of any incident contrary to decency or morality, whether or not legal proceedings are contemplated, involving any child or young person, shall reveal the name, address, or school, or include any particulars calculated to lead to the identification, of any child or young person concerned, unless in the interests of justice the publication of such particulars shall be authorised by the chief officer of police of the area in which the incident took place or the Secretary of State.

    764

    (2) Any person who publishes any matter in contravention of this section shall on summary conviction be liable in respect of each offence to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds.—[Mr. Charles A. Howell.]

    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Mr. Charles A. Howell: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    I did not say, when I was speaking earlier, that I had the assistance of the town clerk of Birmingham on the new Clause with which we have just dealt. The matter which I am now raising, however, is a human one of general interest and it does not relate to any particular constituency.
    First, I should make clear—this is a point which the Press was a little concerned about when I tabled the new Clause—that I have no intention or desire to restrict the activities of the Press. If a child is criminally assaulted—I think that I might as well use the ordinary straightforward expression and say"if a child is raped"—this is public news. It is not a matter of"man bites dog". It is something which the newspapers have a habit of making into placard news.
    There is an anomaly here. From the moment when someone is charged with such an offence, it is not permissible to give the name, the address, the school, or any details by which the child concerned can be identified, but until that stage it is permissible for the child's name, address and particulars of identity to be given. This is important. It has been said that I must be rather naive if I think that such an incident could occur in a little village without everyone knowing about it within an hour or two. This may be so, but the whole country is not all one little village.
    I know from personal experience how harrowing such cases can be. A member of my own family was, at 12 years of age, raped by a soldier, and I remember still how awful the feelings were among my wife and my family and her family. Incidentally, the child was on my wife's family's side. She is dead now so I do not mind saying these things. She was my wife's sister. I ask the House to forgive me if I am a little emotional in putting this case. I had to have the child taken into our care and protection for months afterwards because of the

    765
    emotional disturbance which she suffered. Subsequently, she died in a mental hospital. Hon. and right hon. Members will, I know, appreciate my very great concern.
    I ask the House to imagine what happens to a girl of 12 in a case like that if her name is divulged in the Press and everybody knows about it. The family feel terribly embarrassed. Even today, in an enlightened age, people feel embarrassed if it is known that a member of their family has T.B. Many parents feel embarrassed if it becomes known that their daughter is getting married suddenly because she is pregnant; it is felt to be a form of disgrace and embarrassment to everyone in the family concerned. It is far more embarrassing if people write letters, telephone, or stop one in the street and say how sorry they are about what has happened. Their sympathy becomes unbearable. And all this is due to the fact that the child's name has been divulged.
    It is a quite simple matter to say that a child has been criminally assaulted in such and such a place at such and such a time and that the police are searching for a man dressed in a certain way, of such and such a height, blond, brunet, bald, or whatever is may be. There is ample opportunity to give sufficient identification in order to apprehend the person concerned, without giving details of the child. We know that, at times, people who are no better than ghouls write letters to people who have suffered a bereavement. This sort of thing can happen in the circumstances to which I am now referring. It is obvious that, if the law now recognises that, from the moment a man is charged and comes into court, the girl's identity must be kept secret, this practice ought to be extended in the way I propose.
    The hon. Lady the Joint Undersecretary of State will recall that there was a similar case only a year or so ago in Croydon. I hope that she will not tell me that the Croydon case was unique. We know that it is not unique. I seek not to restrict the powers of the Press, but to protect the interests of the child. I think that it is a matter of decorum on the part of the Press, but sometimes it is not realised what can happen.
    A child of 12 is raped. What happens in the years to come if someone has a
    766
    feeling of grievance against the girl and she starts courting? If she has not told the young man at the beginning of their courtship that she is not a virgin, but that she was so unfortunate as to be raped as a child, someone could cause great shock by telling this news. This is the kind of thing which can lead to blackmail, by threats to reveal the facts, not, perhaps, at the time, but years afterwards. People can sometimes find these things out in a library, looking back in the newspapers for something else, and find a report of the incident."That is remarkable; I never knew that", they may say.
    I am seeking to ensure that secrecy always for the identity of the child who already has had enough misfortune thrust upon her. I have no other motive whatever. It is a very narrow point. The law has recognised it, and the House has recognised it, by providing that a child's identity should not be revealed as from a certain time. I ask that the child's identity should never be revealed.
    Sir B. Janner: My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Charles A. Howell) has put his case in an emotional way—and I am not surprised. I ask the Joint Under-secretary of State to take the whole matter very seriously and to regard the circumstances of which my hon. Friend spoke as in no way exceptional. My hon. Friend did not say that that case had been reported. If it had been, how much more intense would have been the feelings of the relatives and of the girl herself.
    We have to balance the considerations on one side and the other. Nothing is entirely black or entirely white. I believe in the liberty of the Press. By and large, the Press fulfils its obligations for the preservation of decency in a remarkable way, and it is certainly very much better than the Press in most countries where the Press is free. Therefore, I speak without any prejudice at all.
    I follow the example of my hon. Friend in making clear that, however seriously we regard the matter now before us, the object of the Clause is not in any way to pass censure generally on the Press. But even the Press should, at times, be protected to some

    767
    extent against the legitimate or understandable mistakes which can be made. We should lay down that what is already provided for under the law in respect of proceedings in court should apply in these cases before proceedings are taken.
    1.0 p.m.
    I am associated with the Association of Municipal Corporations. I am amused sometimes at the arguments which are put forward when a responsible body, with a tremendous amount of information at its disposal, comes to conclusions which are obviously not in any sense connected with vested interests. This kind of thing does not affect the vested interests of such organisations. They arrive at their conclusions in a responsible way. The Association of Municipal Corporations represents the various municipal bodies throughout the country and it makes decisions to which it believes effect should be given.
    When a child or young person under 17 years is the victim of a sexual assault, and someone is arrested and charged with the offence, there are provisions for concealing the name of the victim. If the offender is tried in a magistrates' court or a higher court, Section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, provides that
    "the court may direct that no newspaper report of the proceedings shall reveal the name, address, or school, or include any particulars calculated to lead to the identification of any child or young person concerned in the proceedings,"
    whether as a defendant or as a witness. There are similar provisions relating to juvenile courts in Section 49 of the same Act.
    The trouble is that there is no provision about publicity in the period between the commission of the offence and the appearance in court of the offender. Sometimes it is impossible to trace the offender. An incident occurs and sometimes that is the end of the matter, because the police have not been able to charge anyone with the offence.
    The Croydon case was a very good example of this. A 12-year-old Croydon schoolgirl was assaulted on 26th January, 1962, and on 1st February, 1962, a man was charged in the Croydon Magistrates' Court with raping her. The magistrates heard the prosecution's case on 7th
    768
    February and the man was committed for trial at the Surrey Assizes. During the hearing on 7th February the magistrates made the usual direction in order to prevent the girl's name from being published, but on 27th January a London evening newspaper, circulating in Croydon, published a paragraph with the girl's name and address stating that she had been assaulted and that the police were searching for her assailant. Obviously, that defeated the whole purpose of the Act.
    I do not suppose that there is one hon. Member present who cannot realise the effect of publishing the name of the individual who has been attacked on that person and on the family of that person. It is bad enough that the incident has occurred and that some people know about it. It takes a very great deal of doing by the victim to erase the attack from her knowledge, if it is at all possible, but to make it public is a criminal action on the part of society. I speak in strong terms because I believe that the effect which this can have on the mind of the person is such that society must do its utmost to heal the wound and not to make it possible for that wound to be enlarged.
    There is only one conceivable reason for revealing the name or some particulars of the individual attacked, and that is to bring the offender to justice. Even then the matter should be considered with the greatest care. I would go very warily on this matter. Although the Clause leaves it in the hands of the chief constable to say whether this information should be published, I would say that a caveat should go from the Home Office or from the authorities to the chief constables to the effect that the name should be given only in the most extreme circumstances when they are thoroughly satisfied that that is the only way in which the offender can be brought to justice.
    I do not see how the hon. Lady the Joint Under-Secretary of State can possibly resist this Clause. I cannot conceive of any possible excuse—it is not a question of reason—which either she or those advising her can put forward for rejecting it. I know the hon. Lady very well. She is amenable to reason. This is not a party matter. I ask the hon. Lady, in her own interests, not to

    769
    expose herself to the accusation that she would not raise a finger to help those who have so much need of her help and whose case is unanswerable. We should not and we must not expose the victims of these incidents to aggravation of the terrible experience which hangs over their heads.
    Dr. Horace King: My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Charles A. Howell) proposed this new Clause in a speech which moved some of us very deeply. I do not want to follow the arguments of my hon. Friend and of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Sir B. Janner) in supporting the unanswerable case for the Clause in so far as it seeks to give further protection to the innocent victims of crime. I wish to put forward other reasons for supporting the Clause.
    I believe that the Clause raises one of the fundamental problems of the child in society—his possible corruption by the Press. The publicity and glamour which has surrounded two girls during the past few weeks may have made a fortune for them out of the tragedy which they brought on other people, but it cannot have helped to educate morally the young children of England who read the Sunday newspapers which have exploited the events of the past few weeks.
    It may be that this Clause will not tackle that problem—I hope some day that we will tackle it—but I believe that we are rapidly moving towards the time when if we do not do something about this matter the young boy in a school who has gone wrong will be invited by one of the cheap Sunday newspapers to write his memoirs. He will not even have to write them. They will be written for him. All that he will have to do will be to put his name to them. For that he will receive more money than a sixth former who slaves his way through his sixth form studies and wins a scholarship to university. Surely no rational human being can contemplate that prospect with equanimity.
    I want to deal with only one aspect of the Clause, that part of it which suggests that the names of schools should be kept out of Press reports in the circumstances described in the rest of the Clause. Perhaps I may weary
    770
    the House with an example. I know a fine grammar school, the headmaster of which is an old pupil of mine. At any moment, it is educating about 1,000 children. Year by year, it turns out boys and girls of integrity and calibre. It sends them to the universities and to the various professions. It sends them into all walks of life with a sound intellectual and moral training. Some years ago, it was visited by one of the many Ministers of Education whom we have had in the past few years and he spoke highly of its achievements. There can be no question of its quality as a great school.
    This grammar school has, however, never hit the national newspapers except once. This was not, for example, when one of its boys topped his final year at Guy's. It was not when one of the boys, having failed at 11-plus but later being transferred to the grammar school, got an open scholarship to Oxford University. It was not because a boy played for his county at cricket, or because one of the girls became a nurse or matron. All these things appeared in the local newspapers. They were duly recorded at speech night. I pay tribute to the local papers, which certainly do not have the vices of the worst national newspapers, and which do report worthy happenings as well as crimes.
    The one occasion when the school did appear in the national Press was when a boy was found drunk on the playing-field. That was news. That the school had succeeded with 99 pupils did not matter. That it failed over the hundredth gave joy to the Press Lords of Fleet Street, a joy which is the reverse of that which, as most of us remember, occurred over the lost sheep in the parable.
    It may be that newsmen and cynical old Rochefoucauld are right in imagining that people take a strange delight in the misery of others, but at least we ought to try to keep the nation's children and the nation's schools out of this one-sided quest for ugly truth. The example which I have given is not unique. When I speak about it at meetings on education throughout the country, I find it paralleled again and again. If a school goes right, that is not news. If a boy goes wrong in the school, the school is news.

    771
    Fortunately, we can bury most of the tragedies that happen to schoolchildren if they happen in school. We bury them in the heartbreak of the parents or in the bitter disappointment of teachers who fail to win a young boy or girl for decency; but if the odd one gets out, it is plastered in the Press.
    This publicity cannot do any good. It can do harm to the family, to the school and to the thousands of youngsters who read it. I remember my own shocking experience in America, when I had been lecturing at a university to fine and upright young men and women, and walked out and saw the hoarding outside the local news and drug store,"Sex Life in an American University".
    1.15 p.m.
    This picking out of what is bad and spreading it from one end of the country to the other as typical cannot do anything but harm to schoolchildren. It makes the work of redeeming the one who has gone wrong much harder. It gives him the adventitious, unhealthy glamour that has recently made some girls, only a little older than schoolgirls, hire themselves literary agents, business managers and public relations officers. It cannot help the police. Indeed, I seriously suggest that this kind of publicity makes, in the long run, extra work for the police.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr has pointed out so poignantly, what makes it even more tragic is that in some cases the child has done no wrong whatever and is merely the victim of wrong. My hon. Friend has wisely drawn his Clause.
    I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West about one thing. There are, obviously, occasions when public interest demands publicity for the offence, for the offender, for the family and for the school. A school itself may be in need of it. In the past, when some of us were persuading Dame Florence Horsbrugh, then Minister of Education, to put into operation Part III of the Education Act, which gives us tremendous power over the unsatisfactory private school, we had to call attention to the existence of bad men wandering about uncontrolled and setting up bad schools from one end of England to the other. We have remedied
    772
    that by putting Part III into operation. There may be occasions when it is necessary to pillory a school, an individual, a child or a family. And so the Clause gives the authorities power, if they consider it in the public interest, to do this.
    Publicity given to a crime and a criminal may be in the interest of society and it may be that some day our newspapers will give the right kind of publicity, not the glamorous publicity that they give today, but showing crime, beastliness and cruelty for the selfish and sordid things they are and giving some account of the punishment for the crimes instead of wrapping them up in glamour, as they do.
    The publicity, about children and about schools, however, should be an instrument in the hands of the law, and if the law thinks that a crime should be published I would yield to the opinion of the legal authorities. The Clause would prevent senseless, cruel and often unhealthy publicity, which itself militates against all that a school is trying to achieve and all that we wish to achieve for the nation's children.
    I know that my friends in the National Union of Journalists, men for whom I have profound respect, are anxious about the freedom of the Press and might regard the Clause as tampering with that freedom. I believe, with them, that the end of what they and all the best journalists, like ourselves, deplore—the end of the cheap and shoddy sensationalism and the meretriciousness of the worst parts of the Press—can be solved finally only by the journalists themselves. The code which the Union is setting up is, I believe, something which will tackle that problem.
    Mr. Charles A. Howell: I was telephoned by newspapers, who asked my motive in putting down a proposal which amounted to a restriction on the Press. When I explained the case to them, without exception they all approved what I was doing.
    Dr. King: I am happy to have that intervention. That is what I would expect. I would expect that in the end this great profession of journalism will clean itself up.
    There are, however, occasions on which I would be willing to tamper with

