THE YOUTH SERVICE AND THE ALBEMARLE REPORT

HL Deb 18 May 1960 vol 223 cc935-1052

3.0 p.m.

LORD PAKENHAM rose to call attention to the Youth Service, with special reference to the Albemarle Report (Cmnd. 929); and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, once again we have a fine turnout for a debate on the Youth Service. In February of last year we held the first debate on this subject which had ever been held in either House of Parliament. I believe that a score of noble Lords and noble Ladies then took part, and I am glad to think that many of them are to take part again to-day. Her Majesty's Government are strongly represented by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, who I am glad to think will be replying at the end of the day; but the noble Earl, Lord Dundee (who on that occasion, if I may say so, made a most constructive speech which in one or two respects, so far as I can judge, has since affected policy) is not taking part. The noble Lord, Lord Craig-ton, I understand, will deal with Scottish questions. Alas ! I am afraid that I am unable to raise any Scottish questions. I possess two Scottish grandchildren. They are little Tories at the moment, but with children of that age one cannot tell where they are going; and perhaps they will supply me with very acceptable material. So at the moment I am afraid I must leave the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, unharassed by me.

Last year we ranged very widely over the Youth Services and delved to the best of our ability into the psychology of contemporary youth. To-day I am not going to deal at any length with psychology or the existing services. On those and other points no one is better qualified to speak than the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, who has given so many years' service in this field and will follow me. I should remind the House that for every five young people to-day between the ages of 15 and 20 there will be, in 1964, six young people; and the Albemarle Committee reckon that in some New Towns the increase will be five-fold. We note—and we are glad of it—that the youth of the nation to-day are better fed, clothed and educated than any of their predecessors. They certainly have more money to spend. We all knew that before, but the Albemarle Committee have confirmed that. They estimate that, whereas before the war ordinary young persons had only a few shilling to spend after giving something to their parents, to-day they have, on average, about £3 a week.

So far as figures mean anything (and we know that these particular figures are not very satisfactory) young people today commit a good deal more crime—although the Report points out, very rightly, that only 2 per cent. of boys, and about 0.2 per cent. of girls, between the ages of 14 and 21 are in fact convicted in any one year. In my opinion (others may have more profound views) there is no evidence as to whether young people to-day are morally better or worse than any earlier generation. It is certainly highly relevant to discuss the special psychological characteristics of the present young people in deciding the kind of Youth Service that is most appropriate to their needs. I myself am very glad, as I believe others will be, that the Albemarle Report develops what I would call the overwhelming permanent arguments for an adequate Youth Service such as we have not yet possessed; and those permanent arguments would not lose their force if the rate of juvenile delinquency were, for example, halved to-morrow.

For what my opinion is worth, I find the similarities between young people of to-day and those of yesterday much more striking than the dissimilarities; and, after all, the young people of yesterday were more restless and unsettled than it is now the fashion to recall. I myself, for example, have two children who walked from Aldermaston to Trafalgar Square the other day, and one who walked a great part of the way from John o'Groats to Land's End; and many other young people did the same. As regards those two walks, only one obvious difference occurs to me. Canon Collins marched at the head of his column throughout. Mr. Butlin's attitude to exercise was reported to be slightly different, for he said: When I feel the need for exercise coming over me, I sit down in my armchair till it wears off. That, of course, is the alternative philosophy, although no doubt both are very much interested in the young.

This craving for extraordinary physical exertion is not confined to 1960. I remember a race when I was an undergraduate run over more than a mile through Christ Church Meadow after dinner by the light of lanterns, when one who was to become a great economist—Sir Roy Harrod—was "pipped on the post" by a Fellow of All Souls—none other than the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, who I am sure is capable of repeating the feat this evening. At any rate, while the externals alter the substance of it, I am glad to think, remains unchanged.

To-day, however, in my opening remarks, at any rate, I am concerned only with the Albemarle Report, and the question what do Her Majesty's Government propose to do about that Report? No one can fail to salute the noble Countess, Lady Albemarle, and her colleagues for a Report of the highest quality which will always be a landmark in the history of the Youth Service. I hope I shall not be thought indelicate if I suggest to the talented authors of the Younghusband Report and the Crowther Report, the verbosity of both of which has been commented upon quite a little, that they could learn a good deal from the noble Lady and her colleagues in respect of brevity and general presentation. But I must concentrate on a few salient points.

The Albemarle Report accepts the vehement opinion of nearly all noble Lords who spoke in our debate last year in one vital respect. The Report endorses our scathing criticisms—and those criticisms were expressed without reference to Party—of official policy towards the Youth Service for years past. Those criticisms were expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Feversham, and by other noble Lords in all parts of the House. The House will recall the evidence given by the spokesman of the Ministry of Education to the Select Committee on May 2, 1957, which was quoted in the debate last year and which is certainly true. The Ministry spokesman said in 1957: Among the many services which might be further expanded and developed, the Youth Service is one which it has been definite policy for some time now not to advance.

That particular statement is not quoted in the Albemarle Report, but the Committee do not mince their words. They point out that over the twelve years up to and including 1957–58 direct expenditure by the Ministry of Education on the Youth Service had fallen by a quarter, in terms of real money, when the Welfare State and education services in general were being rapidly expanded. Of every £1 spent on education, only about 1d. goes on the Youth Services—1d. out of every £1 of the total educational expenditure of this country. The Report says: It is hardly surprising that this lack of encouragement has checked the momentum with which the service was launched and has betrayed the high hopes of those who believed in it. The Committee explicitly accept the evidence of a large number of witnesses who complained that the powers of the Ministry and local education authorities had not been exercised in accordance with the spirit and intention of Parliament when conferring them. One could hardly put it more plainly. They say: We are convinced that the absence of an effective lead has contributed largely to the weaknesses in the existing service. I do not think I am overstating things if I say that the Committee substantiate up to the hilt the charges that were made from every side of the House last year—the charges that the Youth Service has been scandalously neglected. Se much, my Lords, had to be said, too, this afternoon.

I know that we are all concerned with the future and not with the past. There are in this excellent Report 44 recommendations, of which I can pick out only five for particular mention. Before indicating these five, however, I would remind the House that there are three general conclusions or, if you like, assumptions: the need for a large expansion of the Service globally, the need for some new approaches, and the need for a continuance of the threefold partnership between the State, the local authorities and the voluntary bodies. There is certainly emphatic reaffirmation of the need for that partnership and for the maintenance of the voluntary principle. May I take the five recommendations? First, we can all, surely, approve the 10-year development programme for the Youth Service and the appointment of a Youth Service Development Council to advise the Minister during that period. We can approve, even more emphatically, the demand for a generous and imaginative building programme with special attention to the design of more attractive premises. Third, we can fervently echo the insistence on active steps to increase the number of youth leaders; and we can (and I am sure that on these points I am speaking for the whole House, or virtually the whole House) warmly support the emergency training college, which would offer a one-year course for men and women in youth leadership while the long-term programme for leaders was getting under way.

As regards the long-term programme, I think that many of us will feel that the target of the Committee, the target of 1,300 leaders on the job by 1966, as compared with 700 to-day, is poor-spirited and unenterprising. My own Party—this is not a Party issue—a little while ago called for an immediate trebling of the existing number, which would take us to over 2,000. And although we are all well aware of the difficulty of securing enough teachers not only in this field but in all other fields of education, we are reminded in the Report that in 1958 the teaching profession already numbered over 250,000 in the maintained and assisted schools; and I personally would certainly hope that a very much bigger figure than 1,300 full-time youth leaders will in the end be aimed at.

There is a fourth point of great value in paragraph 307—and I hope that I am not embarrassing him if I suggest that possibly the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, contributed to this finding. This particular paragraph will appeal to all who believe that a national morality which attempts to maintain it self without religious belief is forced to live on rapidly dwindling capital. In this paragraph, the Minister is urged to end an injustice which is at present suffered by voluntary bodies with denominational allegiances. The Methodists are mentioned in the Report as having undergone particular hardship. I can certainly say the same of my own, the Roman Catholic, Communion. The Report says: The sole criterion should be the value of the social and educational work. My Lords, whatever our doctrinal beliefs, I should hope that we could all accept that very liberal statement of the position.

There is a fifth recommendation (as I have said, there are 44 altogether, though I am selecting only a few) on which I would ask leave to dwell for a moment or two longer. The Youth Service, we are told in the Report, should be available for all young people aged from 14 to 20 inclusive. Well, without going into the whole history of this question, or the past or present definitions of "The Youth Service", which are, after all, man-made and can be altered by man, and were not in any way delivered from Sinai, one is bound to ask bluntly, "Why stop at 14 on the way down?" I know that several noble Lords intend to deal with the question forcefully. In the eyes of many concerned with the Youth Service, the Committee have shown a distressing failure to acknowledge the value of the work with the under-14s. I expect that the noble Viscount, Lord Monck, the noble Lord, Lord Baden-Powell, and the noble Earl, Lord Buckinghamshire, will have a lot to say about that; and I certainly sympathise with what I imagine is their point of view. I know that this has caused concern and disappointment to many voluntary organisations in this country which are doing such excellent work with the younger age groups. There is a large body of opinion, inside and outside those organisations which feels that 11, for example, would have been a more sensible lower age for the Youth Service. I must leave it to other speakers to develop this point of view. I know that the Boy Scouts' Association along with the Girl Guides and the Boys' Brigade feel strongly about this matter, and I think that other organisations also feel strongly about it.

I myself agree that there is everything to be said for young people taking up Youth Service activities for some years before they leave school, so that they are property armed, morally and socially, before they are called upon to face the difficult transition from school to work. I therefore respectfully beg the Government to say plainly to-day, or on a later occasion, that the training of boys and girls in the voluntary organisations during the years before they leave school is of real and recognised value. And I urge them, as an expression of that belief, to make funds available to assist the national headquarters of the voluntary organisations with their under 14 work, and I urge that local authorities should be stimulated to give much more effective help to the units of those organisations.

So much, my Lords, for the expansions, the quantitative side. What about the qualitative aspect?—what might be called the new approaches. The Report has called for both total expansion and other new approaches. Here, the Report, with all its many virtues, ran into trouble from two quarters. A leading article in The Times Educational Supplement—and perhaps some of your Lordships read with interest that article, and certainly the special section devoted to Youth; there was a whole series of articles in one issue devote to youth—described the Report as"timid and unexciting". It treated It—I am not quoting how—as throwing in its lot with the existing organisations and failing to realise that the future lies with the experimental groups. It could be retorted that there are favourable references in the Report to coffee bars and street football, to skiffle and washboard groups, and to self-programming groups generally; also to the need for more participation and responsibility, and for opportunities of leadership for club members.

It cannot be said, however, that the Report has done much more than make a few friendly gestures in this direction. The Committee themselves say that No Report of this kind can hope to lay down programmes of activities or give birth to new ideas. That seemed a rather poor statement on their considerations, but that is what they actually say. The Report continues: New modes of youth work spring up from their roots in the field, and in the future it will be for the Youth Service Development Council to appraise these and make their value known. That is what the Committee say in their Report. Some of your Lordships, while thinking of new approaches, and of "unclubbable" boys and other difficult cases, may have read with great interest the article in the Daily Telegraph to-day by Mr. Bagnall, but I must leave that aspect of things to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and to a number of other speakers. I would myself say, before passing from it, that, when it comes to experiment, I personally cannot draw a sharp line between on the one side the well-tried organisations, many of whom have been conducting all kinds of experiments in the recent rather difficult years, and, on the other, the new organisations, which are still struggling to be born but should be welcomed into the field. There is no reason whatever why both kinds of organisation should not be suitably encouraged.

From the other side, the Report has been attacked, and some sharp things have been said, and may be said to-day—and I am very glad that we have a strong ecclesiastical oratory coming to us to-day—in respect particularly of paragraph 143. That paragraph in the Report concedes: Denominational or specifically committed organisations must remain free to give expression to their spiritual ideals in their youth work. The Committee could hardly have conceded less. But, in general, they consider it better, to use their own words, for principles to be seen shining through works than for them to be signalised by some specific spiritual assertion". It seems to me clear—and I expect it will seem to others—that here the Committee are suffering from an unwarranted moral and religious defeatism. I must leave this aspect to other speakers, and particularly to those from the Bishops' Bench, but I would myself suggest that no one who is frightened of being called a "do-gooder" will be able to do much good to his fellow man. Indeed, the very phrase "do-gooder" is one of the most effective in the Devil's armoury. No doubt the approach must vary between the coffee-bar type of club and the denominational organisation; and no doubt there are many different ways of doing good under those valuable headings suggested by the Committee. Your Lordships will recall their headings: association, training and challenge; and no doubt it is possible to do good in many different ways under each heading.

The inspiration of the Youth Service has, of course, been, and always should be, infinitely varied. The initiative may come from a great leader of men like Sir John Hunt, through the Duke of Edinburgh's Awards; or (as in a case within my knowledge) it may come through the proprietor of a working-class café, who is even now trying to raise £300 or £400 to convert his basement into a meeting place for a small body of wandering young people who have come to rest in his café. In my own village, the initiative has come for many years from a devoted schoolmaster and his wife, and, more recently, from their successors. Next door to us, in the neighbouring village, there is a first-class club which has just come into existence through the labours of a local doctor and of friends he appealed to. He has won the confidence and help (in present circumstances, at any rate, the generous help) of the local authorities and of the Ministry, which I hope will not be dissipated when it is discovered that he has made me president.

But this initiative can take a great many different forms. In some sense or other the whole value of the youth movement has flowed, and I am sure always will flow, from its moral impulse and widespread moral dedication. Without that kind of ultimate moral purpose, its value to the community and its claim on the resources of the community would largely, if not wholly, disappear. On the other hand, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said and has written elsewhere, we cannot help the young people, and we cannot help the young people to help themselves, unless, to use his expression, we can get them in; so that the need for experiment is unending and continuous.

My Lords, apart from the failure which I have mentioned—namely, to deal with the under-14s—and I suppose that the Committee could argue, though perhaps not very convincingly, that that was outside their terms of reference—their Report suffers in the eyes of many of us from one major defect: I refer to the failure to indicate even an approximate figure of what their plans would cost. I have heard it said that in the minds of more than one member of the Committee an ultimate figure to be reached some years hence might be £18 million or £20 million a year from public funds compared with the present £3 million. Whether that is so or not—that will be some years ahead—one would assume that public expenditure is intended to be much larger than now when everyone—including the Minister Sir David Eccles in his statement on February 3—has agreed that the resources placed at the disposal of the Youth Service are inadequate.

But if we leave out even an approximate figure—and I know that it could not be at all precise—the public and the rest of us are left without even the dimmest idea of the scale of the expansion contemplated. Those fighting for the Service whether inside or outside official quarters are left without their strongest card—a public commitment to some definite target. My great fear is that some years from now when the whole impetus behind this Report has died down we shall find that we are spending perhaps twice as much as now instead of six times as much; that would be 2d. compared with every £1 now spent on education; and of course the total expenditure on education will by that time be very much larger. I fear that when that time is reached the whole thing will not be very much bigger. One will be able to point to some increase at least and there will be a lot of mutual congratulation; but if that comes about this fleeting opportunity of a really major advance in the Youth Service will have been lost for ever or at any rate for many years.

It is time to turn, though there is time to turn only briefly, to the reactions of the Government. We must all congratulate the Minister, Sir David Eccles, on more things than one in this connection, but on one thing most assuredly. On February 3, with the issue of the Report, he announced in Parliament [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 616, col. 999]: We accept in principle all the main recommendations for Government action. That is talking, one might fairly say; and it is the kind of talking which, in the social services, and certainly the youth services, we do not hear often enough. The Minister went on to say something which was quite natural and inevitable, and which I hope to bear in mind in any comments I make now of a critical nature. He said: We have much to discuss with our partners before deciding precisely how to act on the Albemarle recommendations. The necessary discussions will take place urgently. I am in no way "behind the scenes", but I presume that those discussions are taking place; and I hope they are taking place urgently. Perhaps I should add, if it is not improper to do so, that the Ministry of Education has been greatly strengthened (this, I think, is public knowledge; I see that Lady Albemarle herself alluded to it in a recent speech), both qualitatively and quantitatively, from the point of view we are discussing to-day; and certainly neither the interest of the Minister, according to my information, nor that of those closely concerned with youth in his Department is questioned by well-informed people.

The Government have again done well to announce that an emergency training college for youth leaders will be opened by January 1, 1961, which is an even earlier date than the Committee seemed to think possible. So in that respect, at least, the Government have been moving ahead of the Committee. When, a little while ago, I attended the annual conference of the National Youth Officers, there was a good deal of anxiety and some despondency about the likelihood of obtaining the necessary recruits for this college unless something could be said quickly about their salaries and their prospects. I realise that these points are still under discussion, but I hope that the Ministers will today be able to say something helpful, particularly because of the short time between now and the institution of the college; and I hope that they will be able to allay the pessimism which many well-disposed people feel at the moment.

Taking the whole question of securing the necessary numbers of youth leaders and others to help in the Service, I have a rather ghastly fear that a chance is ebbing away from us—although, of course, it is not yet too late. Last year I suggested here—and it has since been supported in responsible quarters—that not only the Minister of Education but the Prime Minister himself should try to indicate to the nation the altogether new significance that was going to be given to the Youth Service in the future. I repeat that suggestion. But if that is impossible—and I do not see why it should be—I hope that not only the Minister, but unattached colleagues, such I as the Lord Privy Seal, who are known for their interest and concern for education, will speak much more often and more emphatically about this great movement for youth.

In particular we want to be told from the highest quarter about the greater public service that can be rendered by young men and women who become full-time or part-time youth leaders, whether under the emergency scheme or under the long-term programme. It is not only the professional youth leaders I am thinking of, for I am told that for every full-time leader there are on the average about 250 unpaid leaders and helpers, and the need for them is going to be even greater if the Service expands. So 1 plead with the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and his colleagues to let an urgent call go out from the highest quarters to all who will lend a hand and share i the burden and opportunity in any capacity whatever, paid or unpaid.

I was very glad, and said so at the time, when the Minister announced straight away that he proposed to set up the recommended Youth Service Development Council and himself take the chair at the beginning. Like many others connected with the Service, I was disappointed when the names were announced. I could use stronger words and so could others, but I cannot say less than that. I am sure that every member is a blameless citizen, revered in his circle and anxious to help our young people. Collectively, however, they do not carry the weight in the public mind which I and many others would have hoped for. If I prove entirely wrong in this, I hope that I shall be the first to come down to your Lordships' House and apologise; and may I in fact prove entirely mistaken!

I have left to the end my main anxiety, the main worry of most of us. I refer to the financial prospect. It is too early to condemn the Government on this score, because none of us knows—at least I do not—what financial help in fact will be forthcoming from Governmental quarters. But the signs are anything but encouraging in this respect. I am a good deal more pessimistic than I was the day after the Report was announced and after Sir David's first statement. All we know for certain is that in the next two years starts, as they are called, will be authorised for building by the local authorities and voluntary organisations up to £3 million—that is to say, £1½ million a year. I gather that even this does not mean that any particular sum is being promised by the Government. It seems to be certain, however, that the general grant will be increased to take into account this sum of £3 million, so that at least half the burden of the £3 million will ultimately be borne by the Government. That appears to be the position. The general disposition among authorities with whom I have been in touch is to regard this figure of £3 million as ridiculously small, compared with what they could spend, and indeed must spend, if the Service is to fulfil the aims of the Albermarle Committee or be in any way adequate.

We may hear more to-day, and I expect that we shall, about the difficulties of authorising a larger commitment at this stage, quite apart from any financial stringency, but I must leave the Government to explain those difficulties. I can only stress the great disappointment, and indeed bewilderment, caused at this stage by this exiguous figure of £3 million. I hope that if it cannot be altered during the two years we are talking about, at least we can have our hopes raised this afternoon with regard to the following period.

But the question of the £3 million and the two years is not the most fundamental anxiety felt by myself and by so many others. Many of your Lordships will be familiar with paragraph 317 of the Report, which deals with expenditure by local education authorities, but if not, I would remind your Lordships of what I think is its burden. It is obvious that the Committee assume that local authorities must be asked to spend a great deal more and, if they are asked to do so, that the Government must be generous in sharing the burden. I do not want to-day to revive the controversy about percentage grants versus bulk grants, which has been settled for the time, at least, though I think wrongly. It is fairly obvious from the Report that, taking this one aspect of things alone, it would be found much easier to suggest how incentives could be given to local authorities if the percentage grant were still in force. But, failing the restoration of the percentage grant—and I am not expecting a volte face in that respect—a special grant for the Youth Service would be the next best thing. Failing that, it is clearly essential, if the local authorities are to do what we all now expect of them, that something much more definite should be said than has yet been said about the revision of the general grant for this purpose.

In a circular issued on March 31 the Ministry announced that: expenditure on the Youth Service and the need to develop it will be taken into consideration when the amount of general grant for the next period is fixed. If that is all, it is a very feeble inducement, and I think that it has been felt to be so by the local authorities. The Minister himself, one gathers from a statement which was issued on March 7, accepts the aim of doubling the Youth Service. I think it is a fair interpretation of his words to assume that doubling the Youth Service means doubling the numbers in the Service, and presumably that means much more than doubling the cost, in view of the need for much better buildings, more leaders and so on. I find at the moment a conflict which perhaps will be partially resolved to-day, between this declared purpose of doubling the Youth Service at, I suppose some not very far distant time, and the niggardly indications that we have so far been given as regards finance.

I find a disposition among local authorities to refrain from putting forward the kind of ambitious schemes which the best of them would like to do—not all of them, because there are such things as slack local authorities. And I see a real danger of the whole thing falling between two stools: the local authorities hanging back and blaming the Ministry, and the Ministry blaming the local authorities for lack of enterprise and claiming, like Mr. Khrushchev—indeed both sides, in the end, may say—that their hands are clean and their souls are pure. We shall not have greatly expanded the Youth Service if that proves to be the result. They both feel that they have proper excuses.

I beg the Government, therefore, to remove as many anxieties as possible to-day, both with regard to the expenditure expected of local authorities and with regard to Ministry grants to voluntary organisations, which, we are told, but only in a rather vague way, are going to be increased. The extent of the help that the Government are ready to give to the headquarters of voluntary organisations in the immediate future (although this is not the whole story) will certainly be regarded as one of the surest tests of the Government's real intentions towards the future of the Service. In other words, the coming year—indeed, in the next few months—is going to be crucial if the country is going to be persuaded that the Youth Service will really be placed on an altogether higher plane of official attention; unless the country is persuaded of that in the beginning, I am afraid, as I said earlier, that a unique but fleeting opportunity will have disappeared.

My Lords, I do not want to end on anything like a Party note, but it is the duty, not only of the official Opposition, but of all those who care for youth, to make sure that those in the Government and in the official world who mean business by the Youth Service—and I am sure that there are plenty of them—are properly supported and that any who stand in our way should be warned that the shocking story of the past must not be repeated. It is probable that the promotion of a worthy Youth Service will always be the hardest part of the Ministry of Education's duty, if only because we are all anxious—I certainly am—to rely so largely on the voluntary principle in providing this service. Again, those who use it, unlike the children who are compelled to attend school by law, are themselves volunteers, free to avail themselves of it or not as they choose. So I think it will always be the hardest part of the Ministry's duty. I cannot help thinking that this is the reason why this particular duty has been shirked in the past, and is also, I am afraid, the reason why it is more likely than any other part of the work to be shirked in the future.

