Sitting of 3 June 1948

Preamble
The House met at four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.
  ST. HELENS CORPORATION (ELEC- TRICITY AND GENERAL POWERS) BILL.
  Read 2a.
IPSWICH CORPORATION BILL.
Read 2a.
SMETHWICK CORPORATION BILL.
Read 2a.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD AMMON: My Lords, perhaps I may be permitted to make a statement on the business for to-day. It is proposed that we shall sit until 7.30 o'clock, adjourn for dinner until 9 o'clock, and after resumption sit until about 11 p.m. We shall then be able to judge by the progress of business whether we shall have to ask your Lordships to sit late on Monday

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (DEVELOPMENT CHARGE) REGU- LATIONS, 1948.
TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (DEVELOPMENT CHARGE) (SCOTLAND) REGULATIONS, 1948.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, I beg to move that the Special Orders, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on May 12 last, be approved. The development charge regulations, of which there are two—one applying to England and Wales and one to Scotland, lay down the general principles which the Central Land Board must follow in determining development charges. One of the main principles of the Act is to vest all development values in the State and to reduce land to its existing use value. In order to achieve this proposition, the Act enables all valuation resulting from permission to develop to be
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collected by the Central Land Board in the form of a development charge. The Act leaves the amount of this charge to be settled by the Board, with no right of appeal, but Section 70 (2) requires the Board to have regard to the amount by which the value of land with the benefit of planning permission exceeds the value without it. The general principles to be followed by the Board in making their calculation are laid down in the Schedule to the regulations. These principles are based upon the assumption, to which I shall return in a moment, that the Board must charge the full amount of the increase in value attributable to planning permission.
The first principle, which is considered the governing principle, is that the development charge must be fixed at a level which will enable the land to be freely bought and sold at its existing use value. Paragraph (2) makes it plain that the Board must not charge more than the difference, calculated by normal principles of valuation between the value with and the value without planning permission. Paragraph (3) might seem at first sight to involve a contradiction. It provides that the development charge shall not be less than the amount referred to in Paragraph (2) unless, in the opinion of the Board, it ought properly to be less in order to comply with the governing principle. What it does in fact is to give the Board a certain discretion to depart from accepted valuation principles where they are not truly applicable. I must admit that I cannot at the moment give your Lordships an example of the kind of case which may arise, but undoubtedly the Board will meet exceptional problems, and this paragraph will enable them to deal with them. Paragraph (4) provides for modifications to the governing principle in its application to certain particular classes of land. Normally the bottom value for calculation of development charge is existing use value, but for a number of special classes of land in Part VIII of the Act—for example, land held on charitable trust and land of statutory undertakings—the intention of the Act is that the owner shall be entitled to something more than existing use value. For example, in the case of land held on charitable trust the bottom value for the purposes of calculating development charge will be its value for use prevailing in the locality. The Central Land Board are, therefore, given power in these special

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cases, where full application of the governing principle would produce results contrary to what the Act intends, to modify the governing principle as they think fit.
I have said that these general principles are based on the assumption that the Board must charge the full amount of the increase in value attributable to planning permission. This is not quite the conception which most of your Lordships had in mind when the Bill was before your Lordships' House, and I shall be asked how I reconcile this assumption with the statements made at that time about the desirability of having a flexible development charge. I may say at once that, as the Minister stated last week in a debate in the other place, there have been second thoughts on this subject. The view of the Department and of the Central Land Board is now that the flexibility we want can be secured by the normal processes of valuation. In valuing a planning permission to put up a particular kind of building, the valuer must have regard to all the relevant circumstances. If the building is going up in a locality where it is difficult to persuade developers to build, this factor will be reflected in the valuation, and the development charge will automatically be lower than it would be in, a locality where there was keen competition to develop. The flexibility will be there, but it will be in the valuation, and not in the percentage of development values that they will charge.
I will not detain your Lordships much longer, but there is one other explanation that I ought to give to prevent misunderstanding. I promised in Committee that I would do my best to see that provision was made, in calculating the development charge, for having regard to works carried out by the owner which enhance the development value of the land. I am sure there will be no difficulty about allowing the ordinary course of valuation for expenditure on improvements carried out after the appointed day. But the view of the Department is now that the right way to deal with expenditure before the appointed day is to give the owner special treatment under the scheme for distributing the £300,000,000. Any claimant who considers that part of the development value of his land is due to improvements which he has carried out at his own expense will
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be able to include a statement to that effect in his claim, and provision has been made for this to be done in the claims form. In this way, account will be taken of such expenditure. With that explanation I beg to move that these regulations be now approved.
Moved, That the Special Orders, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on the 12th of May last, be approved.—(Lord Henderson.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I suppose there was not a single member of your Lordships' House who took part in the discussions on this Bill when it originally came before us who was not considerably surprised to see this Order drafted in the way that it has been. When we were discussing these matters, on several of the Amendments we tried to raise we were told, for instance in regard to having some arbitration procedure, that that would be far too rigid, and it would be easier to leave the matter in the hands of the Central Land Board so that they could make the development charge flexible—making it perhaps 100 per cent. where they wanted no developments to take place, or, we understood, as low as 40 or 50 per cent. where they particularly wanted to push on with development. I do not think the noble Lord will say that I am in any way misinterpreting what was the understanding in the House when this Bill came before us. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack said:
"But we have differed from them "—
that is, from noble Lords on these Benches—
"in two respects. First of all, instead of saying that the landowner was to have to pay only 80 per cent., so that he shall have some inducement in developing we have this idea of the Central Land Board, which gives very much greater elasticity; instead of a rigid 80 per cent. in each case you get more elasticity, which I think is good."
Now we are faced with a regulation which says that it is 100 per cent. in every case, which perhaps the Lord Chancellor thinks is bad, because it certainly shows no elasticity whatsoever in this matter.
Now we come to the explanation given by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, who said that flexibility is provided by the normal process of valuation. I do not quite know how that comes about except, I suppose, by "tipping the wink" to the valuer before he does the valuation and

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by saying to him: "Look here, my dear fellow, you are going down to this area. This is the kind of area where we want development to take place. We do not mind if you are very reasonable in the development charge which you ultimately agree with the agent or the valuer of the owner of the land, because we want to get this land and we want this planning permission to be given. We do not want a large penalty imposed upon the person who is prepared to do what we want to do." I suppose that is the only way it can work. I do not like it, but I should prefer it to take place in that way rather than to have it as rigid as it is in these regulations. I still think it would have been far better for the regulations to allow the Central Land Board the flexibility which we all thought they were to be given when we were discussing the Bill.
May I again quote the Lord Chancellor? He is reported in Volume 149, column 829 in the bound volume—oddly enough column 835 in the unbound volume—as having said:
"The view I commend to your Lordships is that the Central Land Board—I have used the analogy often before—are like a large landlord who has something to sell, and they have not infrequently to arrive at the price they are going to charge for what they have to sell, the right to develop, by the process commonly known as the higgling of the market."
So far as I can see, we are going to get higgling of the valuation; from what the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has told us, that is what the system comes to. I do not believe that it will work in this rigid 100 per cent. way. There might be something to be said for the old idea that you would not charge more than 80 per cent. You would be far more likely to get a willing seller by adopting that figure than if you take away the whole 100 per cent. and allow a man only present user value and nothing more. It seems to me that in nearly every case, if you want development, you will have to take the land by compulsory purchase, which is a cumbersome way of doing it. If you give a man some small incentive to sell his land, you will surely be working the thing much better.
As it is, the Government have apparently made up their mind on this 100 per cent. We think that it is too rigid; that it is quite inflexible, and that this Order goes back on the basis upon
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which the Central Land Board was to work, as we all understood when the matter was discussed in this House. We believed that it might work in that way, but I am pretty certain that it will not work in the way now laid down in this regulation. What I believe has happened—and the Minister in another place just pulled the curtain up a little when he said that it was the Central Land Board with whom he had had great discussions—is that, having promised to "cough up" £300,000,000 the Treasury have come in and said: "We are going to get 100 per cent. of this additional charge every time." We know that the Central Land Board were to be a collecting agency on behalf of the Treasury. They have the upper hand, and it is financial and money-collecting principles that underly this Order of 100 per cent., and not proper principles of right town and country planning. For that reason we think the Order is wrong. However, we think it is just as well that it should be proved to be wrong in practice. So let us see how it works. I would be quite prepared to say that, before very long, we shall get a completely different basis from the regulation which is now before us. But if we were to throw it out now, everybody would say that we were premature and that we had no other method to suggest ourselves. At any rate, this is the Government's method on its second thoughts, and in this case I am quite certain the second thoughts are not best.
There is only one other matter on this Order to which I want to refer at the ment, and that is the case of developers, whether they are builders or not—a point about which the noble Lord himself spoke—who have spent a considerable amount of money on developing their sites, putting in sewers and manholes. They have then found that the land had been taken over during the war for farming. One case came to my notice where the land was prepared as a building site before the war but was properly taken for growing vegetables. The value now is back to that of its existing use as a market garden or as agricultural crop-growing fields. But the value of the developed land before the war was about £1,100 an acre. As this is crop-growing land, it is better than farm land far from the town, but its value is about £100 an acre. The value of the land was £1,100 an acre because these people had laid the sewers and some of

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the road, but they are liable to lose the whole of that money which is a direct contribution from them to the improvement of this land. The noble Lord has said that that will be taken into consideration. May I just ask him a question upon that matter? Will that consideration be given under the Treasury regulation dealing with who will come into the preferential classes? Is that when it will be done? I understand that the noble Lord assents to that. These categories will be included in the preferential classes for an early claim on the £300,000,000, and that matter will be dealt with in some other Order to come before us later. Is that right?
LORD HENDERSON: I believe it will not be in an Order. I think it will be dealt with in a somewhat similar way to the method adopted for near-ripe land. I am not sure whether it comes in an Order or whether it will be part of the scheme the Treasury will work out in dealing with the distribution of the £300,000,000.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I may be wrong about this matter but I thought that the Treasury scheme was laid before Parliament.
LORD HENDERSON: Yes, but it would not be in the ordinary form of an Order.
LORD LLEWELLIN: If the scheme comes, then we shall have to look and see whether this kind of case has been adequately dealt with in it. All I would say about it now is that there were very many hard cases put up in the course of the discussion on this Bill both here and in another place, and on practically every occasion, when he had no other explanation to give, the Minister in charge of the Bill said "That's all right, we will deal with these as preferential claims on the £300,000,000." Well, my Lords, there is going to be precious little of the £300,000,000 left for anybody else. We have put the preference shareholder so high that when we come to the order dealing with the minerals we shall find that the £300,000,000 is completely inadequate. Other claims added to the preferential class would necessitate some provision being made to increase the sum of £300,000,000. Therefore, although I welcome this piece of justice on behalf of
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these people, I think it may cause considerable injustice amongst other people who, but for all these preferential payments, could have got some compensation from this fund and now are likely to get very little.
From what I have said your Lordships will realise that I dislike this Order. It goes right back on all that was the basis of the discussions we had when the Bill was going through your Lordships' House, and it is extremely odd that the point had not been realised when the Bill was being discussed in this House. I should have thought that with a well-worked-out town and country planning measure—and we know this one was on the stocks for some time—the right time to tell us it was to be an inflexible 100 per cent. was when we discussed it on Second Reading and on the other stages. But it has not happened that way. We think it would have been better if it had been left flexible: we dislike the 100 per cent. I am quite prepared to make a little wager with myself that before any of us is much older there will be third thoughts and a new order; otherwise the whole of this new Central Land Board machinery will, in my opinion, break down.
4.33 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I rise only to ask a question of the Minister, for I cannot attempt in my remarks to cover the whole field covered by my noble friend. The ambit of this Act was wide, and the change in the policy of the Government to which the noble Lord referred in introducing this regulation is so far reaching that I suggest we can obtain the best view of what is involved by taking seriatim individual cases which are within our personal knowledge. When the Bill was before your Lordships' House, I felt it necessary to intervene on behalf of the cement industry, of which I am Chairman and which is very much concerned in this measure. I want to ask the noble Lord whether, when he comes to reply, he will explain to us exactly how this change—the second thoughts, to which he has referred—affects these great industries, of which cement is only one. The point about industries of that sort is this: that one is quarrying land for a particular commodity in the land. In the case of cement, it