    773
    freedom. I believe passionately in freedom, in individual freedom and in the freedom of the Press, but I am willing to forgo a certain amount of freedom when children's well-being is concerned, and I hope that the Minister will accept the Clause, which would be good for our schools and for our children.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Mervyn Pike): I feel at a great disadvantage in replying to the debate, because, like everyone else present, I agree whole heartedly with the motives behind the Clause. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Charles A. Howell) on the way in which he moved it. We are all aware of the present worrying situation and deprecate some of the abuses which have taken place. I do not wish to base my argument on the fact that there has not been much abuse and that there have not been many cases of names being bandied about unnecessarily.
    The hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) made the point—and I need not stress it again—that there are instances where, in the cause of justice, it is necessary that names and occasions should be made known. My great difficulty, and I hope that the House will believe me, is that I am having to stand on a quite narrow point. I am not doing that because I wish to pose simply the practical difficulties. We all recognise that this is a very large question.
    This is a very small part of a very large question and a very large principle. I am quite certain that hon. Members feel that the time is coming when, as a House of Commons, we shall probably have to debate this matter much more fully and that as a community we shall have to look at it much more responsibly than we have done in recent times. I do not think that at this late stage, in this Bill, we should pass into law anything which does, as it were, strike at the main principle of the freedom of the Press, unless we are absolutely certain that in doing that we are not running into any real, practical difficulties.
    I assure the House that in this case we are running into practical difficulties, apart from the principle as to whether we would restrict the freedom of the Press. Hon. Members have mentioned
    774
    the fact that once a case comes before a court we have powers to ensure that these things are not published. What we are being asked to do now, however, is to put the onus not on the court, as it is at present—on the justices who say that this must not be done—but on the newspaper people to judge whether it is a case in which it could be against the public interest.
    Mr. Charles A. Howell: No. My Clause does not give them any discretion. It says quite simply that this will be only an extension of the law which says that over the age of 17 the particulars may be published. The laws says that when a child under 17 gets to court, or when a man is charged, they must not be published. I want to extend that so that they can never be published. I do not want the newspapers to have any discretion in this, unless they get from the chief constable or the Home Secretary permission to publish it.
    Miss Pike: I understand that, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will go with me in realising that at the moment an offence takes place, and the facts happen, it is not possible to judge what the subsequent events will be. The hon. Gentleman is really saying that in no case must there be any reporting in any circumstances. Although no particular instance comes to mind, he is putting a very wide prohibition on the reporting of facts and the reporting of news.
    Mr. Charles A. Howell: The hon. Lady is quite wrong. I am not asking to seek a restriction on reporting. I am asking deliberately for restriction on identity, and I base my argument on identity. Give it all the publicity that we can. Let us catch these criminals. I do not want to prevent reporting, I encourage reporting, but, for goodness' sake, let us keep the identity secret.
    Miss Pike: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says. Even so, in reporting, names may well come in quite innocently, because the whole picture has not been laid open and cannot be judged by the person reporting at that time. It may well be that subsequently it is found that because of the events that have come to light as a result of the investigations, and the court proceedings, people have

    775
    fallen into error and against the law possibly because of a very understandable error of judgment.
    I know that the hon. Gentleman thinks that I am standing on a very small point.
    Mr. Charles A. Howell: No point at all.
    Miss Pike: It must be very small—but I assure him that it is the practical difficulty of identifying the circumstances in which prohibition would apply.
    It is not just a drafting difficulty—of putting this into a form of words—but the practical difficulty of identifying the circumstances in which this prohibition would apply.
    It is for that reason as well as for the fact that I believe, and wish to say to the House, that this is not the occasion for us to tackle the whole principle of the freedom of the Press, that I believe on this occasion we should leave this and that the whole problem should be tackled in the much wider context of society's responsibility. I think that the hon. Gentleman has done a very great service in bringing this forward today even though I hope that the House will not accept his Clause, because I think that the real sanction is the sanction of public opinion in society and that we must debate this a great deal more. No matter how much legislation we bring in, or how much we try to tie this thing up, the real sanction is the fact that society itself will reject this type of reporting and sensationalism.
    I accept wholeheartedly the object behind the hon. Gentleman's new Clause, and the responsibility that we as a House of Commons have in this matter, but I urge on hon. Members that in this instance we are not dealing with this in a practical way and that if we pass this new Clause we shall be running into great difficulties. This is a matter which must be dealt with in a much wider context.
    1.30 p.m.
    Miss Bacon: I think that the speech of the hon. Lady has been most disappointing and probably the most unconvincing speech that I have ever heard her make.
    The hon. Lady says that there are practical difficulties. All that my hon. Friends are desiring to do is to extend, before the court case, exactly what
    776
    happens when a man is charged—that and no more. I want to make perfectly clear that in supporting my hon. Friend's new Clause, I do not want to restrict the freedom of the Press—but the child must be paramount. Let us not forget that there is such a thing as Press competition, and I believe this Clause will protect the reputable Press.
    Let me"recap" very shortly—because I know that the House wants to come to a decision on this very quickly—exactly what my hon. Friend is seeking to do. An offence takes place, a girl is raped, but perhaps an arrest is never made and the man is never caught. But there is nothing to prohibit the Press publishing the girl's name and address and school, as the law stands. An arrest may be made later, but between the offence and the arrest is a gap and in that period there is nothing to prevent the name and address and school of the girl being published. Immediately an arrest is made, and a charge is laid, there is prohibition on the Press reporting the identity of the girl. But by this time the harm has been done, and it makes nonsense of the proceedings afterwards if already the girl's name, address and all the particulars are known.
    I believe that in this matter the welfare of the child is paramount. I believe, like my hon. Friends, that this kind of thing can bring profound distress to most girls throughout their lives. But we have also to remember the point which was touched upon by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) that there may be a few girls who would enjoy the publicity of this kind of thing. Indeed, in recent weeks we have seen that prostitution has become glamourised, and we cannot really grumble if we find young girls thinking that prostitution leads to fame, fortune and films, not forgetting V.I.P. treatment at airports.
    But whichever it is—whether it is the 99 per cent, who would be profoundly distressed by this or the 1 per cent. of girls who might enjoy all the publicity which come from it—I believe that it is not in the best interests of the child that these details should be published.
    I hope that my hon. Friend will not withdraw the Clause, and that my hon. Friends, and perhaps some hon. Members opposite, will follow my hon. Friend into the Division Lobby.
    1.30 p.m.
    Mr. Charles A. Howell: When the Joint Under-Secretary sat down, I had almost lost faith in humanity. Since then I have had a chance to recover. The hon. Lady said that she held her case on a very narrow point. I can only hope that at some time in the future she will repent. I hope that she will read her speech in the Official Report and realise what she is doing to her own sex. I know that she is an hon. Member, like myself, and that sex should not come into this, but, without any disparaging of her right hon. Friend, I was not at all sorry when he went off for lunch and left this case to her. I thought that as a woman Minister she could not do other than support me.
    But what does the hon. Lady say? She says that this strikes at the freedom of the Press. I interjected earlier to point out that when I tabled the new Clause the Press inundated me with telephone calls. They asked what my motive was in restricting the Press. One reporter whom I know personally said,"Are you taking part in the campaign against the Press?". But when I explained my motives all of them said"This is quite right. It is only right that you should do this. Often when we make reports of these things it is the sub-editors who put in the names, not us. Although we may have to put the names in, we do not want to do so". All of them applauded what I was doing.
    Why does the law at present say that in the case of a child under 17 this information must not be published from the time the case comes into court? Is that not to protect the identity of the child? At some time someone realised what the child's life could be if the identity was revealed. We have enough cases today of obscene and horrific cards being issued with various foods, and so on, without a child having to go to school and be questioned by the children there—"What did you do?","What did you say?","What was it like?" and"What is the effect now?" Surely the hon. Lady and her hon. Friends have enough imagination to know what will happen.
    I have read cases of this sort in the Sunday newspapers for years, and like most menfolk, I have thought that if I could catch the man concerned and I
    778
    was responsible for the law, I would see that he had treatment which would ensure that he would never do it again. Having had it in my own home and family, I would say with regard to my interjection earlier about never having committed murder, that if I could have been anywhere near the individual the weekend it happened in my family, I would have been guilty of murder, and would have done it willingly and knowingly.
    One has to see this come into one's home. It is no good reading about it in the Sunday newspapers. One is disgusted about it when it is in the Sunday newspapers, but when it comes into one's home one is horrified. It is impossible to describe one's feelings. At least, I cannot do it.
    I do not want these innocent children to be pilloried in the Press as having been assaulted in this way. I am not trying to prevent these cases being reported. I want them to be reported. I want every one of the offenders concerned to be caught. But giving the name of the child is hardly ever going to help in apprehending the person concerned. By all means let there be given a description of the man and his clothing and information about the time, and so on.
    I am not saying that all this should never be reported. But what I am saying is that if the Clause is accepted and the chief of police or the Secretary of State are able to give such permission in exceptional cases, and only in exceptional cases, if a newspaper reporter is outside a doctor's surgery or a police station and obtains information about such a case he will know from the very start that he must not publish the name of the girl. The sub-editor would know that, and the editor would know it.
    There is no excuse for the hon. Lady saying that this is not a practical method. It is the only practical method. She said that she was standing on such a small point that she could not see any other way out. But she said that the matter should be tackled in a much wider way. If this is a problem, as is admitted, let us deal with it in a small way here, and then let us deal with the wider problem when we get the chance. Here we are proposing to deal with a small, narrow problem. I should

    779
    hate to think that the hon. Lady would ever attend a meeting of women and have quoted to her what had happened later. If I may misquote something, God may forgive her, but there are thousands of families who have this horrible thing happen to them who never will. If the hon. Lady is not prepared to accept the Clause, I must ask my hon. Friends to vote with me against the Government.
    Mr. Brooke: I will not let my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary bear the whole responsibility for rejecting this Clause. I agree entirely with what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Charles A. Howell) has said. In those rare cases where a name is mentioned or particulars of identification are given in the Press and attention is drawn to some particular child or young person who has been concerned in attempted rape or something of that kind, I think it is foul and I should like to hit it as hard as I possibly could.
    Needless, to say, I considered the hon. Gentleman's new Clause very carefully, and it did not seem to me that his proposal, coming along at this late stage of the Bill, was an effective way of doing what he sought. One must look at this from all points of view. It is all very well for the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) to say that nobody wants to restrict the freedom of the Press. Believe me, if this Clause were put on the Statute Book it would on many occasions put newspapers into an impossibly difficult position. They would have to use their judgment as to whether an incident, of which they might know relatively little at that stage, was an incident contrary to decency or morality.
    I know that those words occur in Section 39 of the Act, but under that Section
    the court itself gives a decision as to whether the incident is contrary to decency or morality, and everybody knows where he is. But under the Clause nobody would know where he was because all kinds of views might be taken as to whether some incident which had been reported to the news room of a newspaper was an incident contrary to decency or morality. Those words are of a general character until they have been denned and closely applied, as they can be closely applied in a court. But one is putting an impossible task on those who write and publish newspapers if one asks them to decide in advance whether an incident is contrary to decency or morality.
    It is easy to see that some incidents are, and I am bound to say that in my experience the newspapers behave very well in these cases. But there is also a great no-man's-land where newspapers will know that if they publish what is genuinely news, it may nevertheless later be held by a court that the incident was contrary to decency or morality and the newspaper concerned will have committed an offence.
    What I would put to the House is that in these matters of the freedom of the Press we should be as precise as we can. The right way to hit at evil in the Press is not to put words of a general character on the Statute Book which will leave people in dubiety as to whether or not a certain case falls within the prohibition. That is bad legislation. It is because I think that this would be bad legislation that I must advise the House to reject the Clause, although I am entirely in agreement with the purpose of the hon. Member.
    Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—
    The House divided: Ayes 53, Noes 82.

    Division No. 157.]

    AYES

    [1.42 p.m.

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Fletcher, Eric

    MacColl, James

    Barnett Guy

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Mapp, Charles

    Beaney, Alan

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

    Millan, Bruce

    Bradley, Tom

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Hannan, William

    Mulley, Frederick

    Cliffe, Michael

    Henderson,Rt.Hn.Arthur(RwlyRegis)

    O'Malley, B. K.

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Holman, Percy

    Oram, A. E.

    Cullien,Mrs Alice

    Hunter, A. E.

    Prentice, R. E.

    Dalyell, Tam

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Rankin, John

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    Janner, Sir Barnett

    Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

    Diamond, John

    Jeger, George

    Reynolds, G. W.

    Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

    Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, S.)

    Evans, Albert

    King, Dr. Horace

    Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

    Fitch, Alan

    Lubbock, Eric

    Skeffington, Arthur

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Warbey, William

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Snow, Julian

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Mr. Charles A. Howell and Mr. Redhead

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Wyatt, Woodrow

    Taverne, D.

    Yates, victor (Ladywood)

    NOES

    Aitken, W. T.

    Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

    Mills, Stratton

    Allason, James

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Miscampbell, Norman

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Bingham, R. M.

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

    Bishop, F. P.

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

    Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

    Pike, Miss Mervyn

    Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

    Holland, Philip

    Pitman, Sir James

    Brooman-White, R.

    Hornby, R. P.

    Pott, Percivall

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

    Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

    Channon, H. P. G.

    James, David

    Skeet, T. M. H.

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Tapsell, Peter

    Cordle, John

    Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

    Teeling, Sir William

    Corfield, F. V.

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

    Cunningham, Knox

    Kirk, Peter

    Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter

    Dance, James

    Langford-Holt, Sir John

    Turner, Colin

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Drayson, G. B.

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Vickers, Miss Joan

    Eden, Sir John

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    McAdden, Sir Stephen

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Finlay, Graeme

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Macpherson,Rt.Hn.Niall (Dumfries)

    Worsley, Marcus

    Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)

    Mawby, Ray

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Mr. Peel and Mr. Hugh Rees.

    Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston):The next new Clause to be moved is that in the name of the hon. Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon)—Revocation of Approved School Orders. With it, her new Clause—Committal to Approved Schools—can be discussed, but cannot be called to a Division.

    New Clause.—(REVOCATION OF APPROVED SCHOOL ORDERS)
    (1) The parent or guardian or near relative of any person detained in an approved school may apply to the appropriate court for the order under which he is detained to be revoked. The court may revoke that order and substitute for it any other order that could be made if the person was before the court under section 84 (6) of the principal Act.

    (2) The appropriate court shall be the juvenile court acting for the petty sessional division or place within which the person making the application is residing.

    (3) The power to revoke an order under this section shall be without prejudice to the power under section 14 of the Criminal Justice Act 1961 of the managers of an approved school to release any person and to exercise supervisory powers over him.—[Miss Bacon.]

    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Miss Bacon: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree, having sat through the Com-
    mittee stage of this Bill, and also those hon. and right hon. Members who were in Committee on the Criminal Justice Bill, that I hold rather strong views about the whole problem of the management and control of approved schools. The reason why we on this side of the House have not put down a very far-reaching and very wide new new Clause on this occasion is not because we have in any way detracted from our views on the whole of the approved school system but rather because we thought that we would choose two points with respect to approved schools which had some chance of being accepted by the right hon. Gentleman. Therefore, we have chosen these two new Clauses, one with respect to children under the age of 13 and the other with respect to the revocation of approved school orders.
    First of all with regard to the first new Clause which we can discuss, which provides that no child under 13 years of age should be committed to an approved school. At first sight this might seem a very tall order and something which is almost revolutionary, but it is interesting to note that the Ingleby Committee's Report, although it rejected this recommendation, said that many of the witnesses who came before it were in favour

    783
    of what is now our new Clause—in other words, were not in favour of committing to an approved school any child under the age of 13.
    We do not mean, of course, that children under the age of 13 can do as they like and get away with it and not be dealt with in some way. But there are many ways in which children under the age of 13 can be dealt with other than by being sent to an approved school. I will return to that later. I feel, and I am sure that my hon. Friends feel, and, indeed, that many people in the country feel, strongly that although we keep giving lip-service to the idea that approved schools are educational in character, nevertheless in the minds of most people in the country they are of a penal nature and give to the children sent to them a stigma which seems to remain with them all their lives.
    Maybe it is not right that this should be so. Maybe the curriculum in the approved school is educational in character. Nevertheless, I am quite certain that throughout the whole of a child's life, when he or she has been sent to an approved school, the stigma remains and that it is often said of such a child that he or she is an approved school boy or girl. I believe very firmly that this ought not to occur as a result of something which has been done by a child under the age of 13.
    We have at present three classes of approved schools—junior, intermediate and senior. Our new Clause would mean that we would not in future have junior approved schools, although this would not mean that such approved schools would be closed down and the teachers thrown out of work. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would agree that if he had the places thus made available in the junior approved schools he could make use of them very well indeed for those awaiting places in intermediate and senior approved schools—for those of whom he has spoken today, who spend weeks in remand homes awaiting places in approved schools.
    What is the position today? An older child is sent to an approved school for a maximum of three years and the managers decide when he or she shall be released. But if a child is 12 years of age or under then the period is not only a maximum of three years. That
    784
    child, if he is 10 or 11 years of age, can be kept in an approved school until a few months after school-leaving age. Therefore, the younger the child is when he goes into an approved school the likelier it is that he will spend a longer time in it.
    If we look at the excellent booklet which has been issued by the Home Office, Cmnd. 2051, entitled Statistics Relating to Approved Schools, Remand Homes and Attendance Centres in England and Wales, we can see how this works in practice. Incidentally, I would remind the House that it is only as a result of our efforts on the Criminal Justice Bill that we now have these annual statistics at all. Otherwise, we should not have had the information before us at the present time. If we look at Table 10, on page 6, we see the number of months that different classes of children are kept in approved schools.
    It is rather remarkable to note that in the junior approved schools, that is, the approved schools catering for those who enter under the age of 13, the children are detained for much longer periods than are those in the intermediate and senior approved schools. Indeed, I see that in 1961, the year to which the booklet refers, nine children were in junior approved schools for over 60 months, that is, for over five years. Just fancy young children going into approved schools and being kept there for this long period of time.
    The reason why I believe they are kept in these junior approved schools so long is that the managers have a choice of two evils, either to keep the young child in the school until school-leaving age or to release the child, when he or she would go back to his or her own school. Such a child, having done two or three years in an approved school, would, on returning to its original school, find itself a stranger in that school, a stranger among strange people, with a curriculum quite different from the one in the approved school.
    I believe that in these cases there is a tendency for a child to commit further mischief and even, perhaps, to find him-self back in the approved school once again. Therefore, I believe that it would be much better if we could get away

    785
    from committing young children under the age of 13 to approved schools.
    I have a feeling that the right hon. Gentleman is going to say that the result of this would be that hordes of young children of 10, 11 and 12 years of age who ought to be in approved schools would be suddenly let loose on the community. But again I am indebted to this excellent little booklet because it gives us the figures. In 1961, the number of girls under the age of 13 committed to approved schools was 46. The number of boys under the age of 13 committed to approved schools was 932, that is, some 970 boys and girls per annum in England and Wales. This number, perhaps, may sound rather a lot, but let us not forget that county boroughs and county councils together number 145, and they are pretty big authorities. If we do a bit of arithmetic and divide 970 by 145 we get the figure of six or seven per annum in each authority.
    Surely we are not going to say that big authorities like county councils or county boroughs cannot find some other way of dealing each year with six or seven youngsters under the age of 13 other than by sending them to approved schools. After all, the courts can do all kinds of things. They can put a child under supervision. They can send a child who has committed an offence to an attendance centre. I should like to see a great extension of that principle, where children live at home but have each week to put in a few hours at the attendance centre.
    Some of these children are, perhaps, maladjusted and could surely be found places within the education system of the local authorities for maladjusted children. I believe, too, that some of these children would be found to be mentally backward and could, perhaps, best be dealt with by the health authorities.
    2.0 p.m.
    There are some children who come before the courts because they are in need of care, protection and control who—not the most difficult cases, but some of them—could be taken into care. There are all these things which could be done instead of branding children for life as being"approved school" boys or girls because of something which they did when under the age of 13. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look at this sympathetically, even though I
    786
    understand the Motion is not one on which we may be called specifically to vote.
    I turn now to the other proposed new Clause—Revocation of approved school orders. At present the position is that when a child is brought before the courts for an offence, or under care and protection proceedings, the magistrates who commit the child to an approved school for an indefinite length of time have no power to state a period—six months, eighteen months or two years—as in the case of an adult person who has committed a crime and is sent to prison. Children are committed to approved schools and it is left entirely to the school managers to determine when they shall leave the school.
    This is unique. If a person has committed the foulest crime he usually knows how long he is to be kept in prison. If a child is made the subject of a fit person order, the parents can at any time appeal to the magistrates for the order to be revoked. But approved school children are put into the school for an indefinite tune and the parents have no right to return to the court and to tell the magistrates,"We think our Johnny"—or"our Mary"—"is now fit to come out of the school". The only thing they can do is write to their Member of Parliament, or to the right hon. Gentleman.
    We have all received letters from parents who have children in approved schools. I have never yet had a case where a child has been let out from the school as a result of my writing to the Home Office. What usually happens, I suspect, is that when the Home Secretary receives a request from a Member of Parliament, he does not have any independent inquiry or send someone to the child's home to see what kind of a home it is. All that is done is to write to the managers of the school, who state that in their opinion the child ought not to come out of the school—obviously. So very much rests on the managers. Yet over half of our approved schools are run by managers who are self-appointed and responsible to no one.
    Only 25 approved schools out of a total of 118 are run by local authorities. There are 30 schools which are run by voluntary bodies, such as religious

    787
    organisations, and 51 are run by local committees. Perhaps a hundred years ago someone called a few people together at a village meeting and it was agreed to start a reformatory school. The school had been carried on since and when one of that little group retired or died another person was co-opted. I am not saying that there are no good managers among these people. Some are good. But that is the procedure in a number of our present-day approved schools.
    A good many children in approved schools, particularly girls, have never committed a crime. They are in the school because they were in need of care and protection. I speak from memory. But I think 64 per cent. of the girls and only 5 per cent. of the boys are in these schools because they were found to be in need of care and protection. They have not committed any crime, and yet their parents have no chance whatever to go to a court and to say,"We think that our child should be released from the approved school".
    There is evidence of some astounding cases. I apologise to hon. Members for referring again to the case to which I referred during the Committee stage proceedings. But I quote it again because there was an extraordinary sequel to it. A girl aged 13½ years was committed to an approved school two years ago because she was found to be in moral danger. She had good parents and a good home. She was the youngest of the family and, as sometimes happens, she was wayward and stayed out late. On one or two occasions she stayed out all night. Her parents were persuaded to allow her to appear before the court as being in need of care and protection. They thought that she would be away from home for about six months.
    When the parents came to me, their daughter had been away from home for two years and was 15½ years old. It seems incredible that a girl could be shut up in an approved school for such a period. As I said to the Home Secretary during the Committee stage proceedings, if he insisted on shutting up every girl in danger of becoming pregnant he would want many more approved school places.
    The parents of this girl wanted her back at home. She had come home for
    788
    holidays and was all right. But when she went back to the approved school, which was run by a religious organisation, things were so strict that she had absconded and had proved extremely difficult. Then, suddenly, this girl was moved from a Lancashire town to a training school in Liverpool. Her parents still visited her regularly once every month although it was a long journey. The managers of the approved school would not allow the girl to go home. But they had the power to send her to this other establishment.
    This is the extraordinary end to the story. A few weeks ago the parents went to see their daughter at the training school, and they were told that she had brought a boy to the school and said that he was her brother. Her parents told the school authorities that the boy was not their daughter's brother and that they had no son."Well," said the training school authorities,"You had better take her home because she is in moral danger so long as she stays here." And so the girl went home. I have just heard a more incredible thing still—that the man whom the girl had taken to the training school was a maintenance man employed at the approved school where the girl had been for over two years, and there she had been carrying on with him. The man has since been dismissed. Over £1,000 of public money had been spent on this girl and what good had it done in the end? Just none.
    The girl's parents, who were good parents, could do nothing but appeal to me. I appealed to the Home Secretary, and all the right hon. Gentleman could do was write to the managers who refused to allow the girl to come home in the first place. All we ask, by the acceptance of this Clause, is that parents should have the right to go to a court and put their case to the magistrates, after a decent interval, to endeavour to get their children out of approved schools. I feel certain that the right hon. Gentleman will accept his very modest proposal as being an improvement in the present position relating to approved schools.
    Mr. C. Royle: My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) has presented such a case in favour of the Clauses that we are discussing that there is not a great deal

