CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS BILL. (Hansard, 14 June 1938)

§ LORD AMULREE
My Lords, this is a useful little Bill intended to improve the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, and the Education Act, 1921, in a variety of ways in regard to proceedings before juvenile courts. These Amendments are the result of experience of the working of these Acts in regard to juvenile courts. The Bill received unanimous approval from all quarters in another place. I should like, if I may, to pay a tribute to the excellent work done by these juvenile courts. They are recent institutions and they have well justified themselves. Broadly speaking, the Bill may be said to have three objects. The first is to make more uniform the powers of juvenile courts in dealing with the various groups of boys and girls who come before them. The second is to 919 amend certain provisions of the Education Act, 1921, relating to what may be described as the cases of truant children. As the result of rules made by the Lord Chancellor the cases of truant children have been assigned as from May I last to juvenile courts to deal with. The effect of the amendment of the Act is to increase the flexibility of the powers of the juvenile courts with regard to these children. The third object is to modify the existing law as to the constitution of juvenile courts in the Metropolitan Police Court area.
The Bill refers to children and young persons. A child under the Bill, as under the parent Act, the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, means a child under fourteen years of age. A young person is a person between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. As to the first object, the position at the present time is that juvenile courts have, generally speaking, the power to make one of three orders in respect of the boys and girls who come before them. First of all, there are the probation order and the supervision order. If a child or young person brought before a juvenile court charged with an offence against the law is found to have committed that offence, the court may make an order committing the child to the care of a probation officer or some other person named by the court. That is called a probation order. Where, however, the child is not charged with any breach of the law but comes before the court because of the need of care and protection or because he is beyond control, the court may make what is called a supervision order. The court may commit a boy or girl to the care of a fit person who is willing to take the responsibility of looking after the child for a certain number of years. The local authority may become a fit person for the purpose of the Bill. When a child is committed to a local authority as a fit person, it is the duty of the local authority, by rules made under the Act of 1933, to board out the child with foster parents. The third class of order the court may make is an order committing the child to an approved school, commonly known as a Home Office school.
These three measures of treatment are, however, not available to all the groups of children who come before the juvenile 920 court. The Bill refers in Clause 1 to refractory children and young persons. When a parent or guardian brings before the court a child who is beyond control—in other words, is a refractory child—the court may do one of two things. It may put the child under a supervision order or it may send the child to an approved school. It has been found in practice that it would be a good thing if, instead of having these two alternatives, the courts were able to commit the child or young person to the care of a fit person. This is the object of Clause 1 of the Bill.
The next class of case which comes within this category comprises those in regard to whom probation orders or supervision orders are made. When a court makes a probation order, it has power to attach conditions which may be appropriate in the case of a particular child. When it makes a supervision order it has no power to atttach any conditions whatsoever. It has been found by these courts and by other persons with practical experience of this work that it would be useful and advantageous if, in making a supervision order, the court had similar power to attach conditions appropriate to the particular case. The choice of the conditions will naturally depend on the circumstances of the particular case. It may, for example, be advisable to require a boy or girl to give up undesirable companions, or to be indoors by a certain hour in the evening, or to reside for a short time in a home or hostel, or for a given period with temporary foster parents selected by the court. This purpose of the Bill is carried out by Clause 4, which also contains a number of detailed provisions relating to the variation and revocation of supervision orders.
So much for the first object of the Bill. The second object of the Bill is to amend certain sections of the Education Act, 1921, dealing with truant children. At present, as the law stands, when proceedings are taken after non-compliance with a school attendance order the court can do one of two things: it can commit the child to the care of a fit person or send it to an approved school. There is no power to employ the other method of placing the child under the supervision of a probation officer or some other person appointed by the court. It is agreed on all hands that it is desirable 921 that the court should have this further power, and this power is conferred by Clause 3 (1). The amendment would thus enable a court to take a milder and more reasonable view of truancy. Instead of the somewhat drastic alternative of sending a child to an approved school or placing him with a fit person, the court may adopt the milder course of placing him under a supervision order.
