CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL.

HL Deb 15 June 1948 vol 156 cc780-869

4.52 p.m.

House again in Committee (according to Order).

[The EARL OF DROGHEDA in the Chair.]

Clause 44:

Remand centres, detention centres and Borstal institutions.

44.—(1) The Secretary of State may provide remand centres, detention centres and Borstal institutions for the detention of persons required to be detained therein under this or any other Act.

LORD SCHUSTER moved, in subsection (1), to omit "detention centres." The noble Lord said: This is by no means a hostile Amendment. It is intended only to give to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, an opportunity, which I am sure he will welcome, of telling us what is the meaning of the words "detention centre." I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 44, line 10, leave out ("detention centres").—(Lord Schuster.)

LORD CHORLEY

We had a discussion on the problem of detention centres when Clause 18 was before the Committee last week, and there is not a great deal I can add to what was said on that occasion. The object of the detention centre is to provide a short, sharp term of punishment for a lad, in order to bring him right up against the fact that he has committed a crime against the community. As your Lordships appreciate, it will no longer be open for the court to impose a sentence of imprisonment for a lad under the age of seventeen, and therefore it is necessary to provide some alternative form of punishment. It is thought that special imprisonment, but in a building divorced from the sordid unpleasant atmosphere of the ordinary prison, will be the best method of dealing with a lad between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, who, in the view of the court, is not an appropriate person to be sent to an approved school.

It is, of course, quite true that the clause contemplates the sending of a boy over seventeen to a detention centre of this kind. There again, the object is much the same. The atmosphere and surroundings in these detention centres can obviously be made quite different from those of the ordinary prison. The primary object of this type of sentence is not, by any means, reformatory. I think it was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goddard, who pointed out that it is obviously not possible to take in hand the serious reformation of this type of young man on the basis of a period of three months' detention. Nevertheless, in the surroundings which the detention centre will provide, something may be done in the way of reformation as well. Your Lordships will appreciate that a lad over seventeen can be sent to a detention centre only once. If that fails and he commits another crime and comes before the court again, the court will then have to decide what is the more serious type of punishment appropriate to his case—it may be Borstal, or it may be thought that imprisonment is the only suitable punishment. That is the object behind this clause. In the circumstances, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his Amendment, and will agree that, while it is an experimental type of punishment, it is one which holds out some prospect of success.

VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD

I cannot say that the noble Lord has taken the matter much further than the stage we reached the other day. I then made a specific suggestion—namely, that in view of the obscurity in which we all find ourselves as to what is intended by "detention centres" the Home Office should produce a detailed circular describing them and the sort of training which is to be given in them. I would remind the Committee that we are greatly restricting the powers of imposition of imprisonment on young offenders. I am very glad that we have taken that step. But this restriction makes it all the more necessary that the courts should know what is meant when they order, as an alternative sentence to imprisonment, a period in a detention centre. I have asked question after question about these detention centres, not only during this debate, but during the last eighteen months, and so far I have had no explanation which gives me a picture of what they are going to be. How, for instance, are you going to deal with the two classes of the younger offenders and the older offenders? How are you going to deal with the offenders who have quite a short sentence, and the offenders; who are to have a sentence up to six months? I ask the noble Lord, in view of these facts, to give us a definite answer, at any rate on the Report stage, as to whether the Home Office are producing a White Paper, or sending a circular to the various courts. In any event, I shall be glad if the noble Lord can give us a detailed description of these new and very important institutions before we part with this Bill.

LORD LLEWELLIN

Might I just follow that up by saying what I think? We should also like to know, either now or on Report, what plan the Government have in regard to the building of these detention centres. When will the first be ready? Are there going to become in different parts of the country? Is it planned to build six, eight, or ten to start with; and is there anything at all solid behind this proposal? It is necessary to know that, so that those who have to administer justice in the courts will have some idea when the first centre will be ready. Indeed, some of those who sit in the courts may be able to see the centres in operation. What kind of programme have the Government for the building of these detention centres? If the noble Lord cannot answer that now—I hope he may be able to—at least the House is entitled to have that information when we reach a subsequent stage of the Bill.

LORD GODDARD

I expressed my feelings and doubts in this matter of detention centres when Clause 18 was being discussed, and I do not want to travel over the same ground again. At any rate, the noble Lord to-day has told us one thing. We have been hearing all along that the object of the Government was reformation. I now understand that detention centres are to be places of punishment and not reformation. That may be perfectly right; and I am not saying that these young men should not be punished. But what good it can do to send a boy for three months, or even six months, to these places—except simply to administer punishment—I cannot for the life of me understand. I would point out that subsequent subsections to this clause make it clear that the present Acts apply. That means, as I understand it at present, that the position is open to modification. Is the remission of one-third of the sentence to be allowed from these detention centres? If that is so, the ordinary sentence will be two months and not three months, and that does not seem to me to be very desirable.

I also notice that the appropriation of a prison as a detention centre is contemplated. That means, I suppose, that if detention centres cannot yet be provided in country houses, or other places which may be found, these young men will be taken to prison. I would appeal to the Government to withdraw these centres until they have some policy which can be placed before the courts, and until the courts can be informed as to what is meant by treatment in a detention centre.

LORD CHORLEY

I am sure the noble Viscount would not expect the Home Office to prepare a circular between the time when he first made the suggestion last week and the resumed discussion.

VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD

It is a proposal of eighteen months ago; it is not a new proposal.

LORD CHORLEY

I promised that I would bring it to the notice of my right honourable friend, and that has been done. The proposals for these detention centres is to some extent experimental, and, if I may express a personal view, it would be wrong to try to introduce a cut-and-dried scheme which would fit all types of youthful offenders. As soon as any of these detention centres is built the courts will be notified. That is provided for. It would be quite wrong for me to hold out to your Lordships that in the present situation, from the point of view of building, there is any immediate likelihood of their being ready within the next few months, or even within the next year or two. To hold out any suggestion of that kind would be altogether too optimistic and quite unjustified. When the first one or two are ready—and it is the intention that they shall be conveniently situated about the country—every opportunity will be given for magistrates and Judges who wish to see what they are like to visit them.

As I said in connection with the previous clause, it is hoped that there will be a much closer co-operation between the Judiciary, both high and low, and the Prison Commissioners in the administration of this Bill when it becomes an Act. With regard to the point made by the Lord Chief Justice, I confess that it is one which had not occurred to me. I will have that looked at, and I hope I shall be in a position to make a statement with regard to it on the Report stage.

LORD LLEWELLIN

The noble Lord cannot tell me how many are contemplated?

LORD CHORLEY

The actual number will obviously have to be decided as the Act is administered. It will depend to some extent upon what happens in the future. This is in effect an enabling Bill, which provides that these detention centres may be brought into existence. I think your Lordships have the impression that the scheme is a good deal more cut-and-dried than it is possible for it to be at present.

VISCOUNT SIMON

May I make one observation? The noble Lord speaks so reasonably, and is so anxious to do what is right. This is not a matter of complaint at all. What does strike me is that there is no attempt anywhere to define, even in the widest terms, what this phrase "detention centres" means. Of course it would be quite wrong, I think—and probably impossible—to have a close, cut-and-dried definition, but it seems to me a very odd thing that you should have in an Act of Parliament a phrase which in itself means nothing at all. "Detention centre" is not a phrase that is known to anybody in any way, except so far as I the noble Lord and others interested are good enough to explain what is meant. Surely it is wrong not to include in the definition clause something, however general in terms, which indicates the kind of thing that is meant. The noble Lord speaks of people of a particular age receiving a short sharp sentence to pull them up. I can see that we cannot put all those words in the Act, but is it not rather ridiculous to introduce into a Bill a phrase which presumably is a term of art, but which is not denned in any sort of way at all? If I might suggest it to the Lord Chancellor, I would like him to consider whether, before we finally dispose of it, there ought not to be something, however general the terms, indicating the kind of place which is meant. I know what a prison is, and I know what Borstal is; but nobody reading this can ever know what a detention centre is. For all I know, it might be a shopping centre.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I think I said, in answer to the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, that I would consider putting in a definition, although I can see great difficulties about it.

LORD SCHUSTER

I do not want to delay the discussion, but as I said before, my Amendment is not intended in any way to be hostile. It is disappointing to people who are accustomed to sitting in courts, and who are anxious to welcome any method of further classification, to find they are expected to be satisfied with a phrase which does not put them in any better position than they were before. I do not think any of us likes short sentences, and this appears to be a device which is intended to perpetuate, in respect of this particular kind of boy, the short sentence which cannot reform and is merely intended to punish. With that, all I can do is to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

EARL HOWE

Before the noble Lord withdraws his Amendment, may I say that I intervene with great reluctance, being a layman and not understanding anything about it? I have listened to noble Lords on all sides asking specific questions with regard to this question of detention centres. I have not yet heard an answer from the Government to any of the questions asked by noble Lords. Would it be possible for the noble Lord to give us on Report stage a considered statement with regard to these detention centres? I think the present answer of the Government is most unsatisfactory. After all, this is not an entirely new proposal; the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has been asking questions on the subject for the last eighteen months. Surely the Government ought to be able to give us a little more information. I appeal for further information on this subject. Otherwise, when we come to Report stage, if there is an Amendment on the Paper I hope that some noble Lord will press it to a. Division. And if so, I shall certainly support it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD CHORLEY

This is a drafting amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 44, line 18, leave out ("appearing to the court to be").—(Lord Chorley.)

LORD GODDARD

There are a great many criminal laws where this expression "appearing to the court to be" forms part of the Act. I am wondering why in this particular case these words are to be taken out.

LORD CHORLEY

If your Lordships will look at subsection (3) of Clause 77, which is the interpretation clause, you will see the words: Where the age of any person at any time is material for the purposes of any provision of this Act, or of any Order in Council made thereunder, regulating the powers of a court, his age at the material time shall be deemed to be or to have been that which appears to the court to be or to have been his age at that time. In view of this subsection, the words proposed to be deleted ire not regarded as necessary.

LORD GODDARD

I quite understand, and I am obliged to the noble Lord.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

On Question, Whether Clause 44, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?

THE EARL OF MUNSTER

In Clause 44, subsection (1), the noble Lord will observe that the Secretary of State can provide remand centres amongst other things. If we turn to subsection (3), it appears that a young person under the age of seventeen can be committed to a remand centre for the purpose of obtaining a medical report on his physical and mental condition. In such a case the council of the county or county borough who would be responsible for his maintenance if he were retained in a remand home will have to pay for his detention in that place. As I understand it, precisely similar centres are provided in subsection (4) of Clause 45. What I am uncertain about is this. If the Home Secretary decides to provide remand centres, have they to be kept up by the local authority? Will the local authorities have any say as to where these centres are to be placed? In any event, it is quite clear that the local authority will be expected to pay for the maintenance of an individual under the age of seventeen who has gone into a remand centre for the purposes of the provision of a medical report. Can the noble Lord give me some information as, to who will, in fact, be expected to maintain these centres?

LORD CHORLEY

As I understand it, the remand centre is provided by the Home Secretary and will be maintained by him, although a local authority may be under the obligation to pay for the maintenance of an individual lad who is sent there for the kind of purpose which the noble Earl indicates.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

If a boy normally goes to a remand home at the expense of a local authority, then the local authority should pay the Home Secretary for the cost of keeping him in the remand centre.

Clause 44, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 45 to 47 agreed to.

Clause 48:

Rules for the Management of Prisons, Remand Centres, Detention Centres and Borstal institutions.

48.—(1) The Secretary of State may make rules for the regulation and management of prisons, remand centres, detention centres and Borstal institutions respectively, and for the classification, treatment, discipline and control of persons required to be detained therein.

4.17 p.m.

VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD moved, in subsection (1), after "treatment," to insert "employment." The noble Viscount said: My object in proposing this Amendment is to mention employment specifically as one of the subjects upon which the Secretary of State should make prison regulations. I make no apology for raising this question. It is one of the key questions of the Bill. It raises the whole question of prison labour. Prison labour has come into our discussions more than once during this Committee stage. The noble Lord, Lord Oaksey, raised the question specifically in the early days of the Committee stage, and the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor then gave the answer that labour should be hard, that it should be well organised, and that there should be no loafing in prisons—I paraphrase roughly the general trend of his arguments.

I have an uneasy feeling that, as things are now—I am not blaming any of the officials—there is a great deal of unemployment and under-employment in our prisons. No doubt, the problem has become very difficult: the prisons are overcrowded, and it is always very difficult to organise employment, particularly for short sentences. None the less, if I compare the position to-day with what it was before the war when I was Home Secretary, I believe that the problem has become both more urgent and, at the same time, in one respect at least, easier to deal with. In the years before the war, the criticism was always made that, with a large number of unemployed outside the prisons, it was difficult to bring prison labour into competition with outside labour. I need not argue the point that we need the labour of every man and woman in the country, and there is therefore no fear of prison labour—in any case only a small body of labour—creating unemployment outside.

I remember that in the pre-war days we based our policy upon the recommendations of what was called the Salmon Committee—a Committee presided over by Sir Isidore Salmon. I think that that Committee reported in the year 1933. The Second World War came and we did not get very far with those recommendations. The recommendations were most valuable at that time; they are more than ever valuable to-day. The broad conclusions of the Salmon Committee were, first, that prison labour tended to deteriorate in the years between the two wars—or perhaps I should put it rather more accurately if I said that it deteriorated in the period after the First World War, the reason being that in war time it was possible to occupy prisoners with war work of various kinds and. as a result, the production statistics were improved and the reinstatement of the prisoners was greatly helped.

Then came peace conditions, and the demand from the outside tended to dry up, with the result that prisoners as a whole were driven back upon the old routine of a most unsatisfying type of work, such as the making of mail bags. I am afraid that the same result is going to take place now. I am informed that during the Second World War there was a great improvement in the actual production of prisoners' work. They took an interest in what they were doing. They felt that they were helping in some degree to take part in war work and production accordingly went up, with a good result for the country and with an equally good result for the prisoners. I am now informed that that outside demand is falling off, that prisoners are being forced more and more into the old routine work and that even at a prison like Wakefield, where in recent years, as we know, the prison authorities have availed themselves of the stimulus of outside work, a considerable number of prisoners are engaged upon routine hand sewing. I quote that instance as an illustration of the danger of prison labour drifting back into the old rather soulless routine.

The second conclusion that the Salmon Committee reached was that the conditions of prison labour—I am now using their exact words—"made prisoners soft and mentally slow." That is the very result that I am sure we all wish to avoid. As I say, I realise the present difficulties. I realise the difficulty particularly of overcrowding and of the staffs. Yet, within those limitations, I believe that a good deal more could be done than is actually being done at the present time. I have the feeling that there is an atmosphere almost of hopelessness in view of this most difficult problem, and that if it continues one of the main objects of this Bill—namely, the reforming of the prisoner by hard and not uninteresting work—will to a great extent be frustrated. On that account, I have certain definite proposals to put before the Government.

First, I suggest to them that they should now make the Director of Industries—the official of the Prison Commissioners who deals with labour conditions in prison—a member of the Prison Commission. That was a recommendation of the Salmon Committee which was very well received at the time. I myself feel that prison employment is so essentially a part of the reformative work of prison that it is necessary that the representative of that branch of the work should actually be a member of the Prison Commission. That is my first proposal. My second proposal is that a much more definite programme of prison work should be prepared than has up to the present been the case. By that, I mean that particular kinds of work should be allocated to particular prisoners. I mean also that the Government should enter into active consultation with the trade union authorities to avoid any difficulties about employment, say, in some of the more skilled trades, and that in particular, wherever it is possible, the prisoners should be engaged upon work of definite national importance. I have in mind particularly agricultural work, afforestation, land, drainage, and also, not least, the housing of prison staffs and, if necessary, the police. Two of the great difficulties in the field of penal administration at the present moment are the shortage of houses for prison staffs and the shortage of housing for the police. Why should not some of this labour in prison that is at present either unemployed or under-employed be engaged upon this work of first-class national importance?

Next, I would bring prison earnings into much closer relation with earnings outside. It was during the Home Secretaryships of my noble friend, Viscount Simon, and myself that earnings upon a fairly extensive scale were introduced into prison life. Those earnings were upon a very tentative basis. I am told that at present they amount to a maximum about Is. 6d. per week only—a very small sum but a sum, be it noted, that has been sufficient to stimulate the interest of a great many prisoners. I believe that if this Bill is to achieve the full results that we all wish, a definite step forward should be taken in bringing those small earnings, which are really only doles, into relation with labour conditions outside. This is not a revolutionary proposal. It has been tried in one or two of the Scandinavian countries and I believe it has been tried in one or two of the States of the United States. Generally speaking, if a prisoner is engaged upon skilled work, he is credited with the proper rate of wages. The wages then go for his own keep. If necessary, they go for compensation for his victim. They go to his family, and a certain share is accumulated for him, to give him a small fund when he comes out of prison. I hope that the regulations which the Secretary of State will issue under this Bill will include further regulations with reference to prison earnings, so that we may get away from this atmosphere of the small and almost ineffective dole and, in its place, substitute a real stimulus to a prisoner to take an interest in his work and to make good by the reformative effect that interesting work is bound to have upon him.

