§ Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Strachie.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ Clause 2:
§ Grant of licences.
§ 2.—(1) A police magistrate may grant a licence in such form as the Secretary of State may prescribe, and subject to such restrictions and conditions as the police magistrate thinks fit, for any young person to go out of the United Kingdom for the purpose of singing, playing, performing, or being exhibited for profit, but no such licence shall be granted unless the police magistrate is satisfied—
- (a) that the application for the licence is made by or with the consent of the parent or guardian of the young person;
- (b) that the young person is going out of the United Kingdom in order to fulfil a particular engagement;
- (c) that the young person is lit for the purpose;
- (d) that proper provision has been made to secure the health, kind treatment, and adequate supervision of the young person whilst abroad and his return to the United Kingdom at the expiration or revocation of the licence;
- (e) that a copy of the contract of employment or other document, showing the terms and conditions of employment, drawn up in a language understood by the young person, has been furnished to the young person.
§ (2) A licence under this section shall not be granted for more than three months, but may be renewed by a police magistrate from time to time for a like period, but no such renewal shall be granted unless the police magistrate is satisfied by a report of a British consular officer or other trustworthy person that the conditions of the licence are being complied with.
§ (3) Where a person applies for a licence or the renewal of a licence under this section he shall at least seven days before making the application give notice thereof to the chief officer of the police for the district in which the young person resides or resided, and that officer may make a report in writing on the case to the police magistrate, or may appear or instruct some person to appear before the police magistrate hearing the application and show cause why the licence should not be granted or renewed, and the police magistrate shall not grant or renew the licence unless he is satisfied that notice has been properly so given. The notice given by the applicant shall be accompanied by a copy of the contract of employment or other, document showing the terms and conditions of employment, which copy shall be sent by the chief officer of police to the police magistrate.
§ (4) The police magistrate to whom application is made for the grant or renewal of a licence under this section shall, unless be is satisfied that under the circumstances it is unnecessary, require the applicant to give such security, either 400 by entering into a recognisance with or without sureties or otherwise, as he may think fit for the observance of the restrictions and conditions contained in the licence, and the recognisance may be enforced in like manner as a recognisance for the doing of some matter or thing required to be done in a proceeding before a court of summary jurisdiction is enforceable.
§ (5) In any proceeding for enforcing a recognisance under this section, a report of any British consular officer, and any deposition made on oath before a British consular officer and authenticated by the signature of that officer respecting the observance or non-observance of any of the conditions or restrictions contained in a licence granted under this Act, shall, upon proof that the consular officer or deponent cannot be found in the United Kingdom, be admissible in evidence; and it shall not be necessary to prove the signature or official character of the person appearing to have signed any such report or deposition.
§ (6) Where a licence is granted under this section, the police magistrate shall send to the Secretary of State for transmission to the proper consular officer such particulars as the Secretary of State may by regulation prescribe, and every consular officer shall register the particulars so transmitted to him and perform such other duties in relation thereto as the Secretary of State may direct.
§ (7) A licence granted under this section may be revoked by the police magistrate at any time if he is satisfied that any of the conditions on which the licence was granted are not being complied with.
*LORD SHEFFIELDMy Lords, I have on the Paper an Amendment which I moved to Clause 2 on Report, but the noble Lord in charge of the Bill then complained that he had not received notice of the Amendment, and I thereupon withdrew it and intimated that I would put it down for this stage. My Amendment is to insert in subsection (3), after the words "chief officer of police" where they first occur, the words "and to the local education authority," and I should like briefly to explain why I press this Amendment. It will be within the recollection of your Lordships that my point is that power of taking action on behalf of these young persons in order to bring the facts before the Police magistrate, to whom is given the power of granting the licence, should be vested at any rate concurrently in the local education authority. As the subsection at present stands, the person making the application has to give previous notice thereof to the chief officer of police for the district in which the young person resides, and it is that officer who has to make a report on the case to the Police magistrate hearing the application. The object of my Amendment is to secure that the person making the application shall also give notice to the local education authority.
