§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL rose to ask His Majesty's Government what action they propose to take to implement the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Social Services in Police 633 Courts; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I feel certain that you will agree with me that the first words spoken by the opening speaker on the first Motion before us this afternoon should be words of thanks and praise for those who have been responsible for this very remarkable document, a Departmental Report which combines in peculiarly British fashion the qualities of humanitarianism and solid common sense. I am thinking first and foremost of the members of this small Committee which has been sitting for the last year and a half. We have the great good fortune of having one member of this body present with us this afternoon on the Benches opposite. But I am thinking also of all those who in the last few years have been doing their level best to give a lead to public opinion in this matter, and to urge upon the Government the necessity for a thorough inquiry with a view to taking any practical steps that may be advisable. Your Lordships' House has played a very considerable part. I feel convinced that it was owing to the intervention of several noble Lords belonging to all the different Parties in your Lordships' House and owing to the intervention of the most reverend Primate that the Government ultimately decided that this Committee ought to be appointed. I am sure your Lordships will agree with me that very special mention should be made of the unremitting efforts of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Merrivale. He went so far as to introduce a measure in your Lordships' House and succeeded in carrying it through all its stages—not only a very notable achievement in itself, but a very convincing testimony to the importance which he attaches to the reforms that are suggested in this Report.
§ There has been also a very considerable movement of opinion outside the Houses of Parliament. I would like to mention particularly the writings of the Metropolitan Police Magistrate, Mr. Claud Mullins, and the example he has set by the methods adopted for the treatment of matrimonial cases in his court. It is, I think, peculiarly refreshing to find a member of the legal profession taking the lead in legal reform, because that is the direction naturally in which the public look. When we remember that the police courts affect most closely the lives of those citizens who 634 have recourse to the law in this country, we must be particularly grateful to the professional magistrates who set an example that may easily be followed by the rest of their profession and that may lead ultimately to the passing of measures through Parliament to improve the condition of law and procedure.
§ There can, I think, be no doubt at all that whatever effect this Report may have its most important effect will be to give a strong impetus to the cause of legal and social reform. This small body of extremely competent individuals has been working solidly for a year and a half. It has heard a great number of witnesses, it has sifted the evidence, and after prolonged consideration it has reached certain conclusions which are embodied in this Report. Those conclusions relate partly to the treatment accorded to matrimonial cases in the police courts and partly to the working of the probation service. In both cases the Committee recommend certain very drastic and far-reaching reforms. There can be no doubt, I think, that reforms that are sponsored in this manner will have a considerable influence in many circles among those who study the Report. I am thinking, of course, to some extent of those who legislate, who naturally wish to consult expert opinion of this kind, but I am also thinking of those who are in any way concerned with the administration of justice in courts of summary jurisdiction. It would be extremely pleasant if one could believe that this small volume would become the vade mecum of all Stipendiary Magistrates and of all the justices of the peace wherever they may be at work throughout the country.
§ Now I will very briefly—because there is a great deal of business upon the Order Paper this afternoon—proceed to ask your Lordships' attention for the main recommendations contained in this Report, and to ask the Government what steps they intend to take to make them practical and effective. The two main problems with which the Report deals—that of difficulties between husbands and wives, and difficulties for their children arising out of them, and that of the state of the probation service—are, on a long view, certainly indissoluble. It is perfectly evident that we cannot exploit the machinery of conciliation to the utmost 635 in quarrels between husbands and wives unless we have a certain number of well-trained probation officers. On a long view, the state of the probation service is of the utmost consequence to the treatment of these matrimonial cases in the police courts, but unfortunately we are precluded by the nature of the particular circumstances from taking a long-term view. If we were to do so, it would mean postponing all action for a very considerable period of time.
§ Why is this? The reasons are very clear and very simple. The most important recommendations in this Report in regard to the probation services are very drastic. I know that there are many who will agree with me that they are excellent in quality; at the same time I am fully convinced that there are many who will say that, because they are so sweeping, they are at the moment impracticable. In the first place, there can be no doubt that they are controversial. The suggestion that the probation service should be organised on national lines and become a national service is one which we on these Benches naturally welcome and which will find a great deal of support in many different quarters, but it is also one that is bound to meet with opposition among different bodies and from many influential individuals. That is the first reason why it is going to be difficult to get progress with these recommendations affecting the probation service.