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is chalk or limestone and clay; but there are other analagous industries. After the quarrying of the commodity different articles are manufactured. In order to do that very expensive machinery has to be erected: in the case of a cement works, it costs something like £1,000,000 to build an average-size works. No one is going to spend that money without having first secured his raw materials, and therefore it has been the universal practice in this industry to buy, ahead of the erection of the factory, sufficient chalk and clay land to last the factory eighty years. That is very important. Unless one can obtain supplies of that size, one cannot hope to amortise the heavy initial capital expenditure involved.
When this Act was a Bill, and was going through Parliament, this point was raised. A man who buys a farm on chalk land for the purposes of a cement factory will first quarry one field; and while he is quarrying that one field, the other fields continue to grow corn, or whatever it may be. Therefore, when he has finished extracting all the minerals from the first field, he goes on to the second; he changes its use; and it becomes developed land. Therefore, under the terms of the Act, it becomes liable to a development charge. The point was raised and pressed very strongly, both in your Lordships' House by me and by other noble Lords, and also in another place as to whether people who have put up these great factories in order to win minerals from the land, and to manufacture them into a finished product, are to be required to pay twice over for their raw material. The Minister, in another place, dealt with this point. He said, speaking on Clause 76:
"This clause covers the case of mineral workers who have entered into long leases and contracts by providing for variation in the terms and conditions of leases to allow for the fact that there will be a development charge in respect of mineral workings. The intention is that the mineral worker shall be no worse off than he was before."
Those are the words to which I should like to draw the attention of noble Lords.
I should like to ask, in the first place, whether that pledge still stands; whether it is still the intention of the Government that those who are working minerals for the purpose of manufacture, and for which a factory has been erected, are
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going to be no worse off than they were before. The "second thoughts" that the Government have had on this subject very much affect this point. So long as the Government were telling us that the Central Land Board were to be given a measure of flexibility in fixing their charges, whereby they could vary charges according to the circumstances of the case, then it was possible to argue that where a man had put up an expensive works it would be unfair to ask him to pay more for the raw materials that he had already bought. This regulation, however, gives no discretion to the Land Board, save in very exceptional circumstances. They are bound to charge 100 per cent. of the difference between existing user value and value after permission to develop has been granted. As I said just now, if we take the case of a company that have bought a farm of chalk or clay land, but which is under agriculture, when they finish extracting the mineral from one field they go on to the next field to obtain that mineral. By so doing, they are changing its use from agriculture to the winning of this mineral and therefore, under the terms of the Act, as I understand it, they are changing the use of the land, and a development charge would fall.
If it is the intention of the Government that that should happen, I would point out that two considerations arise. In the first place, if a company have bought their land eighty years ahead, in order to erect this very expensive factory, it would be very unfair to ask them to pay twice over for that land. Secondly, it would be inexpedient, because the inevitable effect would be to add to the cost of the manufactured article. In the case of cement, it would have this further repercussion. Perhaps the noble Lord is aware that there is at this moment a shortage of cement, due partly to the fact that for nine years during the war period it was impossible to build any new cement factories. Therefore, there has been a lag in the process of expansion and modernisation that had gone on before. It is also due to the fact that Hitler gave a very good advertisement to concrete during the Second World War, with the result that when people build now they are apt to use more concrete than before. Therefore, the demand for cement at present exceeds the supply, and it is desirable that people should be

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encouraged to build new cement factories in order to meet this continuous expansion of demand.
I suggest, however, that nothing is more likely to deter a man or a company from engaging in, or a man from promoting a company to engage in, this vast capital expenditure if he is to be in uncertainty as to what his raw material will cost him. For these reasons I suggest that it is most desirable that the noble Lord should, if possible, give an authoritative statement which will enable the industry to know where it stands. In this matter, I am speaking on behalf of the industry. I can assure my noble friend that there is grave anxiety in the matter, and he would be making a big contribution to the development of the industry, to the possibility of attracting new capital into it, and of its further expansion if he would allow the industry to know where it stands in this respect. I am not certain whether I am right in raising this point on this regulation, or whether it ought to be deferred until we debate the mineral regulations. However, it seems to me that it can be argued that it comes within this regulation, on account of the analogy that I have given about the farm, where one proceeds from one field to another. In any case, it seems desirable that the attention of His Majesty's Government should be brought to the matter at the earliest possible opportunity, so that they can let us know what their policy is.
I have been speaking about the cement industry, because that is the industry with which I happen to be connected, and about which I know, but the case of the cement industry is entirely analogous to that of several other industries which are in precisely the same position—for instance, the pottery industry, which requires expensive factories and considerable capital expenditure. No one would dream of incurring that outlay until he had first bought or leased his land. Sometimes the manufacturer has had to pay high prices for the land. Sometimes he has been able to buy under advantageous terms, at agricultural prices, and he has then erected his factory on the farm. In either case it would be unjust to ask him to pay twice over for his raw material; moreover, it would be inexpedient to do so, because that would inevitably raise the cost of the manufactured product. It would either send up
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the cost of building in this country or it would impede the sale of British cement in the export market. That is also true of all those other products. I submit that it is vitally necessary that these industries should learn from His Majesty's Government at the earliest possible moment where they stand in the matter.
4.46 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF EXETER: My Lords, the point I have to raise is very small in comparison with those raised by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne. I am not quite clear with regard to the development charges on land which has been developed by the owner, where he has made roads and laid sewers and pipes and such like. Do I understand that the owner will have a claim on the £300,000,000? My other point is: When will that claim be met? I understand that the owner will have to wait five years before he receives anything at all. The consequence of that would be that the owner would be unable to continue to develop his land, thus holding up development because he had no capital to put into it. I think that that point should be cleared up. Where an owner has spent money on the development of land and has endeavoured to help the development of a town, it seems to me ridiculous that he should be penalised in this way. As I understand it, the 100 per cent. charge would have to be paid. Later on, as I say, in five years' time, he might get something of what may be left after everybody else has been dealt with. Anyone who knows anything about this business at all is quite convinced that £300,000,000 is perfectly useless. It would just about compensate the Metropolis charges and nothing would be left for the poor people outside and those with minerals.
4.49 p.m.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, there is one question I should like to ask which I do not think has been raised before. Unfortunately, the Minister of Town and Country Planning is not the only Minister who is interested in the control of building. The Minister of Health and the Minister of Works are both very much concerned with the control of building materials and in keeping down the cost of building. As we all know, if we are allowed to build a house at all it must

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conform to strict specifications regarding superficial area and overall cost. By the edict of the Minister of Health, in calculating the overall cost of the house the cost of the land must be taken into account. The exact words of the circular are these:
"Where the land is freehold and has already been acquired or is being acquired under a separate transaction, its cost, or where that is not known its value as assessed by the local authority, must be taken into account."
The effect of this, in so many words, is to say that the more a man pays for his land, so much the less can he spend on the bricks and mortar of his house; the more expensive the site the worse the house that can be put on it. I can assure your Lordships that this is not a pure hypothesis on my part. The planning authorities have had all kinds of freak plans put before them—such as plans for building half houses, the other halves to be put up when building restrictions are relaxed, and plans for Nissen huts in all sorts of inappropriate positions; and we have had to balance between the urgency of housing and the interests of amenity. I am quite sure that this position will arise again when the nearly complete ban on all building which exists now is relaxed. So far as I can see, the effect of these regulations will be that the conflict between amenities on the one hand and the cost of land on the other will now settle down within the Ministry itself. We shall have the valuation side (the Central Land Board), trying to get as much as they can out of the would-be developer, thereby automatically reducing the amount of bricks and mortar he can put into his house. On the other hand we shall have the planning side, which I hope will stick out for houses of good design and good houses placed in appropriate places. That state of affairs will render it almost impossible for an applicant to build at all unless he can persuade the Central Land Board to charge him a nominal sum. With great respect, it seems to me a perfectly ludicrous position.
I think all of us speak rather patronisingly of the kind of development which was permitted after World War I, and perhaps we do not go very deeply into the causes, which are often quite obscure, why that happened. I venture to bring before your Lordships this point, which may appear to be obscure, but which I
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believe will permit and has permitted bad building after the war. I would therefore like to appeal to my noble friend, Lord Henderson, to take some action, either by instructing the valuers to take this matter into account (which I am afraid may not be very popular with the Treasury), or by the much simpler method of persuading the Minister of Health, in the interests of good planning, to modify his circular, the logic of which, so far as it necessitates the inclusion of the cost of land, is very difficult for me at least to appreciate.
4.53 p.m.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, may I intervene as a mere lawyer who, unfortunately, does not own any cement works or even a colliery? This is a subject on which I made a considerable speech at an earlier stage, and now I will say only that I fully agree with what my noble friend, Lord Selborne has submitted to you. All I want to do is to try to induce my noble friend Lord Henderson to throw a little more light on the meaning of the Schedule. I have been concerned in the law for more years than I care to remember, and I have helped in the preparation of hundreds of documents. I have read this Schedule with great care, and I presume that the Schedule, in substance, will be put before any valuer who is charged with the duty of determining the question of the development charge. I assure your Lordships that I am not exaggerating when I say that I do not understand the way it is drafted, and I do not understand the way it will work; nor do I believe that any ordinary valuer will be able to understand it. I had a lot to do with valuations at one time, and I know how valuers approach various subjects, including the subject of valuing property. I hope I shall be able, quite shortly, to tell the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, what I do not understand.
The first paragraph of the Schedule is devoted, so far as England is concerned, to the one object of seeing that the development charge is so determined
"as to secure…that land can be freely and readily bought…at a price neither greater nor less than its value for its existing use."
At present, that strikes me as being quite unintelligible, unless it refers to land as it exists before it is developed. To a lawyer's mind—and, I believe, to a valuer's mind—it would have no effect

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whatever with regard to the state of things when the property is developed. If you take property worth £1,000, and have a building worth £20,000 built upon it, the only thing that can be bought and sold in the open market is the land plus the house. You cannot in this country sell land divorced from the house or the factory, which may be worth £1,000,000, which stands upon it. Therefore this paragraph, as it appears to me—and I venture to think, with all respect, to anybody else who reads it carefully—is devoted to the question of the figure at which the development charge shall be fixed during the period before the building is put up. Naked land is often let with a house or premises which are going to be pulled down. That is what I make of paragraph 1 of the Schedule.
Then we have paragraphs 2 and 3, which are supposed to enable us to say what the development charge is to be. The first says that the charge must not be more than a certain amount, and paragraph 3 says that it shall not be less than a certain amount. Therefore, between the two, we ought to be able to find an answer to the question as to how one determines the development charge. But let us look into what the valuer has to consider. Paragraph 2 says:
"Development charge shall not be more than the amount which, to the satisfaction of the Board, represents the additional value, measured by normal processes of valuation of the land due to planning permission for a particular development."
Here again we have the land, and only the land, to which there has been added a planning permission which allows certain premises to be erected on it. That paragraph says the charge shall not be more than the amount of the additional value. Then paragraph 3 says that the development charge shall not be less than the amount referred to in paragraph 2. So they are to be the same. There is no gap between these two; they are both exactly the same. One is to be not more than the amount of the additional value, and the other is to be not less than the amount mentioned in paragraph 2; that is to say, it is not to be less than the additional value:
…unless in the opinion of the Board"—
and this is given for the benefit of the landlord—
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"the charge ought properly to be less in order to comply with the Governing Principle…
And the governing principle is one which relates simply to an endeavour to procure the result that the land shall be freely and readily bought before any building is erected on it.
Well, how that governing principle is to enable the landowner to get anything under this provision in Section 3, strictly considered, I do not understand. I can make a good guess as to what is intended by this regulation, but, with all respect to those who have been concerned with the drafting of the regulation and to the noble Lord who is to reply on behalf of the Government, my submission is that really it ought to be clearer. It involves many millions of pounds, and I am sure I am not exaggerating when I say that many landowners who have land which is capable of development of a very substantial character are likely to lose large sums if the matter is left as it is now. I know what valuers do when they are given this sort of instruction. They do the best they can and in the end they make a guess which they hope will satisfy both the Board and the landowner. But it may be something that is very unsatisfactory to the landowner.
I would only remind your Lordships of this. These are regulations which are made by the Minister of Town and Country Planning. They are not like Orders in Council which involve a lot of paraphernalia before matters are put on a legally effective basis. The Minister of Town and Country Planning, for whom I have the greatest respect, can, whenever he likes, make additional or ordinary regulations which will show what he really means by the regulations now before us. Then, perhaps, we shall be reasonably satisfied that these very important regulations regarding the value of property all over the country have been made on a basis that ordinary human beings will be able to understand. I am sure that unless people have a great deal more knowledge of this matter than I have, they will not be able to understand them as they exist now. At any rate the noble Lord will be able, I have no doubt, to tell us what is meant by these three regulations. I have said nothing about the fourth, because I think that I can understand that. If he can elucidate these three in simple terms