Those who care for youth—and this, I know, includes the Ministers who speak to-day, and also the Minister of Education and the officials most concerned in his Ministry—carry an exceptional responsibility at this time if the fine ideals of the Albermarle Report are to be realised in practice over the next few years. If the Government do nothing very much they will never be forgiven; but if, as I hope, they do intend to bring about a peaceful revolution in the help we are giving to our young people then they will deserve to be blessed unto the third and fourth generation. I beg to move for Papers.

3.41 p.m.

BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD

My Lords, I am sure we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for once again bringing this subject; to our attention, because it is of absorbing interest and great importance at this moment. I should like to add my congratulations to Lady Albemarle and her Committee for their altogether excellent Report. It is highly readable—which is not what all Reports of that kind are—and also brilliantly done and at a moment of great importance in our ideas of education and further education. It is up to date and modern in the way of its outlook. If your Lordships have had the opportunity of reading even one Chapter, Chapter 9, which is well named, "The Youth Service and Society—A New Focus", I think you will realise that, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said, which is quite true, that young people do not change very much from one generation to another, the conditions under which they grow up and live do change a great deal.

In this Report the authors have stressed, I think rightly, that there is a need for a new look at the influence of industry, for instance, on the lives of the young, both when they are working inside the factories and when they are outside the factories in their leisure time. The Committee recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said, that there is an enormous change in the wage rates of young people. Whereas in 1938 an adolescent earned 26s. or 24s. a week, in 1958 it was £5 12s. or £5 6s. a week. In 1938 young people were largely dependent on their parents and families, but to-day they are largely independent. Back in the 1930's I well remember that young people seldom went away from their homes in the big cities more than once a year, and then on a more or less conventional family holiday to the seaside; whereas to-day many of them are possessors of motor cycles and even of motor cars, and they go off at the week-ends and on any opportunity that comes to them. Their holidays are adventurous holidays. They go far afield, they go climbing and they go pony trekking, usually with friends or in club groups; and only occasionally do they go on the old-fashioned family holiday of the past. All these things, and many more, we know from experience; they have been described in the Report, and in the year 1960 they have some bearing, I think, on how we should frame the Youth Service to-day.

I find the Report regards much of this enterprise and new spirit as highly commendable. There are, of course, drawbacks, because only a small proportion of young people, as the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has said, to-day take part in the activities of adolescent groups, whether it is in further educational classes, leisure time activities or youth orgainsations or clubs of any kind. This, I think, is largely due to the lack of funds either from voluntary or from statutory sources to enable the organisations to make provision for all the young who would like to come in. It is also partially due to lack of interest on the part of local educational authorities, who, as the noble Lord said, have cut down in recent years on the money that used to be spent during the war and even immediately after the war. It is also due to lack of interest from the adult population, the ordinary people like ourselves, who should encourage in every way we can the formation of youth groups and organisations wherever they are needed. I could not help being amused by the noble Lord's description of the activities of the noble Viscount in his early days, when apparently he was engaged in very strenuous sports in the university in which he was then working. We all ought to take more interest in these problems.

The opposite end of this story, which has been described in the Report, is, as we know, the considerable increase in juvenile crime. In paragraphs 58 to 71 the Report gives figures which are really quite serious, although one does not want to take them too seriously, in so far as they affect only a small proportion. But the evidence is that convictions of youths aged 17 to 20 for offences in connection with drink had increased five-fold between 1946 and 1956; for crimes of violence, they had trebled; for sexual offences and disorderly conduct they had doubled. In the 14 to 16 age group, convictions for theft and disorder per 100,000 boys have decreased a little, but crimes of violence and sexual offences have risen as in the older age group. Among the girls, although the figures are smaller there has been an increase among the 17 to 20 age group for offences of these kinds, and in the 14 to 16 age group there are 2,000 offences per 100,000 of population, and, according to the Report, 1958 was a peak year, which is most disturbing.

In the old days there was supposed to be a correlation between poverty and crime and it was supposed that when there was no shortage of money there would be no crime. Today this cannot be the reason because, although we have not completely eliminated poverty, the groups we are considering are on the whole richer than at any time and have more of the world's goods at their disposal. Therefore the sociological reasons for this development are not clear and no one would point to a particular reason why delinquency has increased so much. Personally I have a theory that boredom is the worst enemy of the law and I think that we fail often both in education and in leisure-time activities to arouse the interests of the young. I once read in a journal (I cannot quote from it because I cannot remember what it was, although I think it was the Howard League Journal) that the last year at school was the peak year of juvenile crime and as the school leaving age was raised so the crime wave advanced one year. I am not sure if that holds good to-day but educationalists might well consider the last year at school in a critical light because when the young man and young woman—and, in particular, the young man—leaves school and goes into industry, supposedly into the wicked world, crime drops at once. This might be well worth considering in relation to the last year of our educational curriculum.

I think that both arousing and keeping the interest of the young is the biggest antidote to crime, and although I hold, like the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, that one does not wish to take a negative view of the Youth Service, there is no doubt that if we could recruit into the Youth Service 2 million young people by 1965—and this is the suggestion of the Minister of Education—the juvenile courts would be considerably emptied. But how can this be achieved? How can this Report be implemented? As the noble Lord has rightly said, these are the vital questions. We are much indebted xo the Minister because he has taken immediate initiative. He has become Chairman of this Committee; be has set up the Development Council and from everything he has said in his speeches I am sure he means business.

But however much the Minister of Education is interested, and however much drive he puts into this, the real people we have to influence are the local education authorities, because it is through them that the Minister has to works I believe that here noble Lords can play a considerable part. Many of your Lordships are chairmen of county councils or of local education authorities, and this question of financial help through the local authorities to the voluntary bodies, and also to those enterprises sponsored by the local education authorities, is extremely important.

The campaign for the Youth Service must be a partnership, as it always has been, between the voluntary and statutory organisations. I would go further and say that it ought to be a partnership between the adults and the young, because unless adults take some interest and give some encouragement to the young, it is very difficult to get premises, to arrange programmes, to get equipment and all the opportunities which make up an attractive modern youth club. One of the things I like particularly in the Albemarle Report is the suggested increase in co-operation between adult organisations, such as the local museum, the local library, the Arts Council exhibitions or, indeed, enlisting the interest, skill and support of adults who can make a contribution to working a youth club from their own knowledge and experience in many walks of life. This would break down the antagonism that is sometimes found between the young and the old, and bring both together in a complementary world.

The Report stresses three streams of young people, as it were, who have to be catered for by the Youth Service. The top stream, which is much the easiest—they are keen on everything—are the people who go to the "Outward Bound" courses, people who take the Duke of Edinburgh's Awards. Some are being led this year by Sir John Hunt on an expedition to Greenland. About a couple of dozen have been seconded from industry, and are going to have this experience in character training. Industry is playing a great part in training boys and girls by allowing them to go to residential training courses run by different organisations. The one I know best is the National Association of Mixed Clubs and Girls' Clubs. They are running courses from holiday houses in Scotland, England and Wales, and these are enormously successful. They have had seven courses, and 175 young men, active workers in industry, have been trained in these courses. They are in full-time work, and 74 are now qualified as leaders for leisure-time activities in their own groups.

Then there is the middle stream of boys and girls, some of whom are adventurous but most of whom are content to do the ordinary things. For them the expansion of clubs and other organisations, if and when the leaders and money are available, would probably meet their demands. But again I hope we shall not be "stuck", as we sometimes are in conversation, by what is called a lack of leaders or of classes for leaders. In an article in the Scotsman which I have here, dated May 14, there is a description of Alloa's Manhattan Youth Club. It is very interesting indeed. Here is a club run by club members and ordinary people in the community in Alloa, mainly ordinary citizens, who make a great success of it without any professional leaders at all. I do not say that this can always be successful, but it is not impossible, given good will, to provide for teenagers without professional skill in this kind of way. I know that it is going on up and down the country.

The third group to which the Albemarle Report gives some attention is what I would call the most difficult, the anti-social groups. These often produce the gangs and the troubles. Here again, unorthodox methods, new ideas, new schemes, the coffee bars, and groups organising their own programmes, to which the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, referred, are helping to deal with this problem. I believe that if there were sufficient money much of this work could be expanded, and this would deal with the third and more difficult stream. But if we are to recruit 2 million young people into the Youth Service by 1965, then the numbers who come in as leaders, both voluntary and trained, will have to be enormously increased.

The plans in the Report which the Minister is taking up at once and is about to implement are excellent, but I confess that I do not think these leaders will be forthcoming unless salaries and conditions of service for the full-time leader compare with those of any other professional group, whether it be teacher, probation officer, or anyone in the social service world. That matter we must put right. I have been interested all my life in trying to get this done, but I have never yet succeeded. So we must be quite sure that such conditions of employment, training and service are approved, in order to lead to a future for the people going into this profession.

If we are going to recruit on this great scale, we must create a climate of opinion not only among educationists but among ordinary people that they really take this policy seriously and mean to make it work. Most of us here know the voluntary organisations and know the work they are doing. I know the mixed clubs and the girls' clubs best, and I know that everywhere, wherever they have an opportunity to develop and have some money, they can do so. They have residential holiday houses to which young workers in industry can go. They have what are called "endeavour courses", bringing out initiative and some experience of physical endurance among boys, and girls, too. They have groups coming from all over the United Kingdom, and also from overseas, to spend week-ends and weeks of training together. All these plans cost money, and all could be doubled if the money were available.

In the words of the Albemarle Report, the general needs of the adolescent can best be met by the general purpose club—and again I quote from the Report: We do think it important to emphasise the value of mixed activities in our kind of society … Clubs and other groups can be a better preparation for life and for marriage if they reflect the mixed pattern of school and family life. This point of view, I know, is occasionally disputed, but I am convinced, after long years of experience, that this is the best type of club, and it does not prevent one from having separate programmes for boys and girls. It is the overall community that is important—because we live, in fact, in a community which is composed of both sexes. The modern club is a centre for the planning of expeditions, of week-end activities. I know several clubs which go in for forestry activities at week-ends. There are all kinds of popular week-end work done by groups planned in the clubs during the week. The motor bicycle clubs have their own workshops and repair shops, and do their own work. They have canoeing, and so on. There is an enormous amount of activity going on, but it costs money; and money is hard to come by.

I should like to quote to your Lordships a letter that I had only a short time ago from an extremely energetic and excellent club organiser in the North of England. Tremendously encouraged by the Albemarle Report, they set out to double their work. Already their deficit at the bank is now over £1,300; and although they have been told they are going to get extra grant aid, it has not yet appeared; they are working on faith. And then he says: This week sees the commencement of an all-out fund-raising effort, with flag days and house-to-house collections. … The work involved in staging this has been terrific, even though a temporary appeals organiser has been appointed. We are feeling the strain of all this, and I can see no future in looking forward to this kind of thing as a yearly event. In fact the Albemarle Report seems to suggest that we shall be responsible for more of this kind of thing rather than less. That is something which we hope will be taken off the shoulders of at least some of the people working in the field. The Albemarle Report says that the Committee do not think it right for club leaders and organisers to have to raise their own salaries. We must persuade the Central Government to give more money for this work. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has alluded to £3 million, but even that £3 million, in my inquiry at the moment, has not yet been allocated in any very large sums. Some of the central organisations who are grant-aided are still waiting to hear what they are going to get to enable them to double their capacity and increase their plans: not a word has been given to them yet; some have been told of very small amounts of money which have been allocated to them. I think we must take this seriously and try to see that money is available for this purpose.

And then there are the local education authorities: I should hope that those of your Lordships who have opportunities would influence some of these education authorities to go into partnership and to help the voluntary organisations. Then of course the last source of money is the voluntary funds. The largest amount of voluntary funds come through the big trusts, the Carnegie Trust, the King George V Jubilee Trust. Here I would like to draw your Lordships' attention to the King George V Jubilee Trust appeal, about which I think many of you have been written to, which has just been launched. If we could persuade all those people in the country who have so generously subscribed to the Refugee appeal to give as much money to the King George V appeal, that would provide us with a great sum of money to help to recruit the 2 million boys and girls whom the Minister hopes to have. I think there is at this moment a great opportunity, as the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said. Do not let us miss it. It is in fact our own young people to-day on whom responsibilities and the difficulties of the age that we live in, the atomic age, are going to fall in the next ten, fifteen or twenty years, and I think it is vital that Parliament should back up the Minister. We should urge the Minister and the local education authorities that we will all in whatever way we can, support this campaign for the Youth Service in 1960.

4.5 p.m.

LORD BEVERIDGE

My Lords, the Report we are discussing this afternoon is a notable document, as everybody who has looked at it knows. I shall speak of it very briefly, out of all accord with its real importance and interest, for the simple reason that I wish to leave as much time as I can for the fifteen speakers who are down to follow me. May I just say that, for a special reason which I shall give when I come to the appropriate point, I welcome particularly the chance of hearing the two right reverend Prelates who are down to speak. In its early chapters this Report presents a rather grim picture of crime and its origins. We used at one time when I was young to think that crime arose largely from poverty, from unemployment and the like. Now, as we all know, we have full employment and material prosperity, leading apparently to more crime than ever before. We used to think that the hope of the world lay in its young people, its young men and women. Now, to quote one sentence only from the Report: … the crime problem is very much a youth problem… That is in paragraph 65, if any of you has not seen it.

I think there may be some connection between the exceptional new prosperity of earning youth and the tendency to delinquency. I need not repeat the very interesting figures that have been given by the noble Lady who has just sat down and to whom I am personally most grateful for calling attention to them. It is, as she pointed out, clear that young people have a great deal more money to spend than they used to have twenty years ago—perhaps £3 under their own control instead of just a little pocket money. Those with money to spend are to-day subject Ito a great deal of miseducation of growing vigour by vulgar advertisement. May I refer to only one more passage from this Report, which comes in paragraph 117, where the Committee point out, when they are talking of the question of preparing young people for the great adventure of life and marriage: In films and advertisements … how little attention is given to the power of mutual respect and of the affectionate sharing of quite undramatic aspirations in promoting courtship, in comparison with the attention given to immediate physical attraction and its accoutrements. The people who are responsible for the form of our advertisements are often guilty of a great sin against society. The Report shows that they realise and exploit the fact that it is easier to raise the material standards than the spiritual standards of life. It is just on that point that I mean to listen with the greatest attention to what the right reverend Prelates who speak may have to suggest to us.

We all realise that the world is in a mess, but let me, in defence of the young, suggest that we, who have reached years of discretion or should have done so—I do not know that we all have—can hardly blame teenagers for the two principal causes of the mess in which the world is: the mess of threatened war and the mess of inflation; but both of them are eminently demoralising to youth. Why should a young man plan for a long and happy life, save, and all the rest of it, if he does not know whether he is going to be killed in war and thinks it likely he will be killed quite soon? Why should he save, if he does not know whether in ten years' time his pound will be worth one pound, 5s. or less? We have a great responsibility, we older people.

Your Lordships will see from what I have said that I do not in any sense adopt a grim view of youth, any more than the Albemarle Committee did. All young people are not prone to crime, any more than all old people are dodderers. Youth are still the hope of the world, and may I suggest that even some dodderers can occasionally recall something of value from their own youth. I personally recall from my youth something that I think is of some relevance to-day and to this debate. My own teenage, like that of certainly many of your Lordships, was spent largely away from home at an ordinary public school, and learning there, by no means from books only—nothing of the sort—responsibility as a member of a society. I remember, as I learned it, coming home on holidays, rejoicing to be with my parents again.

One of the passages which is worth looking at again in this Report is paragraph 191, which points out how some young people do not find themselves until they get away from home for a time. Many of us had the chance of getting away from home for a time. In that way we learned to find ourselves, and came back to find our parents, the most precious things in the world. Cannot we to-day somehow give to those who do not go to residential schools the same kind of chance that we had—both to those working, to those in teenage and to those who are at school while living at home? Giving that means doing something for the future utterly different from what has been done hitherto.

We all know from the Report that the Youth Service has touched as a minimum one in three of all young people. We all know—this is in paragraph 23 of the Report—that of the total expenditure from public funds less than £1 in £1,000 has gone to the Youth Service. We want something utterly different from that if we are to exploit the youth who are, I still say, wherever they live, the hope of us and of other countries. I think it probably means, in a word or two, effective youth clubs for all—those at school and those at work, with first-rate premises and first-rate leaders. We all know—we see it in the Report—how dismal are some of the premises in which the Youth Service has to be carried out. The only thing that I know of that is equally dismal is some of the homes in which, to-day, many old people have to live—but that is a different problem, not the one we face to-day. Above all, we must have real leaders. A leader is one who makes common men wish to do uncommon things. For this we want leaders for all the clubs and for the whole campaign. Following the two speakers who have already spoken, I beg your Lordships to devote all your energies and hopes to this end. We must have a leader of the first quality for this great campaign as a whole, and he must have plenty of money and plenty of good young men and women to help him.

4.15 p.m.

THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD CRAIGTON)

My Lords, in spite of or perhaps because of—the fact that the Albemarle Committee's Report did not deal with Scotland, it may be helpful to noble Lords, and perhaps to the grandchildren of the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, if at this stage, I intervene to indicate briefly the position in Scotland. I think your Lordships will be interested in the position in Scotland, as we are. I believe, just a little further ahead, although only a little further ahead, in the long way we have to go. My noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham will, of course, deal with matters concerning England and Wales when he comes to speak.

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has accepted the Committee's recommendations in principle, to the same extent as the Minister of Education has accepted them for England and Wales. I am advised that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has in no way been influenced by the fact that Robbie Burns is quoted twice on one page of the Report.

No Committee corresponding to the Albemarle Committee was appointed in Scotland, because the field of further education, including the Youth Service, had been comprehensively reported on by the Advisory Council on Education in Scotland in 1952, and in subsequent Reports. The most important of these were the conclusions of a conference of statutory and voluntary bodies convened by the Scottish Leadership Training Association in 1957, and a report on the Scottish Youth Service prepared by the Association of Directors of Education in 1958. It was as a result of these two reports that discussions were initiated which resulted in the setting up last year of the Scottish Standing Consultative Council on Youth Service. This body, under the chairmanship of Lord Kilbrandon, anticipated, more or less, the recommendation of the Albemarle Committee with regard to the setting up of a Development Council in England and Wales.

The Kilbrandon Council are representative of all the main statutory and voluntary organisations concerned with the Youth Service. The Secretary of State looks to the Council to consider the situation in Scotland (in the light of the Albemarle and the other Reports) and to recommend action either to him or to the bodies most likely to be able to make such action effective. The Kilbrandon Council are paying particular attention to the need for publicity and for a better-informed knowledge by the public of youth activity. They are considering plans for training, both of full-time and of part-time leaders, and basically (this Ls where we all have to do so much thinking) they have before them the need to indicate clearly to all concerned the shape which the new Youth Service ought to take. My right honourable friend will support the Council in their work in every way he can, and he hopes that local authorities and voluntary organisations will do so too.

I should like to draw the attention of your Lordships to paragraph 156 of the Report and to read the last four lines, which say: We do not know how the emergencies can be met properly unless there is a strong sense of urgency at the top which can produce the appropriate machinery. We hope that this sense of urgency will find expression in an early circular from the Ministry. We in Scotland have already done just that. The Secretary of State has this week issued to education authorities and voluntary bodies in Scotland a circular directing attention to the Albemarle Report, and indicating the lines on which he himself is ready to take action. Some of the main points dealt with in the circular are these, and they will answer, I think, some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham.

Attention is drawn to the serious shortage of trained leaders which is as serious in Scotland as in England and Wales; and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, that quick and effective action must be taken now. The Kilbrandon Council had already recommended the introduction of a training course to augment the supply of full-time leaders. Such a course is now to be offered, starting in September of this year, at Moray House College of Education, Edinburgh. Financial assistance at the same rates as those in force under the Special Recruitment Scheme for Teachers will be available to these mature students. The circular tells those concerned that the Secretary of State plans to assist the teenager voluntary organisations to an extent about 50 per cent higher than last year. This is only a start, however; the level of this assistance in the future can be better judged when the voluntary bodies concerned have had time to formulate their own proposals for development.

As the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and others have stressed, Central Government, education authorities, and voluntary bodies must work smoothly together if the Youth Service is to be expanded quickly. The Secretary of State has therefore urged Scottish education authorities to review the present provision they are making for youth service in their areas, both by themselves and by voluntary bodies. It is true that with the coming of the general grant the encouragement of a percentage grant is no longer available. But the Albemarle Report and other reports on similar lines in Scotland will surely have their impact on education authorities and upon the public generally; and the need for more money to develop the Youth Service will be taken into consideration when the amount of general grant for the next period is fixed. The other side of the picture, which is sometimes forgotten, is that education authorities no longer have to submit for approval proposals in this sector, and they have discretion as to how they should carry out their functions in this field.

Provision by education authorities is still very uneven in Scotland. Some have their own clubs or units; others prefer to assist voluntary bodies; others do both. The machinery by which they assist the Youth Service varies from county to county also. Some have youth advisory committees or youth councils; others do not. Some employ youth organisers full-time. I am sorry to say that there are certain authorities who employ no staff to assist the Youth Service. These include some fairly small counties, such an Banffshire and Kincardineshire; but even in some quite populous areas there are no staff charged with this responsibility. I believe that West Lothian and Perth and Kinross have none, and that some other areas, like Midlothian, have only one part-time youth service officer. Until there are people charged with the responsibility of organising and helping the Youth Service, it will be difficult to achieve any worthwhile expansion. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, gave his support to the recommendation in paragraph 307 of the Report. I should tell him that the giving of grants to national voluntary bodies with denominational allegiances is already Scottish policy.

That is the factual position in Scotland. As is to be expected, our progress and pattern differ from that in England and Wales, but the problems and possibilities are the same in all three countries. The time is due—in fact, it is overdue—when the nation must again concern itself seriously with the development of the Youth Service. Not only has that Service not kept pace with the growing improvement in all other educational facilities, but the impact of the "bulge" will be fully felt by 1964. I join issue a little with noble Lords who have said that youth to-day is so much like the youth of yesterday. As I read the Albemarle Report, I believe it has given valuable guidance about the minds and bodies of the youngsters with whom the Youth Service will deal. They will be bigger and more mature than their parents were at their age. Puberty is occurring earlier; and so is marriage. The years of childhood are becoming shorter, and so also the years of childbearing are coming earlier. The employment of mothers outside the home will increasingly affect adolescent life. The trend for girls to move from manual to non-manual work suggests, as the Report says, that: girls no less than boys now need further education after leaving school. Compared with the situation a generation ago, the Youth Service has to face a more serious problem of youthful crime. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, who said that we used to believe that there was a strong relation between crime and poverty. Poverty has departed, but our hopes seem to have been disappointed. Material and spiritual progress have not marched band in hand. As the Report says: Man's deepest needs are not satisfied by a mechanical participation in an economic process … There does not seem to be at the heart of society a courageous and exciting struggle for a particular moral and spiritual life—only a passive neutral commitment to things as they are. A passive neutral commitment in the minds of the parents as well as the children: there does not seem to be enough for which to strive: bored parents, as well as bored youngsters. In this passive, accepting atmosphere, lawlessness thrives. The grown-ups retreat from responsibility for fear of reprisals. The police feel isolated in their tasks and hurt by lack of public support. The effect on the young who wish to be law-abiding is deadly. We must face the fact that a socially unsupported or spiritually isolated Youth Service cannot succeed.