Lastly, I suggest to the noble Viscount the Lord Chancellor that the time has come to make it possible for prisoners to keep alive their insurance cards. I know the difficulty that has always been urged against this proposal—namely, that there is no contract of labour between the Government and the prisoner. That may be a formidable legal objection. None the less I feel it is necessary that somehow or other it should be surmounted. Particularly now, when insurance is being so greatly extended, it is all the more important that a prisoner, when he leaves prison, should not be an outcast, without an insurance card, without (it may be) the card for his old age pension, but that he should be kept within the general machinery of insurance benefits. I have made these proposals to impress upon your Lordships the great importance in a Bill of this kind of this question of prison employment. I regard it as one of the key questions in the whole Bill On that account I think it should be mentioned especially in this clause as one of the subjects upon which the Secretary of State should make specific regulations. I hope that if he does make these regulations he will take into account the points that I have mentioned, that he will bring up to date the system that has fallen out of date, and that he will make use of the valuable experience that we have gained upon the subject in recent years. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 46, line 42, after ("treatment") insert ("employment").—(Viscount Templewood.)

THE EARL OF MUNSTER

I should like to support my noble friend Lord Templewood in the plea that he has made to the Government to accept the Amendment which stands in his name. I do so because I believe that I have some knowledge of this subject. For twenty years or more my father happened to be a governor of three prisons in succession in this country; and in those three I was practically born and bred. During the first period of my life, I had many opportunities to see the insides of prison, to see the prisoners at work and to appreciate to a large extent the soul-destroying work which at all times they were asked to undertake. I well remember that in those days there were, practically speaking, five principal jobs of work which they could do. They were: book-binding, tailoring, mail-bag manufacturing—to which my noble friend has referred—the general repairs and renovations in the prison itself, and cleaning and gardening—where there was a garden in the particular prison. Many years later, in the year 1939, at the time he was Home Secretary, the noble Viscount who moved this Amendment was good enough to allow me to go round the various prisons in England again, because at that time I was going to move the Criminal Justice Bill for him in your Lordships' House. It was with some astonishment that I found that, nearly twenty years later, there was in fact the same class of work in prison, and that that was all the prisoners had to do.

My noble friend has given your Lordships a sound account of the Salmon Committee's Report, and there is no need for me to refer to it. But I have always thought that the Prison Commissioners, and the Home Secretary in particular, should devote more attention to securing a far wider range of work for prisoners in local prisons and in convict prisons to undertake. We all know that to-day, as was the case in the past, prisoners are locked up at a very early hour. But if they have had some interesting and absorbing occupation during the hours of work, they will find more contentment and more rest in the solitary confinement which they are bound to undergo for many hours. I have had my suspicions in the past that much of this difficulty in finding work for prisoners in prison was due to trade union restrictions. There may have been some reason for it at that time, but I do not think there is any need for it to-day. Just at the end of the war, when I happened to be Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office to the present Lord President of the Council, we took it in turns to visit certain remand homes in and around the London area. We actually found one home where, when we asked if the girls who were in that house could do decoration—such as painting the walls and the woodwork and so on—we were told that that was not allowed because it was against the trade union regulations. I believe that those conditions should now cease, and that the Home Secretary, together with his Prison Commissioners' advisers, should enter into consultation with the trade unions, and with business enterprises generally, to inquire whether there is any, and if so what, prospect of increasing the type of work which prisoners can do in prison.

Lastly, I would add that, since those early days when I was connected with prisons, there has been one change. It is over twenty-five years ago now that my father himself recommended to the Prison Commissioners that those prisoners who were of good behaviour should be allowed out to work in the agricultural areas, to do drainage and such work of national importance It was with some satisfaction that last year I succeeded for the first time, after constant and continual pressure, in getting prisoners from, I think, Pentonville Prison in London to come down; and they were actually working on my own property at home, doing the land drainage work which, twenty-five years before, my father had recommended that prisoners with good conduct should do. It takes the machinery a long time to work, but I most heartily support the suggestion and the recommendation of my noble friend. I hope the Government will give it very favourable reception, and will agree to the insertion of this word in the Bill. To make doubly sure that what is in the Bill is brought into full operation and effect, the co-operation of the Prison Commissioners, the Home Secretary, the trade unions and other business enterprises should be sought.

VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE

I feel so strongly upon this subject that I cannot resist saying a few words in support of this Amendment. I cannot imagine anything more conducive to a resumption of delinquency than the mental stagnation that results either from unemployment or from employment upon uninspiring work. I want particularly to support that part of my noble friend's speech in which he spoke of the desirability of employing prisoners upon work which is, at the present time, of extreme national importance. In that connection, I should like particularly to emphasise and endorse what he said with regard to agriculture, on the one hand, and forestry, on the other. We are faced with a very serious dearth of agricultural workers on the land of Great Britain to-day. We have never been faced, even in war time, with a greater prospect of ultimate starvation unless we—pre-eminently among all European countries—win from the land far more food than we are winning to-day. Similar considerations apply to forestry. We are facing something; like a timber famine unless we can reinstate our wood-land areas with a large proportion of I her timber which two world wars have removed from them.

In that connection, I should like to tell the Committee, apropos of what my noble friend Lord Templewood said with regard to overseas experience, something which I think it may interest your Lordships and him to know; that is, that a large proportion of the splendidly executed afforestation which has been going on in New Zealand for the last twenty or thirty years, has been carried out by prisoners. Not only have such men done useful work of national importance while under prison discipline but after they have been released a large number of them have turned their hands usefully to afforestataion work. I have had personal experience of this, for I have seen them at it when I was Governor-General of New Zealand. I may say that it convinced me more than anything else of the extreme value of prisoners being employed on really useful work of national importance. These men from the New Zealand prisons were also employed on quarrying, with a view to the production of read metal, and on building. They received, as my noble friend has indicated is customary in some overseas countries, a small wage which was applied either to the purchase of tobacco or some other minor luxury, or to the support of their families.

Finally, I should like to say this, In the middle of the 'thirties—I think it was in 1935 or 1936—we had in this country a large number of occupational centres in the special areas where unemployment was rife. It was part of my duties as President of the National Council of Social Service, and in collaboration with His Royal Highness, the late Duke of Kent, to visit these occupational centres. I have never been more impressed during the whole of my life than I was when I visited these centres. I saw the value of such efforts, the inspiring effect which they had upon many of these poor people who as the result of prolonged unemployment had lost a great part of their interest in life. Surely, the same thing applies to these people whom we are endeavouring to reform in our prisons. I will not say anything more on this matter now, but I feel that if Satan still finds mischief for idle hands to do, that applies in a very special sense to those undergoing reform in our prisons.

LORD SALTOUN

I cannot imagine anything more likely to promote the moral reform of a man undergoing sentence of imprisonment than to provide him with a practical way of making money to be used for the support of his wife and family. I always feel that, when a man is sent to prison, it takes away the support of his wife and family. And that must of itself bring to the man a certain moral degradation. I think the ideal at which we should aim is to give them work in the way that has been suggested this afternoon. It would certainly take from my mind that sense of horror which I have whenever I hear of a man being sentenced to prison, and the apprehension which I feel as to what will happen to his wife and family.

4.45 p.m.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This has been an interesting debate, and the Amendment, I think, has been used rather as a peg on which to hang it. If I may, I will deal with the Amendment first and with the discussion later. So far as the Amendment is concerned, it seems to us that to insert the word which the noble Viscount suggests is quite unnecessary. Indeed, by singling out one, it might make it desirable to insert a good many. This particular passage in the Bill reads: The Secretary of State may make rules for the regulation and management of prisons, remand centres, detention centres and Borstal institutions, respectively, and for the classification, treatment, discipline and control of persons required to be detained therein. Obviously, the Secretary of State may make regulations with regard to employment in prisons, just as he must make regulations with regard to health, clothing, education, opportunities for religious instruction and religious worship, and things of that kind. All those things come under the word "treatment" and the earlier words "regulation and management of prisons." There would be no objection to putting in this word were it not that the effect would rather be to suggest the desirability of putting in many other words which are already covered by the words "management" or "treatment" As I say, I do not very much mind whether we do or do not accept the Amendment, but my case is, that the necessary words are already there. If the Amendment is made, it might be necessary to put in many more words.

Having dealt with the peg, I now come to the substance of this very important matter. I find myself in complete agreement with the noble Viscount in thinking that this is the very heart of the problem. I believe he paraphrased my remarks, and I am afraid that I have not a very clear recollection of what I said, but I certainly think that it is of the essence of success in prison treatment that these people should be put to work, and to work hard, so that they will get tired—that is, in the physical sense. But the work should be work in which they can take some sort of pride—not merely digging a hole and filling it in again, or something of that sort. That is all wrong. Nothing is more likely to give a man back his self-respect than really to be able to get down to work which is worth doing—work in which he can feel some pride. The Government and successive Home Secretaries, have always been much alive to this problem. But we must be realists and face the difficulties. In the year 1924 a Director of Industries was appointed. The noble Viscount has suggested, as a practical measure, that the Director of Industries might be made a Prison Commissioner. I venture to disagree, and for this reason. This is a most important job and, moreover, it is an absolutely whole-time job. If the Director of Industries is made a Prison Commissioner, he will have to deal with all sorts of prison problems and will not be able to concentrate on this particular vital problem. So far from such an appointment being a good thing, I venture to think that it would be a bad thing not to have this man concerning himself solely with this problem.

The position at present is this. The Director of Industries is assisted by five supervisors of industries and farms, and eight technical officers who give advice on specific trades. At prisons and Borstal institutions there are a number of industrial managers—ten in post, a further eight to be appointed. These are responsible either for a large establishment or for a number of small institutions. At each establishment there are also trade instructors, some of whom are trained prison officers, some skilled civilian tradesmen. There are at the present time 256 officer-instructors and 89 civilian tradesmen. In addition, there are 260 prison officer trade assistants, who are employed under the Director of Works. So your Lordships will see that, of a total of 605 recruits in the prison service with special building trades qualifications, 70 are engaged in instructing prisoners and Borstal inmates in vocational training; and the others are engaged in the production of buildings, maintenance and repair work on the fabric of institutions. I cannot deny what the noble Viscount says, that the difficulties have come on us since the war. That is the fact. I will give an illustration of a practical sort of difficulty we have to face. During the war the women in Holloway prison were employed assembling wireless parts. It was not difficult work, but it needed some little skill and attention. It was useful work, it was interesting work and they did it well. What they produced was valuable and, what was more important, the effect on these women was also valuable. It is the fact that there is no longer a demand for these parts. Indeed, people outside making these parts have had to dispense with some of their labour. That is an illustration of a practical problem which now arises.

Your Lordships said, and said with great truth, "Send these people out. Let them go and work on the land and in the forests." That is absolutely right. The Prison Commissioners would agree entirely; but your Lordships will observe this. If we have prisoners working outside prison, they must have more supervision. If I could get additional staff of 1,000 men, I could largely solve this problem; but one of the difficulties we are up against to-day is this shortage of staff. When I am confronted with the problem of a small staff, it is idle to tell me to spread men out. It cannot be done. I am not saying there is no answer, a non possumus answer; but we must be realists. Though it is of enormous importance that it should be done, these are some of the problems that we are up against. On the other hand, all the articles in common use in prisons—mats, brushes, blankets and bedding and other articles—are made by the prisoners themselves, and much is supplied to Government Departments. Much of the food in prisons is grown by prison labour. Where there are farms, farm work is one of the main occupations. In London, in Wormwood Scrubs and Pentonville, it would be difficult to get these people to farms or forests, as there is none within easy reach.

In our present shortage of manpower, we have recently revised the whole question of prison employment, with a view to securing the best use in the national interests of the resources available in prison labour, always bearing in mind that the use of this labour is twice blessed—it not only brings into being something which is of value in our time of shortage, but it does something to rehabilitate the character of these men. Government Departments, local authorities and public corporations should be asked to buy as much as possible of their requirements from the prison administration. We entirely approve of the extension of the range of work on which prisoners may be employed in places outside the prison walls. We approve in principle the production by the prisoners of articles for sale or the open market. Of course these proposals are subject to agreement with the appropriate employers' organisations and trade unions as to the rates to be paid. Though there have been considerable difficulties in the past, I think recent discussions show that those difficulties may be surmounted. After all, conditions to-day are not so formidable as they were. We are now living in a period of full employment—or comparatively full employment—making it more easy to cope with the situation than in the old days, and I do not anticipate the resistance from the trade unions which used to be forthcoming.

The installation of machinery for the purpose of advancing prison industries is a matter which the Prison Commissioners have very much in mind. But again I am being a realist when I say that to get machinery at the present time is not easy. Many factories and industries are crying out for these machines, and it is difficult to give first place to prisons. If your Lordships want an acceptance of the principle that it is important to instal these machines, I accept the principle and, what is much more important, can assure your Lordships that the Prison Commissioners will accept it. Though up against a difficult problem, they realise its importance and are doing everything they can to solve it. I accept to the full what has been said about the importance of providing useful work for prisoners. I assure your Lordships that the Prison Commissioners are very much alive to it. The Home Secretary is very much alive to it. Though the present time is full of difficulty, we shall go on in every way we can to try and surmount those difficulties.

The noble Lord asked me about earnings. Until quite recently, the earnings of prisoners were very low—something of the order of 6d. to 9d. a week. Recently, those rates have been increased by 50 per cent. Realising the importance of this question, the Prison Commissioners appointed an office committee to advise them about what they should do on the whole question of earnings in prison and in Borstal. One point for consideration is that the earnings scheme to-day applies only when the prisoner has reached the stage at which certain privileges attach; that is, after one month in the case of "star" prisoners and three months in the case of others. Therefore, the earnings scheme does not apply to a man who receives a sentence of three months. The Prison Commissioners have received the report of their office committee and it is now receiving their consideration. An improved scheme is likely to result from its recommendations. I cannot think that the proposal that prisoners should be credited with wages at the rates ruling outside is right or fair or practical. The cost of maintenance in prison, if allowance is made for overheads, is far higher than any prisoner would pay outside and, if charged in full, few prisoners would have anything left at all.

Apart from that difficulty, there is a great variety in the conditions of work in prison, and they are doing jobs for which the rates of wages outside differ enormously. It may be simply a matter of prison discipline and convenience of administration that a man is employed in one particular task which gives him the low earnings. We must remember, also, that many are unwilling workers; that there would be great difficulty in assessing the value of the work at outside rates, and the payments due on such rates would often be very small. I venture to think that that is not the right criterion. I believe that the right criterion is to give a man something which is sufficient to act as an inducement to him to do strenuous and good work. I would suggest that this is more likely to be the standard to be adopted. But, as I have said, this Report has only just been received by the Prison Commissioners, and it is now having their consideration.

I now come to the other difficult question, which I had to consider when I was the Minister of Insurance—namely, the matter of insurance, short-term benefit and long-term benefit. Many people may fall out of insurance. They may fall out of insurance because they are sick, because they are unable to pay, or because they are too poor. In those circumstances, what happens if they are not qualified? They then qualify for national assistance. I must say, quite frankly, that I should not think it right to grant a concession to a prisoner which I did not grant to an honest man who had not done anything wrong, but who, by reason of his poor circumstances, was not in a position to demand insurance benefits as of right. The prisoners must, in my submission, be content with national assistance. We must, however, be very careful that the insurance card, by the gaps or spaces on it, does not advertise to the world at large or to the employer that the man has spent some time in prison. That would be unfair. At the present time, as your Lordships' know, the qualification for short-term benefits is 26 contributions since entering into insurance, and 50 contributions paid or credited in the last complete year. For long-term benefit it is 156 contributions, or an annual average throughout of 50 contributions paid or excused. I do not see that prisoners, doing prison work, can be regarded as though they were employed for the purpose of the insurance scheme.

I think it would be a wrong conception altogether to treat the Prison Commissioners as being in the contractual relation of an employer to persons who are consigned to their care for custodial purposes. Accordingly, the regulations which the Ministry of National Insurance propose to make under the Act would exempt prisoners, amongst other classes, from liability to pay contributions under the scheme. But that will not prevent the prisoners who can do so from paying contributions as non-employed persons, under Class 3, for the purpose of their long-term benefits, and arrangements are being made to allow the prisoners to pay such contributions—or, at any rate, such arrangements are being canvassed. The payment of contributions for short-term benefits, however, will be precluded. For the reasons which I have already given, I do not think it right that prisoners should be credited with such contributions. That is a broad question of principle.