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we shall be grateful. We have not to consider anything more than what the Government intend here to-day, and we hope he will let us know what these regulations mean.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY: My Lords, I feel sure you will agree that anyone is justified in feeling anxious because the regulations associated with this very complicated measure seem likely to lead to serious effects and to stagnation. I am afraid that I find it difficult to follow the advantages and the simplicity which have been attributed to them. Not content with the confiscation of values far larger than those affected by the special levy in the Finance Bill, these regulations seek also to enforce a policy and to impose charges which will deter development by a great many people who have done their best in the past and who would continue to do so. I wish I could be told that that is not so. I rise only to ask for an assurance on one point—perhaps it is quite a small one. I wish to be assured that in no case will a person who proposes to develop his land be compelled to pay a development charge that is greater than the actual development value of the land. As I understand the regulation, the development charge will be 100 per cent. of the difference between the value of the land for its existing use, and the value of that same land with the benefit of planning permission for a new use. But it has been explained elsewhere that the "normal processes of valuation"—to quote the wording of the regulation—will permit the Central Land Board to exercise a certain elasticity in fixing development charge, and that this elasticity may be used to encourage or to discourage development in particular places or areas.
I am, therefore, anxious whether the elasticity permitted to the Central Land Board in the matter of valuation can conceivably or possibly be used to fix a development charge that is in actual fact higher than the true development value of a particular piece of land. If the "normal processes of valuation" can be used to encourage development in one place by the simple process of agreeing on a valuation that produces a suitable development charge, will there not be a temptation, in areas where further
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development is not particularly desirable, to insist on a valuation that will produce a high development charge—a charge that may possibly be in excess of the true development value? The second paragraph of the Schedule seems to deal with that point but there is, I think, uncertainty, especially if it is the case that there will be a sort of juggling of the valuations. It is, no doubt, reasonable to say that if a development charge is too high the developer will not proceed with his proposed development. In that event he may be subjected to a compulsory purchase order. But I feel that this situation would be unsatisfactory from several points of view, and I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply will be able to give some satisfactory assurance as to the exact position.
5.8 p.m.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, I, too, was very surprised at the general intention of this Order, particularly bearing in mind the long discussions which we had in this House at the time when the Act was passed. I wish only to ask for a little explanation of a phrase which was used by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, in moving these regulations. He referred, I think, to "flexible valuation." I am a little confused as to what that should be. Paragraph 3 of the Order gives the Board power to vary the development charge, but does not refer to the valuation itself. If the valuation is to be made on any other basis than the actual present use value, there should be some guidance as to the other factors which will influence it. It is not, apparently, to be influenced by the existence of previous works in the form of sewers, drains, water pipes, and so on, as these, it is said, are to be treated as priority classes in claims on the £300,000,000. It is not, I imagine, to be based on the old conception of development value because land was adjacent to a town that was expanding or was in reach of a main road. But I feel the greatest difficulty in seeing how it can be based on a factor which was very much in the minds of everyone at the time when the Bill was discussed—namely, the desirability of influencing people or persuading them to build houses or other buildings in areas under town planning schemes where development is required. As I understand the Schedule, with all respect to the noble and learned Viscount,

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Lord Maugham, it seems to imply that there is one level everywhere, but that the Board have a discretion in giving a reduction. I would be grateful for some further information as to the meaning of the suggestion about flexibility in valuation. The flexibility seems to me to be in making changes. Valuation must be made on a definite series of factors, whatever they may be. Flexibility surely comes into the policy of the Board, acting under the direction of the Minister of Town and Country Planning, in making a series of changes in the charges. I hope the noble Lord can tell us something on that point.
5.11 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, as there was a discussion on a previous occasion on an Amendment of mine, moved for me, much more ably than I could have done it myself, by my noble friend Lord Llewellin, perhaps I may be permitted to say a word on this matter, and to ask a definite question of the noble Lord who is to reply. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said on the previous occasion:
"In calculating the development charge, due regard must clearly be had to works carried out by the owner which enhance development value."
He himself gave instances of other developments, besides the construction of roads; and that, I may say, was exactly what might have been expected from the noble Lord opposite. I understand that since then there have been second thoughts, and it has been considered that out of the £300,000,000 some sum shall be assured to people whose land has been fully developed. In the past, there has been in my own country, I know, and I expect also in England, a great deal of wise and far-seeing development. When a man wishes to develop, he probably goes to the best town planner in his neighbourhood and has the whole thing carefully laid out. He then does all the necessary works for the development of that land. That has occurred in cases which I know quite well.
When that happens, and roads are constructed, they may be constructed by somebody out of his own resources or on borrowed money. The owner may borrow £10,000 or £20,000, and interest is being currently paid on it. In the normal course, before the passing of this Act, the man who had borrowed money would be in
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a position, as houses and land were developed, to repay that money and receive the interest on it from the land and the houses. Under these regulations, so far as I can see, there is no possible adjustment of the development charge to such a man, because such land to-day, if it went well before the war, will to-day go like hot cakes. The governing principle will rule there, and that man will have to pay full development charge. But the noble Lord who spoke for the Government said that that would be a charge on the £300,000,000, and the man would receive special consideration for the amount he had expended. I entirely share the view of my noble friend Lord Llewellin about a further charge of this kind on the £300,000,000, but the point I am making is this. Subject, of course, to an allowance for houses that have already been built, the sums laid out in the development of that land are perfectly liquid; they can be estimated to a penny. I understand that the full sum is to be a charge on the £300,000,000—or is it to be scaled down?
I should very much like some information on that. I should be still more grateful if my noble friend would ask the Government to give a little more consideration to that position, because, whether the money has been paid out of a man's own pocket or borrowed, the effect is exactly the same. I have not the eloquence which my noble friend Lord Selborne displayed to describe how wise it is to do what I think would be the honest thing, but I feel that anybody who does not receive full compensation for a business which has been cut off like that and taken over by the Government will have something to complain about in the matter.
LORD HYLTON: My Lords, I should like briefly to touch on a class of persons not yet referred to this afternoon—the owners of small building plots, of which there are an innumerable number all over the country. Many of these people bought their small building plots in perfectly good faith before the last war. They paid for them the full building value of that day. What will be their position? They will have development charge assessed on the present user value—that is, the bare value of the land at agricultural prices. Let us assume that that is £50. They paid perhaps £300 to

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£400 an acre when they purchased. What is to be the development charge on that class of owner? Is it to be 100 per cent. of the difference between existing user and user with permission to develop? Because that is a very large sum for people of small resources. If we take the figures I have just given, the difference between existing user and user with permission to develop would be somewhere between £300 and £400. One hundred per cent. is to be charged. I submit that that is an iniquitous charge.
I think some preference must be given to this class of small owner. Your Lordships have already been told that the preferred classes for compensation will be increased for all those with claims for development costs of estate development which has taken place before the appointed date. So we now have in the preferred classes the builders on leased land, the mineral owners, those who have recently paid estate duty on excess principal value and those with claims for expenses incurred in estate development to which I have just referred. So far as I can make out, there are six preferential classes already. It is perfectly clear that the sum allocated for total compensation will in no way cover not only those six classes but also the innumerable owners of small plots of land bought for building houses. I hope that in replying the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, will be able to give some assurance that this very large number of people of small means will be covered.
5.20 p.m.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, there have been very many points raised on these regulations. I will do my best to answer them, though I cannot guarantee that I shall be able to answer every one that has been raised. If I may, I will deal first with the point mentioned by the noble Lord who spoke last—namely, the case of the people who have bought small plots of land at the old unrestricted use value, who will be called upon to pay a development charge when they carry out their development. That type of case will come within the near-ripe scheme. As the noble Lord knows, the near-ripe scheme provides that if the land is developed within five years, the owners concerned can make their claim under the Treasury scheme and the amount will be credited to
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them. So there is no possibility of their paying a double development charge.
LORD HYLTON: I think the noble Lord will agree that they will have to pay the development charge before they are allowed to develop, or during development. They will have to wait five years, or maybe more, before they get any share of the compensation. Is that so?
LORD HENDERSON: No. The position is that they go on with their development, the development charge is debited against them and is met by the contribution they receive from the Treasury scheme. It is true that they do not get the payment until the Treasury scheme has been approved, but in the meantime they do not have to pay the second development charge.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: May I ask the noble Lord what will happen under those conditions if the £300,000,000 turns out to be insufficient?
LORD HENDERSON: I think the answer is that the Treasury scheme will come before Parliament, who will have all the facts before them as to what is to happen to the £300,000,000.
The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, raised the question of the 100 per cent. He quoted certain statements which had been made in another place and in your Lordships' House regarding flexibility. It is perfectly true that we have not adopted the method which was first discussed of giving 80 per cent., 70 per cent. or 50 per cent. of the development charge. We are going to achieve the same result by a different method. The regulation will not be operated in a rigid way. May I indicate to your Lordships how I imagine it will work? It will be in this way. If a would-be developer went to the local planning authority to obtain a planning permission, he would say that he owned a piece of land, or that he was able to get a piece of land, and he wanted a development permission for a particular form of development. He would then ask what would be the development charge. The development charge would be fixed by the Board, and he would be told the amount. If he said: "I think that is too high a development charge," he would then be able to submit to the Board his reasons why he thought it was too high. As the Minister said in another

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place, they would be able to discuss it, and if the would-be developer or his agent were able to adduce reasons convincing the Board that they had been unreasonable in their charge, they would then reduce the charge.
I will take an illustration. Suppose the Board had suggested that the figure was £500, that would theoretically be the 100 per cent. charge. After discussing it with the would-be developer, taking into account the various arguments which he had adduced as to why the figure was unreasonable, and having been persuaded that it was unreasonable, they might then reduce the figure to an agreed figure of £400. That would be the 80 per cent. case which the noble Lord mentioned, if we were to adopt the method which was at first discussed. In this case the £400 would not be regarded as 80 per cent. of the original figure; it would be the 100 per cent. development charge. It simply means that the constant figure under the normal processes of valuation would be 100 per cent., but the actual amount which the 100 per cent. represents would be the figure agreed as the development charge. I think that shows quite definitely that there is flexibility under the ordinary processes of valuation to secure that the charge is not excessive. If the Board put their charges too high, they discourage development; and if they discourage development, the development charge is not made.
I suggest to your Lordships that if those circumstances were to obtain, objections would soon be made to the Central Land Board as to the method in which they were doing their work. The Minister of Town and Country Planning is responsible for the use to which the land is put; he is interested in planning and development. The Minister of Health is interested in housing, the President of the Board of Trade is interested in industrial development—factories, and so forth—the Treasury are interested in development charge revenue, and Parliament as a whole is interested in seeing that this Act is properly implemented. I suggest to your Lordships that if, as is suggested, the Central Land Board were to operate this in a rigid form, and to impose excessive development charges which discourage development, it would not be long before they heard about it.
VISCOUNT GAGE: May I interrupt the noble Lord to ask one question? Suppose a piece of land is put up for sale and a number of people are interested in it, will the rule be that the man who offers the highest development charge will always get the land?
LORD HENDERSON: I think that would depend, to some extent, on the form of development that was proposed.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I understand that the proposed development has to receive the consent of the planning authorities. But, subject to that, will it be the rule that the best bidder will get the land?
LORD HENDERSON: I imagine that it is bound to be so. Noble Lords will remember—indeed, it was included in the Act by an Amendment in this House—that one of the governing principles is that there shall be no undue or unreasonable preference or advantage given to one applicant over another. It seems to me—and I think noble Lords will agree—that in a case like that, if you are not going to exercise undue preference in favour of one competitor, it must go to the highest bidder. That is the way I imagine it would normally work. I would add that this principle of the 100 per cent. development charge was discussed with quite a large number of bodies interested in these matters—over 41 professional and other bodies. I understand, for example, that the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors were consulted—they speak with great authority on these matters—and they have agreed that the principles will, if they are wisely administered, be adequate to secure the objects which we all have in mind. I think the manner in which, as I have indicated, development charge will be fixed, and the ability of the would-be developer to make his own representations as to whether the amount is reasonable or unreasonable, indicate that the matter will be administered in a satisfactory way.
The noble Lord also referred to an undertaking, though I think that is rather too strong a word—I would rather say a statement—which I made during the Committee stage about the payment for works that had been carried through. I hope the fact that that particular hope

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has not been implemented in the regulations will not be held against me as a breach of faith.
LORD LLEWELLIN: Not if it is done in the next lot.
LORD HENDERSON: I must frankly admit that the hope which I expressed has not been fulfilled in the regulations. Let me say at once that, when this matter was discussed in another place, the Minister himself recognised that in one way or another account ought to be taken of this kind of expenditure. As I indicated earlier, it is probable that a large part of the land over which improvements have been carried out will already be swept up in the near-ripe scheme. In the Minister's view, it is much more equivalent to near-ripe than anything else, and it ought to be dealt with very much in that way. The Minister assured another place—and I want to repeat the assurance in this House—that it is a point which will be taken into account, because nobody would wish to deprive the owner of land of any benefit from any expenditure of this sort which he has incurred. As I say, the matter will come within the Treasury scheme, and the various observations which have been made, for example by the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, will be borne in mind.
LORD SALTOUN: May I say a word on that? What the noble Lord has just said about the near-ripe scheme makes it more likely than ever that it will be possible to fix a definite ascertainable sum for the value, because where a house has been built, obviously the land next door will come in the near-ripe category. May I ask the noble Lord to bear that fact in mind?
LORD HENDERSON: I am quite sure that in working out the Treasury scheme, all essential points of that kind will be borne in mind. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, raised the question about cement works and kindred works. I think he himself realised that, strictly, this was not the most appropriate place in which to raise the matter. There will be minerals regulations before the House before long—indeed, it is expected that they will be discussed in this House before the end of the month. Perhaps I may briefly indicate what is in mind. The minerals
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regulations makes provision in the case of the mineral undertaker who is a lessee for adjusting the lease in order to take account of the development charge, and in this way the mineral undertaker will be able to pass on the burden to the landowner. Where the mineral undertaker is also the owner of the land, the undertaker will be able to make a claim in the £300,000,000 scheme. As my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor said when the Bill was passing through this House, mineral undertakers who own their land will have to be given some form of preferential treatment in the £300,000,000 scheme, and it is intended to have a near-ripe scheme for minerals on the same lines as the near-ripe scheme which has already been announced for builders. The details of the scheme, however, have still to be worked out in consultation with the various industries concerned. I am therefore not in a position to make any further statement. I will see that the observations to which the noble Earl gave expression are brought to the attention of my right honourable friend the Minister, and I hope that the noble Earl will be content to leave the matter at this stage for fuller discussion later on when the scheme matures.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I am quite prepared to accept that explanation, but may I ask my noble friend if he can give an assurance that when he introduces the minerals regulations he will answer the rather detailed questions that I ventured to address to him this afternoon?
LORD HENDERSON: I can certainly give an assurance that, having had the questions put to me, I will do my best to come prepared to answer them. But he will realise that it is not entirely within my province to decide whether I shall be able to give him the answers he would like to have.
Finally, there is the very interesting and important point in connection with building, which was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Gage. Again, this is not strictly a point which arises on these regulations, and the noble Viscount himself realised that, although I agree it is a good opportunity upon which to draw attention to the problem. The Ministry of Town and Country Planning have communicated the noble Viscount's, views on this point—and I would like to thank him for having