There is, however, a happier side which, given full encouragement from the Government, can and must prevail. The most important facet of this many-sided problem lies in the training of skilled personnel, both full-time and part-time, as well as voluntary. In this the Government, the local authorities and all concerned must play their part. A better wage structure, improved training arrangements, better facilities—all these are to be provided. It will cost more, but it is a bill that we must all be prepared to pay. As the Report tells us, youth themselves will be prepared to pay more for a better service. The Report gives some extremely interesting observations on the way in which the modern adolescent spends his or her money. Obviously, it says, young people are able and willing to spend freely on things which attract their imaginations. The adolescent, like the rest of us, does not value something for nothing.

We must all be concerned with this problem. I should like to speak of something mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood—the ways in which industry can help our youth. In these days when industry is so often asked to give money, this Report suggests other practical ways in which industrial concerns can help. I hope that those responsible for these things will direct the attention of industry to paragraphs 357 and 358, for industry has a vital interest in the healthy use of leisure. I know that in Scotland the Consultative Council are seriously considering appealing to industry to give time off—perhaps a week's leave—to their young workers to enable them to train as youth leaders. This would be a praiseworthy thing to do, in the same way that it is patriotic for firms to give time off for Territorial Army camps.

Finally, what of the great political Parties? What can the Conservative, Unionist, Labour and Liberal Parties do to help—as is suggested in paragraph 204 of the Report? Clearly, it would be wrong for political youth movements to receive State aid nevertheless, there is much they can do. Youth can best speak to youth. The youngsters who are politically minded can provide speakers for other, non-political, youth organisations—speakers for discussions and debates who can perhaps best teach those who will never be politically minded the importance of valuing our democratic institutions. Those who spend their lives on the administration of political Parties may not realise how much experience they have and how much they have to offer the nation.

For example, we have long known the phenomenon of the constituency youth organisation. It starts with a handful of youngsters; over the next two or three years it grows in strength and activity until there is a strong youth branch; and then, all of a sudden, the leading members get married—often to each other; then the branch fades away and one must start again from scratch. So we have long accepted the situation underlined in paragraph 188 of the Report, which says: We must not expect every kind of youth work to be tidily patterned … We should accept, as a proper part of the Service, spontaneous units which may spring up and passionately absorb the energies of their members for two or three years and then fade away as the members go out of them. In this great work I feel that the political Parties, who understand youth, have a part to play which has perhaps not before been clearly understood. And I can finish as the Report finishes: The effort to understand lies at the basis of all virtue; it is surely here that the nation can make a beginning.

4.30 p.m.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, I am most grateful for the expected assurances in this matter of the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, which come under education, to the effect that Scotland is somewhere ahead of England. Indeed, I am very glad to note that although, through no fault of ours, Scotland did not come within the orbit of the Albemarle Committee, at least they are going to endeavour to do as much, or perhaps better. I am glad to note, however, that the noble Lord did not claim that there was other than a very great deal of work to do in Scotland, because I can assure him that in my own correspondence I have had quite a large number of rather desperate letters from Scotland which indicate that that is the position.

I would join with all those who have spoken in thanking my noble friend Lord Pakenham for introducing this Motion, and for the manner in which he introduced it, and for setting out the whole problems in broad outline, which gave us many leads of considerable importance with which we could deal. Particularly welcome is the feeling that there is no reason at all why all forms of youth organisation, orthodox and unorthodox, the tried and established ones and the rather more adventurous ones, should not be supported. I think there should not be any form of competition in respect of funds, but a spirit of emulation.

Like, I suppose, most noble Lords, I was a member of orthodox youth organisations from the earliest time that I can remember until I became a young man; and from that time on until now I have similarly been connected in a different capacity with all kinds of youth organisations, some political, others connected with the church, others with sporting affiliations, and others which have simply been ordinary clubs whose only affiliation has been membership of the Federation of Boys' Clubs. So I fully recognise their importance and realise how we must insist that everything possible is done for them. But I hope that no one will lose sight of the fact that a tremendous change has come over young people and their tastes—not their attributes—their leanings and likings; and it is utterly useless to believe that we can influence the great bulk of young people unless we can get to them and talk to them in language they will listen to and, it is hoped, understand.

I, too, welcome this very great and important Report that we are now discussing. It might perhaps be said that the Youth Service's crying need for money, for premises and for leaders was so obvious that no inquiry was necessary. But it has never, I think, as my noble friend Lord Pakenham said, been set down in such a penetrating, informed and authoritative manner. I think that the Report's greatest virtue is that it is so clearly on the side of youth, as, indeed, any kind of forward-looking society must be. I think that, apart from its invaluable recommendations, paragraph 363 alone makes the whole effort worth while. I think it should be kept framed on the desks and implanted in the hearts of everyone who has the privilege of serving youth—particularly three sentences which I should like to quote. They are: What is required, however, above all on the part of the general public is an imaginative appreciation of the changed outlook of young people to-day. … Moral indignation is best kept for what is morally reprehensible, and even then will be ineffective unless it is deeply informed by sympathetic understanding. Lastly, there is the sentence which was quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Craigton: The effort to understand lies at the basis of all virtue; it is surely here that the nation can make a beginning. I know that we should all like to feel that we had written that sentence ourselves. I am glad, too, that the Committee felt that they met in conditions of unusual urgency and with a sense of working against time; because the future of youth is as urgently important as the future of the H-bomb. Peacefully used, nuclear energy can enrich us beyond belief; misused it will destroy us. Equally, my Lords, youth are sufficiently dynamic, given the chance to find themselves, to build a better world; and if they remain lost they will destroy it.

I would ask all those who are considering this subject to accept that there is this change. I do not mean that fundamentally there is any difference in the qualities of our people, but there is this tremendous change in what they seek after. Only a few days ago the Workers' Educational Association published a Report. Ten years ago the Workers' Educational Association published a Report based on the inquiries they made in the Borough of Ilford from 7,000 grammar-school and secondary-school children. Recently they have made another similar Report, and they emphasise the tremendous change in ten years. They say of the secondary-school boy and girl to-day that dancing, "pop" music, T.V. and going out with girls or boys are their principal occupations. And they emphasise how they prefer mixed youth clubs. Their reading has changed. Girls, apparently, do not feast and weep, as they did in my day, over Little Women and Good Wives; they are not enthralled by Susan Coolidge's What Katy Did Next. What they read is, How could Katy choose between Elvis and her Boy Friend? or Do you love me like you kiss me? It would be utter folly if we did not recognise this change in taste and I think quite useless for us—or, at least, for me—even to comment on it.

It is useless, or perhaps I should say a waste of time, in my view, to look for the causes of the present situation. I think we all know what they are and I think it is folly to hark back to conditions that obtained in our day. Any of us who have dealt with children can remember the look of utter resignation or boredom, or even pity, that comes over their faces when we say things like, "Ah, my boy! You ought to have experienced so-and-so and so-and-so." We must face the fact that youngsters to-day are more different than any other generation in memory. As the noble Lord said, they are better off financially, and they are more mature physically; but I think (I do not believe the noble Lord said this) they are younger inside than we were. I believe that to be true. But to-day's 14-to-20 age group, who will be mothers and fathers of families only a very few years hence, mostly come from families where parental control is almost a nullity. We must recognise that fact. They have this sense of separate identity and they will not be preached at or told what to do. When it is attempted they just shrug their shoulders and pass us by; and so the gulf widens.

The great majority of them, I believe, need our help. Rather than tea and sympathy in a youth club, they choose the commercial Espresso bar. They find its warmth and noise a world to get lost in, a place where they can go and hide their loneliness—for many of them, despite their hard exterior, are very lonely—and where there is no one to tell them what to do. No one asks questions, and they pay for what they have—they have that feeling of independence. But I believe that many of them are bored and bewildered, rebels without a cause and without a clue, on the road to nowhere.

I believe that the girls are in even greater need of sympathy. Women, of course, have a natural intuitive approach and a great natural fund of sympathy. Their main interest is other people. When directed into the right channels these qualities are of supreme importance to the community. But modern girls are afflicted and harassed with a rash of glossy magazines insistently urging them to put mud-packs on their faces, lacquer on their hair and varnish on their toenails, and to scream in unison at the latest teenage idol. Inevitably, they become devotees to odd fashions. One wears a paper petticoat or red stockings, so everybody does. Their shapes, as well as their values, are distorted. Uplift now means a self-imposed deformity, not a moral urge. It is small wonder if, under such a battering, they become self-conscious slaves to the convention that an early marriage is essential because a girl without a ring on her finger must be a very poor thing indeed.

Now I mention these things not as matters for reproach, but simply as facts, and to urge that we accept those facts and start from there. There is so much that is good that we can build upon. Youngsters to-day have such an exceptional capacity for enjoyment. They are so full of the joy of life: so very much alive. And, fortunately, they shed so many of our inhibitions and prejudices, particularly the nasty ones like colour, creed and class prejudice. And they are so very tolerant. When I reproached my eighteen-year-old son for his inability to spell five or six letter words, and I recalled that at the age of ten my generation was required to parse whole sentences correctly, he said he was sorry that my boyhood had been clouded by such trifles when there was so much to enjoy in the world. Then, when I have confessed to him, as I have on several occasions, that I neither like nor under stand the music he plays so constantly he has told me not to worry; he neither liked nor understood the noises which enrapture the Hottentots, but he was in favour of everyone listening to what he liked. I believe that that is really the kind of understanding we have to reach with youth—but in many the gulf is as big as that between us and the Hottentots.

My Lords, there are five million teenagers, and the facilities are few—desperately few. There is not a single modern centre for modern youth in London, or in any great city. The position of the Youth Service in 1960 is in fact comparable with that of the schools service in 1880, and our youth have left it far behind. Our Youth Service at present has neither status nor standards; and, as has been said, its available funds are hopelessly inadequate. With some notable exceptions, few local authorities know the youth needs in their area, or have taken the trouble to find out what they are. The Youth Committee is usually a sub-committee on which there is little competition to serve; and, as a consequence, there are on these subcommittees too many self-satisfied prigs, and too few with an understanding of modern youth. In my view, with such a set-up there is a danger that the additional money which is now promised may be spent in too large a degree on enlarging and developing the type of services which attract, as the Report says, only three young people out of ten—and I do not think the importance of that can be over-estimated. If such happens, then a great deal of the money will be wasted, and certainly the main problem will remain unsolved.

Despite what we have heard, there is no directive from the Minister of Education to local authorities on how they should spend a youth allocation; what grants should be made to voluntary bodies; or, indeed, if any grants should be made at all. I welcome very warmly Circular No. 3/60 on buildings; but, of course, that asks only for local authorities' plans as to buildings which can be started between now and 1962. It will give no picture whatever to the Minister or to the country as a whole of the proposals for the development of Youth Services. I would therefore most strongly urge—and I hope that the noble Viscount, when he replies, will deal with this point—that the Minister should require local authorities to submit to him within six months schemes for the development of Youth Services in their area: really, to say just what they intend or would like to do over a given period of years, and to submit those schemes within six months. The noble Viscount will remember that that was the procedure followed under the Mental Health Act by his colleague, the right honourable gentleman, the Minister of Health. When we were discussing that Bill, I personally doubted that there would be much response, but I am glad to admit that I was wholly wrong. Almost every local authority (I think all except twelve) has now submitted a scheme; and in fact some schemes have been implemented. It is a great credit to local authorities that, given the opportunity, they do respond in that way; and I believe that if the Minister were to make that request and were to give that lead, then local authorities would respond in just the same way.

I think it is all the more necessary because the Minister, if I have read his words correctly, and certainly his officials, are far more aware than local authorities of the need to employ new methods and new agencies. They know, and are more ready than most local authorities to act in the knowledge, that for seven out of ten youngsters anything with an official stamp is doomed before it starts. They just will not look at it. This is no criticism of the efficiency or of the desirability of those undertakings: it is merely accepting a fact, that they will not look at it. That also applies to the proposed training of youth leaders, which I of course warmly support. But most teenagers will have nothing to do with anyone called a leader.

The youngsters we must start to attract are those who hang around the street corners and the lower type of coffee bar. But if we are to attract them, we have to understand them; and the only people to understand them, or whom they understand, is one of themselves—in other words, that type of youth leader is on the street corners now. By a process of natural selection, they are already leading. In my experience, it is virtually impossible to get anyone with long experience of orthodox clubs to accept this fact. Many of them are wonderful, dedicated people; and yet, despite themselves, they resent and fear the present situation and its influence on the membership of their own organisation.

I have mentioned that I am still connected with many, what I prefer to call, orthodox youth organisations. I am President of a successful boys' club. It has and does everything; from boxing to boot repairing, from chess to canoeing, from fencing to football. The spirit of that club is such that 140 boys maintain eight very successful soccer teams. The club's whole success depends on a remarkable, voluntary, unpaid leader, to whom the club is wife, child and everything else. He and the club are everything they could and should be, and one can only use superlatives in describing his work and his value. We are to be honoured by a visit from His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, and one evening last week I was invited to the club to review arrangements. To start off, I had to get in a car to follow the route of the Royal arrival. There were boys out as traffic markers, and at one point some of them began running in single file on either side of the car—a very charming gesture, I thought. Then, suddenly, my friend the youth leader leaned out of the car and said, "Come on, pick them up; left, right, left right, left, right". It is a highly successful club and it is doing wonderful work, but the number of youngsters who will stand for that sort of direction are a decreasing minority.

It so happens that some other social worker friends of mine are starting a less orthodox youth café project in the same area, of which I am patron, or something or other. My friend, a little apprehensive as to its effect on his club, was inclined to oppose it on the local youth committee until I reassured him, and now there are hopes that it is going to work. But there is exactly that kind of misunderstanding or unease or opposition when youth committees are confronted with requests for financial assistance for unorthodox youth projects. There is a great deal of prejudice to break down.

May I give another example of that prejudice? Recently I was invited to address a youth conference in a wealthy London borough. It was a large and representative gathering. Everyone there was actively connected with youth work in one way or another, and there were a lot of young people. I urged the provision of mixed clubs, open every night, with coffee bars, jive and other recreational facilities. I urged that there should be places exclusively for youth, which they can build or break, where they can do things or do nothing, in which the youngsters themselves would decide the range of their activities and what exactly they would do. All this was lost on one gentleman who, as soon as I had finished, asked, "But which person is to decide the programme of activities, and see they are carried out?" He just did not believe me when I said that my experience showed that whenever young people are brought together in the right atmosphere, treated as adults, and given responsibility, they respond. When I enquired who that gentleman was I found that he was a club leader.

A lady of uncertain age, the uncertainty varying between 70 and 80, said, A single project such as I visualise would cost £100,000. When I proved with figures that it would not cost one-tenth of that she said that the place in which we were assembled cost £4,000 a year, and they could not get teenagers to pay that. The place was a semi-basement, gloomy, which looked as if it had not been painted for years. I told her, "I don't blame them. They are not fools. It is a wonder they came there at all." This reply was received with a measure of satisfaction by everyone but the questioner, who I then learned was chairman of the youth committee.

I know that these people are worthy and devoted public servants, doing their best according to their lights; but their very experience and training makes it impossible for them to deal with the situation which now confronts us. I am convinced that it can be effectively handled only by voluntary organisations working with local authorities and carrying out approved schemes. One organisation with which my noble friends, Lord Pakenham and Lord Denning, are connected is "Youth Ventures", which I have mentioned before. We intend to provide throughout the country centres for young people only, comprising coffee bar, dance hall, and work-and-study facilities, and also, where possible, a gymnasium, where they can "let off steam" in the ring. This will help to teach a sense of sportsmanship and settle arguments without the use of knives or coshes. It must be in a central position, with attractive decor, furnishings and equipment, a place belonging to young people to which they will be proud to belong.

The coffee bar will have the latest in juke boxes, a record player for their own records, room for jive and places to sit out. We shall charge commercial prices, because each "Venture" must pay its way. Teenagers can, and will, pay for what they have if it is what they want. The dance hall will include a stage for amateur dance groups and dramatic entertainments provided by the members, and there must be rooms for quiet activities, both individual and collective. Each "Venture" will employ paid catering staff, in charge of a full-time director who, where possible, will be a local ex-teenager. I would emphasise that a director of the right type is as important as the right type of premises. Of course in these appointments we shall co-operate with the local youth committees, but we do not want the normally trained youth leader. In many areas the young man we want has already established himself, and where he has not we must secure the support of local young people for our nominee before we open. We must remember that in the sense of loyalty to a club, the word "loyalty" has no meaning to the majority of those we wish to serve. If they enjoy life in our "Venture", they will attend it. If not, they will go somewhere else. It is as simple as that, and no amount of wishful thinking will make it otherwise. That is why I say that we are fully aware that our work only begins when they join, but that it cannot begin until they do.

As I have previously mentioned, we require offers of suitable premises from local authorities, and I am glad to say that a number have been received. The last time I spoke of this. I mentioned that I was going to Leicester. Now I am happy to say that a few days ago we received advice from the Ministry of Education that the scheme had been investigated and approved for the 50 per cent. grant, subject to the usual conditions, which of course we can satisfy. That is a place we shall have to build, and naturally there will be some delay, and at Leicester we are certain to take over temporary premises until a permanent place is built.

I am happy to say that some local authorities have written making offers of new buildings, some of which are approaching completion. The fact that they are new buildings especially built for this purpose shows that they were started long before our idea was launched, and I am very glad to know that these local authorities have reached the conclusion that a voluntary organisation like ours, offering to do the things we intend to do, will have more chance of success with what one of them inaccurately described as "their Teddy boys and girls". This is such a misdescription. It is wrong to pin a label on someone we do not understand and have not taken the trouble to get an understanding with. We have failed dismally to understand the change that has been wrought in our own children and to appreciate to the full the tremendous qualities that are in them.

My noble friend Lord Pakenham spoke about his two children who walked from Aldermaston to Trafalgar Square; and my noble friend Lord Taylor had one there, too. I regret to say that my son's feet were so worn out with dancing that he was able to greet them only when they arrived at Trafalgar Square. I should like to read a letter which appeared in the News Chronicle yesterday which I think gives a sample of the new generation: I am fifteen. Because I believe in the possibility of a Third World War I have blistered and poisoned my feet marching from Aldermaston to London. I read the questions in Friday's News Chronicle put to Mr. K. and the answers. They frightened me. Who gave Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Herter the right to blow up the world? I am noisy, uncompromising, and have a lot to learn. But, the way things are going, it looks as if I shall never learn it because I shall probably be annihilated by one side or the other. I have friends and I want to keep them; I have a home that I love; I have a future that I would like to think is bright. There are thousands—millions—like me. Are a few men who wish to press the button in the name of patriotism and freedom going to take it all away from us? Bridget Porter, Kirtlington, Oxon. I should like to comment on the spirit of that letter. If I had a daughter, I should like her to be able to write a letter like this, and I wish I could have written it at the same age. There is wonderful stuff in the "kids" around us to-day: I want to see that they get the chance to show it. I hope, therefore, that these local authorities will come to our organisation and give us a chance of showing that we are right in believing that we can do the job. We shall soon know, because it is likely that we shall open "Ventures" in several towns before the end of the year. The experience thus gained should be of the greatest value to the Minister of Education in determining future plans. That is why I am so anxious that he should insist that local authorities submit their own plans to him not later than six months hence.

If our final efforts succeed, it will set a pattern for the country, and it will then be for the Minister to decide the form of central organisation best fitted to administer it. If this sort of thing does become a national pride and widespread, it would be quite impossible for me to handle it as one of 20 other jobs —it would be far too big. But I am firmly convinced that, whatever the final form, a voluntary organisation with some Government financial backing, under proper safeguards, will prove the least costly solution and the one most likely to succeed. Meanwhile, let us keep well in mind that 5 million young people need our help, but will not ask for it; that, while money is needed, we need still more tolerance, imagination, understanding and enthusiasm. I say to those who find it easy to bemoan the rising generation that it is far more useful to give them opportunities for adventure and service. For this the responsibility is not theirs but ours. Britain's whole future, my Lords, depends on the way we discharge that responsibility.

5.2 p.m.

THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH

My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to those of other noble Lords to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for introducing this second debate on the Youth Service. I am conscious of the fact that I am No. 6 in a list of eighteen speakers, which means only a third of the way down. I noted that I was preceded in coming in at the Peers' Entrance by a young man with a large rucksack, and I could not help wondering whether he had come expecting to camp out for the night. However, I will be as brief as I can.

The thing that strikes me and appeals to me most about this Report is that it is throughout a very humane and personal document. That is summed up in the last sentence of paragraph 363, to which the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, referred, where it says: The effort to understand lies at the basis of all virtue; it is surely here that the nation can make a beginning. I should like to associate myself with other noble Lords in congratulating Lady Albemarle and her Committee on what they have given to us in their Report. I was particularly interested in and impressed by the contents of Chapter 2, the diagnosis of the background in which young people live, and, with this as their basis, the argument adduced for the Youth Service as a permanent service and the indication of the aims which they should possess. The Report argues most particularly for better provision from the Youth Service for those who leave school at 15, and the argument proceeds—and with this I wholeheartedly agree—not on the basis of the concern about juvenile delinquency, but rather on the basis that this is something which should be provided as of right.

I believe that the time has come when, as a nation, we can no longer baulk giving adequate provision as of right for certain social and leisure needs of young people who leave school at 15—granted, as the Albemarle Report itself recognises, that there is the liability that it does not really help the character of young people, or for that matter of anybody else, to get into the habit of expecting expensive facilities as a matter of course. "They have too much done for them already", is a remark which in certain circumstances may be fair enough. Yet is it really unreasonable to suggest that certain facilities should be provided as of right? Imagine what the reaction would be if in all universities, public, grammar, and secondary schools and technical colleges it were suddenly decided that all playing fields, all sporting facilities, all premises for clubs, for concerts, for dramatics, for debating societies and even rooms for meetings, lectures, entertainments and the like were to be shut down for reasons of economy. One could imagine the indignation which would be aroused. We know well enough the extent to which these facilities have contributed an invaluable and an integral part to the full life and the development of such young people who enjoy them to-day or who have enjoyed them in the past.

Yet it is this type of provision which, for all the valiant efforts of youth organisations, is to a large extent denied to the majority of those who leave school at 15. A large number of these belong to what are called the "unattached" or the "unclubbable", and these unattractive words are sometimes used in a derogatory sense, as if to suggest that it is for the most part the fault of those who belong to this category. But in actual fact many of them have nowhere to go. There are, of course, coffee bars, dance halls and the like. But, partly because young people are nowadays such a lucrative source of revenue, the facilities offered commercially are not always the most satisfactory; human nature being what it is, it is not always the best proprietors who cash in most successfully on a susceptible clientele. Commercial interests, in any event, cater only for a very narrow range of needs.