401 The noble Lord in charge of the Bill did not seem to appreciate that local education authorities have an interest in a number of young people considerably beyond the age of fourteen. It has been the steady policy of Parliament to give them that interest. In the Children Employment Act, 1903, the local education authority was made the authority under the Act, In the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act 1901, it is true, there is very similar machinery to that contained in this Bill. The noble Lord seemed to object to my use of the word "child" as applied to young persons over the age of fourteen years. In the Act of 1904, which was a Rome Office measure, the definition is "a child tinder sixteen" shall not be apprenticed except under certain conditions, and for the purposes of that Act the authority in England is a Court of Petty Sessions and the application for a licence has to be made to the Police. That might seem to be a precedent for bringing in the Police here.
But in 1909, in the Labour Exchanges Bill, the arrangements for the employment of young persons were put under the Board of Trade, and Mr. Churchill emphatically stated, during the progress of that Bill through the Rouse of Commons, that his wish was that the education authorities should be intimately associated with the work of finding employment for young persons. It was, he said, extremely important that some body should consider the question, not merely of securing employment, but of securing suitable employment which was not of the "blind-alley" description. Therefore there was full assurance then given that the education authorities would be closely associated with the administration of this provision. But when that Act became law and Mr. Sydney Buxton followed Mr. Churchill at the Board of Trade, those who were interested in these young people found a very dogged opposition on the part of the Board of Trade to allowing the education authorities to have any say in the matter at all; and the consequence was that in 1910 Parliament passed an Act amending the Act of 1909 and definitely requiring by Statute that the local education authorities should be associated in the arrangements for finding employment for these young persons. I wish to dwell upon what took place in connection with that Bill, because although the Home Office through their 402 representative in your Lordships' House have made slow and partial approaches to my contention, there is in the Bill now before us as it stands no provision introducing the local education authority. When this Bill was down for Committee Lord Stanhope had on the Paper an Amendment limited to the London County Council. That Amendment provided that the London County Council should be entitled to be heard and should have the same rights as the Police with reference to representing the case before the magistrate.
The noble Lord the Paymaster-General announced on the Second Reading of the Bill—on April 15 last—that he would meet Lord Stanhope as far as London was concerned and was prepared to agree that notice should be given to the county council, and when I subsequently asked whether he was speaking of the London County Council only or whether notice would be given to all county councils, Lord Strachie replied "the London County Council only." Nevertheless when we came to the Report, stage the noble Lord in charge of the Bill announced, on behalf of the home Office, that they intended to extend the concession to all local education authorities and not confine it to the case of the London County Council only. But unfortunately it appeared that the Home Office did not intend to do more than this, that the bare fact of the making of the application should be communicated to the local education authority of the district. The Bill as it is drafted gives nobody except the Police the right of appearing before the magistrate and making representations in the Police-court when the hearing of the application takes place. I submit that it is idle to think that you are doing anything for the local education authorities when you merely drop them a Police notice that somebody has applied for a licence to take a child abroad. The local education authority should know in time to be able to make representations should they desire to do so before the Police magistrate when he is hearing the application. The case which I have cited in connection with the Labour Exchanges Act shows how useless are assurances of goodwill on the part of representatives of Departments when conducting Bills through Parliament, and how important it is that statutory effect should be given in the Bill itself to what is agreed upon.
403 To follow out the precedents in favour of my Amendment, I may remind your Lordships that in Lord Shaftesbury's Bill dealing with the employment of children and young people, which was carried here in 1911, the education authorities were made the authorities under the Bill. Lord Beauchamp, who then spoke for the Home Office, said that Lord Shaftesbury had not quite correctly stated the fact when he said that his Bill was an exact reproduction of the recommendations of the Home Office Committee which had considered the matter, because the Bill vested the watchfulness over the children not only in the local education authorities but also in the Board of Education and not in the Home Office. But the Bill went down to the House of Commons with the local education authority as the authority vested with the control and supervision of the matter. In 1912 it was thought politic to introduce the same Bill, though strengthened, in the House of Commons, and there, again, the charge of the business was entrusted to the local education authorities. That Bill emerged safely from Standing Committee and was adopted by the Government and would have become law had it not been for the action of one or two resolute blockers who stopped it.