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given me advance notice—to the Ministry of Health. I am authorised to say that the Minister of Health hopes to be able shortly to make a statement in another place about the future of private building. I have no doubt that when the time comes, one of my noble friends will be making a similar statement in your Lordships' House. How cost of land and development charge should be dealt with is one of the points which will come under review. I hope that that tentative reply will afford some satisfaction to my noble friend.
The noble Duke, the Duke of Buccleuch, was a little concerned about whether paragraph 2 could be manipulated in order to secure a development charge higher than the true development charge. In point of fact, the paragraph itself is expressly designed to ensure that the development charge shall not exceed true development charge. The flexibility to which I have already referred operates with a view to easing the development charge in certain circumstances, but it does not permit of the development charge to be raised above what is a true development charge. The charge is directed to encouraging development, and not to holding it up. Planning control itself will take care that wrongful development does not take place. I think I have covered most of the points which have been raised—at any rate I seem to have exhausted all the points which I took down—and if I may now have the support of your Lordships, I would ask that the regulations be now approved.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (DEVELOPMENT CHARGE EXEMPTIONS) (SCOTLAND) REGULA-TIONS, 1948.
5.40 p.m.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, these are two regulations which, again, represent one for England and Wales and one for Scotland. They provide for exempting certain operations and uses of land from development charge. Before I go into the details of these regulations I might perhaps remind your Lordships that these are not the only operations and uses of
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land which will be exempt from development charge. The Act itself grants a number of exemptions in different places. For example, Section 12, which defines "development" puts a number of operations, including normal maintenance and repair of buildings, outside the definition of development and, therefore, outside liability for development charge. Other examples are given in the Third Schedule for buildings and uses of land existing at the appointed day, and Part VIII of the Act exempts a number of special classes of land, including dead-ripe land, unfinished buildings and land held by local authorities, statutory undertakers and charities. There are, moreover, special provisions for areas of comprehensive development, such as blitzed city centres and new towns.
In a sense, therefore, these regulations merely sweep up the odds and ends. I might also add that they are rather in the nature of a first shot at the problem. No doubt the experience of the Board will reveal other classes of development which ought to be exempted, and for that reason these regulations should therefore not be regarded as the last word. I am assured, however, that the Department consulted some forty-seven outside organisations which it was thought might be interested, and that the final draft of the regulations covers substantially all the points raised by these organisations. I do not think it is necessary to take your Lordships through all the exemptions one by one. They fall into three main groups.
The first group, Classes 1 to 3 gives the same tolerances for buildings erected or uses instituted after the appointed day as the Third Schedule gives for buildings and uses existing on the appointed day. That is to say, the owner of a building may rebuild without further development charge as often as occasion may require and may enlarge his building up to 10 per cent. of the original cubic content. Owners of land used for agriculture and forestry may carry out any building or other operations requisite to the use of their land for that purpose. This will cover, for instance, land reclaimed after the appointed day and put to agricultural use.
The second group, Classes 4 to 15 grant exemptions on de minimus grounds for a number of operations and uses of land which will not require an express individual planning permission, since

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they will be permitted by the General Development Order made on May 5 and laid before Parliament on May 6. Among the exemptions in that group, your Lordships might like to note Class 5, which will allow a householder to put up a tool shed or hen-house or any other building of that kind in his garden, and he can do this even when he has exhausted his 10 per cent. tolerance under the Third Schedule or Class 1 of these exemption regulations. Class 9 permits the use of any land for camping. Classes 11 to 13 enable estate owners and industrialists to maintain private roads and other services and to replace or rearrange essential plant and apparatus. Classes 14 to 15 exempt agricultural development by local authorities and statutory undertakers of a minor nature incidental to the public services which they administer. The third group, Classes 16 to 18, give some miscellaneous exemptions, of which the most important is Class 16, the use of any site for the display of advertisements.
The exemptions which these regulations give are unconditional exemptions, and I think your Lordships may assume that once an exemption has been given it is not likely to be withdrawn in a subsequent set of regulations. I must, however, enter a caveat, in the case of Classes 9 and 16, which deal with camping and the display of advertisements. These activities have been exempted because it is thought that on the whole the amounts involved are likely to be small and troublesome to collect. We do not want to put the Board in the position of spending £1 to collect 6d. But there may be a few cases where a substantial charge could properly be levied. The Departments have therefore authorised me to say that they propose to review these two exemptions at the end of three years and if, in the light of experience, the forms of camping and display of advertisements which ought to be liable to development charge can be clearly defined, the regulations will be modified accordingly. With that brief explanation I now move that the regulations be approved.
Moved, That the Special Orders, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on May 12 last, be approved.—(Lord Henderson.)
THE MARQUESS OF READING: May I ask the noble Lord a question? He spoke
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at the end of his speech of the Departments authorising him to make a statement. Surely that is rather a departure from the normal Parliamentary procedure?
LORD HENDERSON: I apologise to your Lordships, and I am grateful to the noble Marquess for having called my attention to it. I should of course have said "the Ministers."
5.49 p.m.
LORD LLEWELLIN: This is rather an omnibus kind of regulation. I was rather surprised that the noble Lord laid emphasis on the fact that, even if one had enlarged one's house by 10 per cent., one would still be able to put up a hen-house without having to pay further development charge. It shows how far we are going in this matter, when the Treasury begin to get control. I suppose nobody ever thought he would have to pay development charge for putting up a chicken-run or chicken-house in his garden. Nor did I, for one, ever contemplate that under this Act it would be made more expensive to camp, or that people who lend their fields for camping purposes would in due course have to pay development charge. I hope that the Ministers will think gravely before they attempt to put a development charge on land which is lent so that people may spend a week or so in the summer camping out. But that is three years hence. I mention that because the noble Lord brought it up. It is exempted now and, from my own point of view, I hope it will always be exempted. I think it is the most healthy way for the townsman to get out into the country and to go into a tent for a little time in the summer. Therefore, the less you do to penalise him in that, the better.
LORD HENDERSON: May I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? One must remember that there is a development now in the sense of large-scale commercial camps—Butlin's, for example—and one has to bear in mind that, if a development of that sort takes place, it must in due course be dealt with. There is no intention of revising the regulations in order to hit the one small tent that is used for a week's holiday or at weekends.
LORD LLEWELLIN: The noble Lord was referring only to this Class 9?
LORD HENDERSON: Yes
LORD LLEWELLIN: I have been round some of these Butlin's camps myself; they are excellent places. There is a camp which normally has a swimming pool, a dance hall, a cinema, a large number of bedrooms, both single and double, and a nursery, all built in. But then I come to the Class 9 exemption, which says:
"The use of any land for camping purposes or the placing thereon of any caravan or tent."
I never thought that Butlin's camps were at present included in this exemption.
LORD HENDERSON: No, they are not. I was dealing with the point that we may have commercialisation developing, even on this basis. If that took place, it ought to be taken into account, and a development charge ought to be paid in such a case. In the ordinary way such development is exempt and, so long as it remains like that, it will continue to be exempt.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I am glad to hear that. The Department gave us a warning of what they were intending to do, and so we have given them a warning of what we would say to them if anything of the sort happened. The noble Lord was more modest about this regulation than about the other. He said it was merely a first shot at the problem. I was pointing out in the other regulation that I certainly thought that that would not be the last shot at the problem. I have only one particular point that I wish to make upon it. It is a point of which I have already given some notice. On the discussion on the Report stage of this measure, my noble friend Lord Carrington moved an Amendment in the Schedules to the effect that the erection, enlargement, improvement or alteration of dwelling houses occupied by persons engaged or employed in agriculture, so long as they are so occupied, should be exempt. We had the advantage on that occasion of two speeches from the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. He said:
"I cannot speak again without the leave of the House and perhaps your Lordships will give me that leave."
We are, of course, always glad to do that, and I am glad that we did so on that occasion.
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The noble and learned Viscount went on to say:
"…where there is a will there is a way, and I can…tell him there is a will…but the way has not been found yet."
At any rate, we have one satisfaction to-day, for the Lord Chancellor continued:
"If, when these regulations come up, your Lordships see that this concession is not there, I have no doubt that I shall be reminded of it on all sides of what took place to-day. I shall be very anxious to avoid having to be reminded of that fact. I venture to think that your Lordships may feel comparatively comfortable, though I cannot say more than I have because I have no authority to do so."
This exemption is not in the regulations to-day and, although felt extremely comfortable between that assurance and the time that I read these regulations, I have felt less happy about it now that I have read them. However, I understand that there may be some difficulties about putting into a regulation of this sort the conditional exemption of a house. It was only conditionally that we asked that this exemption should be put in—so long as the house is occupied by somebody engaged in agriculture. That is all that we were pressing for. We do not want it for weekenders, or for any kind of cottages of that sort, even if they start by being agricultural dwellinghouses. However, if it is not in these regulations—and we are all agreed that it is not—and if it is the will of everyone—and we are all agreed that it is the will of everyone—that no development charge shall be taken on these houses, so long as they are proper and genuine, and are occupied by agricultural labourers, there may well be some other method of dealing with the problem. Perhaps it would be convenient now if either the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, or the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack could tell us whether any other way has been found because, so far as I am concerned, I hope that if there has been, we can approve this regulation without any further argument upon it. Can we now be given some assurance on the matter?
5.57 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT): My Lords, I was rather horrified when I received a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, a few weeks ago in which he reminded me of that of which I did not wish to be reminded. I

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did not want to have to read up all these regulations again and try to remember what they are all about. So, thanks to the noble Lord's courtesy in giving me notice of the point, I took the matter up to find out what the position was. I find that it is as the noble Lord has stated; that is to say, that we cannot very well include this in a Schedule of Exemptions because, as your Lordships see, the exemption is conditional upon a state of affairs existing and continuing—namely, the house being occupied and continuing to be occupied by agricultural workers, and not being used as a week-end cottage. However, I have gone into the matter, and I am quite satisfied that we shall achieve the result which we all desire. Instructions will be issued to the Central Land Board to remit or postpone the collection of development charges, so long as the Board are satisfied that a house is reserved for a member of the agricultural population. Those instructions will be made public, and they will be published in the Board's annual report, so that they will be under the scrutiny of the House when that report comes to be debated. I do not think that your Lordships would wish me to go into further details with regard to this matter, but, if your Lordships do wish me to do so, I can. If your Lordships are interested in the actual machinery by which this will be done, I shall be happy to send any noble Lord a copy of the machinery; or I can deal with the matter more fully now.
LORD CARRINGTON: I would like to ask a question. Does that include the erection of agricultural houses? The Minister said nothing about them.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes; I was careful to word my undertaking so as to include erection, and not merely alteration or improvement.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I can speak again only by leave of the House, but I would like to take this opportunity of saying that I am very much obliged to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor for his reply. From my point of view, it is quite as satisfactory to have that assurance that the exemption will be in the regulation. I am glad that we have not had to make him uncomfortable. On the contrary, indeed; he has been of much comfort to us and to a large number of
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people who want to see these cottages being built for this all-important industry.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ELECTORAL REGISTRATION REGULATIONS, 1948.
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, I beg to move that the Special Order, as approved by the Special Orders Committee on May 12 last, be approved.
Moved, that the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Tuesday last, be approved.—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EDUCATION (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL.
6.0 p.m.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 4 [Provisions as to pupils becoming registered pupils at, and being withdrawn from, schools]:
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, I have a few Amendments to submit to your Lordships. Some of them are very small tidying-up Amendments associated with the alterations we made during the Committee stage, but others are intended to meet the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, and I hope I shall be able to make him quite happy before we finish with the Bill. I regret to say that I have not a firm answer to give to the noble Earl, Lord Perth. The points he raised are still under consideration, but I am hopeful of being able to send him a communication this week which will, I believe, meet his views in regard to certain clauses of the Bill.
I now beg to move the first Amendment on the Order Paper which relates to Clause 4, and I move to leave out subsection (6), which at present has been found to be rather faulty or inadequate, and to substitute the words on the Order Paper. The difference between the two sets of words is that the words in the Bill were permissive—namely, that the names may be deleted. The Amendment makes it obligatory that they are deleted as and when it is found they should be. It is rather important because, unless these names