There is denied to a large number of those who leave school at 15 the kind of provision which is available to their more fortunate contemporaries whose formal education goes on longer. It is a provision to which I believe we should regard them as entitled—and in saying this, I am not suggesting, nor do I think the Report is suggesting, that this should be provided for those who use these provisions free. They need somewhere to go; somewhere where they can meet their friends. They need facilities for activities of different kinds: for sport and recreation, and, I would add, for I do not believe that this is sufficiently stressed or recognised as a need, opportunities for privacy. Youth organisations think very largely in terms of activities, and sometimes perhaps too exclusively. But there is a place for inactivity, for solitude, for getting off on one's own; the opportunity to be by oneself, to think for oneself; a fundamental need of human nature and an absolute essential for the young.

An element in the attraction of expeditions and adventure courses lies, I believe, in this one need that they also meet. Your Lordships are no doubt familiar with the type of experience which, in fiction if not in fact, obtains on passenger liners. No sooner has the passenger escaped to a deck chair with a light novel and a duty-free drink than someone with an eager eye for organisation roots him out to play deck tennis or to rehearse for a concert. If such conditions obtained at your clubs, my Lords, then many of the members would become "unclubbable". I suspect that the same kind of reaction operates in the minds of a good many young people. To this the members of the Albemarle Committee are evidently sensitive, because they plead for an openminded approach; for provision of facilities to which the young themselves should contribute—and that is an important proviso—but for this provision, as they would put it, "without strings"; that is, for an attitude of mind which would say: "We are doing this not because we want to get at you and to improve you, not even because we hope this will make you easier to live with, but because you ought to have this and because we like you." I believe that approach to be right. It really amounts to caring for and respecting the individual young person for his or her own sake. This, of course, has always been the basis for the best and the most effective type of youth work.

I am glad to see that the Report is anxious for increased help to be given to the good work done by youth organisations. It wishes to encourage them. It wishes them to facilitate new experiments and new provisions. Society is changing so rapidly that our ideas, or perhaps it would be truer to say the application of our ideas, tend to get out of date almost before we have had time to put them into practice. Many of those responsible for guiding the youth organisations have cause to welcome this Report as giving an added inducement and authority to their promotion of the kind of developments which are called for under modern conditions, and not to lose the pioneer spirit in which so many of those movements originated.

There are certain particular points on which I should like briefly to touch. First, I should like to welcome a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, referred, namely, the removal of discrimination against grants to denominational religious youth work. This is something which clearly all denominations will greatly welcome. It is, of course, a vital necessity that there should be a sufficiently sensitive regard as to how far State provision is appropriate in respect of any work or activity under Church control. The principle of grant aid, as contemplated in paragraph 307 of the Report, seems to me to pay due regard to this right relationship, namely, to facilitate the Churches' contribution without prejudicing their freedom of control.

This leads me to make certain comments on the contribution of the Church and the nature of that contribution. There is a suspicion that when youth work is carried out under Church auspices there is an ulterior motive that the young are "being got at" and that they really must be protected. There is sometimes justification for this suspicion arising from a misapplied zeal. But I think it needs to be said that the basis of a specifically Christian attitude of mind towards young people is a concern for them for their own sakes, all the deeper because they are recognised as persons who have an eternal destiny, and a desire to try to help, understand and develop their best interests and their full personality with that in mind. The plea for open-mindedness can be interpreted as a much more religious one or, I should say, a much more Christian one than it is commonly understood to be, in that it springs out of an attitude of consideration and respect for the real and the best interests of the young person.

The other comment I should like to make about the Church's contribution follows, in the first part, that to which the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has already alluded. All Churches would be agreed in saying that it is in the last resort unrealistic to separate moral values from spiritual faith and spiritual resources. They would also be united in saying that it is unrealistic to plead for purposeful activities without reference to the final end and purpose of life itself. I mention this only to hint at the concern which the Churches must feel about their own ends and their own contribution. We hope that the provision for the enablement of the removal of this discrimination will also be coupled with an understanding throughout the Youth Service of what in fact the Church's contribution is. Certain of the strongest youth organisations have, of course, a religious basis which is clearly defined.

Some noble Lords have referred to paragraph 143, and I should like to make just one brief comment on that. That is the sentence: For many young people to-day the discussion of 'spiritual values' or 'Christian values' chiefly arouses suspicion. I have great sympathy with the Committee writing that paragraph, and I believe that they have said something most important. It is true to say that it is easy to tack on the phrase "spiritual values" or "Christian values" (of course they are two distinctively different things) almost as a kind of decoration and embroidery. But I believe it only arouses suspicion in those who do not, with integrity and sincerity, attach importance to spiritual values and Christian values themselves. Integrity, sincerity and conviction are still things, I would maintain, which the young respect, even though sometimes they may oppose and have a different view.

I should also like to touch briefly upon the question of youth leadership, for upon this the whole future of the Youth Service largely depends. The Report has underlined a point which has long been felt, namely, that full-time professional youth leaders of an adequate quality are likely to be recruited only if there is a prospect of other employment when they get beyond an age at which they can usefully lead young people. Their proposals for facilitating this, and for integrating the Youth Service with the teaching profession in particular, are warmly to be welcomed. There cannot be enough professional whole-time youth leaders if it is a "dead-end" profession. But there is another aspect of the matter of leadership which has been voiced by several noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, namely, the matter of quality. This is a matter which is so difficult to assess, so difficult to attain and so vitally important. You need people who know where they are going—men and women of qualities of Character, conviction and understanding.

But, in addition to this, and in addition also to the welcomed short-term proposals to train more professional youth leaders clearly—and I should like to stress this—there is the continuing and vital need for voluntary helpers. Here let me quote a comment in a parish priest's article on this subject. He said: We are still very short of men and women to assist us. In some instances we need one leader to a boy really to help him. Without more staff we shall find it very difficult to cope with the more difficult boys Here I am sure the Churches have a duty and a responsible part to play—not so much in just the recruitment of leaders as such, but in encouraging that attitude of mind which recognises that here is a responsibility, a job of work and a contribution of quite inestimable importance, and enormously worth while.

There is one aspect of the needs of young people which deserves, I think, increased emphasis, namely, to claim from young people themselves ways in which they can be of use to their contemporaries and to the community in general. Often one gets the impression that young people possess any amount of energy and ideas and willingness to help, but get so little opportunity of doing anything. There are innumerable ways in which their service could be invaluable, and also satisfying to themselves; but it needs to be called upon. One only has to think of the ways in which many girls and boys can help the elderly or the disabled; or there are more exacting and adventurous types of voluntary services, such as a corps of beach patrols for saving life; or, perhaps even more important, lending a helping hand in needed but unspectacular ways.

Although so far it affects only a small and specialised group of young people, I believe that there is value in such a movement as Voluntary Service Overseas, where young people from this country at the age of 18 or 19 devote a year's voluntary service in the underdeveloped parts of the Commonwealth to work which would not be done if they were not there—work such as community development and teaching. This brings them into touch with their contemporaries of other races as friends and partners in a natural way and can produce an understanding of other countries and races which is so desperately needed at the present time. I have perhaps digressed beyond the terms of the Report itself, but all the same, in thinking of the needs of young people in this country and the part they are to play in the future I am sure that their contact with and attitude towards those of other races is a matter of tremendous consequence.

The fact that the Minister announced the immediate provision by the Government of £3 million for this purpose is something for which one cannot feel anything but gratitude.

LORD PAKENHAM

If I may interrupt, I do not think that is quite an accurate account. I do not want to be uncharitable. I think the noble Lord said £3 million, but the Minister said he would authorise £3 million worth of building by the local authorities in two years, and eventually I think the Government would pay perhaps half of that. It is not £3 million down now.

THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH

I am grateful to the noble Lord for the correction. I hope that it will not seem ungrateful if one expresses the hope that this announcement is an omen of greater things to come. There are 146 local education authorities, and if one were to divide the £3 million, supposing that it were available now, equally between those, and left out of account altogether the help for voluntary youth organisations, it works out at just over £25,000 per authority. And that cannot go far—in fact £3 million is the amount which it is estimated teenagers in this country spend themselves in one day. Perhaps that fact shows as clearly as anything the changed nature and the large scale of the needs and opportunities of young people. This Report calls attention to a responsibility far greater in magnitude than and in some respects different in kind from, what has hitherto been commonly recognised. It is for the Government and nation, Church and people, to show that this is a responsibility which we accept and would wish to honour to the very best of our powers.

5.25 p.m.

THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM

My Lords, I wish to be yet another to support very enthusiastically both the contents of this Report and the comprehensive and penetrating way in which it is written. Lady Albemarle and her Committee deserve, and indeed have received from your Lordships this afternoon, the very highest commendation for the way in which they have explored and fulfilled the task that was laid before them. So I join with your Lordships in loudly acclaiming the great benefits of this Report. May I also say that I should like to associate myself with other noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon in praising most warmly the action taken by the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, in once again initiating this debate and raising the subject at this juncture.

The right reverend Prelate whom I have the privilege to follow has given to your Lordships the benefit of a very profound and very experienced discussion, part of which has dealt with the wider and more far-reaching approaches to youth and the youth service—what the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, called at the beginning of his remarks the permanent aspects. Perhaps I may be permitted to follow on in that trend, but not encroach upon the sphere in which the right reverend Prelate is so particularly qualified to speak, and refer to some of the basic aspects. First of all, let me say that in my view the Report is quite admirable in that it stresses the different ways different individuals react to contemporary influences. It does not commit the cardinal sin of making generalisations about the needs of all modern youth, but, as has already been mentioned, it does touch on some of the fundamental aspects and drives in human nature, particularly as they affect youth to-day. The Report generally draws together some of the effects of these contemporary conditions where they impinge one on another, and it draws attention to some of the factors which in my opinion and indeed in the opinion of probation and mental health workers need to be taken into account in considering human needs and behaviour of the young in this age.

The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, think I am correct in saying, referred at the commencement of his remarks to the remarkable similarity rather than dissimilarity between the youth of today and that of yesterday. Perhaps I may be permitted to develop, as shortly as possible, one or two aspects which I think would controvert that contention. First of all, it has been confirmed here in recent years, and particularly this afternoon in this debate, that monetary security and material welfare are not necessarily a positive panacea for instability or anti-social behaviour. The Albemarle Committee have penetrated much deeper into human needs and nature, and they have shown us once again that there is no single formula for the quest for the good life. The Committee have avoided a tendency which is all too often shown nowadays to ascribe the imperfections of youth to some universal cause or another.

Any one of your Lordships who has studied human nature—and on this subject we all pose as an expert—knows how impossible it is to adapt exhortation or advice on human behaviour to the mass. The Report shows, does it not, how each individual has his own particular problems, problems which require some unique course of adjustment to personality and to circumstances; and between the wide extremes of personality there are, of course, many shades, each needing individual understanding. As we know, and as the Albemarle Committee stress—and I make no apology for saying this truism—the happiness of any individual depends upon his ability to maintain a satisfactory relationship with his environment, and this can be achieved only if his basic emotional needs can be satisfied in some degree. The noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, referred to Chapter 9, headed "The Youth Service and Society—a New Focus." Perhaps 1 may be allowed to quote from the Report a few lines in paragraph 356. It says: It is easy to use the word 'adolescence' and in so doing forget that the Youth Service is there to help a large number of different personalities in the process of growing up. Many of these individuals are splendid young people, healthy, self-confident, well balanced; about these we need feel no anxiety. But there are others who find it difficult to come to terms with society, and whose social incapacity can take many forms, from shyness to compulsive exhibitionism and crime. The Youth Service is there to help them, too, but at present this group is found principally amongst the unattached'. Then the Report goes on, in the same paragraph: We are bound, however, to say that in some of these young people the roots of their disorder lie so deep in childhood and environmental factors that if the Youth Service is to reach them it will have to be specially equipped to do so. The young people that I want to refer to and to concentrate upon are those who have not succeeded too well. Lord Stonham has referred to this group. They are those who have missed the educational ladder—they have not done well, either in class or in games, and in that respect they may have a sense of failure. But, as the right reverend Prelate has said, this is the broad element for which provision must be made. I think the right reverend Prelate, and indeed others of your Lordships' House, would find it true to say that in a modern society, where every convention has been questioned and denied or scrapped, where every tradition has been undermined and where every precept and rule of life has been shown to be relative and conditional upon certain circumstances, every boy of this group, in particular, is faced with innumerable problems of conduct. In rejecting the old conventions, he is called upon to think new ones out for himself; he is so placed that he has to solve every personal problem as best he can. New ideas and vivid new contrasts are forced upon his young and impressionable mind. He lives in a world of adults— and to-day, of all days, having read the papers, I choose my words most carefully. For it is not an adult world, it is a world of adults; and to youth, marriage, parenthood, old political faiths, patriotism and loyalty, the old religious beliefs, the old standards of taste in literature and art and manners, are questions that are threatened by new rivals. In all these things these young people, under the force of influences beyond their control, are called upon to make their own judgments and to decide what is good and what is bad.

In this context, in this debate, and on this occasion I do not think it appropriate either to apologise for or to deplore these conditions. But I do wish to emphasise that aspects of the artificial existence of the highly populated, highly organised and competitive community, neither eradicate nor reduce the restless elements associated with such changes. Here perhaps I might just clarify what I mean by an "artificial existence". I say it almost in an anthropological sense, from a long history of development of man. It is only of recent times that man has been herded into concrete buildings, with pavements and all that is summed up by "city lights". This artificiality in the long history of man is, in relation to youth, having, as any student of present-day society knows, most deleterious effects, because you have only to compare rural areas in this or in other countries, not because of the lack of numbers but because of the way of life, where they seem to appreciate at an earlier age the social attributes of modern society.

This Report is quite admirable, for within the confines of its 113 pages it succeeds in emphasising in our minds the appreciation of the background which confronts modern youth. It also recommends practical provisions which have already been discussed, and will continue to be discussed this afternoon, so that the stresses and distractions of contemporary life can more satisfactorily be met. The Report helps us, therefore, to see that many young people are influenced, as the right reverend Prelate said, by the lack of purpose of present-day society.

Many young are frustrated, as the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, and the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said, by dull and boring work; they are frustrated by a family life which, too often, gives no lead to positive living. Probation officers have found among the young—of course, they come into contact with others and delinquents—that often they have complex feelings of insecurity, a lack of purpose and resentment against adult society, while at the same time they need to be accepted as part of that society. One of the dilemmas as they see it, and indeed as they told the Albemarle Committee, is that young people are encouraged by society to aspire to and to admire, an empty and yet attractive materialistic life, while at the same time there is a moral and spiritual background which leaves them unsatisfied. That, I think, is largely in full alignment with what the right reverend Prelate has just said.

So, in adolescence I would say that there is an effective factor: that these young people are already confused, and are confused further, by the strain brought upon them by the physical and mental changes brought about by the onset of puberty. To quote the Report, it says in paragraph 54: It appears certain that puberty is occurring earlier, and that the large majority of young people now reach adolescence, as determined by physical changes, before the age of 15. So, like other noble Lords, I agree with the view which the Report puts forward in paragraph 56, that with the considerable emotional developments … now often … taking place in contexts earlier than those with which they have been habitually associated … experience of comradeship within the right kind of youth club may be of very great value at such a time. When we stress the cumulative effects on young people of the strains and stresses mentioned in this Report, I think it is surprising that this section of youth is not a much greater problem than it is.

Perhaps I may now be permitted to turn for a moment or two to the ways in which I am assured, by those interested in mental health and the training of youth, that more young people than hitherto have a sense of failure. Whether we are parents or not we all know that young people have their eyes set on a bright and hopeful horizon; and along this line to-day too many become disillusioned and cynical, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said in quoting a letter from a representative youth of to-day. So what happens? They attempt to cover up a sense of personal inferiority with a show of ebullient exhibitionism. Sometimes, of course, the first feelings of failure occur at school. That is a feeling which is not strange to me, and perhaps was not strange to other noble Lords who found that their aptitudes for academical studies were not as great as those suggested through the rosy-coloured glasses of parents and schoolmasters.

However that may be, I should like to ask: is this to-day a cause of even further strain? Are we so obsessed with this scientific age that we try to get all children to reach an academic standard that they cannot all possibly achieve? Are some children pushed too far to follow studies which they are simply not equipped to absorb? I was interested to see it stated in Appendix 6 of the Report that at December 31 this year 628,000 children will be 15 years of age; and Appendix 7 shows that, of that number, 207,000 children of 15 will still be at maintained and assisted schools. My presumption is that this remainder—419,000, amounting to two-thirds of the total—have turned their backs on academic learning. They have not passed the 11-plus examination and are not staying on for additional tuition at school, although some will go to technical colleges.

Presumably many of these young people are, considered by many to be failures because they have not passed examinations for which, in fact, they have not been endowed. At the age of 15 they are abruptly thrown out from the highly organised life of school into the outside world, and suddenly they find it necessary to stamp their personality—which they may already consider (and perhaps quite rightly) to be inadequate—on a new environment and among new associates. What happens? Some try to become apprentices and learn a trade, but I am told that in one industry there are eight applicants for every single vacancy. The other seven who are rejected for training in a skilled job have to take unskilled work. In unskilled work there is, of course, a material compensation, because the pay is higher for such jobs. So in this age we see the uncommitted young people to whom I am particularly referring receiving high initial incomes while they are without the necessary background and information which seems essential for the conservation of suitable tastes.

The adopted pose of self-assurance so often covers a lack of knowledge and the need to seek advice and, as the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, has said, they are exposed in many ways to commercial exploitation. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, has referred with great force to this factor—the commercial exploitation of modern youth. Your Lordships may recall that I was able to mention in our previous debate last year that young people between the ages of 15 and 25 number 5 million and in a single year spend £900 million as they wish. The Albemarle Committee wrote to me on this subject and I was very glad that I was able to put them in touch with the research service. I believe your Lordships will agree that the Committee have expanded this very interestingly in paragraphs Nos. 88 to 95. The director from whom the Committee got such valuable information has since told me that many young people ignore the Youth Service because they can find more adventurous, if expensive, things to do. Because too many young people are unable to employ their aptitudes in a social sense, because they have a sense of failure and inadequacy, because they are bombarded by advertising and appeals to uncultivated taste, I would say that the results of teenage frustration and aggression are part of the common context of our everyday life.

From the evidence I have culled from mental health workers, probation officers, sociologists and others—and, indeed, from the evidence produced in this Report—it seems clear that a very large proportion of the youth of this country really do need help. They need help to lead happy and useful lives and to maintain a level of what I would describe as positive mental health—what many of your Lordships would describe as a sense of values, balance and stability. Such help will assist them to relate their own capabilities to the opportunities which modern life offers, and so I fully and wholeheartedly endorse the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Norwich and others, that society has a duty to provide this help.

My Lords, I have spoken for too long. I was going to mention points that have already been raised, about the necessity to retain small groups within clubs. The only comment I wish to make is that by the creation of such groups within the club, the members would be given an opportunity to develop their own activities and interests; and I would say that security and self-confidence is more likely to be realised in the smaller than in the larger club. I hope that Her Majesty's Government and the noble and learned Viscount who is to reply will tell us that it is envisaged that the Government grant will allow a financial contribution to cover these rather nebulous and ill-defined groups within established organisation. One further word concerning money. Much has been said in this debate as to the level of contributions from central Government and local government. Not so much has been said about the old-fashioned principle of giving service, or making some sacrifice: of members of youth clubs themselves providing contributions. I have often been told that young people nowadays are quite prepared to pay for their pleasure; and this Report is full of statistics verifying this fact. I would suggest that the extent of this contribution might well prove to be the judgment on the success or otherwise of a particular club.

In conclusion, may I be permitted to say just one word about parents, who have not so far been mentioned in this debate. Your Lordships may be told, as I am told by people who come in contact with the young who get into trouble, that they usually find that the parents are uninterested in the training or activities of their children. I should like to see more active parent participation in the work of youth clubs, and this is, I feel, a wide field for future investigation by trained youth leaders.

My Lords, I am greatly impressed by so much that is contained in this Report, for it bears out what people have told me over a great many years and what I myself have been trying to say, quite inadequately, for a long time. I feel that, so far as the needs of a healthy and positive mind are concerned, there is not much to add to the general underlying principles enunciated in this Report. So I would say that a great opportunity must not be missed by allowing this Report to remain on shelves. It is, in my opinion, so good that it should be read and studied by members of local authorities, not only local education authorities, by teachers, by parents and by anyone who has to do with young people.

My right honourable friend the Minister of Education has so far come up to great expectations in the reception of this Report, and knowing the vigour and activity of the noble Viscount who is going to reply to-day, I feel sure that those expectations as expressed by him will not come as a disappointment to this House. The strength of our provisions for the education and training of young people is only as strong as the chain which joins them. So far, great emphasis and great attention have been given—and quite rightly—to the link which is formed by education. It seems that all your Lordships will agree that one of the weakest links in this chain is that formed by the Youth Services. It is at this point and at this age group that pressure breaks the chain. In one way or another, society pays. Either it pays by suffering acts of anti-social behaviour, or it can pay by providing adequate facilities and skilled leadership. My Lords, human dignity is not, after all, measured by personal success in one small field or another. Human dignity depends on the complete development of all the capabilities with which any individual is endowed, and the Youth Service can help to develop these capabilities if it has the means and the power to do so.

5.53 p.m.

THE EARL OF CRAVEN

My Lords, this is, I think we all agree, not a political Party issue, and for that reason I should very much like to thank my noble friend Lord Pakenham for giving us the opportunity of having this debate. The noble Lord is a grandfather, which I was very pleased to hear him say, and I only hope that when I am a grandfather I shall succeed in looking half as young as he does now.

LORD PAKENHAM

And have more hair.

THE EARL OF CRAVEN

In the interests of brevity, I do not intend to comment on what other noble Lords have said, except that I should like to align myself with the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Norwich.

We are reaping the fruits of gross selfishness. The adult population has for years ignored the needs of youth on three points; (a) they are too selfish to stay married—the Report of the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce mentions this; (b) they never care what they read—our Press is discredited all over the world; even the Communists exclaim at our pornographic perversion, which is now an export; and (c) we have not provided a truly Christian system of education—this has resulted in insecurity. Family planning is but another way of saying, "Do not have children" Modern philosophy itself does not face up to life. Our youth is not taught to be satisfied with what life gives. The problem is increased by the vision of things which parents cannot keep up with. To be satisfied does not mean that you are not to strive towards the better; it means that you accept your lot as it presents itself, like a reasoning being.

The actions of humanity have their counter-reaction in others. A divorce produces a deprived child, who, in turn, influences society, and so on. There are, thank God! correcting influences and reactions. Woolly-headedness in legislation has not helped. The police are checkmated: correction is not entertained. The public are being enticed to disrespect. Loss of confidence is in the wind, and the hand of the schoolmaster is denied the power of a salutary, if painful, application.

Our troubles start in the home. Home life must be true life. If it were, there would be little need of the Albemarle Report, a Report, I might acid, which has a place of honour in the forefront of the modern campaign against evil. I hope, as indeed many like me do, that it will be implemented in a manner which will ensure success and not be a costly failure. I hope that the spirit of idleness driving the car of luxury along the highway of plenty will not have a fatal accident. I should hate to see youth in the dock, the family in prison and the Stale in hospital. I should like to see some alteration in law to control the spending power of youth up to the age of, say, twenty. This would, I believe, help all categories of society, and I am absolutely certain that a stop on any kind of credit should be included. There is a wide measure of agreement existing among English Christians on social questions. It is vital that we should all realise how very wide this common measure of agreement is. While doctrinal differences remain insuperable, Christians are nevertheless tending to collaborate in the social and international sphere. They can do so much more in the future.