That is all I have to say. I am grateful to the noble Viscount for raising this question. In my opinion, this is the key question of the whole problem. It is beset with great difficulties, but the Prison Commissioners are a body of men who realise absolutely how important is this problem. They are facing up to the difficulty and doing all they can to meet it. I do not think there is anything else I can say, except to repeat that I regard it as a matter of absolute indifference whether this word is, or is not, inserted. It is plainly there. I have given your Lordships what assurances I can. I have told you that earnings are now under consideration, and I have explained the position about insurance. I realise how vitally important employment is, and if and when I can get a larger prison staff, I shall then be able to disperse my prisoners much more, doing variable work. That is almost entirely a question of staff.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I agree with most of what the noble and learned Viscount has said, but I do not think this question of supervision is quite as difficult as it is sometimes made out to be—that is to say, so far as it relates to the "star" class prisoner, or the man who is coming towards the end of his sentence and is soon to get the remission he has earned for good conduct. In the case of the Borstal institution that my brother was running during the war (he has now left, and moved to another one), a new system was introduced whereby he sent out his young Borstal boys to work on farms. They were given bicycles to go to quite distant farms, and, although others absconded when they were in the institution itself, I do not believe there was a single instance of one of those boys absconding while on that work. They were not supervised at all until they got on to the farm, and they were then merely supervised by the farmer. I am told that the Home Office normally send only one warder with about forty "star" class prisoners who go out on these jobs. I urge the noble and learned Viscount to try and get the Home Office to use that system even more than they are doing at the present time.

With regard to the question of the Industrial Director being made one of the Prison Commissioners, I would remind your Lordships that one of the Prison Commissioners is a doctor, and he carries out his medical duties in addition to his general work as a Prison Commissioner. I would suggest that the question of the appointment of the Industrial Director should be considered again from that point of view. If he is a Prison Commissioner no doubt he will be able to get direct to people to whom he could not get as a mere Industrial Director. Finally, I would say that, as we are all agreed that employment is most essential, in my view it would be a good thing to insert the word "employment." After all, the words "discipline" and "control" are included. They may be thought to be fairly synonymous; at least, they are as synonymous, I should have thought, as "treatment" and "employment." It seems to me that it would show that Parliament wanted to lay particular stress on the employment problem if we included the word "employment" as proposed by my noble friend Viscount Temple-wood.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I do not mind at all. If the noble Viscount would like the word inserted, I am quite agree-able.

LORD SALTOUN

Before we leave the matter of insurance, I would like to ask the noble and learned Viscount whether it would be possible to get all the business of the employment and insurance cards of the discharged prisoner arranged in the prison before he is released, so that he does not have to make to local labour exchanges explanations which are rather embarrassing.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

We will consider that point.

VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD

I am obliged to the noble and learned Viscount for the sympathetic answer which he has given to my proposal I am also grateful to the Committee for having given so much attention to what he rightly des- cribed as the key to the whole Bill. As it is the key to the whole Bill, I should much prefer to have the word "employment" in, and I am therefore glad to hear that he is prepared to accept the Amendment. The only other observation I would make is that I am sure we were all glad to hear of the number of industrial advisers and labour experts who are now engaged in the present administration. At the same time, in spite of this great increase in the staff of industrial experts, the conditions of prison labour to-day are about as bad as they have been at any time in the last twenty-five years. I am told that, so far from every prisoner being expected to do eight hours work a day, the time is often much less owing to there being no work for him. I hope, therefore, that as a result of this debate all those concerned will look at this problem once again to see whether, in spite of the difficulties which the Lord Chancellor has described, and which I freely admit, a definite improvement could not be made in prison conditions.

I say no more, except to thank the Lord Chancellor and to end with one further suggestion. I still maintain my view that the Industrial Director should be a Prison Commissioner. What I should also like the Home Office and the Government to consider, be the man a director or a Commissioner, is whether he should not issue annually a specific report about work in prisons. At present we have a few paragraphs in the general report. I would have said—particularly after this debate to-day, in which it has been shown that we are all intensely interested in the problem—that we ought to have regularly a detailed report showing how far we are making progress upon the lines suggested by the Lord Chancellor, and how far we are really reorganising prison work upon the lines of the recommendations of the Salmon Committee. That being so, I thank the Lord Chancellor for accepting my Amendment.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

5.13 p.m.

LORD SCHUSTER moved to add to subsection (4): (e) any person serving a sentence of corrective training. The noble Lord said: This again is in the nature of an exploratory Amendment, in order that the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, can tell us a little more about corrective training. It is difficult to understand why Clause 48 confers upon the Secretary of State the powers set out in subsection (4), with regard to people who are serving preventive detention and various other kinds of sentence, and should not give him a similar power in respect of persons serving a sentence of corrective training. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 47, line 20, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Schuster.)

LORD CHORLEY

I am afraid the noble Lord will have the same feeling when he has heard my reply to this Amendment as he had a few minutes ago on the earlier clause. In respect of the proposals in regard to corrective training, I am afraid that I have nothing more to add to the explanation which I gave the other day when your Lordships were discussing this matter. I hope, however, that I can persuade the noble Lord that there is a good reason why the regulations relating to preventive detention should be made, and that there should not be similar rules relating to this question of corrective training. As the noble Lord is aware, the purpose of preventive detention is mainly custodial. The men are to be kept there for a long period of time in order that they may not continue to be a menace to the community. It is obviously necessary that there should be rules to govern their conduct while they are under this preventive detention.

With regard to the men who are sentenced to corrective training, I suggest to your Lordships that the position is quite different. They are to be classified, and if, as a result of the observations and the classification, the Prison Commissioners are satisfied that they are men who are likely to be amenable to corrective training, they will be sent to one or other of the centres which, as I explained to your Lordships on the last occasion we hope to establish during the next few years. The sort of corrective training Which will be given there is very much like that which has been going on in the best prisons, Wakefield and Maid-stone, over the last years. The men who are not regarded as likely to be so amenable will be sent to ordinary prisons. At the new centres, the treatment will not I be exactly The same as is meted out to the ordinary prisoner who has been sent to the normal type of prison. Your Lordships will see that to a substantial degree, these men will be dealt with, so to speak, each on his own merits.

In those circumstances, I suggest to your Lordships that it would be quite wrong to lay down a hard and fast set of rules which might have the effect of making it, at the best, exceedingly difficult to apply the sort of treatment which is regarded as appropriate to particular groups, or even possibly to particular individual prisoners. I think your Lordships will agree that the position of the men who are sentenced to a long period of preventive detention is altogether different from the position of the men who are sentenced to corrective training. In those circumstances, I hope the noble Lord will agree to withdraw his Amendment.

VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD

I still think that, without going into minute details, the Government could give us a great deal more information upon this question than we have so far received. This is not a new question at all. It did not even start in the years immediately before the war, when the noble Viscount on my right and myself were Home Secretary, It started in the days of Lord du Parcq's Committee in, I think, the year 1932. That valuable Committee made a very detailed Report upon the whole of this question. If I remember rightly, they described the kind of training that they proposed for corrective training and preventive detention. What we should like to know now is whether the Government adhere to that description and, if they do, why they cannot publish a White Paper, or make a statement upon the Report stage, giving, not a detailed description of exactly what is to happen in each of these two cases but a general picture of the kind of training, of the main centres in which it is proposed to give it, and the sort of staffs that they propose to get for them. We are not asking this question in any captious spirit. We merely want to know what proposals of this kind really mean, and what The Government have in mind in suggesting them as alternatives to and substitutes for existing circumstances. It is vitally important, not only to this House but to magistrates and superior courts who should know what is intended.

I hope, therefore, that we shall hear more about this before we leave the Bill. I hope also that the Government, if not upon this stage, at any rate upon the Report stage, will include in the Interpretation Clause a definition of corrective training and preventive detention. If the noble Lord will look at Clause 77 he will see that a description is given of a whole number of other things that are just as difficult to define as corrective training and preventive detention. I cannot see why, if you put in a description of remand homes and remand centres and so on, you should not also put one in for preventive detention and corrective training. I would therefore urge upon the noble Lord not to rest on the very perfunctory kind of information that we have so far received but to take the House a little more into his confidence.

LORD SCHUSTER

Almost every word the noble Lord said convinced me more and more that there ought to be rules, that the Home Secretary ought to make them and that they ought to be published. I cannot understand why it is necessary to make rules for other particular types of offender and not for this type—a particular type, not perhaps in respect of the crime committed but in respect of the treatment he is to receive. I should have thought that the Secretary of State ought to tell us, and tell the persons who have to impose sentences of imprisonment, under what rules these people are to be looked after in those places. I do not follow the answer that has been given—but the answer has teen given, and I do not wish to waste time. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause, 48, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 49 agreed to.

Clause 50:

Corporal punishment in prisons.

(2) Rules made as aforesaid may authorise the infliction of corporal punishment for mutiny, incitement to mutiny, or gross personal violence to an officer of a prison when committed by a male person serving a sentence of imprisonment, corrective training or preventive detention.

LORD RAGLAN moved, in subsection (2), after "prison" to insert "or Borstal institution." The noble Lord said: Your Lordships will be aware that a male person undergoing imprisonment or corrective training is liable, if he assaults an officer, to corporal punishment. But I do not see any such provision in the case of lads undergoing Borstal treatment. I see no reason for that differentiation, and that is my reason for moving to insert the words: "or Borstal institution." I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 48, line 14, after ("prison") insert ("or Borstal institution").—(Lord Raglan.)

THE EARL OF MUNSTER

The noble Lord has said quite rightly that this clause provides that there should be corporal punishment in cases of men sentenced to corrective training or to preventive detention. I raise this point only to ask the Government to elucidate the manner in which they intend to maintain law and order at Borstal institutions, and whether they are certain that without the power of corporal punishment they can ensure that there will be no mutiny, or incitement to mutiny, or cases of personal assault or violence on an officer, in Borstal.

The Committee which discussed this subject in 1936 were unanimous in their belief that corporal punishment in Borstal for these three crimes should be abolished. They pointed out that in the twenty-seven years up to 1936 there were only twenty-six cases of corporal punishment in Borstal institutions. But there was a division of opinion amongst those who gave evidence before this Departmental Committee. The Prison Commissioners did not think it worth while to retain the power of corporal punishment; the visiting committees, on the other I hand, thought that this power should be retained, but used in only very exceptional circumstances. The governors of Borstal themselves were divided, five being in favour of the repeal and two in favour of retention. Again, in Scotland, there was no desire on the part of the people to see corporal punishment introduced into their Borstal institutions. All I want to know from the Government is this: How do they intend to keep law and order in Borstal institutions if they do away with corporal punishment? At the same time, could the noble Lord say how many cases of assault and of incitement to mutiny there have been in these institutions since 1936? I support the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, in his Amendment.

LORD CHORLEY

The noble Lord, Lord Raglan, in a very brief speech, said he could see no difference between the position in an ordinary prison and the position in Borstal—

LORD RAGLAN

I said I saw no reason for differentiating. That is not quite the same thing.

LORD CHORLEY

With great respect, I think your Lordships appreciated what the point was. It seems to me that the noble Earl has given an answer in his very able and succinct analysis of the Report on corporal punishment. The Departmental Committee heard the evidence and came to the conclusion that in the case of the ordinary prison there is, so to speak, no alternative punishment. The very fact that a prisoner misbehaves is an indication that he is not much concerned with gaining remission. The Committee's view was that there is no other form of punishment available except corporal punishment. In regard to the lads in Borstal, however, there was a substantial weight of evidence against maintaining that punishment. The Prison Commissioners themselves did not wish to have it and the majority of Borstal governors were against its retention. In Scotland, where they gave up corporal punishment long ago, they do not wish to see it re-introduced. The Government have accepted that weight of opinion.

The noble Earl asks how, in the circumstances, discipline is to be maintained in Borstal, in the event of mutinies and assaults. He was good enough to tell me earlier in the afternoon that he would be asking me for the figures. For the ten or twelve years before the evidence was taken by the Departmental Committee the number was, on the average, about one a year. Since that time the situation has been very much the same. In 1936 there was one, and then right down to 1941 there was none. In that year there were four. In 1942 and 1943 there was none. In 1944 there was one, in 1945 none, in 1946 four and in 1947 one. Therefore so far as the situation inside the Borstal institutions is con- cerned, it has not varied very much from what it was during the years preceding the Report of the Departmental Committee. But I should inform your Lordships that, owing to the crowded state of Borstal institutions a number of lads who had been kept in prison before they were sent to Borstal do not come into this figure. The record, therefore, is not so unsatisfactory. A rather larger number have been guilty of this sort of assault and they had to be birched.

The noble Earl asked how, if we abolish the birch we can keep discipline. The answer is this. If the lad is intractable and unsuitable for Borstal training he will be sent to prison. That is the alternative; and in this kind of case that alternative is regarded as sufficient punishment. That is the view of the Government. That is a sufficient alternative punishment, and in view of the comparatively small number of cases of this kind I think your Lordships would agree that it would be unfortunate to continue corporal punishment in Borstal in order to meet a situation which obviously is not at all serious and when there is the alternative of sending the completely impossible lad—the lad who is quite resistant to training—to prison, where he can be dealt with like any ordinary prisoner. Perhaps I ought to correct that, because I do not think that, if he is sent to prison, he can be made subject to corporal punishment, as his original sentence was to Borstal and not to imprisonment. So, if he were taken away from Borstal and sent to prison because the authorities said that he was not amenable to Borstal training, he would be subject to the ordinary prison discipline, but not to corporal punishment.

LORD SALTOUN

I would not like to let the noble Lord's reply pass without making public my opinion—that to send a boy to prison is far more cruel than to give him corporal punishment, which is short and sweet, and usually very much more beneficial.

VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD

I am, perhaps, one of the few in this House who object strongly to judicial whipping of all kinds. I am not prepared actually to oppose this clause, but I think noble Lords should remember this fact: that in Scotland there has been no judicial whipping in cases of mutiny and assault, such as are contemplated in this clause, with the exception of a single prison where it has been permitted. And in that prison, I understand, there has not been a sentence of that sort for several years. That goes to show that if the Scottish case is a test case, it is possible to maintain discipline in prisons without this punishment. At the same time, as I say, I am not going to oppose the clause. I know that a good many of the prison officers attach considerable importance to having this punishment in reserve, and I am not prepared to add to their anxieties at this moment when they already have so much on their backs. However, when it comes to extending it to Borstal, I am strongly opposed to the extension. I remember talking to several of the most successful of the Borstal masters—the housemasters, for instance, who were in very close touch with the Borstal young men. So far as I can remember, I never found a single master who was in favour of retaining this form of punishment. That seems to me to differentiate this case very much from the case of the prison warders who, rightly or wrongly, attach importance to its retention. Therefore, I hope that the Committee will reject this Amendment and will take the view that there is no reason to retain a punishment that is obviously repugnant to a great many of the staffs of the various Borstal institutions.

THE EARL OF MUNSTER

I should like to add only one word to the reply which has been given by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, to the noble Lord, Lord Raglan. I do not feel strongly one way or the other about this matter. I am perfectly prepared to accept the noble Lord's explanation that he thinks that, if a boy is not receptive of Borstal treatment and is given to mutiny or incitement to violence, he had much better go to prison. I would agree with that view before I would agree to a proposal to institute corporal punishment in Borstal institutions, after it has been so vigorously opposed by some of those who are connected with and work in Borstal itself. I do not know whether my noble friend behind me feels the same as I do. In those circumstance, I certainly should not be prepared to support the Amendment which he proposes.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

Clause 50 agreed to.

5.37 p.m

THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, after Clause 50 to insert the following new clause:

Amendment of Prison Act, 1865, as to introduction of prohibited articles.

"For the purposes of Sections thirty-seven to thirty-nine of the Prison Act, 1865 (which relate to the conveyance of prohibited articles into or out of prisons) a person shall be deemed to convey or introduce an article into a prison if he conveys it to a prisoner outside the prison, or deposits it at any place outside the prison with intent that it shall come into the possession of a prisoner."

The noble and learned Viscount said: The object of this new clause is to deal with this situation. The Prison Act of 1865, which dealt with the giving of prohibited articles to prisoners never, of course, contemplated that it would happen to-day that prisoners would be employed outside the prison. There is to-day, unfortunately, a certain amount of trafficking in prohibited articles taking place which does not involve any offence under the Act of 1865. Let me give your Lordships an illustration. Someone may leave a parcel of tobacco for a particular prisoner who is working outside. Quite obviously, it is possible to take proceedings against the prisoner and it ought to be possible to take proceedings against the man who tempts the prisoner. This new clause brings up to date the principle of the Act of 1865 and makes it applicable to modern circumstances where prisoners are working outside the prison. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 49, line 8, at end insert the said clause.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 51 agreed to.

Clause 52:

Release on licence of persons serving imprisonment for life.

52.—(1) The Secretary of State may at any time if he thinks fit release on licence a person serving a term of imprisonment for life subject to such conditions as may be specified in the licence; and the Secretary of State may at any time modify or cancel any such condition.

LORD BLACKFORD moved to add to subsection (1): Provided that no person convicted of the murder of a police or prison officer shall be released on licence under twenty years; and no person convicted of murder committed during the commission of a felony shall be released on licenco under fifteen years.