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which ought no longer to be on the school register are cleared away, the Government will have to continue to pay the grant at the rate of £6 per pupil per annum. So, by clearing them off as and when they ought to be cleared off, it may save a certain amount of revenue to, the Exchequer. That is the sole reason for this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 49, leave out subsection (6) and insert:
"(6) The regulations made under the said Section eighty shall prescribe the grounds on which names are to be deleted from a register kept thereunder, and the name of a person entered in such a register as a registered pupil shall be deleted therefrom when occasion arises on some one or other of the prescribed grounds and shall not be deleted therefrom on any other ground."—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5 [Amendment and consolidation of enactments as to provision of clothing]:
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, there are a number of small Amendments to Clause 5, the first one being to page 5, line 9, to leave out the word "registered." That word is not now necessary. If it would be convenient, I am prepared to move all these little Amendments and to explain each one in turn, and then they can be put en bloc.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, so far as I can see, except for one or two Amendments which are completely drafting, the others fall together as a group. The noble Lord has put them down to meet the points which I made on the Committee stage—namely, that the local education authority should, if they thought it necessary, provide clothing to children whether they had insufficient clothing or—and this is what I wanted—where the clothing they had was unsuitable. The noble Lord has met me on all the points I raised and I think they all stand together. I would only add that I am much obliged to him for his assistance in meeting my points.
LORD WALKDEN: I do not know that I need explain them in detail. Some are consequential, some are drafting and others are purely to give effect to the undertaking to which the noble Lord referred. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 5, line 9, leave out ("registered")
Page 5, line 9, leave out ("other than a boarder") and insert ("not falling within the preceding subsection")
Page 5, line 11, leave out("registered")
Page 5, line 11, after ("pupil") insert ("not falling within the preceding subsection")
Page 5, line 13, after ("inadequacy") insert ("or unsuitability")
Page 5, line 13, leave out from ("clothing") to ("to") in line 15.
Page 5, line 18, after ("sufficiently") insert ("and suitably")
Page 5, line 19, leave out from ("clad") to ("while")
Page 5, line 23, leave out ("in attendance")
Page 5, line 37, leave out ("registered")
Page 5, line 38, after ("inadequacy") insert ("or unsuitability")
Page 5, line 40, after ("sufficiently") insert ("and suitably").—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 6 [Recoupment to local education authority of cost of providing education for persons not belonging to their area]:
LORD WALKDEN: This is purely a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 3, leave out ("section") and insert ("Act").—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
First Schedule [Minor and consequential amendment]:
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, this is a further Amendment to the First Schedule and it concerns page 12, line 11 It is rather more detailed and needs some explanation. It is intended to meet the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, in regard to a somewhat different matter, and I hope it will clear away the controversy to which he made reference. The noble Lord explained that there is conflict of opinion between different authorities as to whether action should be taken against a parent by the authority in whose area resides a child who does not attend school or is not properly registered, or by the authority in charge of the school which he has been attending, but in whose area he does not reside. The Amendment is intended to clear up that point and to make it the firm responsibility of the authority in whose area the child resides to take action

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if his attendance is irregular or if he has not attended at all and has not become registered. Under this Amendment, it will be the duty of that authority to take action. But there are cases where children have no regular abode, such as children who travel on barges with their parents. I understand that there are quite a number of children whose parents go up and down the country in barges and take the children with them, and there are also gipsy children who live in caravans. The last part of the Amendment provides for those children, assures that someone will look after them and makes it decisive that primarily it is the
Page 12, line 11, at end insert—

("Section forty, subsection (2).

For the words 'It shall be the duty of the local education authority', substitute 'It shall be the duty—

(Duty to take proceedings to enforce school attendance).

(a) in the case of an offence against Section thirty-seven of this Act, of the local education authority by whom the school attendance order in question was made, or

(b) in the case of an offence against Section thirty-nine of this Act, of the local education authority for the area to which the child in question belongs (unless they are satisfied that proceedings for the offence have been or are to be instituted by the local education authority for the area in which the school is at which the child is a registered pupil), or, if the child does not belong to the area of any local education authority, of the local education authority for the area in which that school is'")

—(Lord Walkden.

LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, all I want to say on this Amendment is that there was a conflict in regard to the advice given to the Middlesex County Council and that given to the London County Council. I did not mind which way it was cleared up so long as it was cleared up and it was made certain which authority ought to take action. It seems a little more complicated than the simple way I had thought of, but I have no doubt that the noble Lord thinks this is the better way. At any rate, I am obliged to him for meeting the point which I had been asked to raise by the appropriate county authorities, who wanted the position cleared up. I think it has been cleared up now.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF PERTH: I would like to take this opportunity of thanking the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, for the trouble he has taken over my Amendment, and to say that I look forward to the receipt of the document which he has foreshadowed.
concern of the authority in whose area the child resides, and not that in which the school which he should attend is located. There may be an agreement between the schools. If the school over the border says: "We will look after that child although he lives in Area A," of course they can do so. But if they say: "He does not reside in our area. We are in Area B and he resides in Area A," Area A must look after him. The Amendment makes it clear which authority, in any given circumstance, should act, and I believe that ought to meet the point raised by the noble Lord. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—

ANIMALS BILL.
6.10 p.m.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

AGRICULTURAL WAGES BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
COMPANIES BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
HOUSE OF COMMONS MEMBERS' FUND BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL.
6.12 p.m.
House again in Committee (according to Order).
[The EARL OF DROGHEDA in the Chair]
Clause 4:
Probation.
(2) A probation order shall name the petty sessional division in which the offender resides or will reside; and the offender shall (subject to the provisions of the First Schedule to this Act relating to probationers who change their residence) be required to be under the supervision of a probation officer appointed for or assigned to that division.
(5) Before making a probation order, the court shall explain to the offender in ordinary language the effect of the order (including any additional requirements proposed to be inserted therein under subsection (3) or subsection (4) of this section or under the next following section) and that if he fails to comply therewith or commits another offence he will be liable to be sentenced for the original offence; and if the offender appears to the court to be not less than fourteen years of age the court shall not make the order unless he expresses his willingness to comply with the requirements thereof.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is a drafting Amendment. We shall have it several times. Its purpose is to get rid of a rather cumbrous phrase:
"for which the court has power, or would but for section seventeen of this Act have power, to pass a sentence of imprisonment, or for which the court has power to impose a fine,"
by substituting the much shorter phrase:
"not being an offence the sentence for which is fixed by law."
I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 9, leave out from ("offence") to ("is") in line 12 and insert ("not being an offence the sentence for which is fixed by law").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD RAGLAN LORD RAGLAN moved to add to subsection (2):
"who shall be named in the order."
The noble Lord said: An Amendment to this effect has been suggested by the Association of Probation Officers. They consider that their work would be facilitated if personal relationship were set up from the very start of the probation, and that it is desirable to have the name of
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the probation officer inserted in the order instead of merely a reference to an anonymous official. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 24, at end insert ("who shall be named in the order").—(Lord Raglan.)
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I should like to say just a word in support of this Amendment. I have little to add to what my noble friend Lord Raglan has said, except that I think it is essential to keep that personal relationship between probationer and probation officer. I would, however, make this suggestion. I have a similar Amendment at page 75 of the Bill. My Amendment is to insert a new sub-paragraph in paragraph 4 of the Fifth Schedule, which deals with the selection of the probation officers. I venture to think that that Amendment would meet the purpose better than that of my noble friend, but if the noble Lord opposite accepts either my noble friend's Amendment or mine I shall be satisfied.
LORD CHORLEY: I regret that I shall not be able to satisfy either of the noble Lords. I think that the noble Lord who has moved this Amendment has done so under a misapprehension. The change which is made by the Bill carries out a recommendation of the Social Services Committee. Its purpose is to overcome a very real difficulty which may arise at the present time, in the event of a probation officer dying or going away, or in some other manner becoming unable to carry out his duties, The noble Lord is under a misapprehension, I think, if he imagines that the object of this clause in the Bill is to impair the personal relationship between the probation officer and the person who has been put on probation.
LORD RAGLAN: I do not suggest that that is the object, but that is the effect.
LORD CHORLEY: No; the clause does not have that effect. The personal relationship will continue much as it has done in the past. The reason the name of the probation officer is left out of the order—and it is confined to the petty sessional division—is that if a probation officer dies or goes away, or otherwise becomes unable to carry out his duties, a complicated situation arises. Application has to be made to the court, and if the lad or the man on probation should go to another area that involves further complication elsewhere. In the past, this

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has given rise to considerable difficulties. The administrative arrangements to be introduced under the Bill will work in exactly the same way as the present arrangements work; that is to say, the probation officer who takes up a case in the first instance will continue to deal with it throughout the probation period, so far as that is practicable. If it has not been taken up when the case comes before the court, a probation officer will be appointed who will continue to be in charge of that particular case, so long as is reasonably practicable. But if he should die or cease to be a probation officer a new man can be appointed, without the necessity of going back to the court. The necessity for going to the court in case of movement to some other part of the country will also be avoided. I think the noble Lord will realise that the object of this is really to obtain elasticity and to loosen up difficult working which has led to considerable complications in the past. In view of what I have said, I hope that the noble Lord will see his way to withdrawing the Amendment.
LORD RAGLAN: I will withdraw the Amendment in the form in which I have moved it, but I should like to ask if it would be possible for the noble Lord to consider an Amendment—perhaps to insert, after the name of the first probation officer appointed to deal with the case some such words as:
"or such other probation officer as may be appointed."
LORD CHORLEY: I would not like to commit myself on that now. I shall, however, be glad to have the noble Lord's proposal looked into, and to consider whether it would get over a difficulty. I would not like to pronounce any judgment upon it at this moment.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I take it that the remarks of the noble Lord Chorley on this Amendment also apply to the Amendment which I have down to the Fifth Schedule?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, that is so. I hope that the noble Lords will have a look at the Report of the Departmental Committee on Social Services. In paragraph 77 they will find that there are clear reasons for the form of the Bill
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at this point and for the arguments which my noble friend Lord Chorley has just advanced.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD moved, in subsection (5), to omit "if the offender appears to the court to be not less than fourteen years of age." The noble Viscount said: This Amendment raises an important question with reference to probation. Under the clause, before a probation order is made, the offender has to express his willingness to co-operate. An exception is made in this general provision—namely, that young persons under fourteen would not have to give an undertaking. It may be said that a young offender under fourteen is not in a position to give an undertaking of that kind. I own I have always had an open mind on this question until I heard more than one discussion upon this question at meetings of the Magistrates' Association. In those meetings it was forcibly put that magistrates attached importance to whether the young offender under fourteen gave an undertaking that he would co-operate with the probation officer. More than one very experienced magistrate said that this undertaking added to the formality of the occasion and it was a good opportunity for impressing upon a young offender the gravity of his position. After one or two discussions, the Magistrates' Association came to the view that it was useful that an undertaking of this kind should always be expected from offenders and no exception should be made for under-fourteens. On that acount, I venture to move this Amendment and to hope that the Government will take this view, which was expressed by a great many experienced magistrates, including one or two stipendiary magistrates who had a great deal of experience in juvenile courts.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 12, leave out from ("and") to the second ("the") in line 13.—(Viscount Templewood.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I agree up to a point with the noble Viscount who has just spoken—that is to say, I think that the essential condition of success in probation is that the person should assent and co-operate. For my part, if I were dealing with children of tender years, I should always try to get the child to agree and I would explain to him simply that the whole thing would

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be a failure if he did not play his part. That can easily be explained even to a small child. My objection to the Amendment is that I do not want to make it an absolutely sine qua non in all cases. One may find some little reprobate who is stubborn enough to say that he will not co-operate. If that happens I do not want it to be said that the child cannot be placed on probation because he will not co-operate. I should be sorry to have the Bill so drafted that in such a case we could not use the system of probation.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: I wonder whether it is worth making a statutory exception in a hard case of that kind. What impressed me when I discussed it with experienced magistrates was that none of them suggested that there had ever been a difficulty of that kind. It seems to me to be a pity to take an action that runs counter to the whole principle of probation. Therefore, in spite of what the noble and learned Viscount says, I hope he will look into this matter again and see whether, in view of actual experience, it is really worth while making an exception.
LORD MERTHYR: There is a lot to be said for obtaining the consent of the probationer and there is something to be said to the opposite effect—that orders should be capable of being made without obtaining that consent. A large number of people, magistrates in particular, cannot see any reason for the age distinction. Either the one thing or the other is right. Why it should be right under fourteen and wrong over fourteen perplexes a large number of people. It should be made the same for all ages. I should like to say that in support of the Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am surprised to hear that objection raised. Surely the reason is that you cannot treat a child like an older person. The age is reached, whether under fourteen or under ten, or even under eight, when a child is not really in a position to consider the proposition at all. Then you must apply a different principle. I very much hope that even in those cases, it will always be possible in practice to get the cooperation of the child.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: Would the noble and learned Viscount the Lord
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Chancellor look into the question I have asked him? Has there been any complaint from any direction that there is a necessity for words of this kind? I have not heard of any, and I have discussed probation questions with a great many experienced magistrates and probation officers. If there is such a case as the noble and learned Viscount mentioned, or several such cases, then obviously I should not dispute with him words of this kind, but if there is no established need for a distinction, then it is a mistake to make a change in a system of probation that depends on the willingness of the offender to co-operate.
LORD ROCHE: I suggest to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor that we all agree that there should be this expression of willingness and, as the noble and learned Viscount has said, we should try to get it whether the child is under fourteen or over. I confess I have a certain sympathy with the point that the present drafting would tend towards not trying to get the child under fourteen to make a promise. In 99 cases out of 100 the child can quite well make a promise. Per contra, we may get a stupid boy of fifteen or sixteen who ought to be bound over and is not in a disposition to make a promise. Probably the proper procedure would be to adjourn the case until he was, but that is not always possible. So that both cases could be met, would it be possible for the noble and learned Viscount to make a further amendment and let it read:
"Save in special circumstances the Court shall not give the order unless the offender expresses his willingness,"
or some such words, perhaps in better language, to meet both the point of age and exceptional cases of older boys and girls who do not make a promise?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I shall certainly look at this matter again, but frankly, as at present advised, I am most reluctant to depart from the clause as it is. I do not know whether there have been cases of these naughty children, but it is obvious that there might be. I think it is right that we should differentiate between small children and older ones. With regard to the older ones, I am most anxious not to impinge on the principle that co-operation is a fundamental of probation. I hesitate to lock into the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Roche,