The enemy at the gates is, of course, that view of life in which the unique value and dignity of human personality is implicitly and explicitly denied. We have to be sure that the State will confine its activities to the common welfare and will not encroach upon our personal freedom in a way which is intolerable. There is a danger of the State's taking over too many of the obligations of the parent. State influence can be just as wrong, if misplaced, as parental mistakes. The influence is on an incomparably greater scale. The width of contact and responsibility in the State servant is enormous. Tendencies are always towards association in order to unload personal responsibility. Man's eternal search for Truth is the proof of a Government need to understand that their task is one of guidance and protection, not totalitarianism. Government must not allow the wires to get crossed because of the noise of bureaucracy; but must seek the fundamentals of man's purpose and his dignity before committing legislation.

The rule of law, as such, means little, because laws can be good or bad. The rule of Christian law is the foundation of our law and is a law based on Truth. We may be undermining the principles of this law in our mad scurry after the elusive god of progress. We do not want to rush into tremendous public expenditure until we are certain that we are right. We must make sure that other fields are thoroughly explored and that our thought processes have been tempered and matured by experience.

I hope that the voluntary and denominational bodies will be given the same encouragement in all ways as will be accorded to State-operated systems. I hope that full and adequate consultations will be the guiding principle at all levels, as is indeed suggested in this Report. This is not a duplication; it is a prudence, my Lords. There is no guarantee that the State system will be the best. We must remember that in modern legislation the mounting pressures make it a matter of ever-growing difficulty to define exactly the spirit of Parliament. We all know how a word conveys one meaning to one person and an entirely different meaning to the next. Indeed, just as our conceptions of Truth and of right and wrong diverge year by year, it becomes more difficult to qualify the medium of mass understanding.

Peace and justice are the aims of mankind, and they are never attained without sacrifice. The Greeks and the Romans, on the one hand, and the Jews on the other, discovered the answer to an old-world equation which is still bright and new to equip this age of science: the foundations of our nation are in Christianity. The dualism of mind and matter harassed and perplexed the finest minds of the ancient world. To acquire right thinking is to acquire a foundation on which to build. Character is the manuscript of our own constructive effort. There are two people in every one of us: sometimes one conquers, and sometimes the other. What is important is our choice of standards. If these are sound, we tend towards a better choice. How very fallible is humanity !

It is a wonderful conception, full of greatness and dignity, that can say: What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! There is sorrow in the realisation that humanity and virtue are lacking for its fulfilment. Pre-history gave us Neanderthal man, the Java man and the Gibraltar man. Lately we have seen the 19th century economic man, the slave of the machine. We are living with biological man, in the process of discovering psychological man; but even he is dated, and his replacement, bourgeois man, has arrived on the scenes. He is a facsimile of economic man, dressed in dungarees and with a cloth cap. Let us hope that we of the Western culture can by-pass robot man, the monster of the Soviet States.

There is always a danger of the gradual growth of a sort of totalitarian democracy in this country—a system of government which increasingly impinges on the liberty of the individual, and squeezes out his freedom and initiative. As Professor Collingwood has said: The infinite dignity and worth of the human individual is based on the fact that God loves the human individual, and Christ … died for him. The doctrines concerning human nature on which liberal and democratic practice were based were not empirically derived from research into anthropological and psychological data; they were a matter of faith; and those Christian doctrines were the source from which they derived. Indeed, a much vaunted belief in human equality comes from the same source. The point I am trying to make is that one part of the task of training youth is to train the adult, with particular reference to the parent—the poor, neglected parent. We hear so little about the parents, yet it is they who produce the children. It must be remembered that what one parent considers to be a necessary preparation for life in society may well have no appeal, and may even be repugnant, to another. There must be no violation of the legitimate rights of a parent. If we do this, we set the State up in opposition to the family. We of the free world believe this to be anathema. The State must protect the family, and this should be the lifeline of all State activity. Legitimate parental authority should be granted every respect by the civil authority. Perhaps your Lordships noticed the significance of the bridal bouquet which Princess Margaret left on the altar after her wedding.

I read with horror that on the night before the marriage ceremony the Oxford undergraduates were showing how progressive they could be. In the Union debate they discussed the motion "That divorce by consent should be made legal." Lord Birkett, with his matchless experience of our law courts, endeavoured to restrain them. He said: I still think that the greatest felicity and boon that any man or any woman can ask from this earthly life is a happy marriage, and we ought to see to it that in all legislation, whether trivial or grave, that idea should be preserved. In spite of that, my Lords, the motion was carried by 174 votes to 165. I should like to add to Lord Birkett's view on marriage the unshakable truth that it is a sacrament instituted for the procreation of children which is automatically violated by a false inception.

Reflecting on past motions carried in the Oxford Union, we might think that there is here merely the foolish expression of unthinking immaturity; that in another ten years' time most of the 174 will have changed their minds. The voters may have been unthinking, but it is doubtful if they will have had time to mature before they themselves plunge into marriage "terminable by consent", with a consent rigged, when the time comes, to suit the little difficulties of the present law. If they think this in the fresh green of love, what will be their thoughts in the dry wood of marriage? The only true teaching on marriage is one of purity and unselfishness. Our youth have a right to be taught truth; and in this instance truth is that if you love you respect, and that every act of love is one of dying to self. Youth must prove their love by their respect, and thereby understand its eternal heights and profoundest depths in all their beauty. It is then that youth will discover that love is not just sex, but all of God's creation: it is then that they will understand the meaning of personal discipline.

These ideals work to-day, and where they are practised you find children who are founded in life and understand where they are going; who may fall, but who always get back into the saddle of reason again. Our troubles do not start at the level of youth service; they start in the home at a very early age. Responsibilities are thereafter divided to an ever-increasing degree through school and college, university and workbench, and thence to adult life. This is a recurring cycle—a cycle of mistakes and wrong choice, or good and charitable actions, which either take away from or add to the finished product. I see in this Report a section of noble and high-spirited people, faced with darkness wherein there may appear an occasional star brightly shining for a night, only to be swept away on the winds of wordy indecision, which engulf them on every side. My heart goes out to them, because I suspect, as I am sure they do, that unless we can get people to think of things on high, we shall never give assurance to our youth. Until we can show proof that right law is based on Christian principles, that moral ethos is the fact behind these principles, no amount of social work or social palaces are going to have any lasting result. There is nothing wrong with youth to-day which could not be set right by good example from the adults.

There was a time when young people did not question authority, or the social and moral ideals of past generations. This was before the basic fabric of these ideals had been tampered with: the corporate society retained its integrity, and was cemented by truth in the law. These ideals were seen to mould and improve humanity, and they formed the Western conception of civilisation. Teenagers do not reject good teaching, good background, good example in the home. Or if they do, the rejection is usually temporary, and they return to the fold when their fingers have been burned and their reason stimulated. I am sure that to-day it is wrong to have both parents out at work when there are children in the family. Of course, there are exceptions. It may be that there is little harm in part-time work for a woman; but, on the whole, I am convinced that mothers should be on the spot when their children are there; they should make home feel like home and should not be too tired to take an interest.

Much could be done to educate parents on the TV and through the Press on matters governing reading and personal discipline. One of the curses of this age is the filth and the rubbish which is pumped into young heads through the medium of the "gutter Press". If the duty of Government is to protect, then we should do as many other countries do and restrict the printing of matter destructive to the home and the family, such as details about divorce. We should make the Press get permission before they are allowed to print, except in cases of criminal justice governing adults. We should control firmly the publication of indecent photographs and articles. Above all, we should control all these things in book form.

What greater falsification of the truth is there than the contemptible plea for printing The Decameron and Lolita? Indeed, there are things of art which should be forbidden on grounds of perversion and indecency. We are only a short step away from the groves of Aphrodite and Apollo, of free love, Which was a mockery of marriage and purity in the ancient world. Have we really sunk so low that we make endless excuses for our desires, that we choose to make perversion our goal in the bid to salve our own consciences? In this field the real enemies are those prepared to print anything so long as it will help to increase their bank balance, the cynics who make capital out of perversion. Control these enemies of society and you will protect the family and save the country many millions of pounds.

The vocational outlook of the youth worker is going to be hard enough to encourage. It is certainly going to be expensive because, unless the vocation is present, the salary will be the governing factor. If we are to have first-rate recruits, it will be our task to see that the youth worker does not consider himself as the replacement of family life. Self-sacrifice, which is the skeleton of character, must not be lacking.

Let me expound to your Lordships the classical expression of law (I am sure that the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack will forgive me for this) to be found in the great work of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Summa Theologica. St. Thomas carefully distinguishes between four kinds of law—first, the Eternal Law, by which God rules the Universe; secondly, the Natural Law, which is "the rational creature's participation in the Eternal Law"; thirdly, the Divine Law, which is the Law of God contained in the Old and New Testaments; and fourthly, the Human Law, which is a dictate of practical reason emanating from the ruler who governs a perfect community. The great English lawyer of the thirteenth century, Bracton, expressed this view with perfect clarity when he said that: The Government ought not to be subject to man, but to God and the law, for the law makes the Government. It follows that if Divine authority and its laws are set aside, the civil power usurps those absolute and irresponsible rights which belong to the Creator alone. Thus voted into the privilege of omnipotence, it treats the State, or the general body of the citizens, as the end to which all human actions must turn and the rule by which all legal and moral questions must be judged. It will allow of no appeal to the dictates of natural reason or of the Christian conscience.

The true purpose of education, as the very word implies (and I hope the noble Viscount who is going to reply for the Government will correct my Latin), is educare, to nourish, and not educere, to draw out, that false view which supposes that man is naturally good and needs only proper mental and physical instruction in order to achieve perfection. From here we may proceed to ask: who possesses prior rights in this matter of education—the State or the family? Surely the answer is hardly in any doubt. As the duty on the part of the parents continues up to the time when the child is in a position to provide for itself, this same inviolable parental right of education also endures.

Paragraph 145, on page 39 of the Report, deals with the question of mass communication. I predict that the demotically classless society will evolve into an even more horrible sense of separation between the haves and the have-nots. Speech is not so easily pinned to an unsubtle barrenness. I believe that, along with the Crowther Report, this Report will add its own vocabularly to our language. In conclusion, I should like to say how much I agree with the idea expressed by several speakers, that we should allow industrial enterprises to enter into this work, and even more in sending children abroad, so that they can broaden their outlooks and gain some release from their emotions in exploration and explanation.

6.18 p.m.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, I must apologise to your Lordships for the fact that I had to leave the Chamber on Parliamentary business during the course of two or three speeches. I wish that I could have been here to hear them all. We have been having a good debate on a very good Report. I do not want to paint the lily or say anything more than, "Thank you very much" to the authors of the Report. The problem of youth in this day and generation of ours requires a great deal of careful consideration, to see how far we can correct the trends which youth as a whole seem to be following and which are so clearly set out in the Albemarle Report. I have been grateful to the Report, because it reveals in a summarised form the great amount of volutary help which is given in this country to the youth services by the main organisations, such as the Association of Boys' Clubs, the Boy Scouts and the Young Men's Christian Association, quite apart from local efforts. There must be a great deal of money subscribed by business men and industry in support of this voluntary organisation, of which we must not forget to take notice.

I have been interested in the youth movement for the last forty years from a particular angle. That angle has been somewhat scattered but nevertheless continuous effort to use the auxiliary organisations of the Co-operative consumers' movement for instruction and training. In this country the Co-operative retail movement spends about £500,000 a year on education, spread over rather a wide range. Some of it might be described by noble Lords opposite as mere propaganda, but even propaganda can be educative. We also have set classes and our own Co-operative College, which gives diplomas and certificates on subjects which help students in their occupation in the Co-operative Movement.

I gather from the memorandum submitted to The Albemarle Committee on behalf of the Co-operative Union Education Committee that they are not too well satisfied with the extraordinary variation in the way grants from statutory bodies are made in support of this work. I do not propose to look at that in detail this afternoon, but only to request that the evidence, where it has not always been supported by witnesses before the Albemarle Committee, should nevertheless be studied. I do not expect the Minister of Education or the Minister for Scotland to study all the evidence page by page, but certainly it ought to be examined in their Departments to see what requires to be done in arranging that in any extension of the statutory grants, either from the Ministry of Education or from local educational authorities, there is a fair distribution among those who already spend so much of voluntary funds in order to assist the general cause.

One thing struck me in reading the recommendations of the Albemarle Report. Whilst sympathising in general with the idea that we certainly want more helpers, more full-time organisers and the like, and thinking of all the efforts that have to be made in all the areas, I think you will have to be careful in what you do in your final decisions lest you should have a system arise which will be popularly criticised as being "more harness than horse". If you cannot get a great many people behind this movement who would be prepared to put more personal endeavour into it to get more out in results, the multitude of organisational machines will not assist very much. That kind of thing can be overdone. I daresay that I shall not be very popular in arguing that from these particular Benches, but, from my own long experience in demo cratic institutions and in a large demo cratically-controlled business movement, I have found that the one thing you have to guard against is putting too much of your effort into an organisational machine and not getting the result at the other end: as I say, more harness than horse. I think that is important.

The other thing I am concerned about is this. When I watch programmes on the televison such as Sunday Break, I am appalled at the extent to which programmes can be made to lower their sights in order to try to get over the problem which is pictured in paragraph 143 of the Albemarle Report. To have to lower one's idea about the Lord's Day and how to deal with youth on the Lord's Day by having a sort of club with part jazz, part ballad and pant dance, or that kind of programme, in the course of which you get the special favour of having a minister or a missionary of some sort present who can conduct on the television individual conversations with the members of the club is not, I think, a very good way of dealing with the matter.

I suppose that that is the kind of problem that the Albemarle Committee had in mind when they said at the beginning of paragraph 143 that they hoped they would not be misunderstood in the way in which they would project the problem. On the other hand, I must say that as I read on in the paragraph I thought that they are a little hard upon those who feel as both the last two speakers I have listened to feel about Christian values and spiritual outlook. I ought not perhaps to dwell on the words "spiritual values" in the way in which it is dealt with in this paragraph, but I must say that, so far as I can see from my limited education and reading (although I try to make my reading as extensive as possible), without religious values running through the history of the world as a sort of golden thread I do not know what the result would have been among mankind at large.

There is something also quite outside what is called Christian values and that is the influence of religion at large in the history of the world. That is also not without importance. I have never had the advantage of being a classical scholar, so I cannot say anything about the great classical examples of that. But when I read this little Book, which was presented to me by my vicar where I was brought up in the Church of England, on the last day of November, 1903—it has always been with me, even in my wickedest days; it is always something to come back to—there I see what I was taught in a Board school, the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes: Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the days draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. It was because I was taught that by heart in a Board school, and in an approved syllabus, agreed by all denominations, that I happened to read the rest of the Book. And so I come back to the Eleventh Chapter: Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee … but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. These are the sort of values in the end which have to be brought into dealing with the present problem of youth, because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, said, times are changing so much in every way. Youth changes with the times, and very much so. But there is one thing I remember reading that Disraeli said in one of his books: Nature is more powerful than education. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Craven, as to the value of education, but in dealing with the sort of great youth problem we have to-day we have to make sure that we are using other measures besides formal education in order to counteract the, temptations of nature as they come to youth in a growing availability of leisure, which in the youth of our day was, of necessity, if we were going to get on at all, applied to extensive evening study. We have a curious sort of dichotomy between the things that we put forward in regard to the education of our youth, and we do not perhaps take quite enough note of what is going on. I heard of a very good headmistress of a grammar school (I will not mention her name) who said at the Speech Day not more than twelve months ago that things had changed so much in her lifetime; that in her young days the young women teenagers were fighting hard for more and more educational opportunity, and for more and more openings into the professional and other services of the country, both secular and religious, and that they never could get quite far enough with it. But now, she said, the tendency is, with the different position they are in, to stay at school longer but to marry much earlier.

At the same time, alongside that, you get the problem of how you are possibly going to fill the programme that the Government may have for expanding educational opportunity and provision. What is the great handicap? It is getting the number of teachers you require. What then?—and the same headmistress told a story on that. She said that one of her old girls came back to her only a few months before and said: "My little boy is going to the council school, because I believe in the State system of education. But it is really terrible, the conditions there—55 in a class; and how can that little boy be properly taught?" The headmistress said, "I looked at her straight in the eyes and said, 'Mary, you were at our school, were you not?' The answer was, 'Yes'. I said, 'You went away to college from this school to be trained as a teacher?', and again the answer was 'Yes'. I asked 'How long were you a teacher?' and the answer was 'Twelve months'."

That is the sort of thing that is going on with the growing youth movement. "Longer at school," said Lady Elliot of Harwood, "and earlier marriage". When they get into the marriage sphere then, because you must keep up with the Joneses (sometimes of necessity, of course, but very often for the other reason) the tendency is for the wife to leave home before she has anything like finished the complete job of bringing up her family. The money comes in, and there is more to spend. There is more for the children to spend as they grow up, and the situation is deteriorating rather than improving. It is not that the kind of youth movement we have by which we are trying to check these tendencies is based on wrong ideas altogether. I can see no great change in the age of those who work to try to improve the quality of our youth.

I was brought up in a working-class home. I went to a Board school, and then I went to work at the age of 13. The only education I have has had to be gained since by other methods. When I look back on that, I can see that there were people then who had sufficient of the grace of God to give their money and their spare time to see that people like myself did not get into too much mischief early on. I praise God for the Society of Friends—although then I was a boy member of a church choir—who started what was called the Adult School Movement. We went to Sunday School at half past eight on Sunday mornings, and we not only did Bible study but were provided for every night in the week if we wanted to go. That is one of the things which makes me nervous about the youth movement to-day. It was a great temptation in my youth to go to the club provided to play billiards, snooker, table tennis and the like, rather than to go on to the technical classes, without which one could not make any progress, having left school at the age of 13. There are two sides to this problem which have to be watched very closely and carefully if we are going to make the right use of leisure.

I praise God for the people who were behind the youth movements in those days. As a result of this dubiety in paragraph 143, I do not want to see anything which detracts from the religious inspiration of people who enter into the work of the youth movement, or into the work of character building that ought to emerge from their work. I listened with great interest and delight to the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Craven. I could not follow him in his delvings into ancient lore and the like, because I am not qualified to do so. But when he spoke about character, I understood him. If we thought of the youth movement to-day as something which would conform just to the short statement, "that character is the conscience of the nation"—and how much we need a nation with a real conscience at the present time—then I should be "with you" all the way. That is really what is needed at the present time.

It is no use denying the fact that the way in which some things are done might lead to some of those disadvantages referred to in paragraph 143. But they would not be leading in that direction if, as has been suggested by the last two speakers, our parenthood to-day was what it ought to be. In nearly all these modern arguments it seems that something is always coming up for which we ought to make special allowances. Of course, we have passed through an extraordinary period of history. We have to-day the product of two world war generations one on top of the other. The actual state of the Church—when I say, "Church" I mean the Church at large in the country—has been, with only very short interruptions, what the Church describes as "arrested progress" in the last forty years. We must make all the allowances we possibly can for youth, but where are we failing in dealing with parenthood? When I hear arguments about changing the parents' attitude and getting them to look after their children, I say: how are you going to do it? Do you think you can do it by a lot of machinery and careful examination week by week, by interrogation, question and answer, of parents like that?

I do not see any way of finally changing the attitude and conduct, the aims and objectives of parenthood, unless you can get the men and women concerned in each household interested in the things that really matter: interested enough to lead the right life; interested enough to follow the Lord; interested enough to do what my mother used to insist upon, even though my father died when I was a baby, which was for me to be able to recite at her knee the Ten Commandments. I sometimes get hold of youngsters from school and ask them questions. They are not always taught to be able to recite every one of the Ten Commandments. No wonder the juvenile courts are filled if the children are not first taught to understand what is the basis of our law, and what they will be doing if they break this, that or the other law. There is something radically wrong in the present time with the way in which we deal with this matter. We are somewhat ashamed. Paragraph 143 practically apologises for people who really want to go out and use the Gospel truth for changing the situation.

I know that learned people in the past have cast doubts upon this, that and the other. I have often quoted Emerson writing something like this: What is the hardest task in the world? It is to think. I would put myself in an attitude to look an abstract truth in the eye and I cannot. I blench and I withdraw on this side and that, and I seem to know what he meant who said, 'No man can see God face to face and live'. That has thrown a great deal of doubt upon some of the things that we have believed in our Christian or other religious beliefs. What I can say is this. I can find nothing else in the world which really makes it possible for the youth, or the sinning parent, to find a new outlook and a new basis for the future outside a religion which opens the way for him or her to God, and which enables him or her to make a new start and to find redemption, forgiveness and confidence in turning into the right way. I want all these recommendations in the Report to stand. I want them to be carried out, so far as possible, but I want them to be carried out with common sense. I want them to be used to the largest possible extent by the voluntary organisations and the voluntary worker, because in the long run, whether it is in this particular sphere or in any other, the final way to get the truth over to youth and parents is the witness of the individual.

6.40 p.m.

VISCOUNT MONCK

My Lords, I should like to offer my humble congratulations and gratitude to Lady Albemarle and her Committee for having produced this Report. They have not by a wave of a magic wand solved all our difficulties, all our future problems; and nobody with any idea of the youth service ever thought they would. But they have, I think, done three things. They have delved very deeply into the past, the present and the future of the Youth Service. They have (to continue the conjuror's metaphor) produced a certain number of rabbits out of the hat, some of which look as though they are worth breeding from. And thirdly, and not least, they have firmly focused the spotlight of the general public on the Youth Service; and I think it is up to us to see that the spotlight does not come off.

We cannot all be expected to like everything in the Report. I personally do not much like the coffee-bar idea in paragraph 186, or the two to three-year "ephemeral units" referred to in paragraph 188. I think they would be "here to-day and gone to-morrow", and nothing would develop from them, as past experience shows. One point I should like to stress (I do not think it has been mentioned very much to-day) is that there are four paragraphs recommending increased physical activity. To-day a lot of the work carried out after leaving school is sedentary. It does not give the young Person enough exercise to keep him healthy and well, apart from wanting to keep his high spirits down now and again. When the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, to whom we are indebted for introducing this debate, and I were at school together (he was far above me: he was rather on a par with the noble Viscount who is going to reply) we used to hear a phrase, mens sana in corpore sano. I think that possibly to-day, with the sedentary occupations of these young boys, we ought to see a little bit more of the corpus sanum, which would in turn produce more of the mens sana.

But what it all boils down to is that the basis of a good and flourishing Youth Service depends on the same three essentials as were required 25 years ago—men, money and materials. By men, of course, we mean leaders and helpers, both paid and voluntary; and by materials we mean buildings. It has been my impression that ever since the debate which the noble Lord inaugurated last year, since when there has been much talk about the Youth Service, almost all the stress has been on leaders. That was up to a short time ago. Just recently, however, as we have heard, Circular 360 came out; and, frankly, I think my right honourable friend the Minister put his finger on something which is worth following up.