§ The second reason is this. Owing to the necessity of improving the technique of probation, for increasing the number of probation officers, for providing adequate remuneration, for giving them the proper training without which they could not discharge their functions, the Committee have been obliged to recommend that the Government should spend more money on this social service. The sum in question is ludicrously small: it is a matter, in the first year, of only £25,000, a very minute item in a Budget of £800,000,000. But it is perfectly comprehensible that when the country is faced with the necessity of feeding those services which provide for the national defences, it is obliged to neglect those services that provide at home for the welfare of the common people. That is why I fear that this recommendation, involving additional expenditure, will mean that the Government 636 will be unable to take action in this respect. At the same time I should like to say that we on these Benches welcome the proposal that this great service, ministering to the welfare of so many thousands of human beings, should be organised on national lines and accepted as a national responsibility.
§ Those are the reasons why it is necessary to separate the two problems and to treat the question of matrimonial cases independently of the organisation of the probation service. The Government will have no excuse to give if they refuse to take action upon the recommendation regarding the treatment of husband-and-wife cases in the police court. These recommendations are really uncontroversial; I know of nobody who opposes them in principle. They do not involve the addition of one extra farthing to the annual Budget. I am not saying that they should be implemented in full detail; I am simply urging that the principles outlined in the main recommendations should become the basis for a Bill which the Government should see passed through both Houses of Parliament.
§ The fundamental principles which are contained in these recommendations and which cannot be omitted from any Bill which may be introduced are these. In the first place, it should become mandatory on all magistrates and justices of the peace to hear cases of this kind separately from the ordinary criminal cases that come before the police courts. At present this is a matter left to the discretion of the bench. There are some magistrates who have already adopted this procedure, but it can only become universal if an obligation is placed upon the magistrates by an addition to our Statute law. The second proposal is that the number of justices sitting on the bench should be limited and that among these there should be at least one woman. In order that the atmosphere may be totally different from that which prevails when a man is charged, say, with petty theft or with negligence in driving a car, and that it should be more informal, the number of justices should be limited. There can be no doubt that a large bench exercises a very terrifying influence on men and women who have to come and tell their story before it, and the importance of having at least one woman among the magistrates is 637 that, in order to be able to sift truth from falsehood, it is necessary to have somebody who understands the kind of point of view that a wife is likely to express.
§ But even more important than the last recommendation is the proposal that attendance in court of those who wish to listen to proceedings should be limited to individuals who have a good reason for being there; that is to say, to members of the court, the people concerned with the business of the court on the administration side and all those immediately concerned in the case itself. This would exclude on the one hand the idle sightseers, the local unemployed who come because they have nothing better to do and want a little entertainment of a very doubtful kind, and on the other hand the venomous neighbour—unfortunately, venomous neighbours are not by any means the exception—who goes to a case of this kind in order to find material for gossip and possibly for slander. It would in no way mean a drastic alteration in the existing law; it would simply involve a provision in the Children and Young-Persons Act, 1933, being extended to cover this class of case. Then, besides limiting the "quality" of those who attend and seeing that they are there for a really adequate reason, it ought to be possible to restrict newspaper reports of proceedings to the essential and necessary facts of the case. It is exceedingly unpleasant for difficulties of this kind to be reported in detail in the columns of the daily Press. It ought to be possible to prevent this catering for unpleasant appetites and also to prevent to some extent any very sensational presentation of facts, which is harmful in itself and specially injurious to the parties concerned. This, again, would mean no gagging of the Press, no interference with the liberty of the Press beyond that which is allowed by the existing law. It simply means that a provision that at present applies to the Divorce Court should be extended to cover this class of case in the police courts.
