§ 15. Mr. Iremongerasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what initiative he is taking to promote schemes calculated to identify the sources of future delinquency and to change antisocial attitudes in children in secondary schools.
§ The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Anthony Crosland)The Schools Council has a great deal of work in hand in connection with the raising of the school-leaving age which will contribute to these objectives. In addition I am contributing to five research projects designed, among other things, to shed light on these problems. The total cost of these projects is about £200,000.
§ Mr. IremongerI thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply and urge him to pursue this in the light of the certain fact that the root and heart of the problem of crime in modern society lies in his Department and not in that of the Home Secretary.
§ Mr. Raphael TuckDoes not my right hon. Friend think that a change in antisocial attitudes might be furthered by the introduction of carefully planned programmes on the television rather than all the sex and violence programmes to which teen-agers are subjected?
§ Mr. CroslandI believe that we do not know nearly enough for certain about 701 exactly what the causes of these antisocial attitudes are. It is only a minority of the children who have them, but we are all disturbed and puzzled about the causes. The best thing we can do is to encourage research in all directions we can.