    789
    more left to be said. I think that her case is unanswerable and I wish to support her.
    The proposal that children under the age of 13 should not be sent to approved schools seems to me similar to the principle relating to the question of the age of criminal responsibility. We must re-orientate ourselves and make up our minds about what approach should be made by the House of Commons to cases involving children of such tender years.
    We must have some completely new thinking about what might only be described as naughtiness of children of this age. There are few countries in the world where such children are regarded as criminals, as they are in this country.
    I know that it is something which does not relate to these Clauses, but we have succeeded in persuading the HomeOffice that the age of 10 is the right age for criminal responsibility, although we should have liked the age to be greater, or, at all events, a little higher. In line with that thinking it seems that children under the age of 13 should not be put in approved schools. We have to overhaul our thoughts on this matter. We have lacked in thought on it for a long time.
    As the right hon. Gentleman said in discussion of a previous Amendment, it may be very many years before there is another opportunity of doing anything about legislation for children. It is some years since we had the last opportunity. I dread the years which may intervene between now and further legislation if something is not done about this matter. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to seize this opportunity, while we have this important rethinking, to make it clear that it is the view of the House that a child under 13 should not be sent to an approved school.
    As my hon. Friend pointed out, there are many other ways of dealing with children of that age. It is not necessary to send them to schools of this character. Today, we have discussed the question of the lack of accommodation in remand homes. There is the physical problem of building and finding enough places of a suitable type. If this Clause were adopted we should release for other more important needs
    790
    institutions which are being used at approved schools for the accommodation of children under 13. This might give physical assistance in the problem of remand homes.
    I turn to the other new Clause—Revocation of approved school orders. I stress that in this new Clause my hon. Friends have used the word"may". It will be left in the hands of approved school managers to decide whether that revocation shall take place in the light of circumstances. The opportunity which is lacking at present should be created for parents to have a constant interest in children sent to approved schools. My hon. Friend used the word"indefinite." A child was sent to an approved school for an indefinite period. That creates in the minds of parents a lack of hope, almost a recognition that the child will be there for a long time, perhaps two or three years.
    In many cases parents allow interest in their own children to drift to the managers and they lose their own interest in the child. It is a good thing if they can continue to take an interest in the school where the child is resident. If this new Clause were adopted, parents would always have hope in mind. They would be anxious to go to the school to watch the progress of their offspring and to seize the opportunity when that progress took place to make application for revocation of the order. There seems a great argument for the Clause in that respect.
    2.15 p.m.
    I support what my hon. Friend said about the management of approved schools, which has such a bearing on this matter. I want to be as kind as possible to people who render service to the community. They do so with the best intentions, but we are told that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I think of some of the bodies with whom I have had contact. These are staffed by most desirable people, but by the time many of them are appointed to the bodies they are approaching middle age, if they are not well into it. Their knowledge of children of this kind is very limited. They take a sort of committee pride in their work. In some cases they are very loth to think of releasing a child on licence. They act in a benevolent and charitable way,

    791
    but full understanding of the problems of the child is far from their thoughts.
    The fact that they are self-appointed is something which we should look at very seriously. No one has anything to do with their appointment except that the Home Secretary gives final approval. When a manager dies or retires, his colleagues get together to appoint a suitable similar type of person to take his place. This goes on in perpetuity, with the best intentions in the world, but without any regard to the correctness of the situation and the wider aspects of what a manager of an approved school ought to be doing and thinking.
    It is fair to say that where an approved school is run by a local authority there is a very different situation. The choice of managers is made much more carefully. There is close contact with the local authority, which can easily drop a manager who does not measure up to the work he has to do. I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a danger in refusing the right of the parent to apply for revocation. Where schools of this nature are in operation there is a great argument that the parent should have the right of application for revocation of an order. Otherwise, in many cases children will be kept in the schools far longer than they should be.
    We have had much to say about this matter in the last few weeks and new Clauses and Amendments such as these were discussed in Standing Committee at great length. We felt that we were making some impression on the Joint Under-Secretary, if we were not making it on the Home Secretary. I add my plea to that of my hon Friend that on this important question the right hon. Gentleman should come with us and not force us to take it to a Division. Let him show his power of acceptance by saying that this is a good idea and one on which he can come along with us to improve the situation in approved schools.
    Mr. Brooke: These new Clauses deal with two separate but related matters, and it may be helpful if I now say a few words about each of them.
    The first new Clause suggests that no child under the age of 13 shall be committed to an approved school. I really must get guidance on what Parliament
    792
    wants me to do. Does it want me to seek to deal effectively with juvenile delinquency, or does it not? If it wishes me to deal effectively with juvenile delinquency, it must not take from the courts certain powers that they now exercise, though normally with reluctance, when they come to the conclusion that the only thing to do with a certain boy or girl is to send him or her to an approved school.
    It will be within the knowledge of the House that, under the principal Act, a court is not to order a child under 10 to be sent to an approved school unless satisfied that the child cannot be suitably dealt with otherwise. About 50 children a year under the age of 10 are sent to approved schools because the courts have decided that there is nothing else suitable to do with them. What would happen if the new Clause were accepted would be that the court would be told that the one thing suitable to do with a child was not to be done—Parliament had said so. That, to me, really makes nonsense in present circumstances.
    Altogether, about 900 children under 13 are sent each year to approved schools. They are sent there in every case, no doubt, because the courts have come to the conclusion that what they need is a fairly prolonged period of residential training. I cannot accept what the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) said about paying lip service to the idea that an approved school is of an educational character. Ihave been to a number of approved schools since I became Home Secretary—so have my colleagues, the other Home Office Ministers, and so, I am quite sure, have many hon. Members on both sides. I have not been to one where doubt could be cast on its being of an educational character, and the education given there being of value—
    Miss Bacon:I said that the curriculum inside the schools was of an educational character, but that people had come to regard approved schools as penal establishments.
    Mr. Brooke: Then I very much hope that the hon. Lady will help me to open the eyes of the people because, if these were penal establishments, one would not get boys who had been to them returning later as visitors. I have some experience

    793
    of prisons—I am not aware of any prison to which former inmates have come on special days to see how things are going on—
    Sir B. Janner:Has the right hon. Gentleman ever invited them to come back?
    Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman, if he likes, can test his theory by issuing invitations of that kind.
    When I go to an approved school on any special occasion I invariably find present a number of boys who have been to the school and have come back on that occasion because they regarded it as their school and took pride in it. Only the other day, I opened two new houses at an approved school, built by the boys themselves. Quite a number of the boys who had spent between a year and two years there had come back on that occasion because they felt it to be an important day in the history of the school—not because the Home Secretary was there, but because the two new houses being opened were an asset to the school. They had returned just as we ourselves might go back to our old schools on a special occasion or for some ceremony. We must get out of our heads the idea that all the boys who have been at approved schools look back on them as if they had been in prison.
    The question to which the first new Clause asks us to address our minds is what is to happen to these 900 young children a year who are at present sent to approved schools by the courts because that is thought to be the best treatment for them. I have not as much juvenile court experience as have some hon. Members, but I am certainly not aware of any juvenile court magistrates who rub their hands, and say,"We must put up the number of children in approved schools as high as we possibly can, and send as many as we can to approved schools".
    My experience is precisely the contrary: that the courts will very carefully consider whether there is any less severe action they can take before they come to the conclusion, as they have to in certain cases, that nothing will be suitable for the child except a fairly long period of training away from home and in an approved school. As a matter of fact, the percentage of children under 13 in
    794
    approved schools is falling. That is a good thing, and is in line with the thought behind the Amendment, but some 17 per cent. of all the admissions to approved schools still consist of those under 13, and we cannot dismiss that 17 per cent. as of no importance.
    Moreover, we have to consider what would be the psychological effect if there were no power in the hands of the courts to send children under 13 to approved schools—because I have no doubt at all that that power has a material deterrent effect. It is a reserve power for dealing with a child who does not respond to probation, or to supervision, or who is, in the technical term, refractory while under the care of the local authority. While nobody can quantify in figures what the effect would be if that power were removed, I myself have no doubt that there is a deterrent element in the fact that it is possible to send children under 13 to approved schools.
    I think that the courts would hear with dismay acceptance of this Clause. They would ask,"What are we to do with these children?"—
    Mr. MacColl: The right hon. Gentleman should not say that. He knows that the Magistrates' Association, in its evidence, supported a proposal very much on these lines.
    Mr. Brooke: I repeat that the courts I know of would be dismayed to hear that the power to send a child to an approved school had been taken from them.
    This should be a reserve power. It is desirable that, if possible, such children should be dealt with in another way. It is often possible to treat the offender by probation, or by fine, or by reporting at an attendance centre, or by putting him in the care of a fit person, or by a limited term of detention in a remand home, but there are cases in which none of those remedies is suitable. It seemed to me to be far-fetched to suggest that the type of boys now being sent to approved schools could effectively be dealt with by being sent on a few Saturday afternoons to an attendance centre.
    My experience is that the kind of boys who are sent to an approved school for a period of a year, eighteen

    795
    months or two years are not the boys who would respond to the deprivation of leisure on Saturday afternoons at an attendance centre—
    Sir Arthur Vere Harvey: As the numbers involved are so small, would my right hon. Friend consider the idea that, before a child of 13 is committed to an approved school, the case should be put before the Home Secretary himself?
    Mr. Brooke: I do not think so, because the numbers are not so small—they amount to about 900 a year. There are nearly 20 such children a week sent to approved schools. And I do not believe that it should be the job of the Home Secretary to interfere with the decisions of courts in any such way. Parliament must decide what powers the courts should have, and then the courts should be at liberty to use their discretion in deciding how to exercise those powers.
    2.30 p.m.
    Mrs. Harriet Slater: Did the right hon. Gentleman mean that 17 per cent. of the 900 are under 13, or in using the figure of 20 a week is he saying that that is 17 per cent. of the whole of the child population under 13?
    Mr. Brooke: I am sorry if there has been some confusion. I had hoped that I had got it right. About 900 children under 13 are admitted to approved schools each year. The number of children under 13 who are admitted to approved schools is about 17 per cent. of the total number. Those are the figures which I have, and I believe them to be correct.
    I come to the new Clause—"Revocation of approved school orders"—for which I must say that I think that a stronger case can be made than for the new Clause—"Committal to approved schools", which would deprive the courts of a very important power. The second new Clause contains the suggestion that a parent should be able to go to the court and ask for an approved school order to be rescinded. This is a quite unusual power to give to a court. The normal procedure is that the court reaches its determination and its decision, and it then rests with the Execu-
    796
    tive to implement that decision. Normally, there is no power for somebody to go back to a court on behalf of someone who is in prison and seek to prove to the court that the person has been in prison long enough, that it was a pity that so long a sentence was imposed, and that the court should reconsider the matter.
    Miss Bacon: The right hon. Gentleman is missing the point. He is equating approved schools and criminal courts. A prisoner is given a definite sentence. An approved school child is merely committed to an approved school for an indefinite period. If the Home Secretary stands by his assertion that approved schools are regarded as educational establishments, he ought not to liken the children who go there to prisoners sentenced by criminal courts.
    Mr. Brooke: I am not so likening them. If the hon. Lady had listened to me, she would have realised that I was talking about the procedure of the courts. The courts are the same and have the same functions, whoever they are dealing with. The hon. Lady is also incorrect in saying that a child is committed to an approved school for an indefinite period. That is not the case. A child is committed to an approved school either for a maximum of three years or until he reaches school-leaving age, if he is a younger child when first committed. The great majority of children committed to approved schools remain there for between one and two years, as the figures in the booklet clearly show.
    The case which has been advanced in favour of the Clause is that the managers are not to be trusted. I cannot accept that. The managers regularly receive reports from the headmaster of the approved school on the boys who may or may not be fit for release. Surely they are the best people to judge. They are better qualified to judge than the court, which would have seen nothing of the boy since he was sent to the approved school.
    Mr. Hale: Is the Home Secretary saying that, in the circumstances described by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon), which have happened to all of us, namely, an application to the Home Secretary that he should consider the circumstances

    797
    of a child detained for an indefinite period, he always waits for the managers to meet and discuss the case, or have not there been cases—I know that there have—in which the reply from the Home Secretary comes after consultation with the person immediately in charge?
    Mr. Brooke: I am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman is trying to prove. I am speaking in the first place of the initiative: which the managers take. I shall come to the Home Secretary's part later. In the normal case, in every approved school the managers meet at regular intervals to consider the cases and normally interview the boys who may be becoming fit for release. The managers do not necessarily act on the recommendation of the headmaster. They form their own opinion and decide either to release a boy or to retain him for a longer period and see him again after an interval.
    The hon. Lady suggested that there was no way of getting a child released from an approved school, except by writing to a Member of Parliament or to the Home Secretary. The first initiative in deciding how long a child should stay lies with the managers themselves. It is perfectly possible for anybody to write either to his Member of Parliament or direct to me. A letter to a Member of Parliament will be passed on to me, and everyone of these cases is carefully considered within the Home Office and is discussed with the managers of the school. My inspectors have close contact with the managers of the schools. It would be a travesty of the truth to suggest that those applications or letters are dealt with in a superficial or formal way by the Home Office. After all, we are dealing with individuals. We are dealing with individual boys and girls, and they deserve the most careful consideration.
    I do not think that anybody in this debate has mentioned that there is a reserve power in the hands of the Home Secretary to direct the managers to release a child if they are unwilling to do so but the Home Secretary thinks that he should be released. I am glad to say that for a number of years it has not been necessary to exercise that power, because in every case where the Home Secretary has come to the conclusion
    798
    that a child ought to be released the managers, after it has been put to them, have agreed without the need for a direction. That reserve power exists.
    Mr. MacColl: Would the right hon. Gentleman address himself to this proposition? In many cases it is a toss-up whether a child is committed to the care of a local authority as a fit person or is committed to an approved school. It often depends upon the facilities available in a particular area. There is power for a parent, in the case of a fit person order to a local authority, a publicly accountable body, to apply to the court for the revocation of the order.
    The right hon. Gentleman has included a Clause in the Bill giving a right to appeal from the court's decision on that matter. This has been done with the approval of the magistrates, who recognise the fairness of it. Why, in all conscience, is it right to put in a right of appeal to quarter sessions from a refusal of a court on a matter of this sort and yet reserve to the Executive the final decision in the case of an approved school order, whether release should be ordered in the case of a very similar child?
    Mr. Brooke: I do not accept that it is a toss-up whether a court decides to make a fit person order or an approved school order. Indeed, I am very much surprised that the hon. Member, who is a juvenile court magistrate himself, makes that sort of insinuation against his fellow magistrates. My conviction is that a juvenile court never makes an approved school order, unless it has come to the conclusion that it has no alternative.
    Mr. MacColl: The right hon. Gentleman did not grasp my point. I said that it depended on the circumstances in the area. Would the right hon. Gentleman address himself to this proposition? The order made depends upon the facilities available. It is not a matter of prejudice, nor is it a matter of judgment of the court whether a child should be punished or not punished. It is a matter of looking at a report and saying,"Is there a vacancy in a school for maladjusted children, or do we have to send the boy to an approved school because there is nowhere else we can send him?". It depends on the pressure on the school.

