HL Deb 05 August 1947 vol 151 cc1010-8

5.28 p.m.

THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH rose to ask His Majesty's Government what steps have been taken in connexion with the arrival in this country of a party of Norwegian young persons. for whose accommodation inadequate preparations lad been made; and to call attention to the serious dangers which may arise in connexion with similar arrivals of young persons. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the aim of the World Friendship Association is to promote international good understanding by means of an exchange of visits between children and young persons in this country and those abroad. With that aim most of your Lordships will have a certain degree of sympathy, as I myself have. It is true that one can never tell how much good is done in the international sphere by any particular visit but, if well organized, such excursions should he delightful, interesting and valuable to the children who take them.

There is another matter which is beyond controversy. The Association itself admits that its resources and organization have proved totally inadequate to the task of coping with the enormous number of visits which it has been asked this year to arrange. They run to many thousand; of visits and the handling of these large bodies of children and young persons, travelling for the most part for the first time, and their reception in this country, present problems of great complexity that can only be handled by well-trained and competent people endowed with ample funds. At the same time, there have been indications that all was not well with the affairs of the World Friendship Association. Last year a party of foreign children came to my own neighbourhood, to Aldershot, and there were many local criticisms of the manner in which that party had been organized, and there was a hostile article in the local newspaper.

This year, as we all know from the accounts that have appeared in the Press—and I may say that I consider that the Press have performed a great service in calling attention to what was going wrong—there have been some very lamentable blunders indeed. I will not detail these matters that have already been so well covered, but I feel bound to draw attention to one very serious matter in connexion with the arrival of a party of Norwegian children and young persons on Sunday, July 27. I understand that on July 25 a party of Norwegians was embarked for this country which exceeded by some 200 the numbers for whom arrangements had been made here. When this fact was discovered by the organizers in Great Britain the British Broadcasting Corporation were asked to send out an appeal after the nine o'clock news for volunteers to come forward and offer hospitality to the children, who would otherwise have no homes to go to. Applications poured in to the offices of the Association the next day, and on the 27th the children and young persons, many of whom were boys and girls in their teens, arrived.

They were met by the would-be hosts. Some of the hosts, after waiting a considerable time to meet their guests, finding that there was considerable delay went away. Others stayed until the Norwegian children arrived, and then proceeded to claim this or that child to be their guest. I am informed that no precautions were taken to identify the would-be hosts; even the routine precaution of inspecting their identity cards was not rigorously pursued, and, finally, according to the Daily Express newspaper, the organizer of this chaotic scene mounted a railway bridge, I believe, and proceeded to hold what the Daily Express described as a kind of auction of the children. He called them up one by one and said: "Who wants this boy of fourteen?" and hands might or might not go up, and some of the children had the humiliating experience of not being wanted by anybody. Later on in the proceedings the young women were held up to auction in the same manner, and it was open to anybody on that crowded station platform to come forward and say, "Oh yes, I will take this young woman."

I do not feel that I need emphasize the extreme undesirability of those proceedings, nor need I do more than remind your Lordships that in this country, as in all countries, there are wicked and unscrupulous people who might take a very terrible advantage of such circumstances. I am sure that I shall command the agreement of all your Lordships, and particularly that of the noble Lord who is to reply, when I say that this sort of thing must never happen again, and that it is a disgrace to this country that it happened at all. The last thing I want to do is to enter into any recriminations, but I must point out that Ministers have some responsibility in this matter, a responsibility which public opinion would not allow them to evade, even if they wished to—and I am sure they do not wish to. In the first place, I am informed that the services of local education officers are employed in arranging for parties of British children to go abroad under the auspices of this Association, and that they, with the assistance of local committees, prepare the reception of foreign children who come here. I think that that must imply at least the tacit permission of the Minister of Education and, though the World Friendship Association is a purely private body and not a public body at all, the fact that it has received the co-operation of the Ministry of Education makes it proper for me to question the Government about its affairs.