The noble Lord said: I have been moved to put down this Amendment entirely by an answer given by the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor to a question posed by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, just before the Second Reading of this Bill. Perhaps I may be allowed to remind your Lordships of the details of that question and answer. The question put by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, was: How many reprieved murderers have been released during the last ten years and what was the average length of their sentence? The Lord Chancellor's reply was that 104 persons had been so released. Of them, 28 had served sentences varying from three months to five years, 52 had served sentences varying from five years to ten years, 24 had served sentences varying from ten years to fifteen years, and only three had served sentences of longer than fifteen years. Incidentally, those figures total 107, but we need not worry about that. If we disregard the lowest category, which clearly applies to people like survivors of suicide pacts, and we disregard the top category—no doubt, the three men misbehaved themselves in prison and lost remission marks—we find that 76 out of 104, or about three-quarters of them, had served sentences which averaged something less than nine years.

Those figures were a great surprise to me. It seems likely that, whatever modification may be made to Clause 1, fewer people even than the 11 per annum who have hitherto been hanged will be hanged in the future, and therefore we may say that persons such as those indicated in my Amendment will almost invariably be reprieved. I submit that a sentence which may average only about nine years is not a sufficient sentence for such persons as here indicated. The objects of my Amendment are obvious: first, to protect the police and peaceable citizens; secondly, to discourage the professional criminal class from carrying arms, and to warn them that if, in the course of the commission of their crime, they kill a policeman, then the punishment will be imprisonment for life, with a minimum of twenty years if their behaviour is good, and if they kill an ordinary citizen in the commission of a felony, then if their conduct is good, their punishment will also be imprisonment for life with a minimum of fifteen years. It may appear illogical to differentiate between the ordinary civilian and the police, but I have put the Amendment down in this way simply to bring about additional protection for the police.

I do not want to appear savage or reactionary, or to be against prison reform; on the contrary, I am strongly in favour of it. After all, we all know quite a number of people who we feel ought to be murdered—the feeling is particularly prevalent in political life. But the law says that we must not murder them and, therefore, they continue to trouble us to the end. No doubt that feeling awakens in us a certain sympathy for less stable citizens who take the law into their own hands and who commit murder, very often under circumstances of great provocation; there is the case of the woman who kills an intolerably cruel husband, or a person who strikes a fatal blow in a drunken quarrel, and bitterly regrets it afterwards. I am quite ready to agree that such persons may be let out after a reasonable length of time, and that they are fit subjects for the reforming zeal of any Home Secretary.

Of course, it may be argued that the discretion given to the Home Secretary in this clause is sufficient. But Home Secretaries come and go; they vary in temperament, outlook, and predilection. Certain Home Secretaries may have great predilection for reforming the prisoner— that is to say, for his cure. I was much impressed the other day by the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, in regard to Clause 1, in which he told us about the 174 reprieved and released murderers, and what jolly good fellows they all turned out to be, except for fifteen who were unfortunately re-convicted, one of whom was so thoughtless and ungrateful as to commit a second murder. But he did not devote a single sentence of his speech to the 175 persons who had suffered violent death at their hands. Therefore, I wish to take it out of the hands of any Home Secretary whose zeal for reform and cure may get the better of his duty to protect and prevent. I wish to warn the criminal world what will be the dire punishment should they carry arms and commit murder in the coarse of their crimes. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 49, line 39, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Blackford.)

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

Before we proceed further with this debate, might I raise a point of order and put a question—namely, whether it is proper to propose a clause which would interfere with the prerogative and require the Secretary of State not to recommend the release of prisoners on licence before a certain period has elapsed? I do not know whether there are any precedents for legislation of that kind, and of just this nature, and perhaps the Committee might be well advised to consider whether it ought to proceed further with this discussion. Perhaps the Lord Chancellor, or some other noble Lord who is better acquainted with these particular points than I am, may be able to give an answer to that question.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I confess that I do not know the answer to that. But I think it would be most undesirable, from every point of view, to pass a clause like this. I did not think the noble Lord would move this Amendment, in view of the alteration we made to Clause 1. I do not know what his intention would have been if we had left Clause 1 as it was passed. But if he wants to advertise the fact that the particular murders which he has set out are murders of special gravity, I entirely agree with him. Even so, to remove entirely the power of the Home Secretary to advise His Majesty or to exercise the prerogative of mercy would be completely wrong. Suppose that there was a case of a prison mutiny, and a man who had shot a policeman and had served fifteen years behaved with the utmost gallantry and saved the life of a warder; or put out a fire, or something of that sort. I think it would be a dreadful thing that the Home Secretary should be precluded by Statute from even considering the case.

Many other instances occur to me. I can think of no precedent for such a proposal as this. Surely the whole working of our Parliamentary institution is that ultimately there is some Minister who has the duty of advising the Sovereign and should be unfettered in the advice which he gives, subject only to Parliamentary criticism, and that sort of thing. I think it would be deplorable if we were to introduce what I believe to be a wholly novel practice whereby we put it out of the power of the Home Secretary, whatever the circumstances may be, to allow men out of prison. Therefore, on principle, I should be entirely opposed to any such clause.

VISCOUNT SIMON

Perhaps I may be allowed to say in a few sentences that I agree entirely with what the Lord Chancellor has said. I do not think that you can classify murders by general description. A murder which is not the murder of a policeman, or of a prison warder, may be just as serious, and may have been perpetrated in circumstances which completely justify whatever the maximum punishment may be. The case of the plotted murder of a private individual for purposes of gain appears to me to be in every respect susceptible, and rightly so, of the same sort of punishment as that of a person who murders a constable. I remember the case of a man who, some time ago, married three girls in succession and, when he learned they had very little money, after a day or two induced them to take a bath and seized them by the heels and drowned them. I cannot conceive that that particular class of offence should be regarded more lightly than the grave offence of killing a policeman. On that ground, apart from any other, I would urge upon my noble friend Lord Blackford that we cannot classify murders.

I feel even more strongly that to state a maximum which can in no circumstances be reduced is completely contrary to the well-established practice by which the Home Secretary does his best to consider the circumstances of the individual case. And I believe it would be very wrong to alter that principle. It is difficult to think of any example, as the Lord Chancellor has said. The only matter that occurs to me at the moment is that we have recently been invited to pass an Act which says, whatever the circumstances may be in which you find the wrong colour petrol in your tank, if you have sold the car you shall forfeit half the value of the car you have sold.

LORD BLACKFORD

I am quite ready to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 52 agreed to.

Clause 53 [Temporary detention of persons liable to detention in a Borstal institution]:

On Question, Whether Clause 53 shall stand part of the Bill?

LORD LLEWELLIN

I would like to make some comment on this clause. It is a clause which allows people who are sentenced to Borstal to be detained temporarily somewhere else until necessary arrangements are made. I raise this point only to draw attention to something which I think may need consideration. I do not ask the Lord Chancellor to give me an answer now. Perhaps, if he will look into it, he will be able to tell me later whether my information is correct or not. If a boy escapes from a Borstal institution, and then comes up before a court because he has committed an offence since his escape, that court may either send him to prison or send him back to Borstal on his existing sentence; or may give him a fresh sentence to be served at Borstal. I am told that if the boy is given a fresh sentence at Borstal (a course which has the advantage that he has then a longer term to serve, and to the public it is shown that at any rate some notice has been taken of the crimes which he committed after his escape) according to Home Office rules it counts as though it were a new sentence, and that lad goes direct to some Borstal institution.

If, on the other hand, he is sent back to do the remainder of his old sentence and nothing more, I am told that he is treated as a defaulter under that old sentence, and he goes for, it may be, three, four or five months to Wormwood Scrubs—a place which it is improbable that he will like, for it is not so pleasant to be in as a Borstal institution. Thus if a lad has done only three or four months of his existing sentence, giving him an extra sentence in fact lets him off more lightly. It seems to me that that is entirely wrong. I feel that it is right that some notice should be taken of the offence which he has committed in the meanwhile. I have raised this point but, as I say, I do not expect an answer to-day. I would like the Lord Chancellor, if he will be so good, to look into it and tell me whether I am right or wrong. If I am right, I hope that that procedure at the Home Office may be altered.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Obviously I am not in a position to deal with the noble Lord's point at the present moment but I will certainly look into it.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I am much obliged to the noble and learned Viscount.

Clause 53 agreed to.

Clause 54:

Transfers from prison to Borstal institution and vice versa.

54.—(1) The Secretary of State may, if he is satisfied that a person serving a sentence of imprisonment is under twenty-one years of age and might with advantage be detained in a Borstal institution, authorise the Prison Commissioners to transfer him to a Borstal institution; and the provisions of the Second Schedule to this Act shall thereupon apply to him as if he had on the date of the transfer been sentenced to Borstal training:

Provided that if on that date the unexpired term of his sentence is less than three years those provisions shall have effect—

1. (a) as if for references therein to three years and four years there were substituted respectively references to the unexpired term and a period being the sum of the unexpired term and one year; and
2. (b) if the unexpired term is twelve months or less, as if the proviso to paragraph 1 of the said Schedule were omitted.

LORD GODDARD moved, in subsection (1), after the first "institution" to insert: and after consultation with the judge or presiding chairman of the court which passes the sentence. The noble Lord said: The object of this Amendment is to provide that if the Secretary of State considers taking a young prisoner who has been sentenced to imprisonment and moving him to a Borstal institution, he should first consult with the judge or the presiding chairman of the court which has passed sentence. I hope that this is an Amendment which the Lord Chancellor will feel inclined to accept. It sometimes happens that a court deliberately refrains from imposing a sentence at Borstal by reason of the nature of the crime, or something of that sort, and, in view of what has occurred in the past, it may be very difficult for Judges to know what to do. There was a famous case which I am sure the Lord Chancellor knows quite well, which was the subject of a good deal of discussion some time ago. My noble and learned predecessor, Lord Caldecote, sentenced a young soldier who had raped a girl on a dark night in a lonely road. He deliberately sentenced that soldier to three years' penal servitude. Later he found that for some reason or other the young fellow had been removed to Borstal. There was another case in the North of England which created a great deal of stir in the county of Durham. Some young men held down and raped a girl in a public park and the learned judge passed sentence of Borstal, because he thought that the same sort of thing would happen if he passed sentence of imprisonment. A great many protests were made, and I do not think that the sentence was approved by the Home Office in that case. All I ask by this Amendment is that if the Home Secretary is contemplating exercising his power of putting a boy who has been sentenced to prison into Borstal, he should take the opinion of the judge or the presiding chairman of the court which passes the sentence before he does so. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 50, line 12, after ("institution") insert the said words.—(Lord Goddard.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

It is clearly right that the opinion of the judge or presiding chairman of the court which passed the sentence should be taken, and I am told that it is so taken, nowadays, at any rate—I think there were exceptions in the war. The two cases; to which The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, referred have been very much under my notice. In the one case, if I remember rightly, I do not think that Lord Caldecote was asked his opinion. I recall that he was very indignant about what happened, and I am sure that if he had been asked whether he thought the convicted individual should go to Borstal he would have given an indignant negative. It is, I am told, the invariable practice of the Home Office to consult the judge or the presiding chairman in these matters. The only difficulty I feel about inserting the words proposed by the noble and learned Lord is that a case might arise where the judge or the presiding chairman had died or was ill or had gone out of the country. If I insert in the Statute words making it a condition that the Home Secretary can act in this way in this sort of case, only after consultation with the judge or the presiding chairman, it seems to me that there may be difficulties. What I will do is to accept the Amendment new. But I may have to consider adding some words to deal with the point to which I have just alluded—the words "where possible," or something of that sort. I may have to insert some such words on the Report stage. I hope that that will satisfy your Lordships and, if that is so, I accept this Amendment.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This is a drafting Amendment. The wording of the present clause was criticised during the Committee and Report stages in another place. It was said that the words might be read as giving power for a person transferred from prison to a Borstal institution to be detained for longer than he would have been detained under his sentence of imprisonment. The new wording makes it quite clear that the period for which such a person is liable to detention in a Borstal institution is that for which he could have been detained if he had continued to serve his sentence of imprisonment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 50, line 18, leave out from ("shall") to the end of line 26 and insert ("apply to him as if he had been sentenced to Borstal training three years before the expiration of that term").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 54, as amended, agreed to.

5.59 p.m.

LORD LLEWELLIN moved, after Clause 54 to insert the following new clause:

Pregnant woman to be removed from prison during childbirth.

"—(1) Where a woman serving a sentence of imprisonment is found in accordance with the procedure under the Sentence of Death (Expectant Mothers) Act, 1931, to be pregnant such woman shall for such period before and after the birth of her child as the Secretary of State may direct be removed from prison to such place as the Secretary of State may direct not being within the precincts of a prison and shall there be subject to such supervision as the Secretary of State may direct.

(2) Any period for which a woman is removed under the foregoing subsection shall be reckoned as part of the sentence."

The noble Lord said: I am not saying that the drafting of this proposed clause is all that it should be, and it may well be that it will need looking at if the principle is accepted. The principle which I am trying to put forward is that the Home Secretary shall be given power to release a pregnant woman from prison for the time of her pregnancy so that the child—who, after all, has nothing to do with the woman being in prison—shall not be born within prison walls. I know that subterfuges have been in operation for some time in regard to the filling in of birth certificates in cases of this kind. For instance instead of putting down on a certificate, say, "Holloway prison" a number in Holloway Road or in the adjoining road may be inserted. Nevertheless, I think it would be a good thing for the Home Secretary to have this power, so that the woman could be taken into hospital where the child could be born. If this could be done the stigma of being born in prison would not rest on her son or daughter. Then, if necessary, the woman could be taken back to prison. That is the sole object of my Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— After Clause 54 insert the said clause.—Lord Llewellin.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This is a matter about which I have long felt keenly, and I have great sympathy with the principle behind the Amendment. At the present time we try to do it by not referring to the name of any prison. For example, instead of saying "Holloway Prison," we put in "101 Holloway Road." No doubt if you went into the matter, you would find that 101 Holloway Road was Holloway Prison, so that does not quite meet the problem. So far as power is concerned, it is already contained in the Bill. If the noble Lord would be good enough to look at page 51 of the Bill, he will see that: The Secretary of State may— (b) If he is satisfied that a person so detained requires medical or surgical treatment of any description, direct him to be taken to a hospital or other suitable place … I want to go on from the power and tell your Lordships what I have been authorised to inform the House. If any woman asks to be allowed to have her confinement outside the prison, and if it is possible to make suitable arrangements for her to do so, the Secretary of State would, under the powers given by the Bill, authorise her removal to hospital or any suitable place accordingly. Of course, it would not always follow that there is a suitable place. Lying-in hospitals are very crowded nowadays, and we find that there is very competent and skilled treatment in prison itself. It may well be that a woman may prefer to remain in prison. But she is the judge of that. If she wants to go outside and there is a suitable place, the Home Secretary can authorise it.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I am quite satisfied with that, and I am glad that my Amendment has elicited that statement from the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor. I suppose I may take it that in any case of this sort the woman would be told that she has this opportunity.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Certainly.

LORD LLEWELLIN

So long as that is included in the statement, I am satisfied. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clauses 55 and 56 agreed to

Clause 57:

Discontinuance of terms "criminal lunatic" and" criminal lunatic asylum"

(5) The Board of Control may, with the approval of the Minister of Health, by statutory instrument make rules for the care and treatment of patients detained in Broad-moor institution; and any statutory instrument containing such rules shall be laid before Parliament after being made.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment is the first of two drafting Amendments, consequential on Clause 79 being amended so as to enable two different dates to be appointed for bringing different provisions of the Act into force, I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 53, line 12, leave out from beginning to ("all") in line 13.—(The Lord Chancellor)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 53, line 17, leave out from ("Health") to end of line 18.—(The Lord Chancellor)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD SCHUSTER moved, in subsection. (5), after "approval of the" to insert "Secretary of State and the." The noble Lord said: This is a more substantial Amendment than those I have moved earlier. When we read this clause with the two clauses which follow, it is almost impossible to make out where the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State and the jurisdiction of the Minister of Health respectively begin and end. The people who are detained in what are called Broadmoor institutions are people who have gone there under process of law, because they have at some time or another either been found in a court of law to be insane, or have been so found after having been convicted. Under Clauses 58 and 59 it is obviously intended that the Secretary of State shall not lose all jurisdiction over them. I do not understand why, when the rules for their treatment are to be made under subsection (5) of this clause, the Board of Control, with the approval of the Minister of Health, are to make the rules. I need not labour the point, which is quite on the surface. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page.13, line 25, at end insert ("Secretary of State and the")—(Lord Schuster)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

As the noble Lord says, it is a very simple point. So far as treatment is concerned, all treatment of a sick person is made and rules are prescribed by the Minister of Health, who alone is responsible for health. The Secretary of State is the only authority who can authorise release—no one else. But with regard to treatment, that is the responsibility of the Minister of Health; it has nothing to do with the Home Secretary.

