INVESTIGATIONS BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES (Hansard, 9 June 1969)

§ Mr. Carlisle
I beg to move Amendment No. 36, in page 11, line 13, leave out subsection (1).

Mr. Deputy Speaker
It might be for the convenience of the House to discuss at the same time Amendment No. 40, in page 11, line 24, leave out 'health'.
1118 Amendment No. 45, in line 27, leave out 'mentioned in subsection (1) of this section', and insert: 'before whom proceedings are brought under section 1 of this Act'. Amendment No. 47, in line 28, leave out 'aforesaid' and Amendment No. 48, in line 30, leave out 'the matters aforesaid', and insert: 'the school record, health, and character of the child or young person in question'.

§ Mr. Carlisle
The Clause, which has raised a considerable degree of controversy from time to time, deals with the question of reports to the courts when children or young persons are brought before them. The Clause as it stands lays a duty on the local authority when any young person or child is being brought before the court on the basis either of care proceedings or of prosecution to make reports to the court about the person's home surroundings, school record, health and general character.
The short issued raised, and the issue between us, is who are the right people who should make the reports to the courts in proceedings of this kind. The argument against the Clause as it stands is clear and is summed up by the fact that there is a grave danger that people will feel that the local authority, through its children's officer, is to be the prosecuting authority, the reporting authority to the court and, at the same time, the treatment agency to which the court eventually sentences the person.
It is felt very strongly, particularly by the probation service, that to give this power of making reports to the court will effect, or give the impression of effecting, the impartiality of the court.
Many people will be brought before the court as being in need of care or control where the local authority has already failed; or they will be brought before the court because the local authority has decided that there are grounds for suggesting that they are in need of care or control or because the local authority, having already been consulted, a prosecution is to be brought. In every one of these cases the local authority is to a large extent the body behind the prosecution or is bringing the person before the court. If the same agencies which prosecute are to be the agencies which make the reports to the court, it may be clear from the child's point of view that 1119 those reports are bound to be bad, because if they were not bad then the local authority would not have brought the proceedings. The reports are bound, from the child's point of view, to appear to be other than impartial. During 1967, for example, the probation service, which normally makes these reports, made some 67,000 written reports to the courts. By putting that duty in future on the local authority one is yet again increasing the work of the children's officers.
I ask the Home Secretary to consider whether this Clause as it stands is necessary. The local authority, under Clause 1, is already required before bringing proceedings to be satisfied that there are grounds for bringing them. Under Clause 2, it is required to make inquiries itself when proceedings are to be brought. It seems unnecessary that it should also be given the power to make reports to the court when the court is deciding what to do with the person concerned. Surely it is far better that these reports should come, as at present, from the probation service, which is recognised as being impartial and there to serve the judiciary. Obviously, under Schedule 5 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, the court can already require the probation service to make the reports
I shall not go into detail on the Amendments we are discussing with Amendment No. 35 but the purpose is, first to do away with the duty of local authorities to provide reports in advance to the court; secondly, to leave the situation as it is whereby, normally, under local arrangement the reports are made by the probation service on the home surroundings of the child; and thirdly, merely to put on the local authority the same duty as at the moment rests on the probation service, whereby, if, when the matter comes before the court, the court in its wisdom asks the local authority for a report on the school record, the health and character of the child, just as it may have received a report from the probation officer on the home surroundings, the local authority should be under a duty to provide that report. I believe that, if we do this, we will ensure that the reports given by the probation officer directly to the court continue to be independent and that we will avoid the grave danger, which many people see in the Clause as it stands, that the local 1120 authority will be cast in the rôle of prosecutor, adviser to the court and the body which eventually deals with the person concerned as well.

§ Mr. Gilbert Longden (Hertfordshire, South-West)
A particularly objectionable feature of the Clause is that it imposes a duty on the local authorities to make a report upon the health of a child or young person. As the Home Secretary will know, the British Medical Association fears that the Clause will impose on medical officers of health a duty to reveal confidential medical details in court. As the right hon. Gentleman will also know, the principle at the moment is that the court can insist upon medical evidence about the health of an individual only by serving a subpoena on a medical witness and requiring him to answer questions. The Clause will undermine that principle if the word "health" is left in it. That is the object of Amendment No. 40 which, together with this Amendment, I commend to the House.

