HC Deb 26 July 1967 vol 751 cc872-3

Lords Amendment: No. 63, in page 35, line 23, at end insert: A probation officer under whose supervision a woman or girl is placed in pursuance of an order under section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, or any provision of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, may be a man or a woman, and accordingly paragraph 4(2) of Schedule 5 to the said Act of 1948 and paragraph 13 of Schedule 1 to the Children and Young Persons Act, 1963 (which provide that the officer must be a woman) shall cease to have effect".

Miss Bacon

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

At present, the probation officer supervising a woman or a girl must be a woman, but the National Association of Probation Officers regards this as unnecessarily restrictive. Although in general it might be right that supervision should usually be exercised by an officer of the same sex as the person under supervision, I think it would be better and would accord more with the practice in child care and other welfare services to leave the choice of the sex to the supervising officer.

Question put and agreed to.