§ These are, I think, the four principal recommendations of this Committee as they affect matrimonial cases, and what I wish particularly to ask my noble friend opposite, when he answers on behalf of the Government, is what action he 638 intends to take to implement those recommendations of this Committee which have in principle already received your Lordships' approval, and which are of so practical a nature that no serious objection has been raised against them in any quarter. I am referring, of course, to the recommendations about the handling of matrimonial cases, and I think we are entitled to ask the noble Earl, if he says that the Government intend to take action, what particular form that action will take. We should clearly like a Bill introduced with the full weight of the Government behind it. That, possibly, is asking more than the Government will be prepared to give, but if not can my noble friend opposite assure us that the Government will give support to a Private Members' Bill introduced into your Lordships' House; and, supposing your Lordships return the same verdict as you returned a short time ago on the Bill of the noble and learned Lord opposite, Lord Merrivale, which contained in principle exactly the same proposition, will the Government do all in their power to provide time in another place for the final passage of this measure? Those are questions which I am sure my noble friend will agree with me are perfectly fair and perfectly legitimate. I beg to move the Motion for Papers standing in my name.
§ LORD SNELLMy Lords, if no other of your Lordships proposes to speak on this matter I would like to say, on behalf of my noble friends, that we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Listowel for putting his Question on the Paper, because it deals with a matter which we regard as very urgent although not perhaps of a dramatic kind. I have myself had the privilege of taking some interest in this matter for a good many years, and it is merely to relate in a few words my special experience in regard to it that I venture to trouble your Lordships at all. I did for many years, in another place, introduce a Bill which attempted to establish in this country Courts of Domestic Relations. The need for that seemed to me at that time, and has always seemed to me, to be obvious, first, because the police courts were not and are not places most suitable for dealing with difficulties of that kind, and secondly, because the magistrates are like other people, suitable, some of them, for a particular class 639 of work and unsuitable for other classes of work. Some of the magistrates whose main duties are in other directions have neither the training nor the time to deal with these most delicate and yet really important family questions. The time of magistrates gets more and more taken up with traffic incidents. The courts are filled with policemen waiting to give evidence on traffic and other questions, and the whole atmosphere is entirely unsuitable for the transaction of this kind of work.
It was with that in my mind that some years ago I saw in America the way the problem was tackled there, and I had the privilege, at the invitation of various Judges of the Courts of Domestic Relations in New York, Chicago, St. Louis and other places, of sitting for days on the bench by the side of the Judge, listening to the cases and observing the way in which they were dealt with. I had the privilege of seeing the books, and of going into the whole details of the administration of this special work. The probation system is much more developed there than in our own country. My own judgment of it was that, although it was not uniformly good, yet the main results were excellent; and I cannot help feeling that if more opportunities and more power were given to those good Samaritans of the courts in our own land it would be for good. The noble Earl who has spoken said something about the expense. There would be some immediate expense, but all the experience of America and Canada is that money spent in this way saves the rates and the taxes from a prison population, and in other directions.
It is proved by statistics in America that a very large proportion of juvenile delinquents come from broken homes and from homes that might not have been broken had a system, roughly, such as is recommended by this Report been in operation. It was on those grounds that I ventured to introduce Bills in another place, but I was never fortunate enough to get time to have them considered. I do not imagine that we either could or should copy what is done in any other land. Our problem is rather different, and it is not our way in this country to abolish an evil, however bad it may be, at one fell stroke. We rather like to modify an evil, and so, although this 640 Report does not please me in the completeness of its recommendations, I do think it approaches a most difficult subject, and I want to join with my noble friend in appealing to the Government to give it their immediate and, I hope, very sympathetic consideration.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAMMy Lords, I would immediately wish to associate myself with the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Snell, in expressing our gratitude to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for giving your Lordships' House an opportunity of ventilating by discussion the recommendations in the Report. I am grateful myself, not only as the representative in your Lordships' House of the Home Office, but also as a member of the Committee whose Report is now under discussion. I am certain that your Lordships will appreciate that, owing to the short period since the Report was published—less than a month—there has not been sufficient time for the Government to give to the various questions raised by the Report the full consideration that they require. But I wish to say at once that the Home Office is in very full sympathy with the general objects of the Report, and that the Committee's proposals are now receiving the sympathetic attention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. He is no less glad than I am myself that there should be a discussion of the Report and he welcomes the opportunity that has been afforded for the examination of its proposals in this House.