LORD SCHUSTER

The noble and learned Viscount will see that in line 27 it says not only "treatment" but "care and treatment" That is very close to saying how they are actually to be confined or detained. It seems anomalous that the Board of Control, with the authority of the Minister of Health, and without any consultation with the Secretary of State, can make those rules.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

That is the position. "Care" is all part of the medical aspect.

THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR

In Scotland it is the Secretary of State, and therefore those words ought to be inserted.

THE EARL OF MUNSTER

I would add one word which I think will save my moving my Amendment to insert a new clause after Clause 59. It is now quite clear that when a man who is insane and sent to Broadmoor recovers and is recommended by the Board of Control and the Minister of Health as fit to come out, they cannot let him out without the express authority of the Home Secretary. That is the law as it stands and as it will stand in the future.

LORD SCHUSTER

That is what we were trying to find out, but the method I adopted was not a very neat one. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 57, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 58 [Removal to Broadmoor institutions of certain persons serving life sentences]:

LORD LLEWELLIN moved to leave out Clause 58.

The noble Lord said: Your Lordships will see that this clause starts: If in the case of a person sentenced under Section one of this Act to imprisonment for life … It applies only to people dealt with under a clause that we deleted. This Amendment is therefore consequential. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Leave out Clause 58.—(Lord Llewellin)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The noble Lord is quite right. This is consequential, and I accept it.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clauses 59 and 60 agreed to.

Clause 61:

Persons Unlawfully at Large

61.—(1) Any person who, having been sentenced to imprisonment, corrective training, preventive detention or Borstal training, or ordered to be detained in a detention centre, or having been committed to a prison or remand centre, is unlawfully at large, may be arrested by a constable without warrant and taken to the place in which he is required in accordance with law to be detained.

LORD OAKSEY moved, in subsection (1), immediately before "detention centre" to insert "remand home or" The noble Lord said: This clause deals with persons unlawfully at large. The Amendment I suggest is designed to permit a constable to arrest persons who are unlawfully at large from a remand home as well as from other places where they might be detained. It seems to me that they may be equally unlawfully at large from a remand home as from a remand centre, a detention centre or a prison, and it is equally important that they should be re-arrested without a warrant. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 55, line 23, after ("a") insert ("remand home or").—(Lord Oaksey)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The only reason why a remand home is not included in subsection (1) is that under Section 78 (4) of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1935, there is a provision that a child or young person who escapes from a remand home may be apprehended without warrant. That section makes further provision which makes it an offence for any person knowingly to assist or induce a child to escape, to harbour or conceal him, or to prevent his returning. That means that we have this small code in Section 78 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, which has not been touched, and we thought it as well to leave it at that.

LORD OAKSEY

In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD OAKSEY

I beg to move the next Amendment.

Amendment moved— Page 55, line 30, after ("a") insert ("remand home or").—(Lord Oaksey)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I am prepared to accept this Amendment. It is clear that a child or young person committed to a remand home for punishment on conviction for an offence should have his sentence suspended during such period of time for which he escapes.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD OAKSEY

I beg to move the next Amendment.

Amendment moved— Page 55, line 30, after ("centre") insert ("or having been committed to a prison or remand centre").—(Lord Oaksey.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment does not deal with the case of a young person who has been convicted and sentenced. This deals with the position where the young person has been committed to a prison or remand centre—that is to say, committed to await trial. If he escapes there, all one can do is to catch him as quickly as possible. There is no question of a sentence. Therefore I think this Amendment is wrong.

LORD OAKSEY

In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 61, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 62 and 63, agreed to.

6.13 p.m.

Clause 64:

Restriction of power to arrest without warrant under 5. Geo. 4. c. 83.

"64. Notwithstanding anything in section six of the Vagrancy Act, 1824, a person found committing tree offence of pretending of professing to tell fortunes, or using any subtle craft, means or device, by palmistry or otherwise, to deceive and impose on any of His Majesty's subjects, shall not be apprehended under that section except by a constable, and shall not be so apprehended by a constable unless the constable has reason to believe that that person will abscond unless arrested, or is not satisfied as to the identity or place of residence of that person"

LORD AMWELL moved to omit "reason to believe" and insert "reasonable ground for believing" The noble Lord said: The first two of the three Amendments I have down on the Marshalled List go together. They are of less importance than the Third Amendment, and a word or two will explain the position in regard to both. Clause 64 was inserted into the Bill by the Home Secretary in another place as a result of the withdrawal of an Amendment by Mr. Brooks. The whole thing seemed satisfactory at the time, but there had not then been time enough to look into the implications of the clause as it at present stands.

I do not think this is a controversial matter but, for one thing, it was not appreciated that the language was a departure from the usual "form of language in other Statutes. It was also not appreciated precisely what the effect of the clause would be. I am advised that the present form of words in the clause may make it virtually impossible to challenge in court a constable's exercise of the power of arrest. If my form of words is accepted, there would be the duty, as there is under earlier Statutes, for the constable to take the name and address of the accused before making an arrest without warrant, and, if lie has been given the name and address, he can make the arrest only if he has a reasonable ground for believing either that the accused will abscond or that the name and address given are false. That, of course, would not apply if the arrest was made in the home of the person concerned. It is for those reasons that I have put down the first of the three Amendments. They merely bring the matter in accordance with what exists in earlier Statutes of a similar character. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 56, line 29, leave out from ("has") to ("that") in line 30, and insert ("reasonable ground for believing")—(Lord Amwell.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

These words were rather carefully chosen. The noble Lord is quite right in his history of the matter. A clause was put forward to deal with these matters, which are of interest to that group of people commonly called Spiritualists. As the noble Lord said, Mr. Brooks interested himself in this matter. The Home Secretary drafted this clause to try to meet their requirements, and, at any rate, did meet their requirements at the time. In consequence, their clause was not moved and they accepted the Home Secretary's clause.

To come to the first Amendment of the noble Lord, it is quite clear, whether you use the words "has reason to believe" or the words "has reasonable ground for believing," that a court would be entitled to inquire whether, in fact, the constable had reason to believe or had reasonable ground for his belief. As was said by a very learned Judge a long time ago: "The state of a man's mind is as much a matter of fact as the state of his digestion" It is perfectly open to the court to argue whether the constable had reason, or whether there were reasonable grounds for his belief. In fact, there are precedents both ways. If the noble Lord will look at the Firearms Act, 1937, for instance, or the Protection of Animals Act, 1911 (there are many others), he will find that the words "has reason to believe" are there. I agree that there is, for instance, the Dangerous Drugs Act, 1920, where you have the longer phrase, "reasonable ground for believing." But this clause having been put down with the present phraseology, and it being open to the court to examine whether it is the one set of words or the other, I suggest that we ought not to alter the clause now, especially in view of the fact that there are ample precedents for the form of words which we have got here.

LORD AMWELL

This is really a case of second thoughts on the part of those who were responsible for the original Amendment. In the circumstances, I should have thought it was desirable that Members in another place should have the opportunity of knowing that there had been second thoughts, and that they should be able to look into the position again. However, if the position is as the Lord Chancellor states, I am quite willing to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD AMWELL moved to add to the clause: (2) For the purposes of section seventeen of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879 (which confers a right to claim trial by a jury in cases otherwise triable summarily) a person charged under section four or under section five of the Vagrancy Act, 1824, with the offence of pretending or professing to tell fortunes, or using any subtle craft, means or device, by palmistry or otherwise, to deceive and impose on any of His Majesty's subjects shall be deemed to be liable on summary conviction to be imprisoned for a term exceeding three months, and may claim trial by a jury accordingly

The noble Lord said: The Amendment is one which raises a very controversial issue indeed, and one that has been considered from time to time in years past, It deals with the manner in which people who attend Spiritualist meetings, and people who are interested in a practical way in what are called psychic matters, are treated under the old Witchcraft Act, and, in this particular case, under the Vagrancy Act. The purpose of this Amendment is to ensure that in proceedings under the Vagrancy Act such persons shall have the right to claim a trial by jury. It is a matter of considerable pre- judice even to-day, and it seems to me, and to all of those who are interested in mediumship and things of that character, to be quite out of date and unreasonable. I cannot, of course, argue for the abolition of the Vagrancy Act, because that does not arise in this Amendment, but we would like to have some mitigation by allowing mediums prosecuted under the Vagrancy Act the right to claim a trial by jury. In last week's Observer—and I instance this in order to show the kind of unreasonable prejudice which still exists upon this subject—a very noted critic, Mr. George Orwell, reviewed a book recently published called The Heyday of a Wizard. He had in the article the words "Sludge, the Medium," which was the title of a poem by Robert Browning. It will be remembered, by anyone who knows anything about it, that that was nothing more than a piece of personal spite on the part of the poet against a famous medium. In that review Mr. George Orwell wrote that things said in the book about the powers of a particular medium were incredible and, therefore, must have been fraudulent.

Now it is that attitude of mind which seems to me characteristic of many people who refuse to look into the amazing evidence that exists upon the subject of psychical research in general. There is the Society for Psychic Research, with forty odd volumes of proceedings undertaken in a thoroughly scientific manner, giving evidence of certain things which, if it had been upon any other subject upon the face of the earth, would have been considered overwhelming. Yet it is said by a reviewer of the standing of Mr. Orwell that because a thing is incredible, therefore it must be fraudulent. A lot of things are incredible. The recent development of modern physics is incredible. The things that are said in relation to the subject of relativity are incredible, at any rate to the layman. Incredibility, after all, is a very natural thing. Of course these things are incredible. But the question is one of evidence, and against that there is prejudice which does affect the question of prosecution under the Vagrancy Act.

Quite a long time ago I developed psychic powers myself; I became by way of being a medium. I developed certain mediumistic powers, not professionally, not for purposes of gain, not even for purposes of public exhibition, but quite privately. I know, of course, a good deal about what can be seen, apart from any philosophy attaching to it. I am not considering whether it proves future life or anything of that kind. That is not the point. The point is that there are certain phenomena which have a tremendous volume of evidence in their favour, and yet it is all regarded as fraudulent. That prejudice exists and affects the Spiritualists very unfavourably indeed. No one denies that there are fraudulent mediums. It is a subject which lends itself to credulity and, therefore, to the people who play upon credulity; but that does not dispose of the iniquity of injuring people under obsolete Acts of this character.

The purpose of my Amendment is merely that there shall be the right of a medium, for instance if prosecuted under the Vagrancy Act, to claim a trial by jury. The unusualness of what are called psychic gifts makes the question very difficult indeed. There was a case quite recently where two policewomen went to a medium—certainly a medium who charged fees—and evidence was given by them to the effect that the medium had pretended to tell fortunes. Those two policewomen were believed by the magistrate, who said that their evidence ought to be accepted. Yet those policewomen were in prison themselves very shortly afterwards for a long series of thefts. So, after all, there seems to me to be reason in this claim for the right to trial by jury.

I would like to point out with regard to the Vagrancy Acts that it is not a question as to whether money is accepted at all. I said that I had developed psychic gifts in my own time. Quite seriously, I developed a certain form of mediumship up to a point as a matter of interest, but I did not go very much further into it. I could have been prosecuted under the Vagrancy Acts, in spite of it being a private affair of my own. Experiments are now being conducted by Professor Saul, experiments in precognition—that has to do with future events and is something akin to fortune telling. He is a prominent gentleman, a professor who has received a tremendous amount of publicity recently in connection with investigations and experiments on scientific lines which, against the laws of chance, show results 100 per cent. in favour of the experiments. I am not arguing for or against them. But to suggest that those experiments are fraudulent would involve, and could involve, Professor Saul in a prosecution under the Vagrancy Act. We cannot argue about dispensing with that Act, because that matter, unfortunately, is settled for the time being. I think it ought to have been repealed long ago. But we can reasonably mitigate the unreasonable consequences that are involved for mediums, whether they are fraudulent or whether they are not. There is a certain element of fraud, as I say, and the issue is a very fine and sensitive one. There are, or there have been in the past, many mediums who were genuine but at the same time, were tempted—after all, their gift is not always on tap—to eke out by means of small frauds the effects of their demonstrations. We all know that that kind of thing exists, and no one proposes that people who fraudulently impose upon the public for monetary gain shall not come under the law.

But the law exists, apart from those obsolete Acts, and I therefore move this Amendment, which will simply give people of this character—who, after all, are put into a category which includes people who are branded for life by proceedings of this nature—the opportunity of trial by jury. The advantage of trail by jury lies in the fact that there is a jury. The multiplication of one person by twelve does not make it a greater fount of wisdom, but there are certain other incidental points about trial by jury, including the right of appeal, and so on, which would make that system much fairer to mediums who deal in matters of investigation and inquiry into a subject which is recognised by everyone who knows anything about it to be well worthy of scientific and philosophical consideration—and that in spite of the difficulties and the element of fraud that has been, and still is, unfortunately, attached to the subject of the development of Spiritualism in its various phases. I am not a Spiritualist myself, because I do not accept the religious theory, and I do not think the greater part of the Spiritualist phenomena prove a future life. But I know from my own experiments, knowledge and investigations that the subject is one that ought to be looked upon seriously and scientifically because of its scientific and philosophic importance. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 56, line 32, at end, insert the said subsection.—(Lord Amwell)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I should be reluctant to go into this matter again. I thought it was finally disposed of by the Home Secretary's clause, which was accepted. It is quite clear, I think, that under the Vagrancy Acts, fraud is a necessary ingredient of the offence. The law officers were asked about this in 1943 and they advised that that was so. The Home Office thereupon circulated that advice to all chief constables, saying that fraud was a necessary ingredient in this offence. The Home Office added that proceedings against Spiritualists under the Act should be taken only where there had been complaints by the public of fraud or imposture and the taking of money or other valuable consideration. Finally, they advised chief constables to consult the Director of Public Prosecutions in all cases before taking proceedings.

Consider what would be the effect of this Amendment. If the noble Lord had sought to increase the penalty, or to increase the three months so that automatically the accused would have a right to trial by jury, I could understand it. But there is no precedent for this. Why should we give fraudulent mediums a privileged position—and I emphasise the word "fraudulent"—as regards the right of claiming trial by jury? Moreover, this proposal covers not only fraudulent mediums under the Vagrancy Acts; it covers all the riff-raff, fortune tellers, palmists, thimble-riggers and all sorts of people who come within these provisions of the Vagrancy Acts. How could I make an exception to the perfectly well understood rule, and give all these people a privilege which does not in any other case attach to a penalty which is under three months? If provision were to be made at all, the proper way to do it would be to raise the maximum term by a separate Bill, and then the right to go before a jury would follow automatically. It would be setting a very bad example if I were to single out these people and give them some privilege which is not given to any other of His Majesty's lieges. I had hoped that the clause which the Home Secretary put down would provide a compromise on this matter. It proved satisfactory to Mr. Brooks and Mr. Silverman, and they did not move their Amendment. I hope we shall adhere to this clause instead of opening out on this difficult subject again.

LORD AMWELL

I know, of course, that this is a matter of compromise which I was accepted by Mr. Brooks and his friends in another place. But the compromise did not include the question of trial by jury. I suppose it is quite impossible to argue the case any further, because it could be argued satisfactorily only on the question of the Vagrancy Acts themselves. The purpose of my Amendment was to register a protest against the extremely unfair position in which Spiritualistic mediums are put. I know that the word "fraudulent" is mentioned, but it is because of the difficulties of the matter that I have spoken. I could mention, for instance, the famous Duncan case, where it was proposed in court that certain demonstrations should be given and that was definitely refused.. I am sure it would not have been refused in any other kind of case, but the whole thing is festooned with prejudice, and it is because of that that I moved my Amendment. I believed I was ventilating the feelings of a large number of people in this country—in fact millions of people who are attached to the Spiritualist movement. A large number of professional and non-professional mediums feel it a tremendous stigma that their work ranks with vagrancy and witchcraft. They are not treated fairly, and they never have been. I moved my Amendment; because I wanted to put the position once more before your Lordships. In the circumstances I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 64 agreed to.

Clause 65 agreed to.

Clause 66:

Amendments of Forfeiture Act, 1870.

66.—(1) Sections six to thirty of the Forfeiture Act, 1870 (which relate to the administration of the property of convicts) shall cease to have effect.

THE EARL OF MUNSTER moved to omit subsection (1) The noble Earl said: My object is to seek elucidation and some information. I wish to know whether a person, either before or after he is sentenced, will have power to appoint as a power of attorney his wife or solicitor, or some other person who can represent him and look after his affairs for him. I am seeking to find out what is intended. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 56, line 38, leave out subsection (1)—(The Earl of Munster)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

We are abolishing by this Bill the distinction between a felon convict and a misdemeanant convict. Whereas the misdemeanant convict has power to appoint a power of attorney the felon convict was dealt with by a different set of rules, The effect of this clause is that we shall now put the felon convict in the same category as the misdemeanant convict, so that he will have power to appoint a power of attorney.

THE EARL OF MUNSTER

I thank the noble and learned Viscount for his reply, and in the circumstances ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 66 agreed to.