    799
    That is why I say that it is a toss-up. It is really a matter of luck as to the region in which the boy happens to be appearing. In many parts of the country boys who in London would undoubtedly be committed to the care of the London County Council are sent to approved schools.
    Mr. Brooke: The phrase"toss up" was an unfortunate one for the hon. Member to have used.
    The hon. Member raised the question of the right of the parent in the case of a fit person order to go back to the court. There is an essential difference between a fit person order and an approved school order. The latter is for a definite time, which may be shortened at the discretion of the managers. The primary object of the former is different. Its object is to take the child out of the care of the parent, because the home circumstances have been found to be unsatisfactory, and to place the child in more suitable care instead.
    That is a state of affairs which may last for many years, but it may alter if the home circumstances are transformed. A fit person order, unlike an approved school order, is of indefinite operation and may be made for a baby in arms; but the home circumstances may greatly alter for the better. It is right, therefore, that the parents should have the power at any time to ask for a fit person order to be reviewed. That depends on the home circumstances, but in the case of an approved school order it depends on the progress which the child is making.
    The argument I am submitting is that the best people to judge these matters are the managers of the school, with this reserve power in the hands of the Home Secretary, who can intervene if he feels that the managers are making a mistake.
    I am sorry that the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. C. Royle), who cares so much about children, should have thought it right to have spoken so disparagingly about approved school managers. My experience of them is not that they are rather vague, charitably minded, benevolently intentioned people who wander about the country. They are a body of men and women who sincerely devote themselves to their job. I do not think that one can dismiss any particular set of managers by saying that
    800
    they are self-appointing. I would remind the House that I have power to add additional managers to any body of managers if I am not satisfied with the existing ones. Again, I have not had need to use that power.
    My experience is that the managers of approved schools—whether local or voluntary schools—do most genuinely devote themselves to their task and that some of the best bodies of managers I know are managers of voluntary schools rather than local authority ones. I will not draw comparisons as between one and the other because there are admirably devoted men and women to be found in both cases.
    The hon. Member for Salford, West said that if this change were made parents would be anxious to visit approved schools to see how their children were getting on. I would remind him that they visit them now. The one anxiety in the minds of managers and headmasters concerns parents who seem so disinterested that they never visit them. However, in general, parents take a keen interest on how their children are progressing.
    I am not prepared to accept the argument of the hon. Member for Salford, West about the managers of approved schools. I am sorry to have to differ with him on this matter because he and I are close together in our intentions in a large part of this sphere. I do not consider that the decision as to whether a child has remained for the appropriate time in an approved school should be taken out of the hands of the managers and transferred to a juvenile court. I believe that the present system works satisfactorily. It is important that there should be that reserve power in the hands of the Home Secretary. It does not have to be used by way of direction. It can be used by way of persuasion. I must advise the House that neither of the new Clauses would be an improvement to the law and, in fact, to inhibit courts from sending children below 13 to an approved school would be a grave step to take in relation to the campaign we are seeking to wage against juvenile delinquency. I do not believe that there is any need for the change proposed in the second new Clause.
    2.45 p.m.
    Mrs. Slater: None of my hon. Friends has any desire to attack approved

    801
    schools. We recognise that others are doing an excellent job, having regard to their powers. Nor have my hon. Friends attempted to attack, as the right hon. Gentleman inferred that we had, the managers of approved schools.
    Many of my hon. Friends, like myself, have been members of committees which are interested in this work. We have the experience of sometimes discovering that cither managers or people in charge of a school or department do not always make the right decisions. There should, therefore, be some power whereby certain decisions may be overruled.
    It is for these reasons that we are asking the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether or not he is able, or should be able, to overrule certain decisions. He said that he had never had need to overrule the decision of a board of managers about a boy or girl being kept at school.
    Mr. Brooke: I said that I had never had need to issue a direction to the managers because they were unwilling to yield to my persuasion.
    Mrs. Slater: Despite that, we have all had the experience of managers taking the view of the person in charge, particularly in an awkward situation, rather than making a decision contrary to that suggested by the person in charge. The right hon. Gentleman believes that if we accept the new Clause about children under 13 being committed to an approved school we would, in effect, not be dealing with juvenile delinquency.
    The right hon. Gentleman said that we were dealing not with numbers, but with persons. The overriding fact is that when dealing with children under 13 we are dealing not just with persons, but with children of an extremely difficult age. If we are not careful we will be placing a stigma on them for life. We do not want the situation to arise when simply because a child has been to an approved school it is stigmatised for life. Such a child must not be looked upon as a criminal.
    In many cases these children are not in the care of an approved school. They may, perhaps, be maladjusted because they are from maladjusted homes. I recall that in Standing Committee we attempted to persuade the Government to accept an Amendment which would deal with this matter but, unfortunately,
    802
    we did not succeed. Many boroughs, particularly the larger ones, have cases of children coming from maladjusted homes and the question of where such children should be sent for care is of extreme importance. It is not always because there was not a place. Sometimes it is because the matter has never been considered because some people have thought that the only place to send the Child is an approved school.
    Sometimes, in the Standing Committee, I wondered whether, in many of these cases, it was not an educational problem rather than a Home Office problem. If all the educational people could be brought into consultation before such decisions are made—school welfare officers, headmasters, those who have been directly concerned with the children and have known them right through their school life—we need not put the stigma on a child of going to an approved school. Unless we are very careful we put in the minds of these children, possibly subconsciously, the feeling that they are criminals and in many cases they will continue to act as criminals.
    I have seen some very good schools and I admire the work which they are doing, but these are not the places to which one should send a child under 13; the children might be sent to some other place such as a school for maladjusted children or the camp schools which some local authorities have where their energy can be burned up. We ought to consider whether this is not the kind of place to which these children should be sent.
    Mr. MacColl: All these possibilities are available under the existing law. If a fit person order is made, a local authority can send the child to a school for maladjusted children or an outward bound course. There is much more flexibility than under the approved school order.
    Mrs. Slater: There is much more flexibility and it prevents the child from going through life with a chip on its shoulder.
    The right hon. Gentleman said that there are only a few of these children who are under 13 and that it is a decreasing number. In Committee, the hon. Lady the Joint Under-Secretary of State said that pioneer work was going

    803
    on, and she rather accused my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) of having a political outlook on this matter. I assure her that in no way is there a political issue at stake here. We are concerned with the welfare of the child—not only its immediate welfare, but its long-term welfare, taking into consideration the attitude of mind which we create in these children.
    The second new Clause deals with the parent having power to apply for the release of these children. Often the recommendation of the man in charge of the school decides whether the child should be released. With all due respect to some managers, it is not the manager who makes up his mind, but the person in charge. If the child is refractory—a phrase which we heard often in Committee—or one of the awkward squad in the school, but not really a criminal, the chance of that child being released becomes more and more remote, unless they want to get rid of him.
    Sometimes, what has happened to the child shakes up the parents, too. There are cases in which a child has been sent to an approved school and on the surface it seems as if the parents have much responsibility for the fact that the child has been sent there. But suddenly, because of what has happened to the child, the parents have been shaken out of their complacency and have become very worried, because they feel that they, too, have been a failure.
    In such circumstances, where the attitude of mind of the parents has changed because of what has happened, they should not have to wait for the length of time for which the child has been committed to an approved school. They should be able to put their case before the court once more and should have adequate consideration given to the length of time before the child might be brought back. We are concerned about the child, and if the child can be brought back to the atmosphere of an improved home, and to a family relationship, this may be a good thing not only for the child but for the parents.
    I ask the right hon. Gentleman not to be stubborn about this, as, unfortunately, he often is, and not to feel that because this has been the position for many years,
    804
    we must permit it to continue. Let us experiment for a little while. We are in the stage of experiment in education. Let us have a little experiment in the Home Office for a change. Let the right hon. Gentleman have another look at this matter from a completely different angle. I appeal to him to think again on what he said and to see whether he ought not to change his mind in the right direction.
    Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith (Chislehurst): After listening to the speeches of some hon. Members opposite, may I say that while I have great sympathy with some of the cases which they have outlined I think that they tend to ignore a point which my right hon. Friend brought out—that we are all deeply concerned with the trend of juvenile delinquency and that we cannot dismiss the type of case which, in the main, is sent to an approved school as mere naughtiness or waywardness.
    Many of these children have committed sufficiently wayward acts that, if they had been a few years older, they would have come into the criminal lists. It is not good enough to suggest that a child simply gets into bad company and that that is sufficient excuse for it to get away with it if it repeats the things which it should not do. Sometimes it might involve taking other people's property, or damaging it, or stealing a bicycle. They must not feel that they are able to get away with it until they are 13 before acceptedly serious punishment is imposed by the stricter discipline which prevails in approved schools.
    Hon. Members have ignored the fact that in many cases these children are sent to an approved school because of the appallingly bad influence of their parents which has given rise to bad conduct, because the children have not been set a good example at home. They have got into bad ways, have not been corrected and have started on a career which, if allowed to proceed, would lead them in later years into paths of recognised crime.
    Mr. MacColl: I am sorry to be repeating this point like a parrot, but that is the whole object of a fit person order. If the child is in such a state that as long as he remains at home he is likely to get into trouble, the answer is a fit person order.
    3.0 p.m.
    Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith: I made it plain that I was referring not merely to the child whose parents had not shown an adequate sense of responsibility, a child who was not in trouble, but to the child who has already started a life of misdemeanour and who has not been found out in time. The child has got away with it and has got into the habit of thinking that it is right to steal and of expecting that one can get away with it.
    I had the experience in my constituency of parents coming to see me and taking me in completely with their vehement protests that their boy had been sent to an approved school when he had never been in trouble before. They said that it was quite outrageous that he should be sent away for three and a half years. When I had the records looked up I found that the child had first been before the court and had been let off with a warning. He had been before the court on two further occasions and had been placed on probation. This was the fourth time and each time his thefts had become larger.
    The parents sincerely said,"He has never been sent away before", and they therefore claimed that it had never been accepted that he had done anything wrong before. Probation to them simply meant that he had got away with it. I was convinced that the best chance for that child's future moral guidance and his opportunity to develop into a good citizen was that he should go to an approved school rather than remain in the environment of his family.
    I accept what the hon. Lady the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater) has said—that one often finds young girls who are in approved schools as in need of care and protection because they have been in moral danger. After they have had experiences much earlier in life than legally their years would permit, it is extremely difficult to deal with them. To foist some of these girls who have had illicit intercourse at an early age into local authority care and protection schools creates a real problem for the people who run those schools because of the influence of these girls on others.
    I remember cases of girls of 13 and 14 who had been living in houses in cer-
    806
    tain parts of London after running away from home, and who had been put into an approved school where supervision is more strict, and where one finds a number of girls who have been in moral danger or have been the victims of this sort of behaviour. It is not right that it should be possible to send young girls of this kind only to the normal type of local authority schools where there may be young girls from quite normal families who are there as in need of care and protection merely because their parents are ill.
    I strongly endorse what my right hon. Friend has said about the extraordinarily good work done at approved schools and the tremendous efforts made to provide vocational training for boys who might otherwise drift along in dead-end jobs on leaving school. Several schemes have been worked out in conjunction with employers and trade unions in the building trade so that after three years' training in these approved schools the boys are accepted as apprentices to become craftsmen when they come out. This is something which probably a boy would not undertake if he were home.
    Hon. Members have tended to underrate the excellent work done in a number of schools to give these children the opportunity of coming out with a worthwhile future career ahead, an opportunity which in a short term of twelve or eighteen months could not be made available to them.
    I endorse what my right hon. Friend has said about the very real difficulty we have nowadays, when children mature so much more quickly, in accepting any suggestion that we can afford to leave the necessarily stricter method of the approved school until a child is 13. We still have too many young people who start on the path to crime when they are 8, 9 or 10. In my view, we should leave it to the court to decide. It is a power which the court uses with discretion and after full consideration of all the circumstances. The courts should continue to have this power, where they deem it necessary, to send children under 13 to an approved school.
    Mr. Hannan: Speaking for myself, it seemed that the right hon. Lady the Member for Chislehurst (Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith) was adopting an