We all know that in the long run leaders, both paid and voluntary, will be the deciding factor; but it is going to be a long-term policy. You have got to offer them terms of service; you have got to train a great number of them. Thirdly, of course, you will not get all you want unless they have decent buildings in which to carry out their activities. My right honourable friend saw that, and he saw obviously that buildings could be begun—it was merely a question of £ s. d. So he issued Circular 360. Thereupon in my county we in the voluntary organisations were summoned by our director of education, who is a most enlightened and energetic gentleman, and told that he was going to press very hard for money from the £3 million for local authority buildings, and suggested that we in the voluntary organisations should also put in as many schemes as we could to obtain the 50 per cent. grant from the Ministry. We therefore "got cracking", and the investigations we made had some astounding results.

In a very short space of time we found quite a large number of our clubs in which through expenditure, not excessive but sufficient, it would be possible considerably to increase the number of members. Pursuing it still further, we found from past history that if we improved the buildings we were very likely to get an increase in members. There is a large Club in the south of Hampshire which was opened by Royalty in 1935. I mention the fact that it was opened by Royalty only because it shows that it was a club of some substance. The years went by; the building became inadequate for its use; it was not the type of building that attracted the youth of to-day. In September last, when this club was down to 43 members, the management committee decided there was only one thing to do and that was to rebuild a completely new club. That club was officially opened last month, and instead of the 43 members that it had in September last it now has 180 members, which is its maximum capacity, and a waiting list of over 80. That is one illustration of what can be done by producing a building which is really worthy of the Youth Service.

I have already mentioned that the mere fact of having better buildings helps to recruit leaders. The second advantage, of course—though I know money is important these days; we all know—is that there is no time lag; there is no training; there is no searching for personnel. It needs money, and therefore, perhaps I might, through the noble Viscount who is to reply for the Government, send back a message to the Minister to say that in my opinion I think we could expand very considerably in boys' clubs along present lines so long as (my right honourable friend will forgive me) there are more shekels from Eccles.

There is one other request I want to make and that is this. In Circular 360 the £3 million mentioned is, of course, for local authority building. Mention was also made, and a reminder was given, of the 50 per cent. grant which voluntary organisations can get from the Ministry for building projects. I am wondering whether the noble Viscount would consider passing on a suggestion to this effect. The point is that the smaller the sum required, the more difficult it generally is to raise it, because it has to be raised in a smaller community. I wonder whether it would be considered that, instead of the maximum grant being 50 per cent. for any sum, it should be 50 per cent. for £10,000 or over, 60 per cent. dawn to £5,000 and 75 per cent. below £5,000. That, I am perfectly certain, would be of enormous help.

I was going to refer to paragraph 143, but what I would have said has been said much better by other noble Lords and by the noble Viscount who has just sat down. I think he hit the nail right on the head. We do not want Christianity mentioned. Some of the best clubs that we know of are run by those who profess the Jewish faith, and "Christian" is not a word we want. I do not think "spiritual" is the word we want; but "religious" is the word the noble Viscount used, and I think a basis of, if you like, religious faith is what must be faced up to, because quite frankly, that is one thing in the Report which was shirked.

Now I come to this vexed question of age, or youth as the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and I call it. I do not really know why the minimum age of the Youth Service was ever raised from 14 to 15. We know the reason—because the school age was raised. But that is not an explanation. I think we must look at it as being just a Whitehall waffle. I am delighted to see that the Albemarle Committee has recommended, and I gather it has been accepted, that the age should be reduced to 14. I am afraid my query is that set out in the Report there are six paragraphs which refer to the voluntary organisations as being in the past particularly valuable in pioneering work, and two of those six paragraphs particularly stress that some of the most valuable pioneering work was done with the under-fourteens. If you want the voluntary organisations to go on pioneering, and if your opinion is that some of their most valuable work is done with those under the age of fourteen, then, for Heaven's sake! let us have some of the under-fourteen boys in the Youth Service.

I understand—to take, for instance, the Scouts—that when the lower age was fifteen the number of Scouts in the Youth Service group was very few indeed. I believe that by lowering the age to fourteen about 50,000 are taken in. But if the age were lowered to twelve, you would have a considerable number of Scouts inside the Youth Service. Whatever one says, whatever organisation one stands for or works for, I think there are few who would disagree with the fact that the Scouts were the original, and remain the best, of the pioneers. I should like to see this age limit reduced to twelve, if only for the sake of gathering some of the Scouts into the fold.

But there is a point about boys' clubs as well. I know perfectly well that written evidence was submitted to the Albemarle Committee to the effect that the National Association of Boys' Clubs was not interested in the under-fourteen-year old. That is so; it is on paper. But that was a year ago, and perhaps, more important, events and possibly boys move fast, and it does not matter if something was said one day that was not right. One has to face the situation and work accordingly. The fact remains that in boys' clubs we have a great number of successful junior sections, not least in London. The London Federation of Boys' Clubs has some very successful junior sections of under-fourteen-year olds.

I know that sometimes it is more blessed to give than to receive, but in regard to the official mind, if you are going to receive you have sometimes to give with the other hand. I would suggest to the noble Viscount that if consideration can be given to lowering the age limit to twelve, as a quid quo pro it would not really matter much if one took away the nineteen- or twenty-year olds as far as the males are concerned. Except in a large club or centre which can be effectively divided, I do not think it is possible or desirable to have your nineteen- and twenty-year olds rubbing along in the same programme with your fifteen-year olds, and far less with your fourteen-year olds. I would rather see the nineteen- and twenty-year olds helping as leaders or helpers in the clubs.

Finally, there is the question of pioneering. I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to one piece of pioneering which my Association, the National Association of Boys' Clubs, inaugurated and which has been extremely successful: this is what we call our adjustment to industry courses. There is a great programme. I was going to read out some of it, but the time is getting late and I will forbear to do so. All I would ask is that if anybody happens to read what I am saying this evening, some support should be given to our area organisations by the local education authorities when these courses are being run. We have many testimonials from firms saying how valuable they are to their sixteen-, seventeen- and eighteen-year old boys. If, as in my county, we can get help and support during these courses from the local education authority, I am sure it would be to the benefit of the working boy in industry.

When I was first bulldozed into the Youth Service twenty-five years ago, I was rather alarmed to find that everybody was quoting Plato. I had heard of him at some time or other. Everybody was quoting Plato, and one did not seem to get anywhere unless, in one's dealings with youth, one knew of and adhered to the precepts of Plato. I am afraid I flared up one day and said that it was about time we had a little less Plato and got more of Herbert Morrison and Winston Churchill. That did not go down at all well. I never liked Plato very much after I read his statement that of all the animals the boy is the most unmanageable. That I knew to be a direct untruth, so I did not like Plato any the more. What I am really leading up to is this: that anything that I have said this evening is supposed to apply only to the male sex in clubs. What little experience I have had has been entirely in connection with boys' clubs; that is why I have tried to use the male animal all the time. I am one of those—there are many of my sex—who do not understand the ladies. I love them deeply with all my heart—but that, my Lords, is another matter.

6.58 p.m.

THE EARL OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

My Lords, compliments! We have paid our compliments, and I add my own, to the Report that we are debating and to the writers of it. But there are one or two other compliments that I think should be paid, first to those who pioneered the various sections of the Youth Service. If I mention one, I mention him only because I had the privilege and pleasure of knowing him, and I hope that it will not be thought that I am forgetting the others. The one I wish to mention is the noble and gallant father of the noble Lord who is following me, whom all in the Scout Movement affectionately remembered, and still remember, as "B. P." Let us also pay our compliments to the youth of to-day who are asking for this Youth Service. As the Albemarle Report says, it is our duty to do what we can to give it to them. It is good that this House recognises the necessity for that by the very fact that we are having this debate, and we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for introducing it.

This Report is, if I may use the expression, "full of meat". There is one piece of "meat" from which I should like to quote. Paragraph 365, under "Priorities", refers to two important features of the recommendations which the Committee have listed. The first, the Committee say, … is that they all depend for their success on one cardinal assumption: that the Government intends to make the Youth Service adequate to the needs of young people to-day. This, then, seems to us to command the highest priority of all; if the Youth Service is to be enabled to produce a generous return for the money spent, the Minister must declare it his policy to advance the Service. My Lords, I hope that we shall hear that that is being done. We know that it has already been done to some extent, and it is to be hoped that it will be increased. To me it is sad that the introduction of more paid youth workers has been recommended. Obviously that is necessary, but I hope that we shall not have any reduction in the principle of the voluntary youth workers who, I believe, have done so much in the past and will, I hope, do more in the future.

I should like to take up one or two points most of which have been mentioned already. I do so more than anything else to stress them; and I ask to be forgiven by the House if I use scouting as an example on some of my points, because that is the movement with which I was closely connected before the war and where I gained my experience. As has been said, the Report deals with the 14 to 20 age group, and I should like to stress a question that has already been asked: Why keep the lower age at 14? Why not reduce it to, say, 12, or even lower—to the age of 11, the age at which scouts come into the Scout Movement? Can the Minister possibly do this?

Much reference has already been made to paragraph 143 of the Report. I will not quote from it but I would quote from a piece of news reported in The Times newspaper of April 23 on the meeting of the British Council of Churches at Nottingham on April 22. At that meeting the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Peterborough criticised the Albemarle Report, among other things, and said: Perhaps the most significant thing is that a Government Committee, on which were many keen, active, practising Christians, should not have found it possible to say more than they did. I, too, think it is a pity and agree with him. Perhaps I might mention here that the cardinal point of the Scout Movement, about which all its work revolves, is represented by the promise which a scout takes before he becomes a scout. He must first promise to do his best to do his duty to God, and that is emphasised right throughout the movement, from the cubs upwards.

It is good to know that the Minister accepts the recommendations on Chapter 4 and we sincerely hope that, having started to implement those, he will continue to do so. I believe, from what I have heard in the debate to-day, that discussions are taking place and will go on. It is said that in this work the Minister and the local authorities are two partners; and they are very important partners. That leads me to Recommendation 9 under this chapter. This recommendation is a good one, but the recommendation which refers to it and which appears on pages 48 and 49 is headed, "The Task of the Fourth Partner". Why the Fourth Partner? Surely we are seeking to do this for youth, and they should be the First Partner. I believe that the recommendation in paragraph 174 that young people should be given more responsibility for programmes and activities is excellent. Again referring to the Scout Movement, in the troop this is done by the Court of Honour which consists of the patrol leaders.

To use another example—an extreme one—of the way in which young people can actively participate, before the war I had the privilege of going down to Godstone to open the headquarters of a group of Godstone scouts who had built their own headquarters with their own hands, under the auspices of a builder who was a scout. They had built it in the shape of a cottage of the type that was already there, and apart from the fact that it looked new at that time, from the outside one could not tell the difference between the new building and the rest of the village. That was a wonderful piece of work and is an extreme example of the kind of thing that we should like to see.

I should, like to give your Lordships one or two examples of what has happened in connection with requests for youth clubs; and I quote, first, from my own experience. At the beginning of the war several of us were sent round the country to do what we could to encourage scouting. I went to a small village in the county of Bedfordshire, where I found a number of boys fooling about in a queue outside a cinema or round a corner looking at something else. We had been given books such as Scouting for Boys to scatter among these young people, and I passed copies to boys in two or three groups there. I told them, "Read this, and if you like the idea of camping and similar activities, find a leader and tell him that you want to form a scout troop." They looked at me askance and asked, "What do we want a scout troop for?" But a couple of months later I heard that a troop had been formed. Those boys had found their own leader.

May I quote from a more recent experience? A friend whom I happened to meet when I was in Scotland at the beginning of the year wrote to me the other day giving me examples of clubs which had been formed in the County of Angus. This is what he said:

1. "1. Request made, and a meeting place provided. The Club to be run by the young people themselves. This petered out (as we thought it might!) and we have restarted it with an adult leader and it goes along well.
2. 2. Request made and premises provided. Club petered out and in this case we have no adult leader.
3. 3. Leader all ready, in fact the young people approached him first, but we are held up (temporarily) for a suitable meeting place."

That is where the recommendation of the Albemarle Report, that much more should be done, comes in. I think this goes to show that many young people would welcome (and pay for) some kind of activity. But they do need adult help, and the help must include leaders with the right kind of approach to an understanding of the 'teenager'. Paragraph 165 deals with the Boy Scouts, and I should like to quote a sentence which has already been mentioned: Boys between 10 and 15 were the basis of the success of the Boy Scouts from the very beginning, and remain so. I cannot entirely agree with that statement. I am quite certain that when there is a good leader, the older scouts can be kept in; and surely the same thing applies to youth clubs. But this leaves the impression that the Boy Scout Movement is a children's movement; and I, for one, cannot accept that. After all, there is the Senior Scout section in the troop, there is the Rover Scout section, and there are even the various branches of the B.P. Guild—of which we have one branch here, in these Houses of Parliament. I am quite certain that good leaders will hold the older boys. I certainly found before the war that that was so; but where the leader was not good the boys of fifteen went away.

That leads me to Chapter 6 of the recommendations on "Staffing and Training." We have already heard about the Ministry Circular, No. 360, and I need say no more about that. There is the recommendation that the number of leaders should be raised to 600 by 1966; and to-day we have heard the request that the number should be higher. Let us hope that it will be. I would urge the Minister to press on with this. I am delighted to hear that the college is to start on January 1 next; and I am sure that a one-year course is essential.

As to these courses I feel there is one point that should be made and that is this: I wonder how many of us realise—I certainly experienced this—that the young people are better at picking their leaders than we are ourselves. I am sure that that is the case; I have had experience of it. I have said before that I have a preference for the voluntary worker, but it is obvious that the paid worker is necessary, and we sincerely hope that the paid workers will take part in the courses as well as the voluntary workers. But I feel that this business of the paid worker is a modern trend of which the Prime Minister, when in South Africa, used the term "wind of change".

On Chapter 7 and finance, we have the recommendation of the special grant of 75 per cent. Here I should like to stress that everything should be done to encourage both groups, clubs and the members, to pay their share. I say no more on that, but I think it is highly important. I was delighted to read in recommendation (30), also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and others, that denominational grants should no longer constitute an anomaly, whereby some groups do not receive anything and others do. I am sure that they should all take their share, as the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Norwich stated. There is one point with regard to recommendation (41) which I question—I hope I have not misunderstood it: that is, with regard to raising money. I agree that the leader should be relieved of the work of raising money. But does this also mean that the club and its members should be relieved of it? I think they should do their share in raising the money for their club.

Finally, I repeat that I feel youth should be priority Number One. The leaders and the parents, who have been mentioned at last, and the committees, plus the Development Council and the Minister and all other parties should be included, but youth should be Number One. In the Scout movement there is a saying, "Do not forget the 'out' in 'Scouting'." May I transform that into the phrase, "Do not forget 'youth' in the 'Youth Service'"? And do everything to encourage the young people to advertise themselves, both to other young people and to the older people, in order to get the help they need. Above all, I do ask that we should encourage the clubs and the members to be as adventurous as they can.

7.13 p.m.

LORD BADEN-POWELL

My Lords, in common with others of your Lordships who have spoken this afternoon, I, too, should like to add my compliments to the members of the Albemarle Committee for the superb work they have done in compiling this Report. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for initiating this afternoon this most interesting debate which has ranged over just about every aspect of the Youth Service as a whole. For various reasons, attention seems to be concentrated very largely upon the insignificant minority of juvenile delinquents. This tends rather to overshadow all the needs of normal, healthy, adventurous youngsters. Modern conditions make it increasingly necessary to assist them in their growing-up process by means of youth organisations of various kinds. Recognition of the Youth Service as a full partner in our educational system is then, to my mind, more than overdue.

I should first like to say a word on behalf of the majority of young people who are ordinary and law-abiding, although always full of life and occasionally mischievous. Such young people form the bulk of the uniformed organisations like the Scouts and Guides, about which we have just heard from my noble friend Lord Buckinghamshire. And these two well-respected movements, founded by my late father in this country and then spread around the world, are still gaining in popularity and public esteem. Naturally, as I have myself been a lifelong member of the Scout movement I am heavily biased in its favour. I would stress that Scout and Guide training is designed to supplement that given by the schools and to support that given by the Churches and in the home. It is therefore extremely valuable and merits all the help that can be given. I would ask Her Majesty's Government to give the Scouts and Guides all the support they need; that is, moral support in their appeal for more leaders and adequate financial support for the work of their local and national headquarters.

Such work is not confined to the over-fourteens, as has already been explained, but is largely concerned with a very considerable number under that age. Perhaps it may be of interest to your Lordships if I quoted the latest available census figures of the Boy Scouts' and Girl Guides' Associations, from which it will readily be seen how great a part is played by the under-fourteens in our movements. The Boy Scouts' Association's latest available figures, 1959, are these: Wolf Cubs—that is, the boys under 11, 238,668; Boy Scouts, 11 to 14—that is, including the Air Scouts and Sea Scouts, 208,694; Senior Scouts, including Air Scouts and Sea Scouts—that is, the 15 to 18 years old group, 49,763. Then we have Rover Scouts from 18 to 23, of whom there are 8,069, and of those Rovers 5,521 are under 21. As regards the Girl Guides' Association, the latest available figures, up to 1959, are: Brownies, under 11, 259,145; Girl Guides, 11 to 14, 247,845; and the Rangers, including the Air and Sea Rangers, 15 to 21 years old group, 11,730. These numbers, I understand, constitute approximately one-fifth of the total of the 10 to 14 year olds in this country at the moment.

I would emphasise the difficulties of the leaders of our own and other movements who are in day-to-day contact with the young people and who have unfortunately to spend more time raising the necessary funds than on the actual job of training the young people themselves. I cannot over-emphasise the value of Scout and Guide training, which is universally recognised as training for good citizenship. We start our training at 8 years of age and the most important phase in that training is between 11 and 14. It would, indeed, be a great pity if all these, including the youngsters under 14, were forgotten.

7.19 p.m.

LORD ABERDARE

My Lords, I hope there is nothing unlucky about being the thirteenth of your Lordships to offer my congratulations to Lady Albemarle and her Committee for the very concise and readable Report which has concentrated our attention on the Youth Service and enabled us to have what I think has been a very useful debate. We are also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, who introduced it for the second time. Disraeli said: The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity. I think it has been generally agreed in most nations now that those who wish to take some care for the future of their nation must make proper provision for their youth. That obligation was recognised in this country by the 1944 Education Act, which, for the first time, laid a duty on the local education authorities to provide this Youth Service. However, mainly due to lack of finance, which itself has had a depressing effect on enthusiasm, the Youth Service has not grown as it should have, and the Albemarle Committee Report is most timely. There is, I am sure, plenty of enthusiasm to help young people, and all that is required is a new injection of finance to get it going.

Somewhat naturally, in order to highlight the present situation I think the Albemarle Report tends in some places to paint too black a picture. On the very first page it refers to the Youth Service as "dying on its feet", and "out on a limb"—at least, it quotes evidence that those expressions have been used. I think they are rather extreme expressions, especially when we consider that, later on in the Report, it is acknowledged that the present Service covers one in three young people, which is by no means a negligible figure. I myself am most closely connected with the Y.M.C.A., and our record is certainly not too bad. I think that since the war 78 major new building developments have been completed, 8 are under construction, and 24 more are in the planning stage. We are certainly not "dying on our feet". I would say, rather, that we are living on our wits, and that what we require is some solid, extra financial assistance to aid our wits.

In its essence, the Albemarle Report calls for a new ten-year plan; and, inevitably, the basis for this national drive is to be the local education authorities. They cover the whole country; they are susceptible to guidance from the Ministry of Education; and they have the statutory responsibility. But I should like to emphasise that it would be wrong to think that the local education authorities could ever run the Youth Service in the same way as they run the education service. After all, education is accepted as compulsory, whereas in its very essence the Youth Service is voluntary. It has to attract its members to itself, and for that very reason I believe the voluntary organisations have so much to offer. We must look—as, indeed, the Albermarle Report emphasises—for a partnership. The authorities will provide the overall plan and the major part of the finance, and the voluntary organisations will provide the originality and the variety of approach which alone can give the Youth Service an appeal to the many varied types of young people with whose needs it tries to deal. I believe that the whole key to the future of the Service lies in co-operation between the local education authority and the various voluntary societies.

For a few moments I should like to consider the various ways in which those two sides come together and meet. First of all, in the planning stages, the Report suggests that an advisory committee, on which the voluntary organisations are represented, should be available to advise the sub-committee of the education committee. Certainly this goes some way to ensuring co-operation; but, personally, I should prefer, if possible, a rather closer link between the voluntary organisations and the local education authorities—and, indeed, other persons interested in service to youth. I would suggest, if it were possible, that representatives should be co-opted on to the sub-committee itself, rather than forming an advisory committee.

The second sphere in which co-operation is obviously vital is the financial sphere. Local authorities are already providing finance for people attending training courses; towards the salaries of full-time leaders; towards expenditure on training and administration; towards building schemes; and towards the maintenance of buildings and equipment—and many of them are very generous. But, unfortunately, there is the most tremendous variation in the amount of money that different authorities devote to the Youth Service; and it seems to me that, if we are going to have a national drive, one of the major problems is going to be to "iron out" these differences and to ensure more uniformity throughout the country.

Some very interesting figures appear in Appendix 4 to the Report, giving, for the year 1957–58, the estimated expenditure per head of population for the fifteen to twenty age group. Between the various authorities, this estimated expenditure per head varies from 53s. down to as little as 1s. 6d. In fact, in the West Riding of Yorkshire alone it varies from 51s. down to 3s. I wonder how a national drive can be implemented unless there is some greater uniformity in the way in which local educational authorities act financially.

I cannot help for one moment drawing your Lordships' attention, while I am discussing these particular figures, to the fact that the average for England per head of the population is 15s., whereas in Wales it is 34s.—more than double. I think that the Welsh local education authorities deserve some praise for what they have done. But even so, the fact that a figure may be fairly reasonably high still does not mean that the particular local education authority is giving much money to the voluntary associations in its area. Some of them prefer to do all the work themselves, and not to assist the voluntary societies with finance; and that is another problem which I am sure will have to be considered.

My Lords, if the Albemarle Committee Report is adopted as it stands, there are one or two other ways in which the local education authorities will impinge on the work of the voluntary societies. One is in the training of leaders. Paragraph 276 suggests that those leaders who have completed five years' service to the satisfaction of the local education authority should be recommended to the Minister for recognition by the local education authority. It may be logical in the case of leaders employed by the local education authority, or even where they are fairly heavily subsidised by them, but it does not seem to me right in cases where a leader is employed by a voluntary society and whose salary is in no way supported by the local education authority. Also, there are area organisers employed by voluntary societies whose areas may cover several local education authority areas; and I think that, in general, there is here a danger of interference by the local education authority with the work of the voluntary organisations.

Equally, in paragraph 278, where the local education authority is given the supervision of the one year's probation which it is intended that a trained leader should do, I should think, again, that there might be some danger of overlapping and annoyance between the two bodies. It would seem to me that voluntary organisations which run their own system of training and supervision, especially where that system of training has been recognised by the Minister, should be given some authority to supervise their own employees and the probation period. No aspect of the Youth Service is more important than the training of leaders, for without them money spent on buildings and equipment is wasted; and I believe that it is vital that the voluntary system which has produced so many natural leaders should not be disturbed.