§ Mr. Callaghan
I am not sure about a subpoena. My understanding is that this subsection replaces Section 35 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, and that Section places on local authorities the duty to provide the juvenile court with information about the home surroundings, school record, health and character of a child or young person appearing before the court. If that is so, and I understand that it is, this responsibility and duty must have existed for the last 36 years without attracting at any rate a great deal of adverse criticism; so I doubt whether there is much in this point.
The health of a child may be very germane to the case. If the parents did not like what was said about the child's health, there would be absolutely nothing to prevent them from calling their own family doctor if they wished either to amplify or refute what had been said. I can think of a number of cases when what was happening to the health of the child would be of great importance to the court, and I hope that that Amendment will not be pressed.
The hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) started by saying that the question was who should make the report. I agree that that is what we are discussing and there cannot be any large issue 1121 of principle about it. I understand that the probation officers wish still to make the report. They were brought into this at a time when there was no children's service—this derives from the 1933 Act—but since then we have required the local authority to make reports about the school record, the health, and the character of the child. That is already laid down and will continue to be laid down and it would be an unnecessary bifurcation if we said that, the local authority having provided all these reports through the children's service, it was for the probation officer to tell the court about the child's home surroundings.
If the children's service did not exist, there would be a case for saying that, but the service does exist and I see no reason why we should divide the responsibility as suggested when the local authority is aware of the circumstances of the home. It therefore seems sensible to say that the local authority shall have the duty of providing all this information.
Again, I make no attack on the probation service, but we should not continue rôles for a service if there are other agencies as well or better fitted to do the job, and no hon. Member would want us to do so. Because of the way in which the service has grown up, the children's service is generally well aware of the circumstances of the home because it is often in and out of the home.
The hon. Gentleman said that he did not want to discuss the Amendments in detail. That is probably because he realised that if they were passed they would repeal a law which has stood for more than 30 years, and there would then be no duty on local authorities to obtain and provide this information, and he obviously would not want that.

§ Mr. Carlisle
More obviously for the reason that I drafted them and knew that they would be wrongly drafted.

§ Mr. Callaghan
I do not take the technical point, but this would be the case for not pressing this to a Division. It was wrong in any case in principle to say that the local authority should not provide this information unless and until the court asked for it, because that would mean an adjournment. The hon. Gentleman has pressed on me on several occasions the delay that may arise, and 1122 this could create an additional period of delay, especially in rural areas, where juvenile courts meet at irregular intervals.
It be a remarkable proposition, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not wish to sustain, that with that information about a child's educational record in the hands of the local authority, the probation officer should then go to the local authority and ask for the record to pass it on to the court. As the local authority will be doing this, it seems to be commonsense that it should cut out this intermediate stage and provide the information. I hope, without dealing with the technicalities, that on the merits of the case the hon. Gentleman will not wish to press the Amendment.

§ Mr. Silvester
There is one aspect with which the Home Secretary has not dealt which is in the minds of local authorities, and that is the increased burden being placed on children's officers. He said, quite rightly, that if there were no children's departments it would be all right and we could carry on with the probation service. As I understand it, 38 per cent. of the home investigations are being conducted by the service. His argument, although true for the future, perhaps, is still weak at present, and at some stage I hope that he will be able to give to local authorities a further assurance on this point, which is worrying them—where will they get the people to carry out this additional task?

§ Mr. Callaghan
If I may just say a further word here. I have said that the various stages of the Bill will be brought into force at a time when the administrative structure will bear the burden placed upon it. A much larger number of officers is being trained. I hope and believe that the probation service will still be used in a number of cases, although less so in future. Clearly no one will introduce these various changes until we can be certain that the structure will bear the proposed changes. That applies to a number of phases in the Bill.

§ Mr. Carlisle
Having heard the Home Secretary, and in view of his comments on the drafting, I obviously would not want to press the Amendment to a Division. I do not think that he has answered the point I made about the same authority doing all the various matters. Since I know that it would be said earlier that 1123 the powers of the probation officer to make reports through the courts would still continue, and having ventilated the matter again, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.