This clause also contains two further useful provisions intended to increase the power of the juvenile courts in dealing with these truant children. If the court is not in a position at the first hearing to give a final decision on what to do with the child, it is empowered under Clause 3 (2) to order the child to be detained in a place of safety—which is often a remand home. This would enable further information to be collected with regard to the child and make it possible to obtain a medical or psychological report on the child during the period when it was in the remand home. The court would thus be in a better position, having this information before it, to come to a decision on what to do with the child. Lastly, Clause 3 (3) enables the court to secure the physical presence of the child before it. At present a court issues a summons to the parent or guardian to produce the child, but if he does not do so and shows no reasonable cause, all the court can do is to impose a fine on the parent or guardian. It has no power to get the child before the court. It is undesirable that this should be so, and it is undesirable that the court, as sometimes happens, should be obliged to come to a decision about the child without having seen him. This subsection amends that defect.
In addition, some extension of existing powers and certain improvements in procedure are contained in Clauses 2, 5 and 6 of the Bill. Clause 2, for example, enables the court to replace a fit person order by a supervision order. I may remind your Lordships that a fit person order is an order committing the child to the custody of a fit person, and a local authority may be a fit person. It sometimes happens that the conditions alter: there has been, perhaps, an improvement in the home circumstances and the court has found it desirable that the child should return to its parents. That cannot be done without revoking the fit person order. But it is the experience of the juvenile courts and of others that in 922 some of these cases the friendly supervision of a probation officer and the help which he can give both to the child and to the parents would be valuable. The clause gives the court power to provide this help by making a supervision order.
Clause 5 contains some improvements in procedure which will be found useful by the court. Where a court has found, for example, that the child or young person is in need of care and protection, or is beyond the control of his parent or guardian, or is refractory, and the hearing is then adjourned, the court may make a record of that finding. The object of Clause 5 is to enable that finding to be used in evidence at a subsequent hearing of the case in order to save the time of the court and the attendance of witnesses. Clause 6 regularises certain practices which are not infrequently followed at present in respect of these children who have been committed to a remand home. If for example a child is committed to a remand home and has to appear on a certain day, and meanwhile falls ill or meets with an accident and is physically unable to attend, then the court has power to adjourn the date of attendance. The next provision of this clause is to regularise the legal position of the custody of children who have been committed to a remand home or place of safety, and it is necessary or desirable that the child should have some medical attention, and it may be desirable that the child should attend some hospital or clinic. This clause enables the child to attend hospital or clinic without further provision.
The third main object of the Bill is to modify the present law as to the constitution of juvenile courts in the Metropolitan Police Court area. As the law stands these courts are required to be presided over by a Metropolitan Police Magistrate nominated by the Secretary of State; but the Secretary of State is also empowered, if for special reasons he considers it advisable to do so, to nominate lay justices from the panel of the London juvenile court justices, to act as chairmen of the juvenile courts. The recent Departmental Committee on Courts of Summary jurisdiction in the Metropolitan area recommended that it should be left to the discretion of the Secretary of State to decide whether the London juvenile courts should be presided over by Metropolitan Police Magistrates or by lay 923 justices, instead of making the appointment of lay chairmen dependent on the existence of special reasons. These courts have been presided over by lay chairmen since November, 1936, and the Departmental Committee reported that they were working well. Clause 7 gives effect to the Departmental Committee's recommendation as to the constitution of the juvenile courts.
There are one or two other small provisions, but I do not think it is necessary to refer further to them. It will thus be seen that the Bill contains a variety of useful provisions, the effect of which will be to increase the powers of the juvenile courts in ways which will enable them still better to carry out the duties imposed upon them by the Act of 1933. For example, they must have regard to the child's welfare in a proper case, to take steps for removing the child from un-desirable surroundings, and secure that proper provision is made for his education and training. Experience has shown the need of the amendments proposed in this Bill, and it is certain that the passage of the Bill into law will add to the flexibility of the powers which the juvenile courts at present possess, and will therefore enable them still more effectively to discharge the duties imposed upon them by Parliament. I respectfully ask your Lordships to give this Bill a Second Reading.

§ VISCOUNT SAMUEL
My Lords, I venture to address your Lordships for a very few moments on this Bill, for the reason that just thirty years ago I had the privilege of framing the first Children Bill, and of steering it on its way through Parliament. It was that Bill which established the juvenile courts in this country. In the same year also we passed the Probation of Offenders Act, and again in 1933 it fell to me to be responsible for the Children Act, which is now the principal Act, proposed to be amended by this Bill. For those reasons I venture to rise and offer to this measure a very cordial welcome. This is a Bill of definition and procedure. All its proposals are useful, all of them are desired by those who are concerned with the day-by-day working of the juvenile courts; and in a single sentence I will express the 924 hope that it may receive the approval of His Majesty's Government, and the assent of your Lordships' House.

§ THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF MUNSTER)
My Lords, I rise only to say that this Bill is one which receives the strongest support of His Majesty's Government, and that they hope your Lordships will approve the Second Reading this afternoon, and help to pass the Bill into law as quickly as possible.