Your Lordships will perhaps have observed that the Report falls into three main parts. The first deals with the matrimonial jurisdiction of the magistrates, the second with the probation system, and the third with the miscellaneous social services which generally fall upon a probation officer. No one, I believe, can question the great importance of the matrimonial work which at the present time falls upon the magistrates. The matrimonial cases which come before the petty sessional courts are much more numerous than those which come before the Divorce Court. I remember that when this matter was last discussed in your Lordships' House the noble and learned Lord, Lord Merrivale, whom I am very glad to see in his place this afternoon, and who has brought to 641 this subject the assistance of his special experience and authority, agreed with me on that point. The Committee's inquiry shows that the magistrates as a body are generally alive to the importance of this work and are anxious, in administering the law, on the one hand to avoid unnecessary separations and, on the other hand, to see that when applicants have proper grounds for orders, whether they be maintenance orders or separation orders, those applications are made in accordance with the spirit and with the purpose of the law. But the courts are hampered in many directions by the defects of procedure.
It is obvious that matrimonial cases stand on quite a different footing from the criminal cases, and the methods to which the courts have become accustomed in dealing with offenders are not necessarily the methods which are most suitable for dealing with domestic disputes. Some courts recognise, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has told us, the undesirability of mixing the two classes of work, and they therefore hold separate sittings for matrimonial cases. The Committee very strongly recommend that this practice should be generally adopted, and they further suggest that at these special sittings the bench should be limited to three justices, of whom one should be a woman. I think it is obvious to those who have had experience in the administration of courts of summary jurisdiction that a crowded bench is not desirable, and the difficulties that can be counteracted by the elimination of a full rota of a bench dealing with matrimonial disputes are very great indeed. It is to be hoped that justices throughout the country will recognise the advantages of making special arrangements in their selection of magistrates to serve at the hearing of matrimonial cases.
The Committee have also dealt with the difficult subject of publicity of matrimonial proceedings in the magistrates' courts. In the Report we recommend that there should be power to restrict the admission of the public to the court during the course of such proceedings in such a way as to preserve the essential feaures of a public trial, while at the same time preventing the abuses which arise from the presence of curious neighbours, sightseers and loungers, who are only attracted to the court by morbid interest. The Committee have also 642 recommended that there should be a check on newspaper reports similar to the check already imposed on reports of divorce proceedings. This would of course require legislation, and may be expected to raise controversy, and your Lordships will, I feel confident, appreciate that I cannot be expected to make a pronouncement on this subject at the present moment.
The Committee received very useful information on the question of how best to provide for conciliation in those cases where a separation can properly be avoided. The question to be kept in mind in this connection is how to reconcile the legal duty of the magistrates to give judgment according to law on facts proved before them with the social duty of seeing that poor people who are not legally represented fully understand the consequences of a separation order, and are not led by ignorance or inexperience into some position which they do not want and which they will quickly regret. In law the only duty of the magistrate is to decide whether legal grounds for separation are proved, but in practice the magistrate realises that to interpret too narrowly his legal duty would be contrary to the public interest and often to the interests of the parties themselves.
Therefore, at almost all courts some arrangements are made for investigation of the question whether conciliation is practicable and desirable. In a few districts this question is taken up by an individual member of the bench, who sometimes interviews the parties himself, but the general practice is to delegate this work to the probation officer, and the Committee believe that the best practice is for the probation officer to make a careful investigation into the circumstances of the parties to the dispute, in order that he can effect a reconciliation, if a reconciliation is possible. As the noble Viscount, Lord Sankey, then Lord Chancellor, pointed out when this subject was debated in 1934, a magistrate who, in the course of conciliation proceedings, has had before him information which is not evidence in law cannot, if the case subsequently comes into court, apply his mind impartially to the evidence on which the court's decision must be based. For this reason, the Committee, while recognising that the magistrates should make proper arrangements 643 for conciliation work and should exercise control over it, were definitely of opinion that conciliation proceedings should be kept separate from court proceedings. If conciliation duties are assigned, as we thought they should be assigned, to the probation officer, it is most important, first, that the court or one of the magistrates should consider and decide in each case whether or not conciliation is to be attempted. Secondly, conciliation work, like any other work of a probation officer, should be properly supervised; and, thirdly, the probation staff should be sufficient in number and in competence to carry out this most important work.