Clause 67 [Education of persons detained]:

THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to delete Clause 67. The noble and learned Viscount said: I propose to leave out this clause because the provisions of the Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill deal with this matter. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Leave out Clause 67.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

LORD RAGLAN

As the noble and learned Viscount may know, there are quite a number of children attending approved schools who attend public secondary schools. I hope it is quite clear that that position will not be in any way prejudiced by this Amendment.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

That is so.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 68 [Amendment of s. 71 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933]:

LORD CHORLEY

This is a drafting Amendment, and is preparatory to the next. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 57, line 27, leave out from beginning to ("this") in line 29 and insert—("(2) In the said Section seventy-one as amended by").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY moved to add to the clause: (3) The provisions of the said Section seventy-one shall apply as amended by this section to any approved school order made before the commencement of this Act if the period during which the person to whom it relates could be detained thereunder apart from the provisions of this section has not expired at the commencement of this Act. (4) This section shall, in its application to Scotland, have effect subject to the following modifications:—

1. (a) for references to Section seventy-one of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, and to subsection (1) of that section there shall be substituted references to Section seventy-five of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act, 1937, and to subsection (1) of that section; and
2. (b) for subsection 12) there shall be substituted the following subsection:—

• '(2) In the said Section seventy-five as amended by this section the expression "compulsory school age" means school age as defined in Section thirty-two of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1946:

Provided that—

1. (a) subsection (4) of that section (which extends the school age in the the case of certain children requiring special educational treatment); and
2. (b) subsection (2) of Section thirty-three of that Act (which provides that a child shall be deemed to attain any given age on the fixed date for commencing or for terminating attendance next following the day that he actually attains that age)

shall not apply

The noble Lord said: This is substantially a drafting Amendment. The clause as it stands is necessitated by the raising of the school leaving age from fourteen to fifteen. That makes it necessary to keep for another four months a child who will be released from an approved school at the age of fifteen so that arrangements can be made for finding him work, and all matters of that sort which are so necessary at the time when he leaves the approved school. As the clause is drafted, however, it provides only for the position where the child has been committed after the commencement of the Act. Of course it is necessary also to deal with those cases where the child is already at the approved school when the Act comes into force. The object of the Amendment is to cover that position. I should point out also that the new subsection (4) makes the necessary modification to the Scottish law for the purpose of applying this clause to Scotland. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 57, line 35, at end insert the said subsections.—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to

Clause 68, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 69 agreed to.

6.41 p.m.

Clause 70:

Application of ss. 2 and 3 to courts-martial.

70.—(1) His Majesty may by Order in Council make provision for applying Sections two and three of this Act to courts-martial under the Naval Discipline Act, and the said Section two to courts-martial under the Army Act and the Air Force Act, and may by Order in Council make such adaptations and modifications of the said Acts as His Majesty considers necessary or expedient in consequence of the passing of those sections.

THE EARL OF MUNSTER moved, in subsection (1), to omit "and three" The noble Earl said: This Amendment was originally put down in order also to seek some information from the noble Lord. Since it has been put down, however, I have come to the conclusion that what is intended in subsection (1) of Clause 70 really makes nonsense. As I understand it, it was the intention of His Majesty's Government to do away with the corporal punishment which could be inflicted upon a sailor under the Naval Discipline Act. That it has not been done for many years does not affect my argument. We are leaving in the Bill, in Clause 70 as it stands, the power for corporal punishment to be inflicted under the Naval Discipline Act, so long as the punishment is inflicted with the birch and not with the "cat-o'-nine-tails" I feel sure that some Amendment is necessary from that side alone.

The purpose of my moving this Amendment was to seek from His Majesty's Government the following information. Under this clause we are seeking to amend the Naval Discipline Act which, I believe, is of the year 1797. What I want to know here is this. Some time ago a Committee were appointed under the Chairmanship of Mr. Justice Lewis to go into the whole question of trials by courts martial. That Committee have made a Report which is now being discussed by His Majesty's solicitors and by the respective Departments. I believe that it is contemplated that legislation will have to be introduced quite soon to deal with the question of courts martial. It seems to me a little unfortunate to tuck into this Bill one clause to amend the Naval Discipline Act, and the Army Act and the Air Force Act also where they are concerned. I want to know from the Government whether they can give me an indication when the Report by Mr. Justice Lewis is likely to be published, and whether it will, in point of fact, require amendment of the Courts Martial Act. If it will, would it not be better to leave this clause out and to introduce the clause again when a new Bill dealing with the specific subject comes up for discussion? In any event, this clause as it stands merely says that flogging can be continued under the Naval Discipline Act, which is the very thing which His Majesty's Government wanted to avoid. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 58, line 37, leave out ("and three").—(Earl of Munster.)

LORD CHORLEY

With regard to the question of courts martial which was raised, I understand that that Report will be published before very long. I cannot for the moment commit the Government any further in respect of what decisions they may take as the result of the Report, as I am sure the noble Earl will understand. The effect of the noble Earl's Amendment, of course, would be to prevent the naval authorities from clearing up this situation, which they can do under the law as it stands, and will stand, by administrative action. In respect of the use of the "cat-o'-nine-tails," that has been abolished administratively for a very long period. The use of the birch is still in existence, as the noble Earl himself indicated, but this could also be cleared up by administrative action. The effect of the noble Earl's Amendment would be to make it necessary to bring the matter back to Parliament before the necessary steps could be taken. I do not think that that is desirable. The noble Earl himself would probably agree that that would not be very satisfactory.

THE EARL OF MUNSTER

I agree that Section 3 of the Naval Discipline Act has not been used for many years, and there would be a frightful outcry from the general public if it were used. Section 2 deals with the question of being sent to penal servitude. That could well be abolished. Here we are amending Acts of Parliament, chiefly the Naval Discipline Act. What I am trying to explain is, that in all probability other amending legislation will have to come along ultimately to deal with the whole question of courts martial. It seems to me that it would be much better to amend the Naval Discipline Act and any other Act at that time, rather than to put a small clause into this Bill which, as it is drafted at the moment, due to the Amendment we have made to Clause 3, does not make sense, because it still maintains what His Majesty's Government wanted to avoid.

LORD CHORLEY

I do not agree with the noble Earl on that point, but I will certainly look into this matter between now and the next stage. If those responsible feel that there is substance in the noble Earl's point, then we can deal with the matter.

THK EARL OF MUNSTER

Clause 70 at the moment does not carry out what the Government intended—namely, that flogging should be done away with in the Navy. What Clause 70 means now is that flogging can take place in the Navy, so long as it is not done with the "cat-o'-nine-tails."

LORD CHORLEY

Quite; that is the intention.

The EARL OF MUNSTER

Most reluctantly I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 70 agreed to.

Clause 71 agreed to.

Clause 72 [Power to order detention in a remand centre under s. 67 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933]:

LORD CHORLEY

This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 60, line 26, leave out ("If") and insert ("Where").—(Lord Chorley.)

LORD RAGLAN

What is the difference in meaning between these two words? I see there are three subsections, all of them conditional, but two of them begin with the word "If" If this Amendment is accepted, two of them will begin with the word "Where" and one will begin with the word "If" I have not the faintest idea what the distinction is.

LORD CHORLEY

The art of draftsmanship is very deep. Far be it from me to try to attempt to penetrate these mysteries.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 72, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 73 to 76 agreed to.

Clause 77 [Interpretation]:

LORD CHORLEY

This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 65, line 43, after ("court") insert ("after considering any available evidence").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY

This is really a drafting Amendment also. It defines the term "punishable with imprisonment" which, as your Lordships will remember, has been inserted in quite a number of provisions in the Bill by a series of Amendments which have been accepted. Its effect is to make it clear that in determining whether an offence is punishable with imprisonment the restrictions im-imposed by Clause 17 of the Bill upon the imprisonment of offenders under a specified age shall be disregarded. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 65, line 45, leave out from ("offence") to ("shall") in line 46 and insert ("punishable with imprisonment shall be construed, in relation to any offender, without regard to any prohibition or restriction imposed by or under this Act upon the imprisonment of offenders of his age, but").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to

Clause 77, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 78 [Application to Scotland]:

LORD LLEWELLIN

This Amendment is consequential on the deletion of Clause 1. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 66, leave out line 15.—(Lord Llewellin)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY

This Amendment is consequential on the substitution of the new clause dealing with the effects of probation and discharge for Clause 12 (1) of the Bill. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 19, leave out ("subsections (1) and") and insert ("subsection").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY

This is consequential on the last Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 19, at end insert ("Section (Effects of probation and discharge):").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY

This is consequential on the new clause relating to the abolition of privilege of Peerage. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 19, at end insert ("Section (Abolition of privilege of peerage in criminal proceedings) ").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY

This is also really a drafting Amendment. Clause 68 of the Bill, as amended, makes the necessary modifications of Scottish law for the application of that clause to Scotland, and this Amendment is to make it clear that the clause shall extend to Scotland. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 26, at end insert ("Section sixty-eight;").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY

This Amendment and the next at line 33 are consequential on the abolition of privilege of Peerage. The Tenth Schedule is being divided into three Parts, one to relate to repeals extending to England, one regarding repeals extending to Scotland, and the third to repeals extending to Northern Ireland. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 31, leave out ("Part II") and insert ("Parts II and III").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY

I beg to move the next Amendment.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 33, leave out ("Part II") and insert ("Parts II and III").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 78, as amended, agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY moved, after Clause 78 to insert the following new clause:

Application to Northern Ireland.

"The following provisions of this Act shall extend to Northern Ireland, that is to say— Section (Abolition of privilege of peerage in criminal proceedings); Section seventy; Part III of the Tenth Schedule, and subsection (4) of Section seventy-nine so far as it relates to the enactments specified in the said Part III; but except as aforesaid this Act shall not extend to Northern Ireland"

The noble Lord said: This is really a consequential Amendment arising out of the abolition of privilege of Peerage, and it is for the consequential repeal of various Statutes in force in Northern Ireland, as set out in Part III of the Tenth Schedule. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 35, at end insert the said clause.—(Lord Chorley)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 79 [Short title, commencement, extent and repeals]:

LORD CHORLEY

This and the following two Amendments, which go together, are drafting Amendments. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 39, leave out ("and") and insert ("Provided that").—(Lord Chorley)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY

I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 40, leave out ("by any such Order").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY

I beg to move the next Amendment.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 41, at end insert ("and any reference in any provision of this Act to the commencement of this Act shall, unless otherwise provided by any such Order, be construed as a reference to the commencement of that provision").—(Lord Chorley)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY

This Amendment and the following one which go together are consequential drafting Amendments. I beg to move.

Amendments moved— Page 66, line 42, leave out subsection (3). line 45, leave out ("and II") and insert ("to III").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendments agreed to.

Remaining clause, as amended, agreed to.

First Schedule agreed to.

6.58 p.m.

Second Schedule:

BORSTAL TRAINING.

1. A person sentenced to Borstal training shall be detained in a Borstal institution for such period, not extending beyond three years after the date of his sentence, as the Prison Commissioners may determine, and shall then be released:

Provided that the Prison Commissioners shall not release any such person from a Borstal institution before the expiration of twelve months from the date of his sentence unless required to do so by directions of the Secretary of State under this Schedule.

LORD LLEWELLIN moved, in the proviso to paragraph 1, to omit "twelve" and insert "six" The noble Lord said: Hitherto the minimum period to be served before initial release from Borstal training has been a period of six months, and the maximum period one to three years. In the Schedule with which we are now dealing the period of six months has been increased to twelve. I am well aware that in the early days of the war some boys were released from Borstal institutions contrary to the wishes of the governors of those institutions, and many of them were released, because of war circumstances, without their individual cases being considered. In the view of those whose duty it was to train them and to advise as to their release, the cases of quite a number of the boys who were prematurely released were not successful. But in quite a number of other cases it has been appropriate to release boys under twelve months—between six and twelve months. I know this myself from an experience which I had as a member of the visiting committee of the Feltham Borstal institution where, in appropriate cases, having heard the governor's views on the matter, the visiting committee recommended to the Home Office that the boy should be released after he had completed perhaps six, seven, eight or nine months in the institution.

May I lake another institution with which I am familiar—and I make no secret about it because my brother was governor of it—and quote the experience of recent periods there? Taking the period from December 1, 1944, to March 31, 1945, 33 of the boys from that institution were discharged under twelve months from the date of conviction; and of these 9—and only 9—have been reconvicted. If you compare that with the 28 who, in the same period, were discharged after having served twelve months or more, you find, unfortunately, that no fewer than. 20 of those 28 have been reconvicted. But from these figures what. I think does appear is this. Taking 9 from 33, we get 24. So that means that 24 of the boys released from that institution under a period of twelve months would under this Bill serve for an unnecessarily long time. Let us take another period—from July 1, 1946, to December 31, 1946. In that period 110 were discharged, 58 under the twelve months, and of these only 7 have been reconvicted. So in that case 51 lads are left who were released under twelve months, who up to date have not been reconvicted, and who all of us hope will never be reconvicted. Of the 52 others who had served more than twelve months when discharged, unfortunately 15 have already been reconvicted.

From these figures I submit that it does appear that there ought still to be this discretion to release young fellows who have made good as soon as those in authority determine that they have, in fact, made good. You do not want to keep people for a minimum period of twelve months if all the advice of the housemasters and of the governor as investigated by the visiting committee and eventually by the Home Office, is to the effect that these cases can quite properly be released earlier. If you do not act on that advice the result will be that Borstals will become more and more crowded and more expense will fall on the public purse. And it must be remembered that these boys will be kept away from useful industrial occupations—farming or whatever it may be—for longer than is necessary. So, I suggest that we should be well advised to keep a minimum period of six months.

I hope that I have already made the point I wish to make, but may I draw attention to the fact that keeping the period at six months does not mean that anyone is going to be released automatically at the end of six months? This clause says that the Prison Commissioners shall not be allowed to release anyone under twelve months unless the case is taken to the Home Secretary and dealt with under the exceptional powers which, of course, he still has. In the particular cases that I have quoted there would have been some 24 in the first instance, and some 51 in the second instance who would have served for an unnecessarily long time. That would be 75 additional cases for the Home Secretary to use exceptional treatment in over two periods of less than six months each. I suggest that we should do much better to leave this matter where it is.

I will give your Lordships another reason why I suggest we should leave it where it is. In some cases, as those who have taken an interest in matters of penal reform well know, the boy who is convicted ought to be sentenced to a full period of training, whether he eventually does the whole of it or not. Now it is often very difficult for one, as Chairman, to convince other members of the Bench that a boy is not being treated much too harshly by being sentenced to three years at Borstal. They are apt to say: "Surely that is far too long," and you have to explain to them that it does not necessarily mean that the boy will have to do the three years. Indeed, in most cases he does not. You explain to your fellow members on the Bench that if the lad does well he can get out after the end of six months. Then you convince the rest of the Bench—what is probably right—that the time is the right one at which to get hold of the young man and give him Borstal training before it is too late. Perhaps some of those on the Bench would much sooner give the lad three months' imprisonment—a sentence which would be quite hopeless from the point of view of reforming the young man while there is still time.

I urge this Amendment from that point of view. Thirdly, I urge it from the point of view of what the Judge or the Chairman of Quarter Sessions has to say to the young man whom he is sentencing. Formerly he could say: "Though I am sentencing you to three years at Borstal, it depends entirely upon your own behaviour how soon you are released. It is possible that if you behave really well you may get out at the end of six months." If we pass this clause I suppose that, in future, a Judge or a Chairman of Quarter Sessions will have to say to the young man before him: "I am sentencing you to three years at Borstal. If this had occurred a year ago I could have told you how it would have been possible for you to get released after six months. Now, I must inform you that you must do twelve months, probably, before you can be released from Borstal." In my view that is a retrograde step. No one need be let out automatically after the six months' period, but it is just as well to be able to encourage these young men, and for the Chairman of Quarter Sessions to be able to get the consent of the rest of the court. This power has not, I think, been abused by governors of Borstal institutions, by visiting committees or by the Home Office itself. Why we should not still keep the power to release good cases as soon as those in authority are convinced they have been reformed, I cannot, for the life of me, understand. What is proposed in this Schedule seems to me an entirely retrograde step, and I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply to me will say that he is not going to take it. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 69, line 12, leave out ("twelve"), and insert ("six")—(Lord Llewellin.)

LORD RAGLAN

I have been for many years chairman of the visiting committee of the Borstal institution where my noble friend's brother was governor, and I would like strongly to support what he has said. There is an opinion abroad that there is something casual about these releases. I assure your Lordships that that is not so. A meeting of the visiting committee is held every month, and, shortly before that, the governor assembles his housemasters and they go carefully through every possible case for discharge. Then they bring their list before the visiting committee who also go through it very carefully indeed. If his case is approved by the visiting committee, a lad is put on the discharge list, to be discharged in two months' time. If during those two months he does anything wrong his name may be removed from the list. Every possible care is taken to see that lads are not discharged before they properly can be discharged. It is not very often that they are discharged six months after the date of detention, but sometimes both the authorities at the institution and the visiting committee are convinced that a lad should never have been sent to Borstal at all. In those cases it is certainly proper that the lad should be discharged after six months.

