HL Deb 18 July 1893 vol 14 cc1794-7

House in Committee (according to Order).

Clause 1.

*LORD NORTON moved an Amendment which, he said, was absolutely necessary in order to avoid treating reformatory schools as places of punishment. The noble Earl (the Earl of Cranbrook), on the Second Reading, had said he considered reformatories were prisons; and, if that were so, the Bill might be left as it was. If reformatories were prisons, what was the use of the clause for keeping children out of the common gaols? His object was to avoid reformatories being treated, as in this Bill, as an addition to or in lieu of punishment, instead of as places of education after punishment. He could hardly conceive anybody proposing that children convicted of criminal offences should besides punishment be imprisoned for five years. To inflict five years' imprisonment on a child after punishment was to treat him far worse than an adult criminal was treated. The original and essential idea of a reformatory was exactly the reverse—that after being punished for his crime the youthful offender should be sent to a place where he could be better educated. He remembered when Sir William Harcourt once visited as Home Secretary, the reformatory he (Lord Norton) had established at Birmingham, which had always been regarded as one of the best in the Kingdom, he immediately asked, "Have none of these children decent homes to go to?" and on being told they had, he suggested that they should be sent home and educated in the national schools. To inflict five years' penal treatment on a child who had been punished for his offence was adverse to the spirit of our laws, which made allowance for infants under years of discretion. Besides, keeping up the idea of imprisonment during childhood defeated to a great extent the purpose of a reformatory. It stigmatised the child in his own consciousness and in the estimation of possible employers. These children were shut out of the Army and Navy, unless they were got in by evasion. His noble Friend (the Earl of Cranbrook) also said that the penal school did not taint a child's character, and that the taint was in the crime. Was no harm done to the child by keeping up that taint during his whole childhood, thereby depriving him of his self-respect, and preventing people employing him? Home Secretaries were generally inclined to keep reformatories as a sort of province of the Home Office, and were afraid of their getting under the Education Department, as they ought to be. The object of a reformatory was to obliterate the child's criminal associations, and to train him from neglect, and fit him for honest and respectable life. Certainly, much good had been done in that way, though often by an evasion of law; and there could be no doubt that injury was done, not only to the community, but to the children themselves, by keeping them under criminal treatment.

Amendment moved, In Clause 1, line 14, to leave out from ("may") to ("sentencing") and to insert ("after, or without.")—(The Lord Norton.)

LORD LEIGH

said, he hoped his noble Relative would not press his Amendment. A reformatory was, in fact, a penal school. He did not think the words proposed to be introduced into the clause would meet the noble Lord's views. The great object was to free the reformatories from anything of a penal character, and the Bill was to do away with the previous imprisonment of youthful offenders. Once in the reformatory they would be as little in a prison as they would be in any other school, though still under detention. As Lord Onslow had said on the previous occasion, Magistrates refused to send children to reformatories at all, because they would have to send them first to prison. The Bill was exactly on the lines of the Scotch Act, which became law this Session; and as the proposed alteration might wreck the Bill, he urged the noble Lord not to press the Amendment.

LORD VERNON

said, Lord Norton's views on this subject would always receive the greatest consideration at the Home Office. Having expressed those views, and those views having been recorded, he was directed to ask the noble Lord to withdraw his Amendment at present and bring it forward in Standing Committee, as the Government had an intention of obtaining, if possible, the leave of the promoters of the Scotch Act to repeal it, so that they might bring forward a measure to assimilate the Scotch and English Acts.

LORD NORTON

said, he was willing to accept the noble Lord's suggestion, and to bring forward the Amendment in. Standing Committee.

LORD BALFOUR

said, the announcement made by Lord Vernon excited some curiosity on his part, and he should like to know under what circumstances the noble Lord proposed to take the course suggested, and also whether it was possible for an Act to be repealed in the Session in which it had been passed?

LORD VERNON

said, he was not in a position to answer the noble Lord; but he was told at the Home Office that such a, course was possible.

THE EARL OF BELMORE

said, that a precedent for the course suggested existed in a Game Act relating to Ireland, a provision in it having been repealed in the same Session in which it was passed.

Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 2.

LORD NORTON

proposed a similar Amendment in this clause. He thought it was wrong that these children should be sentenced at all. When a child was convicted a second time he ought to be punished.

Amendment moved, In Clause 2, line 22, to leave out from ("offender") to ("but") in line 24, and to insert ("if sentenced to imprisonment shall not be sent to a common gaol").—(The Lord Norton.)

LORD LEIGH

said, he was willing to accept the Amendment.

LORD VERNON

said, the Government was opposed to this Amendment also, because they could not see any difference between a "prison" as suggested and a common gaol. It was suggested that these children should be imprisoned, but not sent to gaol; and he could only suppose that had reference to cells in the reformatories or other places. He hoped, therefore, the noble Lord would not now press the Amendment.

LORD NORTON

said, he was willing to leave the matter in the noble Lord's hands, but begged him to bear in mind that the Mover of the Bill had consented to the alteration.

Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment; and re-committed to the Standing Committee.