An interesting illustration of the fluctuating state of conviction of the Home Office on this matter is afforded by the fact that there is in the House of Commons at this moment a Bill introduced by the Home Office—Mr. Ellis Griffith's name is on the back of it—dealing with employment of children, and in that Bill the jurisdiction is vested in the education authority. It is curious that the Home Office should in the very same session be bringing in a Children's Bill in which they divest themselves of their jurisdiction in one respect and pass it on to the education authority, and yet at the same time in connection with another Children's Bill promoted by themselves they should refuse to give to the local education authorities the right of being heard and of bringing facts about these young people before the Police magistrate when he is adjudicating upon the application for a licence. I submit that it is absolutely necessary that we should maintain the continuity of legislation which for the past ten years has strenuously emphasised that those who are concerned in the education of the rising generation should be the persons interested in watching over their welfare after they have passed beyond 404 the age of compulsory school attendance. That has been the policy of the country; it is the policy of the Home Office in their Bill introduced in the other House this session by Mr. Ellis Griffith, and I submit that it is a policy which it is proper to pursue in connection with this Bill.
§
Amendment moved—
Clause 2 (3), page 2, line 31, after ("police") insert ("and to the local education authority").(Lord Sheffield.)
§ THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD STRACHIE)My Lords, I do not intend to follow my noble friend into the history of this matter, but he is wrong in saying that when this question was first raised—I think by Lord Stanhope on behalf of the London County Council—I stated that notice of the receipt of an application for a licence under the Bill would be given to the local education authority in the case of London only. I stated that notice would be given to all local education authorities, and I carried out that undertaking on the Report stage by making a direct declaration, on behalf of the Home Office, that in London the Police would be instructed to inform the London County Council whenever an application was made for a licence, and that the Police throughout the country would be requested to give similar information to their respective local education authorities when licences were applied for. I had hoped that that would have satisfied my noble friend, but apparently that is not the case.
I yield at once to the great authority and the great experience and genius of my noble friend Lord Sheffield in dealing with all questions of education, but I would ask the House in this case not to be led astray by an enthusiast who thinks that his particular authority must be brought into every relation of life. Why should you duplicate the authority whose duty it will be to see that licences are not granted to unfit applicants? If this clause dealt with children and not with young persons there would be something to be said for the noble Lord's contention that the educational body should be made the authority to deal with this question; but this clause is not concerned with children—it is concerned with young persons, with whom the local education authorities have nothing whatever to do. The noble Lord will say at once that that is no armament at all, 405 because the education authorities in some cases—very few indeed—have something to do with young persons, and I have no doubt the noble Lord would go further and say that he would like their powers largely extended in this direction; but on that I would say that he had better wait until an Education Bill has been introduced and passed giving these extended powers.
Undoubtedly the Home Office is the authority which ought to look after the interests of these Young persons. Under this clause an applicant for a licence or for the renewal of a licence has to give notice to the chief officer of Police of the district that he intends to make the application. The duty of the Police is to report in writing on the case, and the report made by the Police has to be sent on afterwards to the magistrate sitting at Bow-street Police Court. The making of the report will not he such an easy matter. Most careful inquiries will have to be made into the life and character of the applicant, and surely the Police are much more likely to know about these applicants than the education authority, who in ordinary circumstances have nothing whatever to do with these persons. It might happen that the local education authority would know about the applicant in cases where he had children attending the school of the local education authority, but in the great majority of cases these agents will be people not living in the district at all, and the local education authority have not the means which the Police possess of intercommunication between one district and another.
The clause also provides that the Police may appear before the Court and enter any objections they may think fit to the granting of a licence. Further, it is the duty of the Police, if they think it necessary to do so, to instruct a solicitor to appear on their behalf. It seems to me that in such a case as this the Police authority would be the most useful to whom to entrust this work. Why throw all this labour and expense on the education authority? Their primary duty is to look after the education of children, and not to inquire into the character of agents who propose to send young persons abroad. The noble Lord quoted the Act of 1910 as a precedent, but that Act is limited to one small particular. It is an Act to enable local education authorities to give boys and girls instruct- 406 tion, advice, and assistance in respect to the choice of employment. It is very natural and right that the education authority should be able to give such advice. But this is not a case of that nature. It is a case requiring an examination into the character of the men applying to send children abroad.