This brings me to the second part of the Report, which is devoted to the need of developing and improving the probation service. There is no need for me to argue the value of the probation service. It may, of course, be arguable that some courts use the Probation Act too freely and without sufficient discrimination, but that there are numerous cases in which probation is the best method of treatment is recognised by everyone who has sat as a magistrate. In fact, to-day, I believe everyone recognises that the probation service is an essential part of the machinery of courts of summary jurisdiction. But the conception of what constitutes a sufficient probation service varies very widely, and there are unfortunately still many areas in different parts of the country in which far less effective use is made of this service than ought to be made. There are in England and Wales a thousand courts of summary jurisdiction. Each of them is a separate unit, and naturally some variation is to be expected amongst these many independent bodies, but the variations in the use made of the service of probation officers and in the efficiency of this service are far greater than can be attributed to differences in local conditions and local circumstances. Arrangements can be made and, in fact, have been made for many of our petty sessional courts in the country, each of which has comparatively few cases, to combine together for the purpose of employing a probation officer or probation officers, but full use has not yet been made of the possibilities of combination, and it is strange that to-day there are still many courts content to rely upon the services of part-time probation officers who are paid purely nominal salaries.
644 In some places the so-called probation officer is paid £5 or less. Generally speaking, part-time probation officers receive a salary of £5 to £25 per year, and they can only supervise occasional offenders assigned to their care. It is impossible for them to attend the courts regularly or to carry out those numerous social services which occupy a very important part of the time of a full-time probation officer. There are, of course, some part-time probation officers who serve three or four times a week and devote the greater part of their activities to the public work of the courts, receiving remuneration of £25 to £30 per year. I believe that no one can read the chapter of the Committee's Report which summarises the facts about the probation service without realising that large measures of reorganisation should be set on foot as quickly as possible. The court which thinks it has done what is necessary when it has paid a few pounds a year to a local resident to undertake the supervision of offenders has, in my opinion, not realised the full meaning of probation. Neither has it realised the extent of the assistance which it can derive from an officer who has the qualification, the training, and the time to act as the court's social investigator and helper in the many miscellaneous problems which should be investigated if the court is to work efficiently.
I am glad that the noble Earl made reference to the necessity of inquiries being made. Inquiries ought to be made before the court decides whether to place an offender on probation or not. I believe it is not sufficiently understood, as the Home Office would wish it to be understood, that social investigation inquiries are to-day an essential feature of the procedure of courts of summary jurisdiction. It is to the probation officer that the courts can turn for the information it is so necessary to have if the proper sentence or method of treatment is to be meted out to the individual offenders who appear before that court. The extent to which probation can be used depends very largely on the extent of the probation officer's capacity. The wider employment of full-time officers would involve very little extra expense. If the standard of probation is to be raised throughout the country, and the more backward districts are to be brought 645 up to the level of the more progressive, the Committee regard it as essential that the Home Office should do more than it has hitherto done in the way of giving help and guidance to the local courts. The question of how best to secure a proper measure of central supervision, whilst still maintaining the principle that the local court is responsible for this service, was very carefully considered by the Committee, and that subject is now having the consideration of the Home Secretary.
From this outline of the Committee's Report it will be seen that, while a number of the proposals are dependent on legislation, others merely involve a better use by the justices of the existing powers. On the question of legislation, I regret that I am not in a position to make any statement at present beyond saying that the Home Secretary recognises that this subject requires early attention. On the question of how far improvements can be effected in advance of legislation, I would say that much can be done by bringing the Report of the Committee to the notice of justices and of justices' clerks. There are many noble Lords who, at Quarter Sessions or petty sessions, take a share in the work of the justices, and I would ask all those who serve in that capacity to study the Report of the Committee and to do what they can to bring the Committee's findings to the notice of the justices with whom they are associated.
Progress in this matter does not depend entirely upon legislation, but largely on a fuller understanding by the justices up and down the country of the importance of the probation officer as a general agent for the social services connected with the courts of summary jurisdiction. Everyone who has had experience of work in the magistrates' courts knows that in many cases justice cannot be done if the court merely depend on the parties to bring all relevant facts to the notice of the court. Few of the persons concerned who come before the magistrates' courts are legally represented, and few of them have the ability to set before the court all the relevant facts and considerations. It is therefore necessary, not only in matrimonial cases but in almost all cases, that the court should have its own means of inquiry. Efficiency depends on the choice of the right man or woman for 646 this purpose and the payment of a proper salary; on the interest taken by the justices in the work of the court; on the supervision which they exercise over the probation officers, and on the help that they give to the probation officer by providing him with necessary facilities, including, of course, in busy courts, proper office accommodation and equipment.