    807
    approach contrary to that of her right hon. Friend earlier. The right hon. Lady was thinking of approved schools in terms of punishment and repression, certainly not in the sense of education and correction of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke.
    As the House probably knows, the approved schools of Scotland are under the education authority. This probably explains much of the difference of emphasis and view between hon. and right hon. Members opposite and my hon. Friends. I feel that the right hon. Gentleman's argument was least attractive when he adopted the approach of trying to distort some of what my hon. Friends have argued. No one is suggesting that we should avoid facing squarely the problems which are created for us by some young people today. But these problems are accentuated by the lack of diagnostic processes and the lack of proper accommodation. If we had these, we could probably deal with the approved schools in a better way.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) was right to draw attention to the long period for which some young people can be sent to approved schools. A young person under the age of 12 can be sent to an approved school for three years and four months, or until age 15, whichever is the longer—not the shorter. A young person sent to an approved school at 10 years of age, or 8 years of age, as can happen in exceptional circumstances, could be there for seven years. This is taking it at its worst, of course. Do right hon. and hon. Members opposite argue that this is the proper way to deal with young people of this character?
    It will not be denied by the Under-secretary of State for Scotland that children who are truants from school, with no other record of delinquency and without having committed any other offence, can be sent to approved schools. Can one honestly say that a child who skulks school or, as we say in the North,"plonks" school, merits being sent to an approved school for three years?
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State no doubt will say that Lord Kilbrandon's Committee is examining this
    808
    problem in Scotland. As usual, Scotland is in the forefront, and no doubt Lord Kilbrandon's civilising influence will spread South. Meantime, cannot we help by drawing attention to the fact that, because truants can be sent to an approved school, there is a need for the classification of offences according to gravity?
    All that we ask in the first new Clause is that young people under the age of 13 should not be sent to approved school. The right hon. Gentleman asks what we propose to put in the place of approved schools. Some local authorities in Scotland, and no doubt in England, will be making their representations in due course as to what should happen to them. Such children might be sent, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater) suggests, by way of experiment to short course centres for six or nine months to see whether that would have any effect on them.
    The second new Clause suggests that there should be revocation of approved school orders. This is a most important point. It is wrong that someone who, after visiting his child in approved school, feels that some recovery has been made should have to write to his Member of Parliament or to the Secretary of State saying that such a course should be taken. Far too much authority is vested in the boards of management and in those who run the schools themselves. In Scotland, there is no need for the Secretary of State for Scotland to approve the appointment of a manager, but the Act demands that he should be at least informed of the appointment.
    All the legislation covering children's homes, remand homes, remand centres, and detention centres is worthy of revision. There is a vital need not only for provisions such as those outlined in the new Clauses but for something like a youth charter, bearing in mind the number of instances in which it is said that parental neglect is responsible for a great deal of the trouble which young people get into.
    We are not running away from the problem. Not enough thought is given to it. I hope that even now the Home Secretary will at least consider the proposals outlined in the new Clauses.
    Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—

    Division No. 158.]

    AYES

    [3.13 p.m.

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

    Millan, Bruce

    Barnett, Guy

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Hannan, William

    Mulley, Frederick

    Bradley, Tom

    Henderson,Rt.Hn.Arthur(RwlyRegis)

    O'Malley, B. K.

    Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

    Holman, Percy

    Oram, A. E.

    Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

    Hunter, A. E.

    Prentice, R. E.

    Cliffe, Michael

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Rankin, John

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Janner, Sir Barnett

    Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

    Cullen, Mrs, Alice

    Jeger, George

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Dalyell, Tam

    Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

    Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    King, Dr. Horace

    Skeffington, Arthur

    Diamond, John

    Lipton, Marcus

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

    Lubbock, Eric

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Evans, Albert

    MacColl, James

    Taverne, D.

    Pitch, Alan

    Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Fletcher, Eric

    Mapp, Charles

    TELLERS FOR THE AVES:

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Mellish, R. J.

    Mr. Charles A. Howell and Mr. Redhead.

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Mendelson, J. J.

    NOES

    Aitken, W. T.

    Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

    Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

    Allason, James

    Holland, Philip

    Pike, Miss Mervyn

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Hornby, R. P.

    Pitman, Sir James

    Biggs-Davison, John

    Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

    Pott, Percivall

    Bingham, R. M.

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

    Bishop, F. P.

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)

    Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

    James, David

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Brooman-White, R.

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

    Brown, Alan ((Tottenham)

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

    Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

    Smithes, Peter

    Channon, H. P. G.

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Speir, Rupert

    Chataway, Christopher

    Kirk, Peter

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Chichester-Clarke, R.

    Langford Holt, Sir John

    Tapsell, Peter

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Teeling, Sir William

    Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

    Crawley, Aidan

    Lloyd,Rt.Hn.Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Dance, James

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon.S.)

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    McAdden, Sir Stephen

    Turner, Colin

    Drayson, G. B.

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Eden, Sir John

    Mawby, Ray

    Vickers, Miss Joan

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr, S. L. C.

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Gurden, Harold

    Mills, Stratton

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Miscampbell, Norman

    Worsley, Marcus

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

    Peel, John

    Mr. Finlay and Mr. Ian Fraser.

    New clause.—(ESTABLISHMENT OF CASE COMMITTEES.)
    (1) For the purposes of section 1 of this Act every local authority shall establish a case committee. The members of the case committee may be members of the local authority or persons specially qualified by reason of their knowledge of and interest in the welfare of children. For the purposes of subsection (3) of this section, the members of the case committee shall be an interviewing panel of whom not more than five new less than three shall sit at one time.

    (2) The case committee shall exercise a general supervision over the casework of the children's officer and from time to time receive from him written or oral reports on the progress of children in care, affording to him such help and advice as they can.

    The House divided: Ayes 51, Noes 82.

    (3) The case committee shall delegate to the interviewing panel the consideration of the welfare of any child—

    (a) referred do them by a chief officer of police, or

    (b) referred to them by the chief education officer of their area, or

    (c) whose parent or guardian is dissatisfied with a decision of the local authority not to receive him into care, or

    (d) whose welfare, in the opinion of the children's officer, presents special difficulty, or

    (e) in respect of whom the children's officer is unable to secure the agreement of the parent or guardian for the care, training or treatment, which he thinks appropriate. or

    811

    (f) in respect of whom it is proposed to assume parental rights under section 2 of the Children Act 1948.

    (4) For the purposes of section 2 of this Act (which provides for children and young persons in need of care, protection or control) it shall be evidence that a child or young person is not receiving such care, protection and guidance as a good parent may reasonably be expected to give if he or his parent or guardian or both have failed to attend a meeting of the interviewing panel to which they have been called.—[Mr. MacColl.]

    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Mr. MacColl: I beg to move. That the Clause be read a Second time.
    This is rather a departure from what we have been discussing so far, because the new Clause represents an attempt to consider best how Clause 1 of the Bill, embodying a new development in the work of local government, can be made effective. In particular, this is an attempt to answer the question, which was so often raised in Standing Committee and is often asked in the Press, of the way in which children who are taken out of the purview of the courts should be dealt with.
    I suppose hat I am more prejudiced than most hon. Members in favour of courts because I have spent many years in juvenile courts and regard them as very effective bodies. Where they are, I think, more effective than many public authorities in looking at children's problems is that they have the advantage of always seeing the parties to the argument—the child, the parents, the complainants, the school teacher and the people whose reports are being considered. They are not dealing with it entirely as an exercise in administration on paper. They also have the ability to make sure, as far as it can be done, that both points of view are put and that each side in the argument understands the point of view of the other.
    They can make a personal, individual effort to get the parents to accept the view which the court is taking. If they are doing their job effectively, they can get away from the purely external relationship of directing what should be done with a child; they can get the parents, as far as it is possible, to accept that as being a reasonable course to take. The importance of this is not only from the point of view of humanity and justice, but also from that of practical
    812
    working, because if one wants to get successful treatment of a child, it is extremely important to obtain the co-operation and backing of the parents.
    When my hon. Friends and I looked at Clause 1, we asked ourselves how best we could bring into the working of that Clause some of the general principles which have been found to work in the case of the courts while, at the same time, not having the tension of a juvenile court; in other words, having these problems looked at not as part of a trial, but as problems of juvenile welfare.
    What is Clause 1? I remind the House that the new Clause begins:
    "For the purposes of section I of this Act".
    I want to draw the attention of the House to the great step forward which Clause 1 makes, at any rate on paper. It places upon the local authority a duty—not an option—
    "to make available such advice, guidance and assistance as may promote the welfare of children by diminishing the need to receive children into…care…or to bring children before a juvenile court".
    Those words were extended in the Standing Committee, and they are extremely wide.
    In other words, there is a duty now on local authorities to take action to avoid the necessity of bringing children before a juvenile court. That is perhaps as important in the history of the care and treatment of juveniles as the famous Section 44 in the principal Act, which places upon juvenile courts the positive duty of looking to the welfare of children who appear before them. In other words, it is not just a rather wishy-washy, sentimental idiosyncrasy on the part of certain children's officers that they try to keep children out of court, something rather to be frowned on by hard-headed people. The duty is now placed on the authority to take steps to keep children from coming into court.
    Consequently, in the new Clause we have tried to outline what seems to us to be the kind of machinery likely to be effective in this respect. The first thing we suggest is the establishment of a case committee. The importance of that is that we are trying to draw a distinction between the administrative responsibilities and the case work of the local authority.

    813
    A children's committee has laid upon it great responsibilities in dealing with problems of administration, the staffing and running of homes, the obtaining of foster parents and the arranging of all the detailed administrative work that makes it possible to run this service. But that is a different job—and a more impersonal job—from the job of dealing with individual children's cases. If children's authorities are to perform their duties effectively they must constantly recognise the need to consider each case as the case of a human being, involving a human life.
    3.30 p.m.
    That requires an intensive personal knowledge of what is happening, an acquaintanceship with the children involved and an understanding of their problems. We therefore suggest that the case committee should be separate from the children's committee. That is no reflection upon the efficiency or competence of the children's committee. It simply recognises that there is a different job to be done, and that it is desirable that the problem should be looked at from a slightly different point of view.
    One of the well-known difficulties is that there is always a temptation for a local authority which is trying to place a child to balance what seems to be best for the child as an individual with the administrative desirability of filling a place in a certain school or home in order to redress a possible maldistribution of cases within the various homes which are available. There can be a slight tension between the two viewpoints. It is, therefore, desirable that the question of what is best for a child should be considered in the same kind of independent way as it is by the best juvenile courts.
    We suggest that there should be a case committee, consisting either of members of a local authority or members who are co-opted for their special knowledge and interest in the problems of children. We further suggest that within this case committee there should be what is referred to as an interviewing panel. That may seem to be a rather unnecessary refinement, but we must ensure that there is a committee which can continually watch over the general problems of the casework of an authority, on the one hand, and, at the same time, a small and rather informal
    814
    group of people who will sit round a table on any given occasion to talk to individual children and to hear reports from their teachers and complaints from children's officers, and generally to listen to all the problems involved and sort them all out.
    We need a small body of people comparable to a juvenile court bench to do that. Just as we have a juvenile court panel and, within that panel, certain people who sit on certain occasions, so, we suggest, the interviewing panel, which will be part of the case committee, will be limited in number. We suggest that it should number not more than five and not less than three, sitting at any one time. We do not want to have a body which is too large, so that a child will have questions fired at it from odd angles by people whom it has not even noticed are in the room. We want a reasonably small group. On the other hand, we do not want it to be too small, so that it may become virtually a one-man show if a member does not turn up. We therefore provide that the quorum shall be at least three and that there can be as many as five.
    What is to be the work of the case committee? Subsection (2) deals with its general responsibilities. We say that it
    "shall exercise a general supervision over the casework of the children's officer and from time to time receive from him written or oral reports on the progress of children in care, affording to him such help and advice as they can."
    Those words to the right hon. Gentleman will be faintly reminiscent of the rules of the probation case committee. We have actually in the probation case committee something which is comparable to this case committee. It is not an entirely novel idea to the. Legislature that bodies of this sort should exist. Therefore, we suggest that the case committee should be there to get reports from the children's officer generally, about statistical reports, reports on particular problems and particular children, a general sort of running commentary, so that the children's officer feels that there is behind him the interest and experience of a committee which is dedicated to watching over these problems, advising on them, taking an interest in them and giving backing to the children's officer, in other words, that the children's officer