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that magistrates should be given power in exceptional circumstances, even though the child is over fourteen, not to exact a promise. But while looking into the whole matter, I will bear in mind what has been said.
VISCOUNT SIMON: May I suggest to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor another form which the Amendment might take which seems to me worth considering? I gather from what he says that he and his advisers think that the words
not less than fourteen years of age"
should appear in the clause. There is one thing which the noble and learned Viscount said he would regard as essential which does not appear in the clause; that is to say, that in the case of a child under fourteen years of age the court should do its utmost to persuade the child to accept the proposal. I do not think the clause, as it stands, says that at all, even as a pointer. I should have thought that might be considered, even though the Lord Chancellor thinks he must stick to his "not less than fourteen years of age," to make it read:
"and if the offender appears to the court to be not less than fourteen years of age the court shall not make the order"—
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It must be put the other way round.
VISCOUNT SIMON: You see what I mean?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes.
VISCOUNT SIMON: The court should not make the order in that case until they have done their utmost to persuade the child to consent to the course proposed. It seems to me that that would be an indication to the juvenile courts as to what is the proper procedure.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: I hope the noble and learned Viscount will look into this question again, with a view to finding some form of words to show that for the under-fourteens, as well as for the rest of the offenders, we insist, whenever it is possible, upon co-operation as the very foundation of the judgment of the court. Upon that understanding, I am willing to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is in the nature of a drafting Amendment. The explanation is this. If your Lordships will turn to Clause 77 you will see the provision about age. Subsection (3) says:
"Where the age of any person at any time is material for the purposes of any provision of this Act, or of any Order in Council made thereunder, regulating the powers of a court, his age at the material time shall be deemed to be or to have been that which appears to the court to be or to have been his age at that time."
I am proposing later to insert in Clause 77 the words:
"after considering any available evidence,"
to make it plain that they have to come to the conclusion on the evidence. That being so, I can now use the verb "is," because his age is that which it appears to the magistrate to be, having regard to all the available evidence. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 12, leave out from ("offender") to ("not") in line 13 and insert ("is").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GODDARD LORD GODDARD moved, in subsection (5), after the second "not" to insert:
"save as hereinafter provided."
The noble and learned Lord said: I move in this case to insert the words, "save as hereinafter provided." This is linked up with the next Amendment which I propose to move with regard to Clause 5. The point is this. Under Clause 4, which we have just been discussing, an offender has to show his willingness to co-operate, and the conditions can be inserted in the Order only with his consent. Can that really apply to cases under Clause 5, where the reason for making the Order is that the child is mentally deficient? I do not use the words "mentally deficient" in the technical sense. Let us see what it is:
"Where the court is satisfied, on the evidence of a duly qualified medical practitioner appearing to the court to be experienced in the diagnosis of mental disorders, that the mental condition of an offender is such as requires and as may be susceptible to treatment but is not such as to justify his being certified as a person of unsound mind…or as a defective…the court may, if it makes a probation order, include therein a requirement that the offender shall submit for such period.…"

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and so on. Subsection (2) sets out the sort of treatment he is to have. If you look at subsection (8) on the next page, your Lordships will find there a provision for the parents of the child to call rebutting evidence as to his mental condition. It seems to me rather a curious thing, if a court is to make an order because a young person is thought to be of unstable and unbalanced mind, though he may not be actually certifiable, that the person is to be asked to consent to the order. If he is of unbalanced mind, surely one cannot ask him for his consent. I thought it was something that had been overlooked in the Bill. I beg to move that the words, "save as hereinafter provided," should be inserted in Clause 4. Later I propose to move an Amendment to Clause 5 to make it clear that when you are making an order for the mental condition of the patient you can put in a condition as to his residence, and so forth, without his consent.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 14, after ("not") insert ("save as hereinafter provided").—(Lord Goddard.)
LORD DARWEN: I should like to support this Amendment, because I think it is quite an important one. A man in court may well refuse medical treatment of this kind, but a really skilled psychiatrist might be able to win his consent. It is obvious that no treatment can be effective without his consent, and I think that consent might be won by a properly qualified person after the court proceedings much more easily than it will be won in the court.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This matter has been the subject of very careful consideration, in which the Home Secretary has had the advice of skilled persons. Odd though it may seem, I really believe it to be the fact that in cases of mental treatment, perhaps more than in any other form of treatment, it is essential to have the co-operation of the person who is treated. I quite agree that the dilemma arises. If there had not been a dilemma, the noble and learned Lord would not have raised the point. I quite see that there may be cases in which, by reason of his mental condition, the prospective probationer withholds his consent for treatment which otherwise would be good for him, just because he has this instability of mind.
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That is a real risk, but I think it is the lesser of two risks. The other risk is that you say with regard to these people: "You can do it without their consent." We are not dealing with a case of a person who is certifiable, or mentally defective. We are dealing, very often, with some case where there is a wide range of mental conditions which are short of that, Yet in many cases the probationer would be well able to understand that his cooperation is sought, and would be willing to give his co-operation.
I think modern treatment on this matter has realised that if you are dealing even with those who are certifiable, it is very desirable to keep them in a place where you say to them: "Look here, if you want to go out, you can." Your Lordships probably know that there was an institution near London. The fact that the people there had that element of responsibility meant that a large number of them did not want to go out; but the fact that they felt they had the right to go out was in itself a factor which told in favour of their recovery. I dare say your Lordships know that that theory is very much relied upon by the doctors in charge. Therefore, I say this to my noble and learned friend: although I quite realise the force of his point, although I quite realise that there will be some case where—perhaps because of this mental instability—there is a refusal which renders probation impossible, yet there will be a considerable number of cases where I think it desirable that we should insist on co-operation, even for this mental treatment. That being so, we have looked into this matter very carefully and have gone into it with the experts. On balance, I think we should be well advised not to accept this Amendment.
LORD GODDARD: My province is really the practical working of this matter for the magistrates. The noble Lord opposite has given a good reason why he thinks that even if the unruly boy will not co-operate at first, he may do so afterwards. I want to know what the court is to do if the boy will not co-operate. So far as I can make out, the only thing to do is to send him to an approved school. To send a mentally un-stable boy to an approved school seems to me undesirable for the boy and un-desirable for the other boys at the school.

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I should have thought that if ever there was a case when you should allow the court to say: "We must send you to one of these homes because of your mental instability, whether you consent or not," this is it. It is almost unanswerable. I do not know what you can do with them, except send them to a home. As the noble Lord opposite said, they might take up an obstinate stand in court, but when you get them to one of these homes they will be dealt with by skilled psychiatrists where different considerations may arise, and they may be perfectly willing.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: It seems to me that that point requires an answer. You may have a case of a boy over the age of fourteen who is not certifiable as insane; he cannot be certified as a defective under the Mental Deficiency Act. He is clearly not suited for an ordinary school, because of his mental deficiency, and if he stubbornly refuses to sign anything or promise any co-operation, what is to happen to him?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: He is like any other probationer who will not consent—he cannot be placed on probation.
LORD GODDARD: Then he must go to an approved school.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: He must go to an approved school, or whatever else may be done. I think that even in these cases it is desirable not to depart from the basic principle of probation, which is consent.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: But in any other case, where it is not a borderline mental case, the boy can be dealt with as though there were no Probation Act at all. He can be sent to an ordinary school; but boys in cases like these cannot.
LORD DU PARCQ: I have often heard doctors say that the mental age of a boy of perhaps sixteen or seventeen was twelve. As the child who is twelve need not consent, why should the person whose mental age is twelve consent?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Because, in my belief, it will do away with this fundamental doctrine of consent. You are striking a serious blow at the whole system.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: I must point out that what the Lord Chancellor has said seems to cut across what he said upon my earlier Amendment. I am not now arguing about the merits of this particular case, except to say that the noble Lord, Lord du Parcq, is quite right. the kind of case with which we are dealing now is where the mental age may be eight, nine or ten. If, therefore, the argument of the Lord Chancellor is right in the case of the Amendment that I moved just now, how much more right would it be to accept this Amendment?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Do I understand that the noble Viscount is pressing me to accept this Amendment?
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: Yes.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am not authorised to do so at all, and all my instincts are against it. But in view of the fact that I receive the request from various quarters of the House, I will discuss it with the Home Secretary and see what he says.
LORD GODDARD: In view of what the Lord Chancellor says, I will not press this Amendment or the next, but I do hope that something will be done. Otherwise, the magistrates' courts are going to be in great difficulty.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
6.45 p.m.
Clause 5:
Probation orders requiring treatment for mental condition.
(3) A court shall not make a probation order containing such a requirement as afore-said unless it is satisfied that arrangements have been made for the treatment intended to be specified in the order, and, if the offender is to be treated as a voluntary patient or as a resident patient as aforesaid, for his reception.
LORD RAGLAN LORD RAGLAN moved, in subsection (3), to leave out "have been" and insert "can be." The noble Lord said: Your Lordships will see that in the clause as it is now drawn an order cannot be made unless arrangements for treatment have been made. These arrangements obviously cannot be made until the offender has been tried and, therefore, the effect of this wording is that there must always be an adjournment. This may

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not be a serious matter in the case of a court which is sitting continuously, but in the case of Quarter Sessions of a small county who finish their business within the day, are they to remand the offender in custody for three months or are they to hold a special sitting of the court in order to receive the doctor's report? Either of those courses would obviously cause a great deal of inconvenience, and it seems to me sufficient if the doctor assures the court that he could make the necessary arrangements. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 26, leave out ("have been") and insert ("can be").—(Lord Raglan.)
LORD CHORLEY: There is a good deal of force in the argument which the noble Lord has put before your Lordships. The noble Lord will appreciate the extreme importance of these arrangements being properly made, and of the court not making the order without that being certain. That is the reason why this rather extreme form of words is in the clause. Logically, the noble Lord's contention is obviously quite right, and provided that the court really conscientiously directs its mind to the need for seeing that these arrangements are made, that is sufficient. It has been suggested to me by my noble and learned friend that possibly the words "or can be" would be better. Perhaps the noble Lord could accept it on that basis.
LORD RAGLAN: Yes. I will withdraw my original Amendment and move it in that form.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 26, after ("been") insert ("or can be").—(Lord Raglan.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Breach of requirement of probation order.
(6) The commission of an offence of which a probationer is convicted shall not be treated for the purposes of this Act as a breach of any requirement of the probation order and a probationer who is required by the probation order to submit to treatment for his mental condition shall not be treated for the purpose of this Act as having failed to comply with that requirement on the ground only that he has refused to undergo any surgical, electrical or other
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treatment if, in the opinion of the court, his refusal was reasonable having regard to all the circumstances.
LORD RAGLAN LORD RAGLAN moved, in subsection (6), to omit all words from the beginning down to and including "probation order and." The noble Lord said: I am moving to leave out the first few words of subsection (6) because I do not understand them. What they suggest to me is that, if a probationer were to commit a murder, he would still remain on probation. That may be entirely the wrong interpretation, but I would suggest to your Lordships that these words have to be interpreted by people—if I may say so without vanity—more stupid than I am myself, and the words are certainly not clear to me. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, leave out from the beginning of line 34 to the second ("a") in line 36.—(Lord Raglan.)
LORD CHORLEY: I would not myself have thought that there was this difficulty. On the face of it, the Amendment does strike at an important principle which is to keep the question of the breach of the probation order separate from the subsequent offence. In Clause 7 the procedure for dealing with the case of the breach of the requirements under the probation order is dealt with, and in Clause 9 the procedure in the case of the commission of a further offence. As the law stands at the present time, the further offence is a breach of the probation order. The two matters are dealt with at the same time. The object of this is that these two matters shall be kept apart, and that the breach of the conditions the probation order shall be dealt with by the imposition of a fine up to £10 and that the subsequent offence shall be effectively dealt with by the court which has jurisdiction over it and on the basis on which the new offence is in fact dealt with. It is regarded as very important that these two matters should in fact be kept separate and dealt with in that way. The noble Lord's Amendment would continue the practice of mixing them up, which it is thought has not been altogether successful in the past. In these circumstances I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his Amendment.
LORD LLEWELLIN: If a boy is placed on probation and commits another offence and is convicted of it, is not that a breach