Then, of course, there is the Home Secretary who in this matter, too, has overriding duties. In the first place, he controls the admission of aliens to this country, and, in the second place, he has a particular responsibility for the protection of young persons. I know that there are regulations regarding the admission of aliens for temporary or for prolonged visits to this country, but it was my experience last year, when I entertained some foreigners in my home, that it was not very easy to discover exactly what the regulations were, and it was also my im- pression that it would not have been very difficult to evade those regulations, though I need hardly assure your Lordships that I did not try to do so. In fact, I made a number of journeys, some of them fruitless, to police stations in order to find out what I had to do. I think it would be helpful—and I have notified the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, of this question in advance—if the noble Lord would tell us exactly what the regulations are, and what steps are taken to ensure that they are observed.

Finally, my Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will be able to give us some indication as regards the Government's plans for the future. For the present, I see in the papers that all the tours have been stopped for this summer. I am glad to hear that. It is much better that they should be abandoned and completely given up until such time as they can be properly and efficiently organized. There are, in this country, a number of youth organizations, some of them having an international character, such as the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides, and many others, including the Children's Country Holidays Fund. They have great experience in the movement of children and young persons. It seems to me that many of those organizations or perhaps some joint committee acting on behalf of them all would be capable of arranging for exchanges of visits next year, on a basis that would be safe and prudent and thoroughly enjoyable to all concerned. But it must be the moral of the series of events I have mentioned that no organization in the future should be permitted to function unless the Government are satisfied that it is competent to do so. Much as I dislike any extension of the sphere of State action, it appears to me inevitable that some system of Home Office licensing should be introduced.

The question has also been raised regarding the possibility of Government assistance to the funds of societies that arrange these matters. I should hope very much that international visits could be arranged on a basis that would need no subsidy whatever, and I should much regret any entry into this field of public money. Certainly the appropriate Departments have a duty to supervise whatever is done. I should like to conclude by saying as an Englishman that I feel very much ashamed at the scurvy welcome that these Scandinavian and other guests have had in our country. My Lope is that the latter days of their visit will erase the bad first impressions which they must have gained of our hospitality, and that they have now been accommodated in satisfactory and suitable homes and have been made to feel truly welcome here.

5.42 p.m.

LORD WALKDEN

My Lords, our thanks are due to the noble Lord for calling attention to this matter, which has excited a great deal of public interest. There will be general agreement with the view expressed by the Home Secretary in replying to questions in another place on Thursday, July 31; when he said: The last thing I desire to do is to prevent children from other countries coming here and children from this country going abroad, on a mutual basis, because I. am quite sure that, properly controlled, this is a most valuable piece of international work. Until a recent case occurred there had been no occasion to question the character of the arrangements made for bringing parties of foreign children to this country. Soon after the termination of hostilities, arrangements were made to bring parties of Ditch children here for rest and recuperation. Parties of French children have also been brought here. Moreover, arrangements have been made for the interchange on a mutual basis of visits by British children to countries abroad and by children from those countries to Great Britain.

Such is the value of these interchanges of visits that the Minister of Education would like to see a suitable national organization established as soon as possible to handle exchanges and visits of this and. To that end he is in consultation with representatives of the local education authorities and of the teachers' organizations through the educational co-operating body which has been set up for U.N.E.S.C.O. purposes. Whatever may be done in the way of creating a national organization, there will probably still be room for the making of such arrangements by unofficial bodies. As the Home Secretary indicated on Thursday last, there is no desire on the part of the Government to be exclusive in this matter or to give the monopoly to any particular organization.

While the Government are anxious to facilitate these visits, they are, of course, equally anxious that the welfare of the children shall be properly safeguarded. The question now under consideration is what arrangements ought to be made to prevent any abuse which may occur in connexion with these schemes. It is, of course, important that those who undertake the organization of such schemes should be responsible and reliable persons who will take all proper steps to safeguard the welfare of the children. In particular, it is important that before any parties of children start on their journey adequate and careful arrangements shall have been made for their reception on arrival and for their maintenance and accommodation. It would be a mistake to suggest that there has been any general failure to take such care, but the recent case to which public attention has been called illustrates the need for precautions. What precisely is the most appropriate scheme for ensuring the necessary precautions is a matter on which consultation is taking place at the present time between the Departments primarily concerned—namely, the Home Office, the Ministry of Education and the Foreign Office—and I can assure the noble Earl that there will be no failure to arrange such safeguards as are necessary and appropriate.