LORD PAKENHAM

My Lords, I am sure that what the noble Lord says has a great deal of force, but I imagine that he contemplates that supervision must be local or regional. It would not be enough to have supervision by the head office of a voluntary organisation.

LORD ABERDARE

My Lords, I understand that most voluntary organisations have their own systems for supervising leaders at present, and I should have thought that a reputable voluntary organisation could be left to do its own supervision. What I am anxious about is that leaders now working for voluntary organisations, who have a natural flair for organisation but may not be able to pass a specific training course, should be allowed still to be employed by voluntary organisations and still be able to exercise their natural abilities in the service of youth.

Secondly, it suggests in the Report that after the first five years' development period, local education authorities alone should make capital grants to voluntary youth groups. Speaking for the Y.M.C.A., I know that we should very much regret the ending of the Minister's grants under the Social and Physical Training Grant Regulations, which have worked very happily and have avoided that lack of uniformity which we fear, if capital grants were to become the exclusive property of local authorities. We hope that before the Minister gives up this power and hands it to the local authorities it will be given the most careful consideration, and that, at any rate, it will not be decided until after the first few years have shown how the local authorities have measured up to their other financial responsibilities.

Finally, I should like to say a few words about the character of the Service itself. I believe that the increased finance that is required is primarily needed to modernise it and bring it up to date, to get away from the conception of the dark, dingy hall with a few table-tennis tables to keep poor boys and girls off the streets, and to provide modern facilities for a modern generation that has money to spend. Membership is voluntary and we must attract members into the clubs. The buildings must be light and bright, and suitable activities must be enjoyed by young men and young girls together, without any segregation of sexes. Like many other noble Lords who have spoken, I believe that the young people themselves should be encouraged to take more part in planning programmes and the running of their clubs, and that we should encourage the many excellent schemes that exist for providing adventure.

If my noble friend Lord Monck will forgive me—he is very hard on Plato—I would, if I may, quote Themistocles: The wildest colts make the best horses. I am sure that this is true, and I believe that the more adventurous of our young people must be given an opportunity of significant achievement, otherwise there is a danger of their finding their adventure in the all too familiar gangs. If I may mention the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, I would inform your Lordships that only this morning His Royal Highness was handing out gold awards to those who had won them. May I please blow my Welsh trumpet again and add that of the four boys who gained awards for the Y.M.C.A., three came from Mountain Ash, my home town in South Wales?

I would echo the words of those who suggested that we must have high standards behind our Youth Service. It seems to me a wrong use of public money to provide dance halls and coffee bars if, in conjunction with them, there are no means of promoting those ethical standards which the Service should seek to impart. On the other hand, I see great advantage in modern clubs providing modern facilities against a background of good fellowship, self-help, co-operation and purpose. We can provide the money and the buildings, but ultimately the future of the whole Service will depend on individuals. It will depend on those who serve the Ministry and the local education authorities. It will depend on employers, parents, teachers and youth leaders. We shall get only the Youth Service we deserve and the Youth Service we are prepared to work for. It can reflect among youth only the standards of our own adult civilisation.

7.36 p.m.

LORD AUCKLAND

My Lords, as this valuable debate draws to its close I unhesitatingly preface my remarks by adding my tribute to Lady Albemarle and her Committee for this valuable Report, produced in such a relatively short time and so easy to read and understand. I know that I speak for all parts of the House when I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for instigating this debate.

Strictly speaking, Scotland is not covered by this Report, but having returned only this morning from my native country, which I visit too rarely nowadays, I should like to say a word or two about Scotland which is not irrelevant to the Report. I have just returned from Speyside, where there is a great deal of rambling, pony-trekking and other outdoor activities, in which not only the local youth but young people from all parts of the country on holiday indulge. During the ten days I was at Speyside together with my wife, I walked a bout 70 miles. This is not a great distance, but walking is an invigorating pastime, one of the finest in which one can indulge. I should like to see a great many more young people rambling and walking. As has been pointed out in the course of the debate, there is a tendency for young people to travel too much on "motor-bikes" or in sports cars and "do" a town, while the salubrious pastime of walking is all too little undertaken. The long life of health which our ancestors so often enjoyed was due, I am sure, largely to the fact that they could not rely on mechanised transport. They relied on "Shanks's pony" and were all the better for it.

LORD PAKENHAM

My Lords, I do not want to quibble, but on the average we live longer than our ancestors.

LORD AUCKLAND

My Lords, I should not like to be drawn into a battle of statistics with the noble Lord. But I think that it is true to say that, by and large, our ancestors enjoyed better health. However, that is a point for medical men to discuss, and there is no time to discuss it to-night. The noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, quoted from an interesting article in The Scotsman of May 14 on Alloa's Manhattan Youth Club. I happen to know Alloa a little. It is an interesting town, the largest town in the smallest county of Scotland. Brewing is one of its main activities, but there is also some lovely countryside round about, and it has this very thriving youth club. In the article is the following passage: One point of real significance is that the Manhattan's popularity was soon so overwhelming as to attract the critical notice of respectable citizens who would have preferred to do without the exuberant assemblies of young people en route to the club premises or to hear their loud and unmelodious noises which emerged. The adult committee members had to be strong-minded enough not to be deterred by this criticism and to resist firmly but graciously the quite strong social pressure of those of their acquaintances who would rather have seen the work not done at all. I detect here, rightly or wrongly, a rather scornful form of jealousy. After all, young people will be noisy. But if they are achieving something which may be valuable to the community, this noise is surely worth while; and it is better that the noise should come from a youth club which has been formed by a band of conscientious people rather than from a public-house. I quote that article in passing because I feel sure that throughout the country in due course many areas will follow Alloa's good example, even if they have not already done so.

As has been said, the problem of youth clubs is not necessarily one of money, but is also one of buildings. If there are builders in areas who would devote the time, and perhaps provide the materials, to instruct youngsters to build their clubs, I am sure they would co-operate. After all, money without the materials is ineffective. There are materials to be obtained. One has only to go into the countryside to see that there are often on dumps, rotting away, materials which could be used for building clubs. Possibly they would be of a somewhat Spartan nature, but young people frequently exist better under Spartan conditions. Another point I should like to make regarding young people concerns the Territorial Army and other auxiliary forces and organisations. In the Territorial Army one is not only soldiering: when one goes to camp there are organised sporting activities, such as cricket, or tennis sometimes, plus the normal training. It is extremely healthy, and I myself derived great benefit from it. From a fortnight at camp in a properly organised unit youngsters can derive considerable benefits.

There is one passage in the Report which has not, I think, been quoted—namely, paragraph 359, which urges consideration by adult societies or sports clubs of the idea of giving assistance to youth organisations in such activities as naturalist societies, brass bands and gliding clubs. This seems to me to be an eminently sensible paragraph—indeed, it is the one that caught my eye above all others when I read the Report. I hope that this particular paragraph, if it has not already been adopted by the Government, will be carefully considered. The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, mentioned young political organisations joining in activities which youth clubs normally perform, and as a past chairman of a young political organisation I entirely agree with him. As I say, rambling is one activity in which my organisation used to indulge. And there were also table tennis and other pastimes. By doing that we used to gather a large organisation of youngsters of both sexes, and a good time was had by all.

Finally the Church has done a great deal. In my area, the 17-plus group—that is, those youngsters between 17 and 25—are a thriving community. They, too, have their outdoor activities, such as rambling, and they have dancing; and they combine very valuable religious studies with these healthy activities. In conclusion, I would congratulate the Committee on this Report, and would particularly endorse their emphasis on the importance of the physical and outdoor activities. I hope that the Government will give every aid they can to every aspect of youth clubs and will certainly not neglect this side of it, because the health of the nation is, of course, most important.

7.48 p.m.

BARONESS RAVENSDALE OF KEDLESTON

My Lords, at this late hour I will not detain your attention except for a few moments on what I sense are some of the dangers which perhaps, during a long afternoon's debate, have not been stressed enough in the implementation of this admirable Albemarle Report. I entirely agree with most of the recommendations, and I thank the Government for the quick appraisal of them. I can only say: please God they will be implemented as quickly as possible! I can equally only trust that the local authorities will see how they can support the Report as speedily in the proposals put forward for them.

I sincerely want to see—and I said this previously in my maiden speech—a levelling up, and not a downgrading, of statutory grants, so that the unhappy voluntary clubs may know where they stand year to year and what they may receive. I sense somehow in my bones that it should not be at the whim of the borough council members to give according to their moods when in office. If the voluntary associations are struggling to combat all the evils to-day in the midst of our young people, could we not have an acknowledged sliding scale, according to the borough's status and its wealth? I know what has already been said about block and percentage grants. Equally the borough might look at how much it hauls off us as its borough citizens. It seems to me it should be a point of principle that from the whole wealth of the community a minimum total should anyhow go to Youth Clubs, as, after all, they are part and parcel of the body corporate.

As the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, said to-day, the local councils very often do nothing. Some have no youth committee or youth officer, some are mingy with an ill grace, and others give nothing at all. That rates the problem as "How cheap are your youngsters?". I will quote only one or two statistics for your Lordships to see the gross unevenness of distribution. Eastern England has the highest spending rate. One of the best areas is the Isle of Wight. In the Isle of Wight the teenage population is only 4,500, but they have fourteen youth centres entirely maintained by the council, two youth officers, two full-time leaders, and sixteen part-timers. Seven youth organisations on the island are assisted by the council.

But take Dorset as a comparison. With 21,000 teenagers they have no council-maintained centres and only one youth officer. A large number of clubs do get small financial aid. Devon and Cornwall are both without youth centres. Brighton has two youth centres for 11,000 teenagers; Hastings has none, but Eastbourne has two for 3,000 and Bournemouth has nine for 5,900. We know that the London County Council money is concentrated on youth centres, with seventeen maintained by the Council, but they have 250,000 teenagers. That is what I want to get levelled up in some way.

Though I plead for increased State aid, my grave fears lie in the danger—it has been hinted at by one noble Lord—that the local authorities may want to "boss the show" because of increased assistance to us. Do believe me, in all humility before your Lordships, with all your knowledge, when I say that in my long time, over 45 years now, working in youth clubs in the East End of London, I know that an ounce of genuine amateur zeal and the love of young people for themselves may be worth pounds of subsidised officialdom. For that reason I am uneasy about the training college. You cannot professionalise the running of youth and make it institutional. No amount of training courses will turn out voluntary or paid workers to pattern. Their whole outlook and heart must be in it. And high salaries, believe me, are not the be-all and end-all of youth workers; it is only that inner knowledge that must be blended into the training of these extra helpers we want so badly. If this ghastly unease continues for us, truly it will be a betrayal of our youth in local and ministerial policy.

Lady Albemarle has done our youngsters a truly great service in showing this up. It has been said often enough this afternoon and evening that we must act quickly and Her Majesty's Government must "cough up" the money. It is a fight against time and the increasing evils that are besetting the young to-day. With the increase of gangsterdom everywhere, we do not want to become a land of young gangsters and factional street brawlers, with the horrors—I am afraid some of them have come from America—which youngsters think amusing to copy and imitate. In this an overall vision must come about for the clubs of the future. I know that the Report only hinted at some of them.

Some of the lines which I think should be dealt with have already been mentioned much more earnestly and seriously, such as getting the parents interested in the clubs to which their sons and daughters go. I stress most earnestly the vital point of getting these clubs going with more self-government. I fear to-day that the dislike of tricky young people—and, my goodness! some of them are tricky—is this. They dislike being pushed around—I do not blame some of them—and drilled into activities for better or worse. I utterly endorse the view that with their high wages, they should pay more for what they get. It is their club. It is not charity, and they must have a share in it.

Equally, if I may say so, it is no good increasing the full-time leaders to 1,300 in 1966 unless they have this new vision of club running, in co-operation with the worthwhile members of those clubs who show talent in that line of administering the clubs with them. Equally, some young people will never be clubbable; they do not want anything of the sort. Therefore,. I plead for the development council to join with all those suggestions such as those which were so much desired by some noble Lords in this Chamber—increasing coffee bars under desirable control. Some youngsters will respond only to a place with no activities where they can lounge or relax, playing cards or darts, and not be hounded into a pattern from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., and from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.

After all, it has been rammed down our throats. For ages we have known that a vital percentage of our youth never enter clubs—only one in three ever come to them. These various suggestions might be one way of assisting them and not leaving them out in the cold. I am sure the development council is full of schemes on those lines, and this must be looked into. May I say this with all my heart? We must not look at the teenagers like the depressed classes of India or the untouchables. They are a part of our community, and it is shocking to me that we have suddenly discovered youth and that the Government and political Parties have suddenly woken up with a bang to its import.

But everything will fail if you infuriate the teenagers by manipulating and moulding them. They must see, and be made to see, how they can help our age and change our difficult times. The teenager must be made to see how he can serve society, especially while he has this big pay which either can moralise him or demoralise him for all time. The comparison in these high wages today is terrifying; when I look back at those that were earned in Stepney in 1917 it really is paralysing. And teenagers should be made to see that they must spend it on their clubs as well, and not only on gambling, gramophone records, girls, rock 'n' roll, slot machines and the "flicks". There, though, creeps in—it has been said often enough but I must repeat it because I feel it so strongly—the total lack of parental control and parental upbringing in these tragically difficult days. To my great grief, religion has gone out of the home; the total break-up of home life to-day, as I see it, is one of the great tragedies of what is happening to the pattern of our youth.

I did think originally, when I thought of this subject, that I would bring about grave displeasure to many of your Lordships, but so many of the noble Lords before me have broached this important matter that I now have greater courage in my hands. To my mind, the whole youth club status from 14 to 20 is totally wrong, and if I had been a dictator I would never have allocated grants to that age block only. I would take them now at school. I would go lower than the ages that some of your Lordships have mentioned. I would go down to 9 years old and let them come on up to 16 or 17 or even, if you like, 18 or 20.

It is interesting to note that the Report of the London County Council, on the Provision of Social and Recreational Facilities, mentions the responsibility of a local education authority for ensuring that social facilities are not confined to any particular age group. The responsibility is as heavy and as important in respect of boys and girls under 15 as it is for young people between the ages of 15 and 21. The London Youth Committee of the L.C.C. and the borough youth committees are charged with advising on the wellbeing of all children and young people between the ages of 5 and 21. My reaction to this is that if you cannot help a child in those malleable school years and cannot make a good citizen of him between those years of 9 to 19 or 20, you will never do anything with him. The lure of all the material, and often alas! worthless, outside entertainments that thrill youth in our Welfare State to-day—which, of course, we cannot and should not be expected to supply in our youth clubs—is debasing all of them, and the fight, to my mind, is quite hopeless in later years.

But there is nothing to stop old members' associations helping clubs like mine for old memories' sake, running things for the upkeep of the club and the football, or whatever it may be. I wish I could see the whole age-grouping for receiving statutory grants entirely chanced and the age limit lowered. Some people say, "If you lower the age group you must train special leaders; that is going to revolutionise the whole thing". I think that that is totally unnecessary. A great many clubs to-day, although it is not in the curriculum, take school children from nine years. My warden and his wife are working on these children before the juniors come in. We are all, in club life, better with juniors or seniors or adolescents. I am better with older girls than younger boys. That should not be a stumbling block if you take the younger age groups in. The storm can be weathered if your heart is in the right place. I am sad you do not nourish at an earlier date, though many clubs like mine do attempt it. We must attempt this new plan for youth clubs to drop down to an earlier start.

This country will have an unrivalled opportunity to see what it can make of its young people in the next few years if we do not dilly-dally on the way. After all, we have heard it said that this year 750,000 boys and girls will reach 15 years of age, and in 1962 we get another 929,000. It can be an enrichment, or a frittering, trailing-down, agonising problem where everybody loses courage. It comes back to these school years, to my mind, if it is not to be too late to do anything with them; take them into the clubs earlier.

Lastly, though I know it has not been mentioned very seriously, I think you cannot do anything with these young people, whether in the clubs or homes or schools, without bringing in religion and ethical principles, so that you may have some small chance to trounce and get rid of this lust and passion for money and sex in all the ghastly posters and Press to-day. We know clearly that puberty is occurring earlier. Many reach adolescence before 15. Look at the frightening thing of children of 12 and 13 having illegitimate children all over the country. Hence my plea for earlier club admittance and also a proper psychological study should be made by our doctors as to the why and wherefore of these physical changes in our youth to-day, and whether we can serve them as far up even as 20 years old. Lastly, I would appeal to the Minister and Her Majesty's Government to forget the 14 to 16 years old schedule and consider the earlier, more impressionable, years, thereby building up our youth against the ghastly temptation of the teenage period. The Report offers us dreams and such tremendous hopes. It is not a mechanical participation in an economic process, but a spiritual participation in a humanitarian process for these young people who, after all, are all the children of God.

8.8 p.m.

THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWELL

My Lords, I shall not keep you more than a very short time. My object in speaking at all was only in order to join my colleague in making clear the intimate concern of the Bishops with this debate, which touches our own work so closely, and to thank the noble Lord for introducing it. But as the day is not as young as it used to be I shall have to cut out a good deal that I meant to say.

There are some of us getting near the stage at which the problems of adolescence will seem to have been rather elementary compared with what happens to us at the other end, but those problems are real enough and painful enough at the time. It is an uneasy business to grow up. Some people never manage the job at all. As has been pointed out, there are many physical and social factors at work to-day to render it more than usually difficult. At the same time there is very little support forthcoming to-day from an affluent but unconvinced society which acknowledges hardly any non-material values. An egalitarian society which accepts everybody equally on achievement is also a society which rejects people who fail to make the grades it requires. And it does that rather cruelly early in life.

There are many boys and girls with a failure complex, either about the 11-plus or at some much deeper level, debilitated by a sense of guilt, embittered by a feeling of resentment, who are trying to find some significance in life by their curious tribal cults and aggressive behaviour, or to get their own back and take revenge by violent crime. The so-called Teddy Boys are the "status-seekers" in our mainly quantitative society which has hardly any room or status for persons as persons. Among the influences which help people to find some conviction, some meaning in life, some personal fulfilment, I think it is true that, apart from the home and the church, the most potent is the youth club—and how pitifully inadequate is our provision at present!

In my own diocese there are several housing estates in which there is a population of 13,000 adolescents at a time, all dressed up and with almost nowhere to go. Some of them have become juvenile delinquents because they cannot find anything else to do. Though the churches and the local authorities are working together and doing the best they can, we are at present only gnawing at the rind of the problem; and the same is true in the country as a whole. I am sure that no responsible Government in this country will ever propose to organise a nationalised youth movement, and any approach that is going to meet the need will have to be, as it is now, pluralistic, experimental, even opportunist and personal. And almost everything depends, it seems to me, on full and trustful co-operation between the statutory and voluntary enterprises in this field, both at the national and local level.

Among voluntary associations the churches have certainly earned their right to be listened to, consulted, and taken into partnership. There are 280,000 boys and girls in organisations sponsored by the Church of England, to which must be added the quite substantial number served by the Roman and Free Churches. That is a high proportion of the whole. We could have done much more, and done it much better, if we had not been so starved for money. The Report and Government statements hold out strong hope of a more generous and constructive approach, and of increased grants in aid to churches and voluntary bodies, for equipment, buildings and so forth. Of course we welcome that with a lively sense of favours to come. But is anything really going to happen?

I do not question—nobody questions—the Minister's intention, or the honourable motives of the Government. But what is going to happen at local authority level? I want to press this question on Her Majesty's Government. Out of every £1 in the Education Estimates one penny so far has been "recklessly" spent on the Youth Service. But already in the local councils there are complaints about the increased cost of education. Already there are rumours in some councils of intentions to cut down, rather than increase, grants-in-aid for youth work. I hope that the Government will make plain that that is not in accordance with national policy, but will also give the local authorities information and guidance as to how much help they can look for from the Treasury, and how they can use local money to maintain and extend the Youth Service. A great deal of planning is held up at the moment for lack of more and fuller information from the top. I am sure that, unless we get much more definition than we have had so far, not very much is going to happen at all.

There is one further point. It is not enough merely to provide for the extension of the organisations and facilities which exist at present. There is a tremen- dour need for pioneer experiment. All through history in the field of social service the function of the Church has been to be the pioneer, and there is a great deal of pioneering wanted now. There are thousands of boys and girls who have not been reached, and never will be reached, by existing methods of approach, most of which are far too restrictive. There are exciting new possibilities of experiment among the so-called "Teddy boys", and there are various parishes up and down the country—I could quote four or five in downtown Nottingham—where the local parson has known how to make his contacts; and groups of these boys and girls are now beginning to come to church. But, of course, there are hundreds of thousands who do not, and perhaps never will. But I think that little is going to be done along the conventional and highly respectable lines of past approach. We need creative, imaginative experiment. What I am asking is that grants-in-aid shall be forthcoming for admittedly unproved pioneer experimental work, to make it possible for a club to come into existence without being asked to fill up forms stating the number of members they have and what activities are provided. They have not got the members, and they want to go out and get them; and work of that kind is enormously expensive in equipment and professional salaries.

Finally, neither buildings nor money are the heart of the problem. The heart of the problem is leadership. The vital point on which everything else depends is the recruitment and training of leaders, men and women, for all types of work, both as professionals and as volunteers. I hope that the Minister, in consultation with the clergy and voluntary bodies, will put out a strong call for people who offer themselves for this service, and not least the young people themselves. Because, as a headmaster said to me the other day: "In order to win the trust of a boy you do not want to offer to help him. You want to ask him to help you."

8.23 p.m.

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM)

My Lords, we have had a fairly wide-ranging debate, and references to or quotations from Plato, Ecclesiastes, St. Thomas Aquinas, Bracton, Themistocles, and mens sana in corpore sano; and after such a feast I wonder whether we really want a Government reply. If it were not for the necessity of tradition, I suppose the noble Lord would suggest that we could dispense with that. But we have just concluded a debate which forms the last of a series of debates which, whether by design or chance, has covered almost the entire spectrum of education, with the exception of the all-important subject of primary education and perhaps the nursery schools. I cannot help feeling that we have done a great work by taking up this question in so much detail week after week. Nor can I think of any other subject more suitable for a consistent scrutiny of this kind in your Lordships' House.

I will not spend much time complimenting the noble Lord who introduced this Motion. We have known each other too long—

A NOBLE LORD: Too long?

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

—but there has been no more consistent or enthusiastic contributor to these debates than the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham; and there are few Peers who are listened to with greater pleasure. To-day has been no exception. The noble Lord, like myself, naturally casts his mind back to the occasion, just over a year ago, when he introduced his Motion on the subject before the Albemarle Committee had reported. I feel that that Report has fulfilled the hope which I ventured to express for it at the end of that debate. I Said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 213, Col. 1081]: I cannot close without expressing my own hope that the Report, when it comes, will do much not merely to clear the air but to restore status, coherence, morale, and self-confidence to a Service which has, not without some cause, felt itself neglected over the years. In the last resort it is public opinion which will be the determining factor in securing recognition, by the Government and by the public, both of the Service and its leaders. The Report of the Committee will play an indispensable part in the formation of public opinion. The various tributes which have been paid in the debate this afternoon to the Report of the Albemarle Committee ensure, I believe, that that hope will be fulfilled and, in fact, guarantee that it has been fulfilled.

