EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING BILL. (Hansard, 24 June 1948)

§ VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN

My Lords, I would like to thank the noble Viscount opposite for having met us in this way. I think that the Amendment is likely to make the Council a better and more useful body than it would have been had we not made these small additions. Apart from anything else, the insertion of the words "not more than thirty-six" instead of "thirty-four" will probably save the Ministry of Labour from having to break the law by not filling every vacancy immediately it occurs, which I am sure they do not want to do. As to the numbers, thirty-six instead of thirty-four, and six instead of four, will, as was said on Second Reading, give an opportunity to appoint a certain number of outside and independent people, who we on these Benches, at any rate, feel will strengthen the Council. It nearly always happens that in a committee of this sort the people who have no labels on them, and are simply appointed because they are useful people who know the business, are the people who do the real work.

1245 In this case, the Amendment will give an opportunity to appoint nominees of the voluntary organisations, the probation service and, possibly, of the Armed Forces. Those people will be a source of considerable strength to the Council. In particular, I think a good representative of the juvenile organisations (that representative might be taken from the Standing Conference of National Juvenile Organisations) will be a particularly useful person. The Schedule as it stood provided for representation of the teachers and the youth employment committees in England and in Scotland. But the teachers and youth employment committees cover not the whole but only part of the field. They cover local authorities' youth service. But only a certain proportion of the boys and girls in this country are covered by the local authorities' youth service, and probably half are covered by the voluntary organisations. The voluntary organisations have been left out of this Bill in exactly the same way that the N.S.P.C.C. were left out of the Nurseries and Child-Minders Regulation Bill. This Amendment will give an opportunity for those people to be brought in.

The noble Viscount opposite undertook that the probation service would also be represented. I hesitate to repeat what I said on Second Reading, but the employment of delinquent children is at least as important as the employment of children who present no problem. As the number of delinquent children is growing, so this problem of employment will grow also. I am not sufficiently familiar with the figures to know how much extra work it takes to place a delinquent child compared with the placing of an ordinary child who presents no problem, but I should imagine that a great deal of extra personal work and interviews are required for a purpose of that sort. I will not take up the time of the House further on this Amendment. I will just thank the noble Viscount again for the action he has taken, which we support.