To starve this service either by failing to provide the comparatively small amount of money needed, or by failure on the part of the justices to devote sufficient time and attention to the organisation and supervision of this work, is, I think, contrary to the social interest of the country and to the maintenance of judicial efficiency. I hope your Lordships will forgive me for replying at some length to the question raised by the noble Earl opposite. I have done so because I was associated with the service of probation long before I entered your Lordships' House and, personally, I am most anxious to see the recommendations of the Report, which was the result of a very thorough investigation, implemented at the earliest possible date.
§ LORD MERRIVALEMy Lords, I am sure my noble friend opposite, Lord Listowel, will feel that there is ground for encouragement to-day in the response that the Home Office has made through my noble friend on the Front Bench to the appeal now addressed to them. Some encouragement perhaps is not uncalled for. The question is not a new one. It is a matter of the utmost gravity as affecting the social well-being of our country and the question not only of maintaining but of raising the standard of domestic life in this country. It is indeed of great importance there. It is a question of great importance, too, with regard to the administration of justice. It is a curious thing—I have called attention to this aspect before—how, since there came to be magisterial jurisdiction to deal with domestic disputes, the tendency has been always increasingly strong down to very recent times to make the business merely a judicial business. It is not merely a judicial business; it is a matter of the social well-being of our fellow countrymen and countrywomen; and I am glad to think from what one hears from various quarters that the 647 efforts the noble Earl has been making for a long time now are meeting with a real response.
The Committee's Report is a very encouraging one. The noble Earl, Lord Feversham, naturally does not feel himself able to promise legislative action upon it. I am not much surprised at that. Everybody who knows the crowded state of affairs in the House of Commons and the immense difficulties which the Government have to face in these times sympathises with those who have to deal with the subject. But, after all, there are two parts of this question. One of them is a wide reorganisation of—I will not call it a police service but a service of control over the conduct of married people by the appointment and satisfactory management of probation officers. That is a very large question. Throughout my own life I have been so well accustomed to see things best done by voluntary unpaid action that I should be glad if voluntary unpaid action could still be relied upon, and that we should not make this a mere official departmental affair. But there is not only the question of setting up a new Department. I have indicated the degree of sympathy I feel with those who take that view. The Report goes farther.
The Report does say that action, which in this House has been endorsed by the unanimous vote of your Lordships time and again, was embodied in a Bill which has had the support of representative people throughout the country, including the Magistrates Associations and social agencies, including the two Houses of Convocation and the Church Assembly. The effort to make that Bill the law has been frustrated by want of time in the House of Commons. It was frustrated in the first instance, and I think in the second instance too, by want of time, and what one asks now is whether it would be of any use now to reintroduce a Bill of that kind. If there were some encouragement from the Government that in case the Bill does prove to meet a popular demand and to deal with an urgent necessity, the Government would back it and see it through, there would be real reason for taking action of that kind again. These matters to which I have referred are mostly in the future, but I sincerely congratulate my noble friend opposite on the progress which is 648 indicated in the Report of the Committee and in the view of the Home Office expressed to-day by my noble friend Lord Feversham.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYMy Lords, I very deeply regret that necessary duties elsewhere made it impossible for me to be present when the noble Earl opposite introduced this matter to which he has given such long and careful attention, and also particularly, prevented me from hearing all but the latter part of the speech of the noble Earl who replied for the Government. I listened to that with particular interest because, as we all know, the noble Earl himself has taken a most prominent part in the development and in the actual carrying out of probation work throughout this country and indeed elsewhere. I knew that his reply would certainly be most sympathetic. In the circumstances your Lordships will perhaps forgive me if, inadvertently, I may occasionally repeat what may have been said by the noble Earl opposite or by the noble Earl who sits on the Front Bench. The matter is of such great importance to the whole social welfare of the country that I should like to have the privilege of saying one word in order to give my testimony to the great value of the Report, which I have read with as much care as is possible in my busy life. I think it is a very impartial, able and most valuable document, and I earnestly hope—here I share the hope with which the noble and learned Lord concluded his speech—that this is not a document which will merely be shelved in the Department but will really have the increasing attention of the Government, so that where administrative action is sufficient it will be taken, and where legislative action is necessary at least every encouragement will be given to that legislation being brought before Parliament.