I will now endeavour to answer some of the specific questions which the noble Earl raised. He asked whether the World Friendship Association is sponsored by any Government Department. The answer is, No; the Association is not sponsored or recognized in any way by the Government. It is an independent body for which the Government have no responsibility. He further asked whether it was the case that the World Friendship Association usually arranges for the interchange of children's visits by employing as their agents the local education officers. The answer is that local education authorities have power to defray expenses incurred in sending school parties abroad. If, for the purpose of sending schoolchildren abroad, a local education authority enters into an arrangement with the World Friendship Association, or with any other travel agency, a responsibility rests on the local authority to satisfy themselves that proper arrangements have been made for the welfare of the children. In any such case it would hardly be correct to say that the World Friendship Association was using a local education officer as their agent. The position rather is that the local education authority is using the World Friendship Association as their travel agency.

The third question was whether some responsibility may rest upon the Foreign Office in connexion with passports and visas, and on the Home Office in connexion with residence permits and with the use of the deep shelter in which parties have been accommodated. The Home Office is responsible through its immigration officers for deciding whether a foreigner who arrives at a port shall be admitted, but in the case of ordinary travellers it is not the duty of the immigration officer to inquire whether the visitor has assurance of accommodation. Obviously, all necessary arrangements for the accommodation of parties of children ought to be made before they start on their journey.

The system of visas granted by British Consuls abroad as authorization for foreigners to travel to the United Kingdom has now been abolished as regards a number of European countries. There is a general desire to get rid, as far as possible, of these war-time arrangements which are liable to make travel more difficult. Consequently, as regards nationals of such countries, there is now nothing in the nature of a "residence permit" granted before the traveller starts.

Now, with regard to the deep shelter in which the Norwegian children were accommodated, that was a shelter which had been placed at the disposal of the War Office. As, at the time, the War Office were not making use of the accommodation in this shelter, the War Office, at the request of the World Friendship Association, agreed to make it available for the Norwegian children as an emergency measure. It is understood that a representative of the Norwegian Embassy has seen the accommodation provided and expressed himself as highly satisfied. According to certain papers—I will not mention names—the police undertook to visit the homes in which the unexpected Norwegian children had been placed. No such suggestion was made to the police and there is no foundation for this story.

In reply to the question as to what is the state of the law in regard to the temporary sojourn of foreign young persons with English families, there is, of course, no law to prevent an English family accommodating a foreign guest or to require an. English householder to obtain some official authorization before doing so. The noble Earl said he was doubtful whether sufficient precautions against the exploitation of young girls were in force. That is a very serious point. If by exploitation the noble Earl refers to the use of foreign girls as domestics for inadequate wages, or under unsatisfactory conditions, there is no ground for any such misapprehension. Foreigners are admitted for employment only under Ministry of Labour permits, and permits are granted only where wages and conditions are satisfactory. If the suggestion is that young girls may be brought to this country from the Continent for immoral purposes, any such risk is one on which careful watch is kept, both by the immigration officers, by the police and by various societies, including the Vigilance Society. Procuring girls for immoral purposes is, of course, a criminal offence, for which severe penalties can be imposed, and there is no ground for suggesting that the system of exchange of visits can facilitate the procuring of girls for immoral purposes.

The noble Earl also asked whether we were satisfied that the laws in force in foreign States are sufficiently stringent to provide our children and young persons with protection against immoral exploitation. I have not very much information on this point, but some fine regulations were promulgated by the League of Nations. Whether they are all being honoured in every country to-day we are quite uncertain; but apart from any protection afforded, by foreign States the important point is that those responsible for taking children and young persons abroad should satisfy themselves that proper arrangements have been made for their reception and accommodation at the other end. The noble Earl suggested some form of licensing system of societies or individuals who arrange for visits to foreign countries. I can only say that one of the suggestions the Ministry of Education have in view in trying to create some form of national organization is that this organization shall exercise proper supervision over the activities of all societies and individuals who undertake such travel arrangements. I trust that your Lordships feel satisfied that the Government, within the powers they possess to deal with it, have the matter well in hand.

THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. In doing so, with the leave of the House, I would venture to say this: I pointed out certain dangers in connexion with this travel, but I would like to say that I have made no suggestion that anything more deeply wrong has actually occurred.