I feel it is abundantly plain that in the minds of your Lordships and in the intention of my right honourable friend and of the Government the time has come for a great step forward in the history of the Youth Service. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for his generous acknowledgment of the prompt action of my right honourable friend iri accepting the Report in principle on the very next day—which I am told is an event without precedent in the history of British government. At any rate, we all accept the aim, prompted partly by the ending of National Service and by the much larger numbers of young people in the relevant age groups, to double the number of those making use of the Service and thus raising it from 1 million to 2 million. This is fundamentally a practical aim, although a great number of theoretical considerations have rightly been canvassed, and the Albemarle Report was intended to be a practical Report, produced, as it was, by the noble Lady and her colleagues in almost record time for a document of its size and weight.

The debate this afternoon has ranged over a number of general topics, and I should like to divide what I have to say into two main groups of observations. First, I would make one or two general reflections of my own, and then relate them to the expressed policy of the Government and to some of the criticisms that have been levelled either at the Government or at the Report during the course of the debate. By the Education Act, 1944, the Youth Service is an integral part of the education service of the country; but there are important differences which cannot be overlooked, which differentiate the Youth Service from the system of formal education which we have been discussing in some of our other debates.

Although it is not a theoretical difference, I will mention first what may be the most important distinction of all: the fact that the Youth Service is incomparably a much younger Service—much younger, that is, in terms of national organisation. I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who referred to the fact that in its present form it was born only 21 years ago, in 1939; and much of that time, as several noble Lords have pointed out, has been years of comparative stagnation. It has not, as formal education has, a century of development behind it; and I very much agreed in one sense with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in this connection: that in relation to it we are probably somewhere about the place we were in in 1880 in relation to formal education. Unlike the schools, its traditions and assumptions have not yet built themselves up by experience into a coherent body of expertise. I would even say that we have not yet clearly made up our minds as to what, in a democracy, a Youth Service is for; for whom it is to cater; how it is to be financed; what it has to aim at; and in what sense precisely it is education. Secondly, I would say that, although it is an integral part of the Youth Service as it is, there is a sense in which the instructional element is a by-product, just as the Service itself is voluntary.

As I think the right reverend Prelate who has just addressed the House said, in rather different words, it would of course be much easier if we lived under a dictatorship. Hitler had what some people might have considered an admirable Youth Service—that is, if one assumes, to begin with, that it is the function of the State to inculcate spiritual values and that the Youth Service should be used for this purpose, and if one also disregards the fact that the spiritual values inculcated were utterly abhorrent to our own. But is it only the fact that they were abhorrent to our own that makes the model the unsuitable model it is? Like the right reverend Prelate, I would think not.

To begin with, spiritual values are things which in the first place religious communities in this country like to feel they themselves have the duty to inculcate; and a State whose citizens are divided among many and often, to some extent, mutually adverse religious denominations cannot easily, or without reflection, decide in what way they are to hand over public money to religious organisations; especially as any good religious movement must contain, of necessity, a proselytising element much more than is nowadays the case with a school. Moreover—and I say this with the greatest of delicacy towards those who have taken a slightly different view—I would say that spiritual values are often taught better by not being rammed down people's throats. The young are suspicious of propaganda. In my opinion they are rightly so. And I do not think that those young people who, like myself, are also very easily bored by propaganda, even when not actively disliking it, ought merely for that reason to be deprived of the use of the Youth Service. I would have said, obviously not.

But if not, then we come to something very like the present organisation, based on a partnership between Government, local authority and voluntary bodies, not dependent entirely on public funds for finance, and discovering to some extent its peculiar philosophy and ethos as it goes along. This probably makes, I would agree, for rather slower development than a nice tidy social service entirely financed out of public funds. Yet in the long run it may produce something more serviceable and suitable for a free society. It was for that reason that, although I listened with immense respect to those numerous noble Lords and right reverend Prelates, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Ravensdale of Kedleston—whose speech I so much enjoyed—when they criticised paragraph 143 of the Report, and although I accepted many of their arguments and assumptions, I thought on the whole that the Report had steered effectively its delicate course between the benefits of the purposeful and committed organisations, whose value they recognised, and the hard fact that many young people would be suspicious of approaches made directly and expressly on denominational and even on spiritual values.

I say that because I am one of those who feel very strongly on two basic matters. Those who belong to the committed organisations, and those who have spoken for them this afternoon, have justified themselves. In the first place, no impartial person listening to your Lordships' debate would fail to realise that, of those who spoke with experience of youth movements and organisations of one sort and another, by far the greater number of those who thus spoke were, in fact, themselves active Christians or believers in some religious creed.

LORD PAKENHAM

Hear, hear!

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

Whatever can be said against those of us who have religious faith in this country, whatever theoretical objections can be brought against our metaphysics by the so-called scientific humanists, it is the Christians who do the work. This is a fact which cannot in the least be denied, and it has been exemplified this afternoon. It is one of the reasons why, in public life, in the great political Parties, there are a higher proportion of religious people than there are in the population at large; and it is one of the reasons why, when we get a particularly important and valuable kind of social work which yields very little reward and recognition, in practice we find the Christians and religious people doing it. Whether this be a justification or guarantee of the validity of our metaphysics or not, it is an observable fact.

The second thing is that I am personally deeply convinced that those who have spoken in this sense are exactly right in claiming, as they do, as their fundamental premise, that you cannot found a successful national community except upon the rock of individual character; and by that I mean, above all things, firm adherence to those primary virtues of integrity, courage, self-restraint in sexual and other matters, temperance and love of one's fellow man. And I believe, as a fact, that it is true that these things cannot be cultivated, except in the most remarkable cases, of which there are a few, probably known to all of us, without a direct and conscious approach to the deep wells of Grace and religious inspiration.

But, for all that, my Lords, I would say that in approaching the problem of a social service of this kind the Report was right in steering the course which I have mentioned; and, in a sense, the various social benefits which come from the practice of the virtues, and from the acquisition of a religious philosophy of life, come precisely from them, in relation to a service of this kind, because in one sense they are by-products.

The object of the Service is very largely recreation. And it would be quite wrong, and quite foreign to the whole philosophy of the thing, to regard the recreation as a sort of sugar coating to a pill of spiritual indoctrination which it was thereby hoped the young people would swallow. It may sound odd for a Minister to defend, and even advocate, that a State should spend money on fun, fun of the young, who already have so much money to spend themselves—nearly £1,000 million a year, as I think my noble friend, Lord Feversham, said; and on the whole I think it is odd. But it remains true. Make the Youth Service attractive enough, and hope that the young people will be queuing up to join it and very largely finance it out of their own earnings. Of course that means making it a good deal more attractive than it is now in many respects; and it also means giving the movement a management which has no flavour of authoritarianism in its character.

It also means, I think, sometimes, a little less conscious indoctrination than many people would like to see. But in the end I would say that that approach would yield dividends, even on the purely spiritual plane. It is, after all, impossible to run societies effectively and not for profit without developing precisely those qualities, associated with a sense of social responsibility, which the theologians call virtues, and which the good label with somewhat formidable and unattractive names such as integrity, courage, temperance and self-restraint.

My Lords, there is not one way only of developing the Youth Service, but several—and here I come to a somewhat formidable criticism which has been formulated from a good many quarters during the course of the debate: that, in dealing with the Youth Service, we should begin at an age earlier than the recommended 14. One noble Lord (I think it was my noble friend Lord Monck) suggested that we should end earlier, and that we should go down in the age scale either to 12 or, I think the noble Lady said, to an even earlier age. I think there is a good deal in this attitude of mind; and it is certainly true, I think, that inside the Ministry of Education the Division of the Ministry concerned with the various voluntary organisations is in fact organised in that way, as one body. I would myself think that, on the whole, it was more rational to look at the complete spectrum of youth and recreation from the earliest years up to full adult life as a single whole, to be examined in relation to a single set of criteria. But I think we have inevitably, in the present context, to face the issue of priority.

That is to some extent a tribute—although perhaps it is a tribute which noble Lords will appreciate less than some others which have been paid—to the success of movements such as the Scouts and Guides, which were spoken of with knowledge both by the noble Lord, Lord Baden-Powell, and by my noble friend Lord Buckinghamshire, that they are so much better organised (and, indeed, to some extent, better endowed) than some of the services for the group which we have been discussing particularly this afternoon, the 14s to 20s. I would say that the urgent priority at the moment is to develop the services for the 14s to 20s, not because they stand out sub specie œternitatis, as more important than the earlier groups, but probably because they are less well organised as matters stand. I think, therefore, that it is inevitable, for one reason or another, although I would not in the least claim any ultimate truth behind the arbitrary categorisation of the Youth Service as limited to either 14 or 15, that to some extent my right honourable friend should concentrate in his present plans upon this particular range of people.

Now the speeches have ranged over a great number of the individual proposals. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and other speakers, endorsed the proposal for a national college for the training of youth leaders, although I understood that my noble friend Lady Ravensdale of Kedleston had some hesitations about the matter. It will be known that the college is being set up in Leicester, and that it is hoped to start the first course with one-year full-time students next January. A governing body is being constituted now. The post has been advertised, and a principal will be appointed soon. It is hoped to have 90 students, men and women, in the first year, and 140 a year thereafter for four more years. The setting up of this college for five years on full Exchequer grant is perhaps the best indication of the Government's seriousness about the Youth Service.

The aim, as the noble Lord has told us, is to increase the number of full-time leaders from 700 now to 1,300 in five years' time; and there is no intention that the college courses should be substandard. Other full-time courses will continue at Westhill Training College and Swansea University College, and a number of three-year teacher training colleges will include youth leadership in their courses. I think we can say without qualification that we endorse the emphasis which has been laid by so many noble Lords upon the prime necessity for quality in youth leadership as a condition of the advance and success of the Service.

Secondly, the noble Lord, and I think my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood and some other speakers, raised legitimate questions about the youth leaders' salaries and qualifications. My Lords, the right settlement of these questions, we should agree, is important for the future of the Service. Informal discussions between the officers of the Ministry, local authority associations, youth leader associations, and voluntary interests, are almost complete, and formal meetings should be possible soon so that negotiations can begin. We regard it as important that youth leaders should have professional standing and dignity. It is equally necessary to ensure that most of them will be able to transfer without difficulty to other professions—including not only teaching, but also other kinds of social service—after a period in the Youth Service.

LORD PAKENHAM

May I ask the noble Viscount one question? I do not know whether it is one to which it is fair to expect an answer this evening, but it is going to be difficult, particularly for these one-year people, to be guaranteed work in teaching, because they will not be qualified as teachers. The difficulty will be to get them started, it seems to me.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

That is obviously correct, unless, of course, they happen to be graduates. But it is obviously a matter that we must consider, among other problems. I should perhaps add that the Government have every hope that suitable negotiating machinery will be set up very soon, so that appropriate scales of salary and conditions of service may be worked out which will be acceptable and will ensure the result which the Albemarle Committee rightly regard as essential.

My Lords, great stress has rightly been put upon buildings. This is one of the things which I think, in many ways, needs changing most. I entirely agree with the noble Lords who have said (I forget which noble Lords in particular; I think it was my noble friend Lord Aberdare who laid most stress upon it) that a good building, in keeping with modern days and standards, is, after leadership, the surest guarantee that one can have of adequate membership. The Government have announced, as a beginning, a £3 million programme of starts for the period 1960–62. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and I think my noble friend Lord Monck, criticised this figure as inadequate, and I should be the first to agree that it was arbitrary in character. But no one knew, and no one yet knows, the real strength of the pent-up demand, and what, given all other commitments, can genuinely be started in the first period.

Requests from local authorities and voluntary organisations for the inclusion of projects in the programme are now being sifted and assessed. The programme will not be allocated wholly to those who have always placed importance on the Youth Service and are quick off the mark, to the detriment of those who ought to do most and are slow to start. A firmer estimate of the needs will be available later; but, at the outset, there had to be some kind of figure. In a sense, it was a "shot in the dark", and in that sense I would not say that £3 million was at all unreasonable. After all, it is £3 million of starts on the ground, and it does take time for local education authorities to get projects through all the committee stages, planned, and started.

I also attach a good deal of importance to my right honourable friend's decision to help with research into the best and most economic planning of buildings for the Youth Service by, among other things, putting the Ministry's Architects and Building Branch in charge of a particular project. They hope to bring out a general bulletin on Youth Service building within about a year, and another one about the actual project about a year later. Buildings for dual purpose, where Youth Service needs can sensibly be combined with other uses, will be encouraged—for example, youth club wings attached to secondary schools or community centres. Moreover, club buildings can sometimes be used for other purposes—for instance, by old people's associations in the afternoons. The typical Youth Service centre, which is in many cases an integral part of a secondary school building or situated on the site, may have a hall of about 2,500 square feet; a common room, with canteen or coffee bar, of some 1,000 square feet or more; one or two large rooms for activities, such as crafts and dressmaking; one or two small rooms for discussion groups and the use of tape recorders; a small office for the people running the club; a kitchen, and the usual cloakroom facilities. All in all, it may provide about 7,000 square feet of space and provide in as flexible a way as possible for the changing tastes of a membership of from 150 to 200 young people. Other clubs have special features when a permanent need becomes evident—for instance, there may be a large open covered space where motor-cycles may be repaired and tinkered with.

I come to the various aspects of the question of finance. I doubt whether the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, was entirely just to the noble Lady in the criticism which he launched against the Report that it did not put a particular figure on the cost of its proposals. I cannot see how this could be done. The noble Lord will be aware that the noble Lady considered this with care and gave her reasons in the Report for not doing so. The Committee said (page 96): We have not the materials from which to frame an answer to this question. We have not recommended a single standard pattern for all Youth Service activities to be adopted in all areas and achieved by a fixed date. Instead we have suggested the broad lines on which we believe that the Service can appropriately be developed, recognising that much must be left to local initiative and that there must be room for experiment. The cost of the Youth Service in future years will, therefore, depend on the decisions to be taken by the various bodies concerned with its development, and above all on the vigour with which the nation responds to the new concepts outlined in our Report. In our opinion, the cost of the Service needs to be judged by two criteria:

1. (1) the benefits which it may be expected to bring to the nation as a whole; and
2. (2) the cost of the other comparable social services for which the nation has made itself responsible, in particular the standards and scale of the provision made for those remaining in full-time education after the age of 15".

More money will be available this year for capital grants to local voluntary organisations. The Ministry grant is normally 50 per cent. of the total cost, although this figure may be reduced, so that not more than 75 per cent. of the total cost is met by grant when the Ministry grant is combined with the local authority grant; but special cases—for example, clubs in new towns or in some new housing estates—will be looked at on their merits. Increased grants for headquarters and training expenses are now being given to the national voluntary organisations already in receipt of grant, and for the first time to some others. There is some criticism because in some cases the actual amounts are less than the recipients were expecting. However, although more money is available, the amount is limited, and the Minister expects increased Government aid to be at least matched by increased amounts of voluntary effort.

I was a little doubtful about the noble Lord's criticism of the Youth Service Development Council. The Council meets under the chairmanship of my right honourable friend and has now held two meetings. Some local education authorities and voluntary interests still view it with suspicion, suspecting the composition and purpose of the Council. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, criticised it for not carrying enough weight. But after a long period of inactivity, the Service is in need of new thought, and the members of the Council have been chosen not for their organisational affiliations but for their knowledge of young people to-day. The old and valued links between the Ministry and the local education authorities and between the Ministry and the voluntary organisations will remain as strong as ever, but the Development Council fills a different need. If I may, I should like to quote a sentence or two from the announcement of the membership of the Council. The Government has now provided the means whereby the Youth Service can be expanded. In partnership with the Ministry, the local education authorities and the voluntary organisations will be busy achieving practical results with the resources now provided. All need to profit by the advice and continued fresh thinking of a group of knowledgeable and experienced individuals who can watch and encourage developments over the whole field, who can think about general trends, assess the worth of the experiments that are being undertaken and communicate the results to others. It is chiefly for this purposo that the new Council has been brought into being. At present approximately one million young people use the facilities of the Youth Service. The aim is to attract two million young people between the ages of 14 and 20 into using and enjoying the many and varied facilities that come under the umbrella of the Service. But as it is not intended to try to impose the Service on any young people—there would be failure if this were tried—a better understanding of their leisure-time needs and the practical ways in which they can be helped must be sought. This in turns means changing some aspects of the Youth Service and adding new elements to it, and the Development Council, with their combined wisdom and common sense, and understanding of young people, will be a great help in this task. The Council will be asked to consider the general plan of development, to make a broad assessment of the extent to which policy is being implemented and the effectiveness of this policy, to suggest new lines worth pursuing and to identify gaps in the programme of work. The Council have already begun their task. My right honourable friend has told me that he has been most impressed at the two meetings so far by the wisdom and enthusiasm which they have shown for their work, and he is satisfied that the new body will perform a most valuable function. They have already advised my right honourable friend on some applications for grants for experiments and special purposes, of which several noble Lords have stressed the need; have set up a sub-committee on publicity and information; and have discussed the form of the proposed Ministry building project. As their work becomes better known, my right honourable friend feels sure that the council will be better appreciated. More than half the members have close experience of the Youth Service or are still working in it.

The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, also raised the question of grant. It is only natural that my right honourable friend should be urged by many people to make a special percentage grant for the Youth Service. This, as the noble Lord frankly admitted, would, of course, be contrary to the Government's general grant policy. The main reason advanced by the critics is the need to have a weapon for dealing with laggard and recalcitrant local education authorities. But in our system of education I think that there is bound to be some unevenness of development. The Government must rely to some extent on its leadership and on persuasion. The main financial safeguard for the Youth Service is that, as announced in Circular 3/60 on the building programme, expenditure on the Youth Service, and the need to develop it, will be taken into consideration when the amount of general grant for the next period is fixed. I must, of course, emphasise, from my own small knowledge of the Ministry, that there are more means besides a percentage grant of inducing local education authorities to follow the general policy of development which a Ministry may have in mind.

There were some recommendations which wore not accepted. For instance, it was not accepted that local authorities should include their proposals for the Youth Service directly in their development plan. But they will be asked to consider fully and urgently how best to expand their own Youth Service, even though the formal plans of development will not be formally revised. Several noble Lords have quite rightly and properly emphasised the advantageous effects of a healthy Youth Service on juvenile delinquency, but I think there was a little wisdom in some of the cautionary remarks we heard from my noble friends. We do not want the theory to get abroad, either that the youth of this country is composed entirely of young criminals—that is not true—or that the Youth Service is designed specially as a reclamation service. It is, in fact, as one noble Lord said—I think it was my noble friend Lord Baden-Powell—that the Youth Service is an ordinary part of the social services of the country, designed for ordinary and normal young men and women, and it would be disastrous if the idea got abroad that it was not designed precisely for that. If in fact it has a by-product, as it very likely may, in the reduction of juvenile delinquency, that is well in accordance with all our desires and in accordance with the Government's intention.

My right honourable friend recognises the importance of voluntary effort, and he has more than once stated that he will regard the present activities on the part of the Government as a failure if they are not matched by equal effort on the voluntary side. This point has been stressed by several speakers in the debate, and notably by the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood. The Standing Conference of National Voluntary Youth Organisations is aware of this and agrees with my right honourable friend's attitude; and I am happy to say that, according to all the information in my possession, the relations between that body and the Ministry are extremely good. So are the relations between many local standing conferences and their local education authorities. A few local education authorities would do well to do more to encourage and consult with the voluntary partners in their own particular area, and it is, by a like token, up to the voluntary representatives in each area to make every effort to co-operate with the local education authority.

Here I should like to endorse what my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood said about the appeal on behalf of the voluntary bodies. The outstanding effort on the voluntary side this year is, of course, the national appeal launched by the Duke of Gloucester last month for money for King George's Jubilee Trust funds. The Trust makes a most valuable contribution on the voluntary side, and the Government offer every encouragement and applause to its work.

The Government's acceptance of the main recommendations of the Report that we have been discussing was a unique event, and people may in consequence have been led to expect miracles in a short period. But it must, of necessity, take some time to establish a solid basis for advance after many years of comparative neglect, and the fact that the Minister has not yet made many formal announcements does not mean in any way that the Youth Service is being let down or that he is not fully behind the work that is being done. A great deal of preparatory work is going on, much of which has been discussed this afternoon, and my right honourable friend will make announcements and issue more circulars in the very near future. I can only assure the House that the Government fully intend to prime the pump properly (if I may use one of the most painful clichés of contemporary usage) for the advance of the Youth Service in the next few years, and we are all determined that each step in the advance shall be a real one.

9.5 p.m.

LORD PAKENHAM

My Lords, the noble Viscount has given us a full and fair reply, and I certainly do not wish to continue the argument at this hour, which is late by any standards, including our own. I would, of course, thank him sincerely, not only for what he was good enough to say about me but for the whole tenor of his remarks, and I should like to join in those thanks, as I know we all should, the noble Lord, Lord Craigton. The next time we have a debate of this kind—though I hope we shall not have to wait until my grandchildren are grown up—we will give him something to answer for Scotland, which I know he will deal with most effectively. I would, as I initiated this debate, thank also all who have taken part in it; and perhaps those who are not actually with us will allow me to take their thanks for granted. I indicated in my earlier remarks, I think, that we expected great things from the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, from the noble Earl, Lord Feversham, from the noble Lord, Lord Monck, and from the right reverend Prelates, and all those pleasures were in fact forthcoming. I should also like to thank those whom I did not mention at that time—namely, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, the noble Earl, Lord Buckinghamshire, the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, and my noble Leader, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough.

I feel that the debate has revealed an exceptional knowledge and profound interest in this question among all your Lordships, and certainly I feel much honoured at having been allowed to set it going. I must not, I suppose, pick and choose, but I do not think I have been so much moved in this House for a long time as I was by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Ravensdale of Kedleston, whose speech will be long remembered by me and, I am sure, by many others. I am glad that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made reference to the fact that certain noble Lords and noble Ladies have given what one might call a lifetime—but I have never liked that expression, because it suggests that life is drawing to a close: I will say half a lifetime—to these subjects. That came out clearly in many speeches, and most notably of all, perhaps, in the speech of the noble Baroness.

I will not continue the argument on the administration side with the noble Viscount. I thought that in the nature of things it was going to be difficult for him to add much to our financial information this evening. I know that, in the circumstances, he did everything in his power. He said that all these matters are still under discussion. I felt that there was one note, which was struck most strongly of all by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, supported in the best possible way by the noble Baroness and by the noble Earl, Lord Feversham—the religious note. Of course, there is no one better qualified to respond to that, as he did indeed, than the noble Viscount.

May I close with the kindness of the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, in calling your Lordships' attention to one of his favourite passages from the Book of Isaiah. Incidentally, it was a pleasure to me when the noble Earl, Lord Craven, was speaking, and began to quote St. Thomas Aquinas, that he met with much approval from the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. I felt that this evening the denominational bonds were snapped, and that we were all one in the Christian effort. I should like to read these words which I think sum up the spirit of the whole debate, and which have been called to my attention by the noble Viscount: Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint". I feel that those most profound thoughts are the thoughts in the minds of the whole House this afternoon, and I beg leave, with many thanks to all who have taken part, to withdraw this Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.