With regard to the two aspects of the Report—conciliation in matrimonial disputes and the work of probation officers—I think the Report amply vindicates those of us who felt that we should not go further with the Bills introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Merrivale, until the whole question of probation officers had been more thoroughly considered. As your Lordships will see if you read the Report, it is impossible to get much 649 further in the matter of conciliation until we have settled who is the proper officer by which that conciliation should be carried out. I am glad to notice that the Report bears testimony to the encouraging effects of conciliation in every part of the country. I would give just one illustration and that for a particular purpose. We are told that of 6,222 cases included in a special inquiry that the Committee made, only 1,776 reached even a hearing in court and resulted in the making of only 914 separation or maintenance orders.
That seems to me most satisfactory, but there is a curious comment made in the. Report, that it looks as if there is a risk that conciliation may be carried too far. There is one remark in the Report on which I can hardly forbear to make comment. It is this:
" There is a strong temptation to the zealous officer to settle as many cases as he can out of court, and he may even be actuated by personal convictions as to the sanctity of the marriage tie."
That seems to imply that it may be a serious disqualification if a probation officer ventures to remind people in trouble over their matrimonial affairs that, after all, marriage has a certain measure of sanctity. I should have thought that there would be little chance of the success of any appeal for conciliation on any other basis. Certainly, whatever may be said among wealthier parts of the community as to the sanctity of the marriage tie, it is happily still so regarded among the poor. My experience is that there is no ground of appeal for conciliation more effective than the reminder: "After all, in spite of tantrums and difficulties you did promise one another you would hold together for better or worse." That is merely by the way.
I notice with particular satisfaction that the Committee recognise that the actual work of conciliation should normally be carried out not by one of the justices of the peace or even by a Stipendiary Magistrate, admirable as their work has been, but rather by the probation officer. I am sure that in these matters, even with all the good will and experience of justices and Stipendiary Magistrates, there is a further and closer diagnosis necessary before each case can be properly handled and that work of conciliation is best 650 done by one who can visit the parties in their home, who can study their environment, and then come to a conclusion as to the best way of dealing with their particular problems. I should like also especially to commend the proposal—perhaps it has been already approved by the noble Earl—that there should be, not special courts to deal with these problems, but special sessions of the courts, so that these matters should as far as possible be taken out of the atmosphere of criminal procedure, and also the suggestion that it is of great advantage, wherever possible, that one of the magistrates dealing with these cases should be a woman. I venture to think that there is much to be said for the recommendation that even in London, where no one knows better than I what an amazing work of friendship to the poor has been done by the Stipendiary Magistrates, they should have the assistance, where possible, of a woman magistrate. I think we should all agree, and the noble and learned Lord would particularly agree, with the recommendation that there should be restraint upon the publicity of these matrimonial proceedings both upon the number of persons admitted to the court while they are being tried and, especially, upon the reports made in the newspaper Press. I think these are recommendations of great value and if they require legislation I hope that the Government at least will give every facility for legislation on these lines that either the noble Earl or the noble and learned Lord may bring forward.
May I turn now for a moment to the position of the probation officers? The whole tendency of the Report is to emphasise the immense importance of the probation system in our modern life in this country. It is the reward of a great deal of patient work that has been going on for a very long time. You must forgive me if in this matter I take some pride in the place taken by the Church of England. It is fifty years since the first step of appointing police court missionaries was taken by the Church and the story of the supply of these police court missionaries ever since is described, I am glad to say, in the Report, as a splendid chapter in English social history. I hope that at any rate it may still be continued. It is not for the first time that the Church has been a pioneer in 651 social services which, by reason of the very weight and value which the Church and other societies have attached to them, have come to be a care which ought to belong to the whole community exercised through the authorities, either central or local, of the State.