There is only one other point which I wish to make. It has been thought proper that these Borstal institutions should be supervised by visiting committees. The principal duty of these committees is to deal with this matter of discharge. If all discretion is removed from the visiting committees, if they are turned into rubber stamps, then persons who value their time will not be willing to serve on these committees.

VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD

I do not know what answer the noble Lord is going to give to this Amendment. If his answer is going to be a negative one, I hope he will think again about it, because here we have had expressed, not idle theories, but the practical experience of two noble Lords who are dealing with these questions at first hand. I was greatly impressed by the figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. I have been equally impressed by what the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, has just said about the great care exercised by visiting committees before any young man is released. It seems to me that an overwhelming case has been made for leaving the state of affairs as it is. I have heard no complaint against it. In fact, I do not know how this provision has come into the Bill at all. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will not give the negative answer he might have intended to give and that after what he has heard from the noble Lords he will think again and produce a different proposal on the Report stage.

LORD CHORLEY

I am afraid that I cannot accept this Amendment; nor, to be frank, am I so impressed as the noble Viscount who has just spoken by the arguments adduced in support of it. I just cannot follow the figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. I think the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, was much more correct when he said that the cases at six months were very few.

LORD LLEWELLIN

My figures were of releases under twelve months. The proposal in the Bill is quite new, that releases shall not be made under twelve months; so I gave the figures of those released under twelve months. They are not comparable to those given by my noble friend, Lord Raglan, because he gave those at six months.

LORD RAGLAN

I said that those released at six months are very few indeed, but a large number are released at about eleven months.

LORD CHORLEY

No doubt there have been a number of cases, especially in recent years, when a boy served some time in prison before going on to Borstal, because there was no room for him. If the noble Lord's figures were investigated, one would be able to discuss them on that basis. He will appreciate that it is exceedingly difficult for me to deal with figures of that kind when I have not had an opportunity of looking at them before the noble Lord brings them to our attention.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I can assure the noble Lord that my figures are correct. I would not have given them unless they had been.

LORD CHORLEY

I am not suggesting that the noble Lord has produced figures which he docs not firmly believe are correct; but if one had time to look at them, it might well be that one would find there were lads who were in prison before being sent to Borstal, and that would be a matter to be taken into account. The alteration in the law proposed in the clause has not been decided upon lightly, but after a careful consideration by those who, with great respect, are better able than the noble Lord to judge what is best in this sort of case. Naturally, coming from noble Lords who have had considerable practical experience of Borstal treatment, what they said is fairly entitled to great weight—

LORD LLEWELLIN

Give us the reason.

LORD CHORLEY

But so, obviously, are the views of those who have been dealing with the whole of this matter over years, and who are not concerned only with individual visitations of Borstals here and there. The object of the alteration is to bring the law into relation with what actually happens, which is that Borstal treatment takes place over a substantial period of time. When a lad is sentenced to Borstal, the first thing that happens is that he has to be carefully observed over a substantial period of time, so that it may be three months after his sentence before he ever gets to Borstal. The training does not really begin until the six months is half expired. The view is that, to get satisfactory results, it is necessary to have a substantial period of time. There is, unfortunately, a widespread opinion that Borstal treatment will come to an end soon after six months and that has had very bad effects. As Chairman of a Quarter Sessions, I would not dream of telling a lad he would be out at six months if he behaved himself. It depends how the mind works. I would tell him that if he behaved, it might well be that the period might be substantially cut down, but I would have thought it dangerous to suggest to him he might be out at six months, or soon after the six months. The view is that the alteration is required, and I am afraid that I cannot accept the noble Lord's Amendment.

LORD LLEWELLIN

Having first of all attacked me on the figures I gave, the noble Lord told me I spoke from no experience, so far as I could understand his remarks. I was putting forward an honest and straightforward case in which I believe. And in dealing with my Amendment, he did not deal with it in a way in which Amendments honestly put forward are dealt with in this House. On the other hand, he has given no reason whatever why this period should be extended to twelve months. I was all the time expecting to hear why the minimum period before a governor can recommend release for a boy who is doing well should be twelve months. That is the short case I put.

LORD CHORLEY

I hope the noble Lord remembers, as he himself pointed out, that the Home Secretary can always make an order.

LORD LLEWELLIN

That is quite different. I gave a number of cases where boys have been released under twelve months and very few of them have been reconvicted. I think both my noble friend Lord Raglan and I, and the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, are entitled to a better reason. Why should we keep these boys in an extra six months? The noble Lord has not answered that point at all. I may have taken him completely by surprise by the figures I gave. I only ask that we should be given a good reason for this alteration of the law, when I am convinced that it has worked quite admirably up to date. I shall remain convinced that I am right in this until I hear a good reason for this alteration of the law—and the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, has given none, except that there is a prevalent knowledge about that people get out of Borstal too early. That is the only reason which the noble Lord gave at all, as I understand him, and that is not borne out by my figures. It is not those released early who are normally reconvicted; it is those who are kept for their full term, and whom it has been impossible to reform.

As the noble Lord complained that I had not given him the figures, and that he had not had an opportunity of investigating them, I will not press my Amendment at the moment. However, I am quite serious about it. I believe we are taking a retrograde step, and one which I think the Government ought to reconsider to see whether they cannot meet me. There is probably an advantage in being regarded not only as a man who insisted on capital punishment being restored but also as one who insisted on the man who had made good not having to serve twelve months when he might be let out at six months. For that reason, also, I shall put down this Amendment on Report stage, and I hope the noble Lord will then have had second thoughts and will be able to meet me. At the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

LORD CHORLEY

I will say merely that I shall be glad to look more closely at the noble Lord's figures and, indeed, at his whole argument.

LORD LLEWELLIN

We might discuss it together.

LORD CHORLEY

I shall be glad to do so.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD CHORLEY

The next is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 69, line 17, leave out ("shall") and insert ("may").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY

This also is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 69, line 37, leave out from ("effect") to ("is") in line 38, and insert ("unless the person to whom it relates").—(Lord Chorley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORDOAKSEY moved, in paragraph 4, to delete "penal servitude." The noble Lord said: This is really a drafting Amendment. Your Lordships will see that paragraph 4 of the Second Schedule refers to "penal servitude," which is abolished by Clause 2 of the Bill. Therefore, I suggest that those words ought to be omitted. I think the words that ought to be left out are, "or to penal servitude." I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 70, line 3, leave out. ("penal servitude.")—[Lord Oaksey.)

LORD CHORLEY

I think the noble and learned Lord has moved this Amendment under a misapprehension in regard to Scotland. Penal servitude will continue to exist in Scotland and, in the circumstances, it is necessary to have the clause as it stands.

LORD OAKSEY

In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD CRANWORTH moved, after paragraph 4, to insert: 5. If any person while detained in a Borstal institution shall escape therefrom he shall upon recapture be detained in a Borstal institution Constructed and regulated with a view to the prevention of persons escaping therefrom. The noble Lord said: I find some difficulty in moving this Amendment. In the first place, I am certain that your Lordships will not accept it and, in the second place, it is not really the Amendment I want to move. The Amendment I want to move, and which I have tried to move—unsuccessfully, unfortunately—is as follows: If any person while detained in a Borstal Institution shall escape therefrom, and while so escaped shall commit a crime for which he is convicted at Quarter Sessions or at Assizes, he shall not be returned to Borstal.

I am well aware that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor has expressed sympathy in regard to this point. Nevertheless, I feel it my duty to say a word or two on behalf of my neighbours in Suffolk and on my own behalf. Up to the war we were a law abiding and peaceful body of people, crime was well in check and there was very little of it. True, we had our Berstal Institution at Hollesley Bay, but it was an institution of which we were remarkably proud: the inhabitants of that institution behaved themselves reasonably well; very few attempted to escape, and, when they did, the crimes they committed were negligible. Furthermore, the percentage of reformation there was high. A great many of our young boys made good in various walks of life. Several of them obtained commissions in His Majesty's Forces, and some of them received high decorations for gallantry. But since the coming of the war all that has changed. I am given two reasons by those who ought to know for that change. The first is the shortage of staff, and the natural decrease in its quality. That, I feel, is something that could not be avoided. The second is that the boys who were sent to Hollesley Bay were no longer of that reformatory type we had before, but consisted, partially at all events, of incorrigible young men. As proof of this I would tell your Lordships that one of these young men, with whom I had the misfortune to come into somewhat close contact, I found at the age of twenty had already been convicted no fewer than nineteen times. You can imagine what was his influence on the rest of the Hollesley Bay colony.

When this was debated before, my noble friend Lord Templewood asked for certain figures. I have some figures here, and I think your Lordships may find them of interest. In the year 1939 there were 13 youths who escaped, and they committed 3 crimes; in 1940, 50 escaped, and they committed 15 crimes; in 1941, 95 escaped, and they committed 30 crimes; in 1942, 107 escaped, and they committed 49 crimes; in 1943, 76 escaped, and they committed 87 crimes. Certain steps were taken, I presume by the Home Office, which were very effective, because in the next year, 1944, only 40 escaped; and they committed 18 crimes. The next year, 1945, unfortunately, the figures went up, and 49 escaped and committed 48 crimes. In 1946, 53 escaped, and they committed 35 crimes—most of them rather worse. The local inhabitants and the local institutions repeatedly made complaints to the Home Office, and in the fullness of time the Home Office acted, and acted to some purpose, because they sent down no less a person than Mr. Herbert Morrison.

Mr. Morrison came down to Hollesley Bay, he had the boys assembled and he gave them a good "talking to;" in other words, what we used to call when I was at school, a "pi-jaw." I am told by those who heard it that it was a remarkably fine speech, full of sound sentiments and good advice. Your Lordships will be shocked, as I was myself, to hear that it had no effect whatever on the Borstal boys; there was no response to this "pi-jaw." Indeed, so far from there being a response, in the year 1947, 80 boys escaped, and they committed 76 offences. These were the offences they committed: burglary, 2; housebreaking, 10; shopbreaking, 21; entering with intent, 6; other aggravated larcenies, 6; larceny of pedal cycles, 7; larceny from unattended vehicles 12, and other simple and minor larcenies 8. Those crimes were all committed in a restricted area, and I venture to think that it is a pretty serious list. I am fully in sympathy with those who seek to reform these boys by sympathy and kindly treatment and not by brutal methods, but I do not think we are going about it in the right way. I am certain that the percentage who were reformed before 1939 was infinitely greater than it is to-day. I am also not unaware of the rights of the peaceful, law-abiding citizens who live around Hollesley Bay.

There is not much in this Bill which gives encouragement to the law-abiding and peaceful citizens, but in this particular case I venture to make a plea for them. I would go so far as to say that the present position in the Hollesley Bay Colony is nothing less than a scandal. What happens to these boys when they run away? Nearly always they are captured, and if the crimes they commit are sufficiently serious, in due course they come to Quarter Sessions. There they seldom put up a defence—they usually plead guilty. Why should they do anything else? They stand in the dock with a smile on their faces, and why should they not? What happens to them? They are convicted, and then, in the vast majority of cases, they are returned to the Borstal from whence they came. When they get back there—so I am credibly informed, because I have good means of finding out information—apart from suffering certain inconveniences over a comparatively short period, they really suffer no punishment at all. That system has two major defects. The first is that the police are extremely reluctant to prosecute, because they say it is a waste of time and money. The second is that the people around Hollesley Bay—my neighbours and indeed myself—say: "If we committed one of these crimes, if we broke open a house, threatened an old woman and took her savings, we would go to prison for twelve months, eighteen months, or two years. But if we were a Borstal boy we would practically not be punished at all." They ask: "Why on earth should a Borstal boy be above the law?" and, upon my soul, I do not know what answer to give. I cannot expect your Lordships to pass my Amendment as it stands, but I hope that the Government will seriously examine this question with a view to stopping what at the present moment is neither more nor less than a scandal. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 70, line 9, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Cranworth.)

LORD AILWYN

I should like in the fewest possible words to support my noble friend in this Amendment. I know a little of the feelings of those who live in close proximity to this Borstal institution, and it seems intolerable that they should be subjected to the annoyance and unpleasantness of visitations from these escapees—I believe that is the right word—and that on top of it they should have no redress of any sort or kind if their houses are broken into and their goods stolen. I am one of those who feel that, on the whole, this Criminal Justice Bill is inclined to lay too much emphasis on the welfare and the hoped-for reformation of the evil doer. It is high time that a little more attention was paid to the protection and security of the ordinary law-abiding citizen. For those reasons and because I think my noble friend's Amendment would be along the lines of improving that situation and showing that the normal citizen is not to be entirely neglected, I strongly support the Amendment as amended by my noble friend.

LORD CHORLEY

I think, if I may say so, that my friend Sir Alan Herbert would prefer the word "escaper" to "escapee," although I do not think he would like either of those words.

LORD RAGLAN

Absconder.

LORD CHORLEY

I am afraid that we cannot accept this Amendment, even if it were moved in the words the noble Lord said he would have preferred to use. We had quite a substantial discussion upon this problem at an earlier stage, and I am sure that at this time of night your Lordships would not like me to go over the whole of that ground again. I should, however, like to repeat the expressions of sympathy which my noble and learned friend used in regard to all those people who live in the neighbourhood of one or two of these Borstal institutions, where there has been a good deal of this absconding and where, undoubtedly, quiet and peaceful householders have been subjected to a great deal of annoyance and, in a number of cases, even worse.

This proposal is, in effect, to establish a sort of prison for Borstal boys and is, therefore, contrary to the whole policy upon which Borstal training has been carried out ever since the commencement. This training is not punishment, and it depends a good deal upon the honour of these lads. Unfortunately, in a number of cases, they let us down, but the noble Lord himself pointed out how, during the years before the war and before the situation became so difficult, it was, on the whole, very successful. The noble Lord referred to many cases where these lads played a most honourable and distinguished part in the war. What he is particularly concerned with is the class of boy who commits a crime on breaking out. But almost all these crimes are, so to speak, incidental to the breaking out. A lad breaks out, and he has no food, so perhaps he steals some food. He wants a method of getting home, so perhaps he steals a motor car or a bicycle. Nine out of ten of these cases, although they are still criminal, are incidental to the escaping.

If they are very bad cases, of course, the Judge at Assize or Quarter Sessions can, in fact, commit the lads to prison, and they are committed to prison from time to time. If they are sent back to Borstal, and the Prison Commissioners think it is a case where some sharp pun- ishrnent is required, there is a part of Wandsworth Prison set aside where they can be, in fact, and are from time to time, dealt with on punitive lines. But by and large experience shows that these boys, after absconding once and after the training has; had time to take effect, become amenable to training at the Borstal, and the number of cases where there is further absconding is, I am informed, comparatively small. We have here to choose between two evils, and the Borstal system is such that it requires that there should be this trust and this open training system. I think your Lordships will agree that, on the whole, it is much better that we should go on with the training and not re-establish the present prison system for Borstal boys.

LORD CRANWORTH

I thank the noble Lord for his reply. I am disappointed in it. I do not think it is the reply he would have made if he lived within ten miles of the Hollesley Bay Colony. But of course I have no option, more especially in view of the remarks with which I started but to ask leave of your Lordships to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Second Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Third Schedule [Release on Licence of Persons Sentenced to Corrective Training or Preventive Detention]:

LORD CHORLEY

This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 70, line 20, leave out ("shall" and insert ("may").—(Lord Charley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Third Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Fourth Schedule agreed to.

Fifth Schedule:

Administrative Provisions as to Probation.

(3) Any case committee for a petty sessional division not being a separate probation area, or any probation committee, may co-opt such number of persons, possessing such qualifications as may be prescribed, as they think fit:

Provided that the number of members so. co-opted shall not exceed one-third of the number of members of the committee, and no person shall be so co-opted if he is a justice of the peace for any county or borough in which the probation area or any part thereof is situated, or which is wholly or partly comprised in that area.

7.42 p.m.

LORD RAGLAN moved, in paragraph 2, to omit sub-paragraph (3). The noble Lord said: I am sorry this Amendment has come on so late, because it raises a point of considerable importance; but I shall have to say a few words about it. The sub-paragraph which I propose to leave out is that which empowers probation committees and case committees to co-opt persons who are not magistrates. This is a proposal which I think is open to grave objection. The first objection is that these persons are to be co-opted; the noble and learned Viscount opposite, or whoever holds his high office, will have no voice in their appointment. The Lord Chancellor should have a voice in the appointment of all persons concerned in the administration of justice. Your Lordships will be aware that to be a magistrate is the ambition of a great many people, and a great deal of intrigue and lobbying goes on with a view to being appointed. A good deal of that intrigue will be transferred to these appointments, and people who manage to get themselves co-opted will consider themselves entitled to the next vacancy on the Bench. That will make matters more difficult for those responsible for the appointment of magistrates.