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of the probation order? Is it not a condition of the probation order that he should be on good behaviour?
LORD CHORLEY: Of course it is, but I think the difficulty is that the lad very often does not appreciate that there are two quite separate things. The view which has been arrived at after very careful consideration is that the probation order aspect of the matter should be dealt with by the court which imposed the conditions in the first instance; and it should be pointed out to the lad that he has broken the terms on which he was put on probation and that he will be dealt with, possibly fined, for that breach of his probation order. Then he may be dealt with by the court within the jurisdiction of which the new offence falls, on the basis of his breach of the law. This other court will deal with him as it thinks fit in the circumstances. The view is that these two things should be kept apart.
LORD GODDARD: I feel the same as the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, does on this matter. I cannot understand what this means. It has to be interpreted by magistrates in Petty Sessions:
"The commission of an offence of which a probationer is convicted shall not be treated for the purposes of this Act as the breach of any requirement of the probation order…"
If it is not a breach of a probation order, what is it? Of course it is a breach of the order. I cannot understand this clause and my sympathies go out to the courts of summary jurisdiction who will have to interpret it. Some day it will come up to the Divisional Court, I suppose, and then I do not think I shall be able to interpret it.
LORD ROCHE: I agree with what has just been said. If a lad has committed an offence, he has broken his probation order and ought to be brought up. It is the duty of the probation officer, if he learns that a person under his charge has committed another offence somewhere else, to bring him up. That does not impinge on the principle that the court who made the probation order should, on the information of their probation officer, deal with him for his breach of the condition. I submit that what is required is either acceptance of this Amendment or further careful consideration.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: One thing has become plain, having regard to the eminent people who cannot understand this clause, and that is that it is not very simple. For my own part, having looked at these clauses, I found them so difficult that I thought the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, had better explain them. We will see what we can do to make them plainer, but I can perhaps reassure noble Lords to some extent. The breach of condition may or may not be an offence. A condition may be, for instance, that a man shall not go into a public house. If he goes into a public house, that is not a criminal offence, but it is a breach of the probation order. The idea of these clauses is to have, as it were, two codes— Clause 7 and Clause 9. If an offence is committed, it is dealt with under Clause 9. If a breach of conditions of probation is being dealt with, that comes under Clause 7. In the instance put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, what would happen would be that the offender could be sentenced for the crime committed after the probation order had been made, or for the original crime. That would come under Clause 9. Your Lordships will see that the offender ceases to be on probation by reason of Clause 6, subsection (4) on page 7, which says:
"Where, under the following provisions of this Part of this Act, a probationer is sentenced for the offence for which he was placed on probation, the probation order shall cease to have effect."
He would be sentenced under Clause 9.
LORD RAGLAN: We were concerned with subsequent offences.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: He can be sentenced for the original offence or for the new offence. The new offence may be a less serious one than the original, and therefore you can, if you like, sentence him for the original offence. The machinery for that is in Clause 9. The endeavour here is to differentiate between a mere breach of the conditions of an order on the one hand—Clause 7—or a criminal offence which is also a breach of the probation order. If a probation order contains a term that the offender shall be of good behaviour, then it is obvious that machinery is provided. These are the two codes: Clauses 7 and 9; and if your Lordships look at it from that point of view I think you will find it is not quite so

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obscure. But it is obvious that the drafting needs to be a little more plain, and I will see what I can do about it. I do not think there is anything in the substance to which noble Lords object.
LORD GODDARD: I cannot help thinking that, as it reads, the commission of an offence will not be a breach of a probation order at all. If a boy on probation commits another offence, can he be brought up for a breach of the probation order?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If your Lordships will look at Clause 9 you will see that it says:
"If it appears to a judge or justice of the peace on whom jurisdiction is hereinafter conferred that a person in whose case a probation order or an order for conditional discharge has been made has been convicted by a court in any part of Great Britain of an offence committed during the probation period or during the period of conditional discharge, and has been dealt with in respect of that offence, the judge or justice may issue a summons…"
The substance of this is that he may be dealt with for the original offence. If he has been convicted of this later offence, that is a breach of the probation order, which comes under Clause 7.
LORD GODDARD: Although the commission of the offence is said in the clause not to be a breach of the probation order?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The thing stands on its own legs. You treat it as an offence but not as a breach of the probation order. You can punish the probationer for that offence, and in addition to that, under Clause 9, you can bring him up and, if you like, punish him for the original offence for which he was placed on probation.
LORD LLEWELLIN: It works in an extraordinary way. A boy placed on probation commits a series of burglaries; so far as the probation order is concerned that is all to be disregarded and he is to be taken as still being of good behaviour. That is what it says.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It comes under Clause 9. There, he may be prosecuted and sent to prison for the burglary and then, that having been done, he can be dealt with for the original offence for which he was placed on probation. We want to try to get a dichotomy between those cases which are breaches of probation conditions and those which are offences.
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There is not a clear dividing line, because you may get many cases which are both; So the effect of those words is to allocate all cases of crime to Clause 9, leaving the other cases only to Clause 7.
LORD LLEWELLIN: What we are really at cross purposes about is the meaning of the words: "shall be treated" It depends whether they mean "shall be treated by a court" or "shall be taken to be an offence."
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: "Dealt with as though."
LORD LLEWELLIN: "Dealt with as though." It seems to me to exclude all those things. Although we know that the fellow is a blackguard and is breaking into houses and stealing, if we leave these words in he still has to be treated as not being in breach of his recognisance, even though it is a recognisance to be of good behaviour.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will look at it.
LORD LLEWELLIN: If I were appearing for the defence in a case and somebody tried to treat the defendant as being in breach of a recognisance, I should rely very strongly upon these words, if they were in the Statute, and say "You cannot do it. It is to be disregarded. Look at Clause 7." I hope that the noble and learned Viscount will look into this point.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not appreciate the difficulty which the noble Lord has raised but I can see that there are other difficulties. Therefore, I will try to put right the wording of the clause.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 [Absolute and conditional discharge]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is a drafting Amendment.
I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 45, leave out from ("offence") to ("is") in page 9, line 1, and insert ("not being an offence the sentence for which is fixed by law").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 9 [Commission of further offence]:
THE EARL OF MUNSTER THE EARL OF MUNSTER moved, after subsection (6) to insert as a new subsection:
"(7) If a person in whose case a Probation Order or an Order for conditional discharge has been made by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction is convicted by another Court of Summary Jurisdiction of any offence committed during the probation period, or during the period of conditional discharge, that Court may, with the consent of the Court which made the order or, in the case of a probation order with the consent of that Court, or of the Supervising Court, deal with him for the offence for which the Order was made, in any manner in which the Court could deal with him if it had just convicted him of that offence."
The noble Earl said: I do not want to delay your Lordships' Committee as we have so much work to get through, but I formally beg to move the Amendment in the hope that the noble and learned Viscount will accept it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 19, at end insert the said subsection.—(The Earl of Munster.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The object of this Amendment. if I understand it aright, is that, where a court of summary jurisdiction sentences a probationer on conviction of a new offence, the necessity of bringing him up before the original court or the supervising court to have his probation terminated should be done away with. It seems a good idea and, so far as I am concerned, I am prepared to accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 [Scottish probation orders relating to persons residing in. England]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 3, leave out ("was") and insert ("were").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 11, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 12:
Supplementary provisions as to probation and discharge.
12.—(1) A conviction of an offence for which the offender is placed on probation or discharged absolutely or for which an order for
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conditional discharge is made, and the offence of which he is convicted, shall be disregarded—

(a) for the purposes of any enactment (including any enactment in its application to Scotland) by or under which any disqualification or disability is or may be imposed upon convicted persons; and

(b) except as hereinafter provided, for all other purposes whatsoever:

Provided that paragraph (b) of this subsection shall not affect—

(i) the revesting or restoration of any property in consequence of the conviction; or

(ii) any power of the court by or before which the offender is convicted to make any order for the payment of costs or for or in connection with the restitution or delivery of property to the owner; or

(iii) any right of the offender to appeal against his conviction; or

(iv) any power of a court under this Act to deal with the offender in respect of the offence;

and if the offender was not less than seventeen years of age at the time of his conviction and is subsequently sentenced under this Act for the offence, the said paragraph (b) shall cease to apply to the conviction and offence.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to omit subsection (1). The noble and learned Viscount said: This is a complicated and difficult matter. Your Lordships will remember that under the existing law a court of summary jurisdiction, when it makes a probation order, does so without proceeding to conviction, whereas a court of Assize or a court of Quarter Sessions convicts first and then places on probation. To deal with the reality and the logic of this question I think it is very difficult to see how one can actually contemplate that a court of summary jurisdiction can impose upon a defendant all these pains and penalities and so on, without having convicted him. I think it is unreal to say that he has not been convicted. On the other hand, I think we all want this: that, if the probationist makes good and pulls round, then the conviction should never thereafter be held up against him. Therefore we want, as it were, restrospectively to wipe out that which he did on the basis that he is behaving well. This is the clause which tries to do that. We provide that the conviction which preceded the probation order shall not be deemed to be a conviction once the probation order is made unless the offender is subsequently sentenced for the original offence and, if he is seventeen or under when the probation order is made, the conviction will

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still be deemed not to be a conviction even if he is so subsequently sentenced. It has been a most difficult matter to draft this clause, but I think and I hope that, on the whole, we have managed to combine the two principles which I have indicated. I hope that the new clause which I shall move after this Amendment will commend itself to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 31, leave out subsection (1).—(The Lord Chancellor.)
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: The noble and learned Viscount is quite right when he says that this is a clause which raises a definite division of opinion. On the one hand, there are many experienced people who say that probation works better without a conviction at all. On the other hand, there are people who say that probation has been apt, anyhow in some places, to degenerate into being nothing more than discharge. It is very necessary to register the conviction if probation is to be taken seriously. I own myself to waver between these two opinions. However, on the whole, I have come to the view that it is better to register the conviction, provided that no disqualification of any kind follows afterwards if the probationer makes good and carries out the probation order. So far as I can see, the proposal of the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor meets my point so far as the United Kingdom is concerned. I think that the effect of this clause would be that, in the case of a probationer who makes good, he would not be disqualified in this country, provided, as I say, that he has carried out the order. However, a question does arise with reference to foreign countries. When I was Home Secretary, I well remember the point being made: What happens in the case of a young man who wishes to emigrate, and entry into the particular country depends upon there having been no conviction? I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor what is the effect of the new proposal upon the Paper as far as a foreign country is concerned? Would it be possible, under these proposals, for an intending emigrant to state, when he is going for instance, through Ellis Island, that there is no conviction against him? It is an important point. Unless some action of that kind is taken, I think that the probationer who makes good after the
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conviction has been registered will be at a grave disadvantage.
There is a further point connected with the Fighting Services. Am I light in thinking that, under these proposals, no probationer who has made good will be disqualified in any way from entering into the three Fighting Services? Some years ago, the mere registration of a conviction would have disqualified a young man. It is important to have it clearly stated that under these proposals disqualification is removed. Provided that those two points are met—namely, that with reference to the Fighting Services in this country and that with reference to cases of emigration, whether to foreign countries or to the British Dominions—I think, on the whole, the Lord Chancellor's new proposal should be supported.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: Has this point been considered in the deliberations that have preceded the preparation of this Bill? There are two valid arguments here which seem to conflict, the one with the other; and we must try to reconcile them. One is that if a conviction is not recorded, the offender is put upon probation; he is put under the supervision of the probation officer for a certain time and he hears nothing more about it; he is, in fact, let off. On the other hand, if a conviction is recorded then, even if his conduct on probation has been perfectly satisfactory, if he happens to be charged with another offence later, or if he is an emigrant and is asked the question: "Has any conviction been recorded against you in the country from which you have come?"—if he is conscientious he will be bound to say: "Yes, it has been recorded against me, but the law also provides that there shall be no disability to follow from it." Has the suggestion been considered that when the probation order is made the conviction should be recorded, but that if the probation order is discharged the conviction should be expunged? I have not heard this suggestion discussed, but it seems to me there would be no impropriety in this because, after all, probation is probation. It is not a sentence; it means that a person is placed under certain conditions. If the conditions have been discharged, then—and only then—should the original proceedings also be discharged and made void. I suggest that for your Lordships' consideration as a means of reconciling these two conflicting circumstances.
LORD KERSHAW: I think there is another aspect of this problem that ought to be considered. As things are, it often happens that if a court has a person before it who appears to need probation, or for whom it appears that probation would be good, one finds that magistrates are not so particular as they should be in finding the man guilty of the offence for which he appears before them. I think it is very important that before magistrates put a man on probation (whatever that may mean to the boy or man), they should make quite sure that the offence for which he is before them has been proved. I feel sure that has not always been the case.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Again, I will certainly look at the words. This clause was the subject of a great deal of consideration, and it was expressly designed to enable a man going abroad to say "I have not been convicted." That is what the clause is designed to do, and I hope it does it. But I can conceive the question being put in various ways, to some of which a scrupulously truthful person would have to answer "Well, I do not know." On the other hand, it does rather depend on how the question is put. Your Lordships will see the form of the words:
"…a conviction of an offence for which an order is made…placing the offender on probation…shall be deemed not to be a conviction for any purpose other than for the purposes of the proceedings in which the order is made."
With regard to the question relating to disqualification on entry into the Services, that is expressly provided for, and there is no longer any disqualification or any disability whatever. I think, therefore, we have dealt both with the case of a foreign country and with that of the Services, and I will certainly look at the suggestion made by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. But I must point out that a great deal of ingenuity, care, thought and discussion have been used to try to hammer out this clause. Though it is possible that we can improve on it now, for my part I think it rather unlikely. We all want the same thing, and any suggestions on this matter will certainly be looked at.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: I would like to add this one consideration. If the law were as I suggested it might be, there would be an additional and a very
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strong inducement to the person put upon probation to behave himself, because he would be told "There is this conviction against you; you understand that. If you behave well and fulfil these conditions it will be wiped out and you will be perfectly clear in your future life, wherever you go. There will be no conviction standing against you." That would be a very strong argument indeed.
VISCOUNT SIMON: This is, of course, a matter upon which many of us have had occasion to exercise our own thoughts. I see very clearly the arguments in favour of the principle which the Lord Chancellor has endeavoured to put in the clause. I think I also see the point made by the noble Lord behind him. The difficulty really arises in a slightly more practical form. There is, first, the matter of a man going abroad. In the last few days, I have had to fill up an extremely elaborate green form which is issued to people going to America, and which is part of the material upon which the authorities there will decide whether or not they let a person into their country. I have an appointment to go there. One of the questions that was asked on the form was: "Have you ever been convicted?" I was in a most fortunate position because I was able to say that I never have been convicted. But if I had to try and deal with that question honestly, and I were one of those people who had been convicted and wished to be taken as not convicted "for any purpose other than the purposes of the present proceedings," I think I would either have to go for the substance of the thing and care nothing for the question, or else be rather skilful in explaining what I was doing. I think my noble friend Lord Samuel said the other day that when the law says something is "deemed to be" so and so, it means that it is not so.
The other case which I should have thought is frequently a matter of difficulty is the inquiry that is made in this country of a young man or woman who is seeking employment. Again, one does not want to make it easier for the unscrupulous and more difficult for the scrupulous. I must confess that I am rather alarmed at what this clause might mean, because the provision is necessarily elaborate and, of course, the ordinary person applying for a situation would not be able to follow it. On the