It may be that this is a case where it is considered that now, thanks to the pioneer work done by the police court missions, this has become a great State service and for that reason should be appointed and paid by the State. There is a great deal to be said for there being no division as to either authority or appointment. There is a great deal to be said for having one system of training, and there is something to be said for not attaching denominational requirements to a great public service. I notice that the tendency of the Report is strongly to suggest that in the future what has become a State service should be completely under the control of the State; yet I am glad to notice that the Report itself says:
… we are anxious that the religious and voluntary spirit in probation work should not be lost.Elsewhere it says:If the right religious influence can be brought to bear the work of reform can be immeasurably strengthened.If it be the case that the time has come when work done by voluntary agency is to be undertaken by the State, I earnestly hope that the spirit in which that work has been done will be retained.I am greatly concerned that nothing should be done in this matter to remove from this great branch of social service all the immense effect which comes from its being undertaken by men and women who have a religious motive and who are able to bring to their work the strength of the religious appeal. I believe that, if it be so—and I suspend my judgment on the matter for the moment—there is still great work which the Police Court Mission and other police court associations can do. They can find out, select and help to train men and women who have the right vocation. They can in many cases act as missionaries where there is a State probation officer as well. They can provide homes and hostel, which are greatly needed by those who come under the charge of the probation officers. 652 Therefore I hope that, if this work of the probation officers is increasingly to become a great public service, the Church and other agencies will still be able to supply the right motive and spirit.
§ LORD GAINFORDMy Lords, I only wish to make what I hope will be a helpful suggestion. We have heard many suggestions about what might be done by improved administration, and also by a more friendly attitude in probation officers and others, in order to bring about better social conditions in domestic life. The point I should like to emphasise is that so far in this debate all the points that have been raised in connection with the alteration of the law appear to me to be so uncontroversial that it might be possible, even within the period of this Session, for the Home Office to draft a Bill dealing with one or two of the points which have been raised in this debate which require some alteration in the law, and submit it to both Houses. A measure of that kind would add to the public interest in the matter and help to secure the objects which we all have at heart.
VISCOUNT MERSEYMy Lords, I was not in the House during the whole of the speech of the noble Earl opposite, and I therefore apologise if I ask a question which has already been answered. What is the circulation, or the proposed circulation, of the Report? Is it merely circulated to clerks of petty sessional divisions, or to all magistrates? Your Lordships will readily appreciate that there is a good deal of difference. If a Report or a White Paper is circulated to clerks, what happens is that, at the ten minutes' meeting before the bench sits, the clerk says: "I have received a Home Office Paper of such and such a number which any magistrate can look at," and probably no one does look at it. If it is circulated to individual magistrates, then probably, although some of them will not look at it, at any rate a number will. The additional expense, once the Report has been printed, of printing and circulating two or three thousand extra copies is negligible.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAMMy Lords, may I inform the noble Viscount that the Report is not circulated to the approximately 30,000 justices of the peace throughout the length and breadth of the country. I cannot say whether his estimate 653 of the cost would be as low as he anticipates; that is a matter which could be inquired into.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAMAs far as I am aware, it has not yet been circulated to clerks of petty sessional courts.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, I should like, in a very few words indeed, at this late hour, to thank my noble friend opposite who spoke for the Government for his extremely full and exhaustive answer to my Question, and for the encouragement which his own enthusiasm on behalf of reform affords to all those who are concerned in promoting this work. I should also like to express my gratitude to the many distinguished members of your Lordships' House, on both the secular and the spiritual Benches, who have joined in giving a warm welcome to this Report, who have expressed an ardent desire for reform, and who have urged upon the Government the necessity for early action. At the same time—and this is my last word—I am bound to express the hope, which I feel certain is shared by every speaker in the discussion this afternoon, that the delay for which the Government ask is not merely a pretext for shelving this extremely valuable Report. I am glad to see that the noble Earl answers me that that is not the case, and that I need not have any fears on that score. At the same time, when we consider the number of Royal Commission and Departmental Committee Reports which have suffered this fate, I think there is some ground for anxiety. Naturally, in view of his statement that the Home Secretary would consider the Report at an early date, I shall raise the Question again in the late summer or the early autumn. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion which stands in my name.
§ Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.