    815
    does not just feel, as he is liable to feel in a big local authority, that he is the only person who has to take the responsibility of coping with intractable problems.
    The probation officer can always go to the magistrates, and does constantly go along to discuss cases and to take advice from magistrates on particular matters, such as on the question of employment of which a magistrate may have special knowledge. This form of exchange of ideas is an essential part of the probation work. If the children's officer is to be effective, he ought to have the same kind of backing and support from the case committee that a probation officer can expect. Therefore, we suggest that, in general, the committee is there to give advice to the children's officer on problems.
    Then we come to the particular duties, and these duties, which are to deal with individual children, we suggest, should be primarily the responsibility of the interviewing panel. Subsection (3) of the Clause states:
    "The case committee shall delegate to the interviewing panel the consideration of the welfare of any child."
    I used the word"delegate" with intention, because I wanted to get over the sort of problems which town clerks raise when they murmur delegatus nan potest delegare—in other words, if one is given a duty delegated by the local authority, one cannot then delegate that duty to someone else. Therefore, we ought to make it quite clear that there is power within this Clause to give the interviewing panel power to make decisions and not report back to the main committee on matters requiring quick decisions.
    What are the cases which particularly require this rather intensive individual attention? The first are, we suggest, those cases referred by a chief officer of police. That is, of course, to deal with the general problems of delinquency and near delinquency. In other words, if any chief officer of police feels that particular children in the area are troublesome, that he is dissatisfied with the care which they are getting, that they are in bad company, that they are playing about the streets late at night or that they have been involved in some troubles in the area, he can know that he has direct access to this committee. He does
    816
    not just have to work through someone else.
    Of course, it has to be"a"—not"the"—chief officer of police, because the young are mobile. They can get on their motor cycles and move quickly to another area to create their nuisance. Therefore, it is desirable that any chief officer who has worries about children should not have to say I can only deal with my own local authority. It enables him to go to any local authority. That, at any rate, is a protection for the public. The local authority cannot pretend that it does not know and, therefore, can avoid responsibility for the children who are causing difficulties in the area. It is to give a right to the chief officer of police, as the protector of the public, to bring cases to the attention of the committee.
    Secondly, there is reference to cases:
    "referred to them by the chief education officer of their area…"
    I have in mind particularly children who play truant and are known to the education service not to be going to school regularly. These cases could be treated by the case committee. It could be responsible for taking steps to stop truancy, which is something that may bring a child into trouble not only in respect of delinquency but leading to his being taken from home to be brought before the court or placed in an institution. So if the committee is to work the provisions in the Clause there must be a realisation of the importance of truancy cases.
    In many local authorities, certainly in the London authority, there is a special case committee where all the representatives of different welfare agencies consider cases referred to them by schools. There may be a particularly difficult child, perhaps one who is extremely violent or uses foul language, or who in some other way exhibits severe behaviour disorders. The committee is available to sort out these cases and advise whether psychiatric help is required and whether the child should be taken away from home. Such committees exist in progressive authorities, and so it could be the duty of the chief education officer to submit cases of this kind to the case committee.
    The next case is that of a child
    "whose parent or guardian is dissatisfied with a decision of the local authority not to receive him into care…"
    That is important. Although it is true that the Clause is designed mainly to keep children out of care, it is possible to overdo the insistence on a child being better off at home than in care. No problem arises when a child is in care if it is a voluntary arrangement, because the parent can take the child out of care. But there is no remedy where an authority refuses to take the child into care. It may happen that a parent is desperate and is faced with the problem of what to do with the child. On the advice perhaps of some comparatively junior child welfare officer the parent may go to the police, or to the Family Welfare Association or the Citizens' Advice Bureau, and be told that the only thing to do is to take the child to court as being beyond control.
    The beyond control proceedings are being abolished and there is no remedy except to appeal to the local authority. If it is proposed to keep children out of the court there must be a quick way for the parents to come to a case committee and to be able to tell the committee that they are desperately worried about their children; that there is no vacancy in the child guidance clinic; that it is impossible to keep the child at home because the parents are ill, or suffering from a nervous breakdown and they cannot accept the decision of the local authority. Then the case committee could talk to parents and the children's officer to see whether the decision could be sorted out. In that kind of case the committee could give a form of preventive service.
    Finally, there is the case of any child
    "whose welfare, in the opinion of the children's officer, presents special difficulty".
    The committee should be available in cases where a children's officer is worried about what is happening and requires advice, or is looking for assistance from the panel about a particular child. Such an officer would be able to go immediately to the case committee.
    The next case relates to a child:
    "in respect of whom the children's officer is unable to secure the agreement of the parent or guardian for the care, training or treatment which he thinks appropriate…"
    In other words, where a child is in care
    818
    and it is a voluntary arrangement and it would be generally agreed that it would be unfortunate to take the child out of care. The children's officer thinks that it should go to a maladjusted school, or have a certain type of training, or go to a child guidance clinic, and the parent does not agree. It ought to be possible for the children's officer to ask the parent to go with him to the case committee to discuss the matter there and for that committee to go into the problem of what is the best thing to do.
    Finally, and this is a fairly simple case, there is the provision in cases where
    "it is proposed to assume parental rights"
    over a child in care. These cases should be referred for approval for this committee.
    3.45 p.m.
    We have picked out what seemed to us to be particular examples of cases likely to lead to trouble or a breakdown in the family, or likely to lead to children coming into care. These should be the direct responsibility of the case committee. What"teeth" are there in these proposals? They would not alter the law about criminal responsibility, nor about taking children into care. The law is left as it is in that respect. What we suggest is that where the child is brought before the court as being in need of care and protection or control, if the child has not come before the case committee, or the parent has not come before it, or neither of them has come before it, that would be evidence—no more than evidence—in proof that the parent was not exercising the care and guardianship which should be exercised.
    It would then be possible to go to the court and to say,"We are not getting the co-operation of the parent in this case. The parent will not come and talk about it." It would then be up to the parent to justify his position. The parent may be able to do so. There may be a good answer. Then the court will find the case not proved. Making the non-appearance of the parent evidence of not fulfilling parental duties would probably be providing enough bite in the Clause to make it effective. We all recognise that the weakness of all these attempts to deal with these problems outside the court is that they are all right so long as one has the parental co-operation. The

    819
    difficulty is when parents do not co operate and there is a long battle to get the problem solved.
    Without necessarily saying that we accept the present rules about the age of responsibility, about approved schools and soon, and while reserving our position, we say that against the existing background this new Clause offers an effective way of making Clause 1 work. It would make it, not just something which gets on to the Statute Book and is then forgotten, but something which is a really effective instrument for doing what we all want to do and what the Bill says has to be done—keeping children out of court.
    Miss Joan Vickers: I have listened with great interest to what the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) said, with his excellent knowledge of the subject, and the very detailed explanation he gave of this new Clause. I am with him to a certain extent. I should like to see the establishment of a case committee.
    If the hon. Member had ended on line 4 of the new Clause:
    "interest in the welfare of children."
    I should have considered that he had gone far enough. It is very difficult to lay down exactly how local authorities should carry out this work. The hon. Member has done a great service by his explanation of what the Clause means. That will be of enormous help to children's officers who will be reading Hansard and will now know what he has in mind.
    On the other hand, I feel that to tie down a local authority to carry out this Clause in its entirety would be a great mistake. Many local authorities already have co-ordinating committees. For example, the co-ordinating committee of Plymouth dealt last year with problem families involving 228 children, most of whom were known to a number of representatives of the organisations on the co-ordinating committee. These cases were discussed and, after discussion, certain lines of policy were agreed. Of these, 37 families involving 146 children were said to have improved to such an extent that the children were no longer considered to be likely to be neglected and the possibility of their needing to
    820
    come into the care of a local authority was removed.
    I suggest that the kind of work which the hon. Member has put forward to us in detail is already being done by local authorities through co-ordinating committees. I agree with him that it would be a good idea if my right hon. Friend considered the possibility of a definite direction from him as Home Secretary that there shall be a case committee, or possibly that a case committee should be included in the Bill, but without elaborating it to the extent suggested by the hon. Member. In other words, the proposal would end at"the welfare of children" in the fourth line.
    I also agree with the hon. Member that it is essential for the children's officer to have some form of protection and probably guidance, too, because Clause 1 opens up an entirely new field for the children's officer and the local authority, who will have to make very important decisions. It is essential that the children's officer should have the support of a very understanding committee. The children's committee usually meets once a month, but I believe that more detailed work will be necessary than can be done by a large committee, such as the children's committee usually is. I would therefore welcome some form of committee which would help, although I do not think that the detail given by the hon. Member should be included in the Bill, laying down that every local authority must carry out this procedure exactly in the way in which he has suggested.
    In implementing its work each local authority has to draw up its own programme. Circumstances vary considerably from area to area. For this reason I am not anxious to have a provision in the Bill which would tie local authorities when their circumstances might differ considerably, for example, from urban area to country borough, to town council and so on. I do not think that they should be forced to set up a committee exactly as suggested by the hon. Member. I agree that we need a committee which can work fast and which can help with the families at risk, and I believe that this committee should be concerned not only with the children but with the problem of the family's welfare. For this reason I feel that it would be much

    821
    better to leave the details of the composition of a committee to the local authority concerned.
    There is a good example in the fact that most local authorities have a housing committee but also have a tenancy subcommittee to deal with problem families and other cases which the housing manager wishes to refer to them for extra guidance. I visualise the committee which the hon. Member has mentioned as being one for which the children's officer will be the co-ordinating officer; heor she will get on to her committee the type of person mentioned by the hon. Member, who will help in giving guidance. I therefore suggest to him that it would be better to have a case committee but that to detail it in the way in which he has suggested would be unwise, and that it would be unwise to write it into the Bill. In supporting the idea of a case committee, I hope that the hon. Member will not press his suggestion that this type of case committee should be written into the Bill, because I do notthink that that would be to the advantage of the working of the service.
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: It would be superfluous to reiterate all the arguments that we went into in Committee about the desirability or otherwise of children going to court at all. I would like to record the concern that I still have, at the one end of the scale about the child who goes to court, is treated leniently, and then returns rather pleased with himself at having been treated leniently, and at the other end of the scale about the child who goes to court, is overawed by the proceedings, and returns with perhaps some rather sly and shifty traits added to his character. Both results might be equally undesirable. It is for this reason that I support the suggestion of case committees which has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), in the hope that it will help to keep young people out of court.
    Mr. Brooke: We all want to keep children out of court, if we can. That is the object of Clause 1. The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) said that it was our duty to consider how best Clause 1 may be made effective. I believe that it is the primary duty of local authorities to consider that. I have a great deal of sympathy with the view
    822
    expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) that it would be unwise for us to tie the hands of local authorities in great detail as to the manner in which, in the circumstances of their own area, they should carry out the general purposes laid down by Parliament.
    I agree with my hon. Friend, too, that today's debate will be read with great interest by children's officers, chairmen of children's committees, town clerks and others. I hope that they will read the speech of the hon. Member forWidnes and study the ideas that he developed. I hope that they will gain ideas from his speech which will be valuable in their own localities. That, surely, is the better way, rather than tying the hands of local authorities in advance. If I have learned anything in my local government experience, it is that one does not get better local government if Parliament dictates in great detail the precise machinery by which local authorities should carry out their duties.
    I appreciate that the hon. Member for Widnes is anxious to devise an alternative system to bringing children into court. We all desire to do that, but I remind the hon. Member of paragraphs 68–77 of the Ingleby Report. The Ingleby Committee, having very painstakingly examined these possibilities, reached the conclusion that there was no real alternative of a social welfare character to taking a number of children into court.
    I could call attention to technical defects in the Clause, but my main reason for advising the House not to accept it is that I do not believe that we shall get better administration by local authorities if we tell them in such precise detail as this the exact machinery which Parliament requires them to operate, whether or not it seems to the elected members of the local authority the most appropriate for the problems of their own area.
    Sir B. Janner: I am amazed that the Home Secretary should treat this matter in the manner in which he has done. My hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) advanced a substantial argument. The Home Secretary has some important questions to answer. I gathered from his speech that he is endeavouring to get the matter disposed of without giving a full reply to the

    823
    points which have been raised. The proposal contained in the Clause is extremely important. We should look very foolish indeed in the eyes of the country if we were to dispose of such an important matter with only a short speech from the Home Secretary.
    Miss Bacon: The Home Secretary said in Standing Committee that we had not made any constructive suggestions as to what to do with children under the age of criminal responsibility. We thought we were doing something for him in making this suggestion.
    Sir B. Janner: It is too absurd for words. We cannot allow a matter of this sort to be brushed aside. I very much hope—
    It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
    Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

  POST OFFICE, REDNAL
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Finlay.]
  4.0 p.m.
  Mr. James Dance: I am grateful to have this opportunity of raising the question of the proposed closure of the sub-post office at Rednal, in my constituency. It might be helpful to hon. Members if I briefly go into the past history of this case.
  Towards the end of April of this year it was announced that the sub-post office at Rednal was to be closed. I understand that this was due to the fact that Mr. Peter Mead, the present postmaster, decided that due to the growth of his business and because he held a similar post on the adjacent Rednal housing estate, he was unable or unwilling to continue running the sub-post office in a cottage in the Lickey Road.
  I received a number of letters from my constituents protesting at the proposed closure and I intend to give some of their reasons. They also sent a petition to my right hon. Friend containing more than 300 signatures. I immediately tabled a Question and asked the Postmaster-General:
  824
  "…if he will make a statement about the future of the post office at Rednal, near Birmingham."
  This was answered by my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General, who said:
  "We propose to take advantage of the sub-postmaster's resignation to replace the Rednal Post Office by one in Parsonage Drive, Crofton Hackett. With this change, I think the disposition of sub-offices in the area will be more convenient for the majority of the local residents."
  I put a supplementary question and asked:
  "I know that my hon. Friend is aware that a Petition has been produced with 300 signatories from Rednal on this question. Is he aware that this office is near a bus stop, that there are a large number of old-age pensioners living in this part of the world who have to go to the office to collect their old-age pensions and that this decision will cause great hardship? Will he please reconsider the question?"
  to which I received the following reply:
  "I am always prepared to reconsider anything, but it is important to remember that the original office is in an old cottage which is not part of a recognised shopping centre, whereas die new office will serve an estate of about 300 houses with four shops and a large cafe. On the surface it looks as though the move may be more convenient for the majority of local residents, but I will look again at the matter affecting my hon. Friend's constituency."—[Official Report, 14th May, 1963; Vol. 677, c. 1116–17.]
  My hon. Friend has, to a certain extent, been wrongly informed on two counts. The first is that the location of the present post office has a shopping centre larger than the one in Parsonage Drive. In this area there are eight shops, one hotel, two cafes, one social club, one youth training centre, one golf club and two amusement arcades. It may be convenient—and I have with me the names of the people running these establishments, but I will not weary the House by relating them—if I say what these shops comprise. If my hon. Friend would like the other information I have I will give it to him later. There is the Hare and Hounds public house, a sweet shop, a blacksmith's, a newsagent and sweet shop, a grocer, a shoe repairer's, a wool shop, a garage, a hairdresser's and a grocer and greengrocer.
  The second point on which my hon. Friend has been wrongly informed concerns a letter dated 29th May which he wrote to me saying:
  "There is a frequent bus service from Rednal to the end of Edgwood Road, which

