COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 25 April 1893)

§ LORD NORTON

, before the House went into Committee on this Bill, wished to say a few words upon it. It seemed to him, in the first place, a most objectionable piece of patchwork legislation upon a subject of very great importance. Some consolidation of the various Acts on the Statute Book relating to it was necessary in order to guard against gross abuses and great mischief arising, us was acknowledged by the fact that for throe years Consolidation Bills had come before their Lordships and had met with no opposition. Instead of guarding against the Statute Book becoming more and more loaded with this patchwork legislation, they were now proceeding with another little Bill on the subject, not only complicating the law, but it had the additional disadvantage and mischief of legislating for Scotland only upon a subject in which England was equally interested. It certainly showed that for carrying out Home Rule a separate Legislature was not required if subjects of equal interest to England and Scotland were to be treated separately and fragmentarily for the two countries without any reason whatever. If these little one-clause Bills were dangerous in themselves, more especially were they so at a time like the present, when the attention of Parliament was engrossed by the consideration of a subject of enormous importance to the Empire, and they were consequently slipped through almost without Parliament knowing anything of them. They simply provided food for the lawyers to the great embarrassment of those engaged in carrying out an important public work. The one object of this little Bill for amending the Reforma- 1118 tory Law in Scotland was simply to enact one clause out of the Consolidation Bill which their Lordships had had for three years before them—nothing more nor less. Being actually a clause which they had considered equally applicable to England and Scotland, it was now made the subject of a Bill for Scotland alone. The existing law under the Act of 1866, which the Bill proposed to amend upon this particular point, was that a youthful offender—a child criminal—might, after being committed for 10 days to prison, be sent to a reformatory. However, if consolidation could not be effected, and if they were to deal with the subject by patchwork, be would ask leave to introduce another Bill for England very much like that now before them for Scotland, only expressed, he thought, in better language, because it would not only propose that children convicted of criminal offences might be sent elsewhere than to prison, but, it would entirely separate the penal treatment of such children from their school training. He thought the greatest possible mischief would be done by this Bill, providing by its language that, in addition to any other punishment, the children were to be sent to school; that was to say, that the school was to be part of their punishment, and the criminal character of the children's treatment was to continue throughout the whole period until the age of 19; in fact, they were to be educated as criminals. That was so mischievous that he would rather see reformatories given up altogether than have the children's education so carried out. He was simply protesting against the Bill, and did not propose attempting to amend it. On the contrary, he would try, as he had said, to introduce a parole Bill for England upon the subject, but, as he thought, better worded. He wished Lord Balfour bad himself introduced this Bill into their Lordships' House, for he was quite convinced he would have introduced it in a much better shape. It was, he repeated, one of those little Bills which came before the Standing Committee almost every day, and were passed by the other House—which was at present occupied with a great measure which engrossed its attention—certainly without any adequate discussion whatever. He merely desired now to give notice that he would ask their Lordships' leave 1119 to introduce a parole Bill for England at the earliest opportunity.