But that is not the only objection. Another is that it is a principle of statutory committees, as of other committees, that all members are equal in power and responsibility; and that, from the nature of the case, cannot apply here, because those members who are not magistrates can obviously not have cither the powers or the responsibilities of the members who are. What is even more serious is that the Schedule proposes to confer upon persons who are not magistrates certain magisterial powers. Your Lordships will see that on page 75, line 7, it says: It shall be the duty of case committees to review the work of probation officers in individual cases…. That includes the power to order a probation officer to bring the probationer before the court. That is definitely a magisterial power, and yet, as your Lordships will see, it might fall to be exercised by persons who are not magistrates at all. That also is a serious objection to this proposal.

Those who are concerned with probation—at any rate, those to whom I have spoken—are of opinion that this proposal will certainly hinder the work of probation officers. Probation officers have quite enough supervision as it is; they do not want a lot of amateurs fussing around to assist them in their work—and that is the sort of person the are likely to get under these provisions. In my county I hear complaints occasionally that there are not enough magistrates to carry on the ordinary work of the court, but I have never heard any complaint of there not being enough persons to do this work of probation. If there are not enough people, the proper course would be to appoint one or more additional magistrates, and not to embark on this experiment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 74, leave out lines 7 to 15.—(Lord Raglan.)

LORD CHORLEY

I am afraid we cannot accept this Amendment. We start with the position that both these committees are, in fact, committees of the justices, and that the only power given is power to co-opt; it is primarily at their discretion to co-opt or not, according to whether they feel the need for reinforcement. Moreover, the persons who are to be co-opted must be persons with the qualifications prescribed by the Secretary of State.

LORD RAGLAN

What does that mean

LORD CHORLEY

It means, for instance, the qualification of being a member of an education committee, or a remand home committee, or something of that kind. The Government take the view that it may be valuable to these committees to have the possibility of reinforcing themselves by bringing in other people who are well qualified to deal with problems of this kind. I am afraid we cannot take seriously the suggestion that because somebody is brought in from the local education committee he is going thereby to establish some right to be nominated for the next vacancy to the Bench. As regards case committees, the Committee which reported on social services in 1936 emphasised the great importance of having reinforcements of this kind to the case committee.

I am rather surprised that the noble Lord, who has so much experience in the administration of the criminal law, does not feel the great value of the committee's being able to reinforce themselves in this way. After all, it is entirely at their discretion. If they are a strong committee and do not feel the need of assistance of this kind, they need not call for it; but if they find that they can improve their technique or make themselves better able to deal with their problems by bringing in assistance of this sort, it: is for them to do it. In many parts of the country the various burdens of duty pressing on magistrates are very heavy, and I should have thought that the noble Lord would have appreciated the opportunity of relieving them to some extent by giving them power to make co-options in this way.

LORD RAGLAN

In the circumstances I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD CHORLEY

This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 75, line 18, leave out ("that") and insert ("which").—(Lord Charley.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Fifth Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Sixth Schedule [Release of Young Offenders from Prison on Licence]:

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 77, line 5, leave out ("shall") and insert ("may").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to add to the Schedule: 5. Where the unexpired part of the sentence of a person released under the said Section fifty-one is less than six months, the provisions of this Schedule shall apply to him subject to the following modifications—

1. (a) the period for which he is under supervision under paragraph 1, and is liable to recall under paragraph 2, shall be a period of six months from the date of his release under the said Section fifty-one;
2. (b) if he is recalled under paragraph 2, the period for which he may be detained 858 thereunder shall be whichever is the shorter of the following, that is to say—
   1. (i) the remainder of the said period of six months; or
   2. (ii) the part of his sentence which was unexpired on the date of his release under the said Section fifty-one, reduced by any time during which he has been so drained since that date;
   and he may be released on licence under paragraph 3 at any time before the expiration of that period."

The noble and learned Viscount said: This Amendment gives effect to a proposal which was made by Mr. Benson on the Report stage in another place and accepted by the Government in principle. The proposal is that in the case of an offender under 21, sentenced to imprisonment, who is released on licence under Clause 54 (2) on conditions which require him to be under supervision, the minimum period of supervision shall be six months. As the fill stood, the period of supervision would have been only such part of his sentence as remained unexpired at the time of his release on licence. In the case of a short sentence this would be very risky. It would be an advantage that the period of supervision in all cases should be of sufficient length to be of some effect. The requirement that the period of supervision should be a minimum period of six months is an improvement on the original proposal in the Bill. Accordingly, I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 77, line 23, at end insert said paragraph.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

LORD LLEWELLIN

This is absolutely right. Obviously we need some substantial period of supervision, otherwise it may not be effective at all. I agree with this Amendment.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Sixth Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Seventh Schedule agreed to.

Eighth Schedule [Transitory provisions]:

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment, to insert the words "or ought to be," is a drafting Amendment. Paragraph 1 (1) of the Schedule already makes provision for persons sentenced to penal servitude who are in custody at the commencement of the Act, and sub paragraph (2) of paragraph 1 makes provision for persons sentenced to penal servitude who are lawfully at large on licence at the commencement of the Act. We have omitted to make provision for those who are unlawfully at large at the commencement of the Act—that is, anybody who has escaped just before the Act comes into force and may still be at large. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 79, line 10, after ("is") insert ("or ought to be").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This is a minor drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 79, line 11, leave out ("though") and insert ("if").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This again is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 79, line 47, leave out ("though") and insert ("if").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 80, line 4, leave out ("such") and insert ("the").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Eighth Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

7.51 p.m.

Ninth Schedule [Consequential and minor amendments]:

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Under the Licensing (Consolidation) Act, 1910, a man who has been convicted of felony is for ever disqualified from holding a justices' licence. That seems to me to be wholly wrong. The man may have committed an offence of stealing some trifling sum in his youth and he may have completely made good the offence; he may have gone to war and he may have won great distinction. We cannot think that it is right that there should be an automatic disqualification which lasts for the rest of his life. By all means let him be referred to the justices who may then consider what they should do in his case, but it is wholly wrong that there should be an automatic disqualification extending over a man's life. The object of this Amendment is to get rid of this automatic penalty. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 82, line 6, at end insert— ("The Beerhouse Act, 1840. 3 & 4 Vict. c. 61. In section seven the words 'of felony or' shall cease to have effect.")

—(The Lord Chancellor.)

LORD LLEWELLIN

AS your Lordships may remember, I had an Amendment down to get rid of these penalties in the case of the younger offenders. I am glad that they are to be abolished entirely. In any event, the matter may have to be taken into consideration by the licensing justices.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 82, line 35, at end insert— ("The Refreshment Houses Act, 1860. 23 & 24 Vict. c. 27. In section twenty-two the words 'of felony or' shall cease to have effect,")

—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The Amendments to the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, are consequential on the Amendments to Clause 34. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 85, line 8, at end insert— ("The Criminal Appeal Act, 1907. 7 Edw. 7. c. 23. In section fourteen, in subsection (4), after the word 'section' there shall be inserted the words 'and subsections (1) to (3) of section thirty-four of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948'. In section seventeen, after the word 'bail' there shall be inserted the words 'and the power of the court to give directions under the proviso to subsection (2) of section thirty-four of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948'; and after the words 'such power' there shall be inserted the words 'under this Act'. In section nineteen, after the word 'mercy' in the second place where it occurs, there shall be inserted the words 'or of any representation made by any other person'.")

—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The amendment of the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, is necessary in consequence of the abolition by this Bill of the requirement of entering into recognisances to prosecute an appeal to Quarter Sessions with diligence. Section 14 of the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, provides that the court may direct that a recognisance may include an undertaking not to sell or part with the animal until the appeal is determined or abandoned, and to produce it on the hearing of the appeal if such production is possible without cruelty. The Amendment enables the court to make an order to this effect, instead of directing that an undertaking shall be included in the recognisance. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 85, line 17, at end insert— ("The Protection of Animals Act, 1911. 1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. 27. In section fourteen, in sub-section (2), for the words from 'direct that the Recognizance' to 'under-taking' there shall be substituted the words 'order him' and at the end of the subsection there shall be added the words 'and a person who fails to comply with an order under this section without satisfactory excuse shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five pounds'")

—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The Amendment to the Second Schedule to the Criminal Justice Act, 1925, is to the effect of the present Clause 28, which is being deleted. This clause, which was accepted on Report stage, enables courts of summary jurisdiction to deal summarily with offences of fraudulent conversion where the amount or value of the property does not exceed £20. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 86, line 41, column 2, at end insert— ("In the Second Schedule, in paragraph II, after the words 'section eighteen' there shall

("3 & 4 Vict. c. 61.

The Beerhouse Act, 1840.

In section seven, the words 'of felony or'").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

be inserted the words 'section twenty (where the amount of the money or the value of' the property in respect of which "the offence is committed does not exceed twenty pounds)'.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The Amendment to the Police Pensions Act, 1948, is consequential on the provision made in this Bill for he new sentences of preventive detention and corrective training. Such sentences are added to the sentences which under the Police Pensions Act may involve the forfeiture of a police pension. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 89, line 21, column 2, leave out from ("surgical") to end of line 48.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 92, line 10, at end insert—

("Police Pensions Act, 1948.	In section four, in subsection (1), after the words 'penal servitude' there shall be inserted the words 'preventive detention or corrective training'."
	—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Ninth Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Tenth Schedule [Enactments repealed]:

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment is consequential upon what has gone before. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 93, leave out lines 7 and 8.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment effects the repeal of the provisions in the old Act, for reasons that have been already explained. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 03, line 31, at end insert—

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment is to Part I of the Schedule which refers to certain repeals. Those repeals extend to Scotland and they appear in Part II of the Schedule. Part I refers to England only. Part II contains repeals extending to England and Scotland. I beg to move.

("23 & 24 Vict. c. 27.

The Refreshment Houses Act, 1860.

In section twenty-two the words 'of felony or'").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This is a similar Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 94, leave out lines 49 and 50.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment relates to Part II of the Schedule, containing those enactments relating to England and Scotland which are being repealed. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 95, leave out lines 38 to 42.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment and the next, which relate to the repeal of the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, are consequential upon the amendment we have already made to Clause 34. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 96, line 6, column 3, after "(1)" insert "(3)"—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 96, line 6, column 3, leave out from "(5)" to end of line 8.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

("5 & 6 Geo. 5. c. 90.

The Indictments Act, 1915.

In section four, the words 'and the person accused shall have the same right of challenging jurors'.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to

Amendment moved— Page 93, leave out lines 34 to 37—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The same principle is involved here as in the Amendment at page 93, line 31. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 94, line 4, at end insert—

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The words which are being repealed provide that the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, shall not apply in the case of convictions on indictments or coroners' inquisitions charging any Peer or Peeress or other person claiming the privilege of Peerage, with any offence not now lawfully triable by a court of Assize. The Amendment is consequential on the new clause abolishing privilege of Peerage. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 96, line 8, column 3, at end insert ("In section twenty in subsection (2) the words from 'but shall not apply' to the end of the subsection").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment results from the transfer to Part II of the Schedule of those enactments relating to both England and Scotland which are being repealed.

Amendment moved— Page 96, line 14, leave out lines 14 to 18.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment provides for the repeal of certain words in the Indictments Act. It is consequential upon the provision made by Clause 31 (1) for peremptory challenge in cases of misdemeanour as well as in cases of felony. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 96, line 30, at end insert—

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment deletes from the Schedule the reference to Section 62 (4) of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1946. This section provides that where an employer is convicted of certain offences under the Act, involving failure to pay contributions, he shall be liable to pay the contributions to the Industrial Injuries Fund. Subsection (4) of the section applies these provisions where a court of summary jurisdiction deals with such a case by making a probation order without proceeding to a conviction. In future, where such a case is dealt with

("PART III.
REPEALS EXTENDING TO SCOTLAND AND NORTHERN IRELAND.
20 Hen 6. c. 9	Recital of Magna Charta relating to Trial by Peers; Noble ladies to be tried as Peers of the Realm are tried.	The whole Act.
31 Hen. 8. c. 10	An Act for the placing of the Lords in the Parliament.	Section nine.
33 Hen. 8. c. 12	An Act for Murder and Malicious Bloodshed within the Court.	Section seven.
5 Hen. 8. c. 2.	An Act concerning the Trial of Treasons committed out of the King's Majesty's Dominions.	Section two.
2 & 3 Edw. 6. c. 1	An Act for the uniformity of service and administration of the Sacraments throughout the Realm.	Section ten.
1 Eliz. c. 1	An Act for restoring to the Crown the ancient Jurisdiction over the State Ecclesiastical and Spiritual and abolishing all foreign power repugnant to the same.	Section eighteen.
1 Eliz. c. 2	An Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Divine Service in the Church, and the administration of the Sacraments.	Section nine.
2 Eliz. c. 1.	An Act of the Parliament of Ireland restoring to the Crown the ancient Jurisdiction over the State Ecclesiastical and Spiritual, and abolishing all foreign power repugnant to the same.	In section fifteen, the words from 'And if it shall happen' to the end of the section.
2 Eliz. c. 2.	An Act of the Parliament of Ireland for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the Church, and the administration of the Sacraments.	Section nine.
13 Chas. 2. Stat. 1. c. 1.	An Act for the Safety and Preservation of His Majesty's Person and Government against Treasonable and Seditious practices and attempts.	In section seven, the words 'that no peer of this realm shall be tried for any offence against this Act but by his peers, and further'.
1707 Anne c. 7.	An Act of the Parliament of Scotland ratifying and approving the Treaty of Union of the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England.	So far as it ratifies, approves and confirms the following words in Article XXIII of the Treaty of Union, that is to say, the words from 'and particularly the right of sitting upon the trials of peers' to 'at such trials as any other peers of Great Britain'; the words 'and shall be tried as peers of Great Britain'; and the words 'and particularly the right of sitting upon the trials of peers.'

by a probation order, the provisions of the new clause which are being substituted for Clause 12 (1) of the Bill should be sufficient to enable the court to mike an order for the payment of contributions; but for great caution it is proposed to preserve on the Statute Book the provisions of Section 69 (4) of the Act of 1946.

Amendment moved— Page 98, line 38, leave out lines 38 to 40.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to insert as a new Part III.

6 Anne c.11	The Union with Scotland Act, 1706.	Section four, so far as it ratifies, approves and confirms the following words in Article XXIII of the Treaty of Union, that is to say, the words from 'and particularly the right of sitting upon the trials of peers' to 'at such trials as any other peers of Great Britain'; the words 'and shall be tried as peers of Great Britain'; and the words 'and particularly the right of sitting upon the trials of peers'.
6 Anne c. 78	The Scottish Representative Peers Act, 1707.	Section twelve.
33 Geo. 3. c. 45	An Act of the Parliament of Ireland for the trial of Treason committed out of the King's dominions.	Section two.
39 & 40 Geo. 3. c. 67.	The Union with Ireland Act, 1800.	Section one, so far as it ratifies, confirms and approves the following words in Article IV of the Articles of Union, that is to say, in the fourth paragraph, the words from 'and that he shall be liable' to 'charged'; and in the last paragraph the words from 'and the lords' to 'respectively on the part of Great Britain'; the words 'and particularly the right of sitting on the trial of peers'; the words 'be sued and tried as peers, except as aforesaid, and shall'; and the words 'and the right of sitting on the trial of peers'.
40 Geo. 3. c. 38.	An Act of the Parliament of Ireland for the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.	Section one, so far as it ratifies, confirms and approves the following words in Article IV of the Articles of Union, that is to say, in the fourth paragraph, the words from 'and that he shall be liable' to 'charged'; and in the last paragraph the words from 'and the lords' to 'respectively on the part of Great Britain'; the words 'and particularly the right of sitting on the trial of peers'; the words 'be sued and tried as peers, except as aforesaid, and shall'; and the words 'and the right of sitting on the trial of peers'.
6 Geo. 4. c. 66.	The Trial of Peers (Scotland) Act, 1825.	The whole Act.
4 & 5 Vict. c. 22.	The Felony Act, 1841	The whole Act.
25 & 26 Vict. c. 65.	The Jurisdiction in Homicides Act, 1862.	Section nineteen.
20 & 21 Geo. 5. c. 45.	The Criminal Appeal (Northern Ireland) Act, 1930.	In section nineteen, in subsection (2), the words from 'but shall not apply' to the end of the subsection.").

The noble and learned Viscount said: These repeals are consequential on the new clause abolishing privilege of Peerage in criminal proceedings. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 99, line 26, at end insert the said new Part III.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Tenth Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Title of the Bill:

LORD LLEWELLIN

This is consequential on our first Division rejecting the suspension of the death penalty for murder. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— In line 1 of the Title, leave out from ("Act") to the second ("to").—(Lord Llewellin.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

VISCOUNT SIMON

My Amendment has two merits. The first is that it is agreed by the Government, and the second is that it is the last Amendment on the paper. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— In line 9 of the Title, after ("courts") insert ("to abolish privilege of Peerage in criminal proceedings").—(Viscount Simon.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Title, as amended, agreed to.

House resumed.