  825
  is within 400 yards of the Edgwood Road sub-post office, and old-age pensioners enjoy free travel facilities on the Birmingham Corporation buses."
  This is an inaccuracy, because my constituents do not enjoy these bus facilities, as they do not pay rates to Birmingham, but live in Worcestershire and pay rates to the Bromsgrove Rural District Council. This does not entitle them to these free travel facilities.
  I believe that the general trend at present is that inhabitants in new housing estates are usually young people with young families, whilst those living in the older property tend to be older people. That is exactly the case here. In the estate where the post office that my constituents will have to use is situated, the residents, generally speaking, are younger people, who are very likely much better off, and may even own motor cars, whereas the inhabitants of the existing area are older, and there are many old-age pensioners among them. I therefore feel that great hardship would be caused were they to lose their post office.
  I have received many letters on this subject, but I shall quote from only a few of them. The first is a rather long quotation but it really crystallises the whole case. It reads:
  "As I said in my letter to you they were shocked to hear it is to be closed and are also very worried. Some of them are very old, the oldest nearly 93 years, others 84 and many others are pensioners. They like their independence and if the post office is moved I am afraid they would lose that little bit of independence by having to ask other people to fetch their pensions for them. The post office in Parsonage Drive is a long walk and to get back to Rednal a very steep bank to climb. Some of them would never manage the walk—and the bad weather,"What will they do then? We could not expect them to go that long walk. I am a pensioner and live in the village and am thankful to say quite healthy, but even to me the walk to Parsonage Drive and back is hard going, so it would be two or three times further for folks who live away from the village. Admitted our post office is in an old cottage, but it has always served its purpose very well."
  Another of my correspondents writes:
  "This will cause great hardship to many old-age pensioners as well as inconvenience to those who get off the bus and call at the post office. I have an invalid mother and two aged aunts, and am frequently at the post office. I am appalled to think of the distance I shall have to walk in future."
  Another constituent says:
  "The Midland Red only run every hour from here, which means one hour's wait with
  826
  no seat and no shelter, and the journey is much too far for many of us to walk. The bus takes at least a quarter of an hour, whichever P.O. we can go to. I am 73 and I can assure you that this means great trouble and expense to me."
  It may seem a strange coincidence, but there are seven people who live in this neighbourhood who do magnificent work in copying into Braille articles from various publications for the benefit of the blind. The resulting packages are much too large to go into an ordinary post box and have to be posted at the nearest post office. To lose the facilities of a post office seems poor thanks for these benevolent people. One lady, who does this work for the National Deaf and Blind Helpers' League, is in her 87th year.
  In the Army, I was told that time spent on reconnaissance is not wasted, and I think that this applies in civilian cases, too. Although I know this area very well, I took the trouble to make a reconnaissance myself to look at the two alternative post offices. To get to one, one has to climb a very steep hill—and it is steep—and go about a mile. On the other hand, to get to the other post office that would be available means crossing an extremely dangerous and busy road, with a lot of fast-moving traffic on it, and then either crossing a piece of parkland—which, in winter, is ankle-deep in mud—or going a very long way round. I have seen for myself how very inconvenient the closing of this post office would be.
  Rednal has had this post office for over 100 years, and it is, therefore, not surprising that there is bitter resentment among its inhabitants about this proposed closure. I therefore hope that when my right hon. Friend considers all the arguments I have put forward on behalf of my constituents—arguments that they have putto me—he will change his mind and allow this post office to remain open. Incidentally, I am informed that there is a person who is quite prepared to run this post office in the future in conjection with his own shop. Therefore it should create no great problems.
  If my hon. Friend can agree, I can assure him that he will earn the respect and gratitude of all these first-class public-minded citizens of Worcestershire.
  4.10 p.m.
  The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Ray Mawby): I much appreciate the fair and reasonable way that my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Dance) has put his case both today and in all our contacts in the course of his pursuit of this matter. I am also glad to have the opportunity of explaining more fully to my hon. Friend the background to our proposals, as these quite evidently are troubling a number of his constituents.
  I am sorry that this should be so. As I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate, there is a limit to the number of sub-post offices which we can provide. We already have about 23,000. It is most important, therefore, that we should take advantage of any opportunity that may occur to make sure that each office is placed where it will be of greatest benefit to our customers. When, therefore, an office becomes vacant, either through the resignation of the sub-postmaster or through any other cause, it is our normal practice to review critically the disposition of the sub-post offices in the area before appointing a new sub-postmaster.
  Some of our older sub-post offices were established years ago and they tend, with the passing of time, to become less well situated to meet people's needs than they were. As building takes place around them, centres of population shift and the offices are no longer the focal points they were. It is important, therefore, that we should make these reviews and thus keep our arrangements as far as we can in step with developments. It is by no means infrequently that we find a move to a fresh site, even though it may not be a great distance away, provides a more equitable distribution of our counter services in present day circumstances.
  In this case the Postmaster of the Rednal sub-post office told us a little time ago that he wished to give up his office as soon as possible. The Rednal sub-office was opened about forty years ago and since then there have been many changes in the neighbourhood. I think it is true to say that the office provided a better centre for such post office counter business as there was in those early days than it does now.
  There has been considerable building development to the north of the office,
  828
  and to meet the needs of people living in this highly developed area we had to open a new sub-office in Edgewood Road, some two years ago. This office is considerably less than one mile away from the Rednal Office and inevitably it has taken away some of the business which used to be done there. I believe it is true that even now some people who go to the Rednal sub-office could just as conveniently, if not more conveniently, use the office in Edgewood Road.
  There has been other fairly extensive building development in the area but this also has tended to take place away from the Rednal office—to the south and the west—rather than in its immediate vicinity. It was in the light of these changes that it was decided after careful and anxious consideration that it would be right and in the interests of the majority of residents in the area to seek a fresh site in the Parsonage Drive district when the sub-postmaster of the Rednal sub-office told us that he wished to give up his office.
  It is true, as my hon. Friend has said, that the opening of the office in Parsonage Drive and the closing of the Rednal office will mean that some people will have further to go than they have now to do their post office business. I am afraid that this is inevitable. We cannot move any office any significant distance, however desirable the case may be, without adversely affecting somebody.
  Of course, I am seized of the point which my hon. Friend makes—it is important—that older estates tend to have a larger concentration of elderly people whereas newer estates tend to have more younger people. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that young married people, particularly young mothers, find it difficult at times to push a pram any considerable distance. There is, therefore, something to be said on both sides.
  Mr. Dance: I know some of these post offices, and I have been in them. I tell my hon. Friend frankly that the amount of business being done is so great that the delays are sometimes quite considerable. Is there not room for a third one there? There is the new, growing estate and, as I said, quite a lot of trade is going on there. In view of the increased trade, why not a third Post Office?
  Mr. Mawby: This, of course, is always a problem which we have to consider seriously. Is development such, or is it likely to be such in the near future, that one can take on another office? Several factors have to be taken into account. First, there is the amount of remuneration which each sub-postmaster can expect to receive. His remuneration is based upon the amount of business which he does in his particular office. If we open another office, there will obviously be an effect upon all the other offices in the area.
  Secondly, our system of payment of remuneration is such that we get more service for less money in a number of large offices than we should with a larger number of smaller offices. Therefore, there is the economic side of it from the Post Office's point of view. Moreover, one must take into account the effect upon established sub-postmasters who, in many instances, have involved themselves in considerable expense in trying to provide a service for their customers, if, without careful thought, the Post Office takes a course of action resulting in their remuneration being considerably reduced.
  I hope that I have given some idea of the many considerations which must be borne in mind in deciding whether to move an office to a place which seems to be nearer to the new centre of population or to keep the existing office and open an additional one. These matters have most carefully to be examined. I hope that my hon. Friend realises that the point he makes has been anxiously considered.
  Mr. W. R. Williams: The hon. Gentleman is making an important point about the legitimate aspirations of other sub-postmasters. I understand from him that the old office in Rednal has been there for 40 years.
  Mr. Dance: One hundred years.
  Mr. Williams: According to the official information, it has been there for 40 years. Apparently, it was in situ when the other two new offices were established. Therefore, it must have been realised at the time when the two new offices were instituted that the old office was, as it were, a reserved place for the Rednal sub-postmaster. It is only inci-
  830
  dental that he has retired from the business, is it not?
  Mr. Mawby: It is the fact that this question has arisen because of the wish of the sub-postmaster no longer to continue at this particular office. Presumably, this is because he is at present trying to operate two sub-post offices, one being the one we are talking of, the other being a new one. He may well have found that the business taken away by the new office has reduced his remuneration in this particular office, and it may well have proved too big a burden for him to continue to maintain two offices. However that may be, this was the situation in which we were placed by the sub-postmaster asking to be relieved of this post. In those circumstances, it is obvious that one had to have a look at the situation and ask whether circumstances had changed so much that it would have been in the interests of our customers to move this post office this short distance to bring it more into the centre of a modern developed area. These are the points we have had to consider.
  These new arrangements will mean that many people in the area, including retirement pensioners and residents on the estate near Parsonage Drive, will be nearer to a post office than they are now. I am assured that those who will benefit in this way outnumber those who will have further to go to reach a post office. For those who will have further to go and who do not wish to walk the extra distance there are bus services to Edgewood Road and Parsonage Drive.
  I take my hon. Friend's point that in making these journeys his constituents will not be able to take advantage of the free travel facilities which the Birmingham Corporation provides for pensioners on its buses as this is just outside the area in which these facilities operate. But if these people, or, for that matter, any other retirement pensioners, do not wish to make the journey to a post office to collect their pension they can arrange for a friend or a relative to collect it for them.
  I also take my hon. Friend's point—it is an important one—that elderly people feel a great sense of pride. This is a matter on which we do not make decisions without giving careful thought

  831
  to it because it is obvious that elderly people wish to continue to go to the post office to draw their own retirement pensions. But, as I say, there are arrangements to deal with the situation and a number of retirement pensioners have taken advantage of the opportunity to have someone else collect their pension for them.
  It is true, as my hon. Friend pointed out to me, that people going from the Barnt Green Road and Lickey Coppice areas to the new office in Parsonage Drive will have to negotiate the hills in Grovelly Lane or Ten Ashes Lane. On the other hand, people who live towards the west end of Grovelly Lane and who at present have to negotiate the hills in this road to reach the Rednal post office will be saved this trouble. There are the bus services which I have mentioned to Edgewood Road and Parsonage Drive which people who wish to avoid walking up and down the hills in question can use.
  My hon. Friend has sent on to me protests from three or four people—and this afternoon he has quoted some more—who do not wish to see a change, and I have received the petition signed by about 300 people which I have considered very carefully. I am afraid that I cannot say that we have had compensating compliments or congratulations from those who will benefit from the change. But, when changes are made, it is not unknown for those who like them to be much less vocal than those who dislike them, and this case is no exception.
  There have been differences between my hon. Friend and myself about the character of the shopping facilities in the vicinity of the Rednal sub-office and in the Parsonage Drive district, and he enumerated them again this afternoon. But I assure him that I fully accept his point that there are a number of shops in the vicinity of the Rednal office. There are, of course, shops in the Parsonage Drive area, too.
  But the main question which we have to consider is whether or not the move of the sub-office to Parsonage Drive will improve the distribution of post office counter facilities in the area generally. I think, after very careful consideration,
  832
  that the answer to this question must be"Yes" and that more people, including retirement pensioners, will benefit than will be adversely affected by the move of the office. That is why we feel that it would be right to make the change to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention.
  Some people may feel that we should leave the sub-office in Rednal and provide a new one in Parsonage Drive as well. This is the view which my hon. Friend takes. We have considered this possibility, and I am afraid that I could not possibly justify the expense of doing this. We have to bear in mind that new sub-post offices do not increase the total amount of our business but simply divert business from existing offices. They do not, therefore, bring in any extra revenue, but they increase our costs.
  Mr. Dance: Surely, my hon. Friend must agree that a new housing estate with new houses creates more trade. I am not asking for three post offices for the same number of people. All these new housing estates are bringing in more people, so surely there should be more facilities.
  Mr. Mawby: Up to a point, I agree with my hon. Friend. We must, however, accept generally that people who move to a new estate are taking their business from a post office that they have bean accustomed to using, so that in many cases new business is not being attracted but business is merely being transferred from one point to another. Obviously, this is why we have always to consider whether the present siting of an office is the right one to give the best service to the majority of customers and also whether an office is adequate to give a full service to the number of people who will be using it at any one time.
  As I have said, our expenses would be increased without an equivalent increase in revenue from extra business. This is because our overhead costs rise with the number of offices and also because a sub-postmaster receives a certain minimum scale of pay however little business is transacted at his office. This means that we pay more money for the same amount of business if it is done at a number of small offices rather than at fewer larger offices.

  833
  Everybody would like to have a post office near to his home and, as I have said, we do our best to place our offices so that they are convenient to as many people as possible. We must, however, pay regard to economy and try to hold a balance between the needs of the public and what we can reasonably spend on providing post offices. We have found that we can best hold the balance by placing our offices in districts like Rednal not less than a mile apart. A new office in Parsonage Drive would be well under a mile from Rednal and I am sorry that we simply could not justify having the two offices.
  As I said at the outset, I am grateful
  834
  to my hon. Friend for the courteous way in which he has dealt with the problem throughout. I am extremely sorry that I cannot give him satisfaction. This is a matter to which we have given serious consideration. I believe that we have taken the right action and that in time my hon. Friend's constituents will realise that in taking these steps, we have practised reasonable economy but are also providing a new situation in which there will be better service for a larger number of people in the area.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Four o'clock.