If the noble Lord wishes for precedents, I think a much stronger precedent is that of the Children Act of 1901 and of the Children Act of 1908, in both of which cases it is the Police and not the education authority who act. And if you take the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904, and look at subsection (3) of Section 3 you will find an exactly similar clause to this, in which the Police are made the authority as regards the licensing of children and young persons. On the other hand, the local education authority, where they think it desirable, often come before the magistrates under that section and express their opinion and give advice. It is perfectly clear that it is not necessary to give any locus standi to a local education authority in this matter, because the magistrate at Bow-street Police Court would be only too glad to take advantage of any information which the local education authority might be able to give by way of supplementing that of the Police.
The Home Office regard this Amendment as cumbersome and entirely unnecessary. Why lay on the education authority in this matter an obligation which can be more properly laid on the Police, and why duplicate the number of officers who will be required? Surely in these days we have sufficient public officials in connection with local affairs. By successive Acts of Parliament local authorities are constantly having more duties cast upon them and consequently more expense is thrown upon the rates. Complaint is made of this in my part of the country, though sometimes the increase in the number of officials is absolutely necessary. But here the proposed additional burden is gratuitous. The noble Lord asks for concurrent powers, with, of course, concurrent expenditure. This Bill was hung up for a good many years, and I should like to pay a tribute to the energy and activity of the Salvation Army with regard to this particular matter. Had it not been for the insistency with which they pressed it upon the attention of the Home Office it is doubtful whether the 407 Bill would have come forward this year. I have consulted the officer of the Salvation Army who has taken an active part in this matter for many years, and he entirely objects to the noble Lord's Amendment and considers that it would be a disadvantage to the Bin to have it included. He is entirely of the opinion held by the Home Office—that the Amendment is not only unnecessary but is objectionable, too.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYThe noble Lord opposite (Lord Sheffield) is, I venture to think, hard to please, because he has already made considerable progress with his wish that the education authority should have some voice in this matter. In my opinion there is great force in what Lord Strachie has said, that this Amendment would create an unnecessary duplication of authorities and make the matter very cumbersome. The kind of questions which the magistrate will have to consider are primarily matters which the Police can inform him of. For example, how could the education authority say whether the application for a licence is made by or with the consent of the parent or guardian of the young person? What opinion worth having have the education authority as to whether the young person is going out of the United Kingdom in order to fulfil a particular engagement? Again, how can they say whether proper provision has been made to secure the health, kind treatment, and adequate supervision of the young children whilst abroad? The local education authority knows nothing whatever of these matters. Then there is the provision that a copy of the contract of employment or other document showing the terms and conditions of employment shall have been furnished to the young person. All these are matters with which, of course, the local education authority has nothing whatever to do. The only other question is whether the young person is fit for the purpose. That is primarily a medical question, and I imagine that that is the source from which the information would be obtained. What you want to get information about is this—what sort of people are the parents? That is really the point, whether the parents are people who can be trusted and whether the application is a bona fide one. Are the local education authority the proper authority to investigate these matters? Obviously not. The Police are the proper authority. I agree that it is right that the education authority should be consulted, 408 but I do not think they ought to be placed in the position of acting a principal part in the matter and perhaps reporting differently from the Police, with the result that the magistrate would he left in great confusion as to what was the real state of affairs.
*LORD SHEFFIELDI merely rise to make a personal explanation. I should be sorry if it were thought that I had misled your Lordships or misstated the facts. In saying that the noble Lord in charge of the Bill at first only conceded the right to receive notice to the London County Council I am confirmed by the OFFICIAL REPORT. Speaking on the Second Reading of the Bill on April 15 I said—the noble Lord will find it at page 98 of Hansard—"I do not know whether the noble Lord, in saying that notice would be given to the county council, was speaking only of the London County Council, or whether notice would be given to all county councils," and the noble Lord replied "The London County Council only."
§ LORD STRACHIEThe report is wrong, I may inform the noble Lord.
§ On Question, Amendment negatived.
§ Bill passed and sent to the Commons.