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other hand, there is something in what has been said about people being put on probation although they are not found by the court to be guilty of the charge. It is equivalent to saying that the court may improve on their morals without first of all finding that the charge against them is proved. I am therefore in a state of uncertainty. I think it is right that the other side of the matter should be mentioned, because it seems to me to be a practical one, and there may be some real difficulties arising. I am sorry not to be more definite, but it is only because I feel so concerned about the whole question.
LORD SALTOUN: I was going to Say what the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, has just said very much better than I could have done. But I suggest that there is a further consideration. The object of probation is to train young people in the ways of truth and honour. I would think it a very unfortunate thing if the Statute law of this country should seem to lend itself to lack of honesty and good faith in the people thus trained. I would far rather see what the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has suggested—that there should be conviction and that, later, on a further reference back to the court, the conviction should be quashed. That would answer the whole problem and put matters on a proper basis. It would be a perfectly frank and honourable method and the result of its employment would be a credit to the person affected.
LORD GODDARD: I hope that I do not look at this matter too much as a lawyer, but I have never been able to understand how, when a boy is brought before magistrates—say for stealing—and the magistrates, finding the charge proved, put him on probation, it can be said that he has not been convicted. If he has not been convicted what power have the magistrates to put him on probation? If we are going to delude ourselves in this way out of tenderness to the young, just consider what would happen. That boy would be enabled if he goes later to seek employment and the potential employer says to him, "Have you ever been convicted of dishonesty?" to reply, "No." But of course he has been so convicted. It may be unfortunate, but there it is. And I venture to think that you cannot wipe out what has happened by saying at the end of probation, if the boy has
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behaved himself, that the conviction shall be removed from the register. The effect of its removal from the register, or from the file of the court of summary jurisdiction, would be that if the boy did something wrong again in the future the policeman would not be able to say—unless by chance he had personal knowledge of the previous case—"This boy was once convicted." As I say, if he has been convicted, then he has been convicted.
With regard to the point about going abroad, which was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, we cannot legislate for foreign countries. I think it is better to be honest about this. If the individual has been convicted—there it is. If he has been put on probation and has not been dealt with for any breach of the probation, any humane-minded man would take no notice of it; he would merely say: "Well, there was a slip once, and the boy has behaved himself well ever since." I think that it is a very serious thing to let it go out to the world that a person who has in fact been convicted is to be allowed to make it appear that he has not.
LORD RAGLAN: May I say that, "Have you ever been convicted?" is only one form that the question may take. A person who is approached by a boy who has been on probation nay ask: "Have you ever been before the courts?" or "Have you ever been in trouble with the police?" There are various ways in which the question is put.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move the next Amendment.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 12 insert the following new clause:
"Effects of Probation and Discharge.
—(1) Subject as hereinafter provided, a conviction of an offence for which an order is made under this Part of this Act placing the offender on probation or discharging him absolutely or conditionally shall be deemed not to be a conviction for any purpose other than the purposes of the proceedings in which the order is made and of any subsequent proceedings which may be taken against the offender under the foregoing provisions of this Act:
Provided that where an offender, being not less than seventeen years of age at the time of his conviction of an offence for which he

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is placed on probation or conditionally discharged as aforesaid, is subsequently sentenced under this Part of this Act for that offence, the provisions of this subsection shall cease to apply to the conviction.
(2) Without prejudice to the foregoing provisions of this section, the conviction of an offender who is placed on probation or discharged absolutely or conditionally as aforesaid shall in any event be disregarded for the purposes of any enactment which imposes any disqualification or disability upon convicted persons, or authorises or requires the imposition of any such disqualification or disability.
(3) The foregoing provisions of this section shall not affect—

(a) any right of any such offender as aforesaid to appeal against his conviction, or to rely thereon in bar of any subsequent proceedings for the same offence;

(b) the revesting or restoration of any property in consequence of the conviction of any such offender; or

(c) the operation, in relation to any such offender, of any enactment in force at the commencement of this Act which is expressed to extend to persons dealt with under subsection (1) of section one of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1907, as well as to convicted persons."—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
7.23 p.m.
LORD LLEWELLIN LORD LLEWELLIN moved, after Clause 12 to insert as a new clause:
".A conviction of an offence which the offender committed while under the age of twenty-one years and the offence of which he was convicted shall be disregarded for the purpose of any enactment (including any enactment in its application to Scotland) by or under which any disqualification or disability is or may be imposed upon any convicted person provided that he shall not have been reconvicted of any indictable offence for a period of ten years after the expiry of any sentence passed upon him before he attained the age of twenty-one.
The noble Lord said: In framing this Amendment I was faced with this problem. A young man sentenced by a court—it may be to Borstal training or something of that sort—is frequently told, in effect: "There you will have an opportunity of being trained and of starting afresh when you have gone through your training." But despite this, if he is convicted of felony, he would not be allowed to his dying day, however well he had done after passing through his training, to hold a publican's licence, to hold a wine and spirit licence and one or two other matters of that sort.
I have knowledge of this because a brother of mine for years has devoted the
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whole of his time to taking charge of Borstal institutions. He has had several cases in which a boy has done really well since leaving an institution and then, some ten or twenty years afterwards, has been disqualified from taking a job for which no one else would be disqualified. I put down this Amendment before some of the Amendments which now stand in the name of the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor had been put down. I believe that by this Bill various disqualifications are now repealed. I understand that other Amendments which are down in the Lord Chancellor's name will relate to the selling of beer, cider and wine by retail. So long as we are clearing up all these matters, all these disqualifications, and I can be convinced that my Amendment is completely unnecessary, then my object is attained. I know of quite a number of people who after going through my brother's institutions did extremely well in the war. Many of them obtained commissions. To say, after they have shown so clearly how they have benefited by their institutional training, that they are to be disqualified in respect of civil occupations, seems to me not only discouraging to these young men themselves but a discouragement to the officers at the institutions who are engaged on this great work of reforming. If we can get rid of these disqualifications there is no point in my Amendment, because the need for it will not arise; but I move it hoping that I shall receive the assurance which I am seeking.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 12 insert the said new clause.—(Lord Llewellin.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Of course, the noble Lord is quite right. The really substantial business here is licensing, and we are putting that right by our Amendments to the Ninth Schedule, at page 85 and elsewhere. Theoretically, the following disqualifications and disabilities may result from conviction under the Forfeiture Act of 1870. Section 2 of this Act, as it will be amended by this Bill, provides that a person convicted of felony and sentenced to imprisonment exceeding twelve months forfeits any military or naval office, or any civil office under the Crown, and any pension or superannuation allowance payable out of any public fund. Clause 6 of the Bill gives power for the pension to be restored. So I think we deal

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adequately with that. Section 2 of the Forfeiture Act further provides that such a person, until he has suffered the punishment to which he has been sentenced, is disqualified from holding any such office or exercising any right of sufferage or other Parliamentary or municipal franchise. The noble Lord's new clause would not prevent the loss of office or pension which may result from these provisions.
Then there is the question of disqualification under the Local Government Act. Section 59 of the Local Government Act, 1933, and Section 33 of the Local Government Act, 1939, disqualify from election to or membership of a local authority any person who five years before the day of election or since his election, has been convicted of an offence and ordered to be imprisoned for not less than three months. As this disqualification ceases to operate five years after the conviction, and Lord Llewellin's clause makes the period after which disqualification would cease to operate ten years, his clause would have no effect upon disqualifications under those Acts. The only other category of disqualifications is that under the Road Traffic Acts. One might, conceivably, have such a clear case of dangerous driving that a man's licence is taken away from him for the rest of his life. I suppose it is possible—though it is unlikely—that that might be done to someone under the age of twenty-one. Under the Road Traffic Act, a person disqualified can apply to the court for the removal of the disqualification at any time after the expiration of six months from his conviction. So, although I sympathise with the noble Lord's intention, I can assure him that I have gone into this matter with a view to seeing that there are left no disqualifications of the sort which he has in mind.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I do not want to press my Amendment. The points I had in mind were quite different from the case given and I did not want in the least to deal with disqualification of driving licences. I had in mind the case of respectable men who had been in trouble and had been unable to get a job whereby they would normally make a living. I am completely satisfied with the explanation of the noble and learned Viscount.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I believe that under the law as it stands at the
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present moment, if a man who has performed acts of gallantry during active service is found guilty and sentenced by a court, under the prerogative of the Crown he may have all his decorations taken from him. Will that matter be covered by what the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor has just said?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Any emoluments, pension, superannuation or allowance may go back, but I do not know whether there is any provision about decorations.
VISCOUNT SIMON: Is it not a question of prerogative?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is a question of prerogative. It is not a matter of Statute, and the prerogative cannot come into this Bill.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[The Sitting was suspended at thirty-two minutes past seven o'clock and resumed at nine o'clock.]
Clause 13:
Power to fine on conviction of felony on indictment.
13. Courts of assize and quarter sessions shall have power to fine a person convicted on indictment of a felony for which those courts have power to pass a sentence of imprisonment in lieu of dealing with him in any other manner in which those courts have power to deal with him.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is a drafting Amendment. The words "not being a felony the sentence for which is fixed by law" are similar to those in the amended Clause 4. I think this will improve the draft.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 15, leave out from the beginning to end of line 17 and insert ("Any court by which an offender is convicted on indictment of felony (not being a felony the sentence for which is fixed by law) shall have power to fine the offender").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD MERTHYR: If it is not out of order, I should like to ask whether, in line 18, it would not be an improvement, in addition to the words "in lieu of" to have "in addition to."
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: That Amendment will come later.
LORD GODDARD: I am a little puzzled concerning the question of sentences fixed by law. For example, take burglary. The sentence fixed by law is penal servitude for life, but that does not mean that the judge must pass that sentence. I do not know whether there are any such sentences fixed by law which must be passed.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The sentence for murder—that is about all.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SALTOUN LORD SALTOUN moved, after "in lieu of" to insert "or in addition to." The noble Lord said: I hope the Government will be able to accept this Amendment. On every side of the House the feeling has been expressed that we want to get rid of long sentences of imprisonment if we can, and this Amendment suggests the best means of doing so.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 18, after ("of") insert ("or in addition to").—(Lord Saltoun.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am prepared to accept this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is a mere drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 18, leave out ("those courts have") and insert ("the court has").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 13, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 14 to 16 agreed to.
Clause 17:
Restriction on imprisonment.
17.—(1) A court of summary jurisdiction shall not impose imprisonment on a person under seventeen years of age; and a court of assize or quarter sessions shall not impose imprisonment on a person under fifteen years of age.
LORD GODDARD LORD GODDARD moved to delete subsection (1). The noble and learned Lord said: The reason I raise this question is that I do not know quite what the effect is going to be if no court can pass a sentence of imprisonment upon a boy of sixteen. I quite agree that one should always abstain from passing a sentence on a boy of sixteen if one possibly can, but there are some cases in which
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I do not know what else could be done. A Borstal sentence would be quite improper in many cases unless it could be shown that he had criminal tendencies or previous convictions. Yet some of these young gangsters of sixteen commit the most shocking offences. A short time ago there was the case of a boy of sixteen raping a little girl in an empty house. If we cannot pass any sentence on them at all, I do not know what is to happen.
Amendment moved—
Page 20, line 14, leave out subsection (1).—(Lord Goddard.)
9.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goddard, has said, this clause raises a very important issue in the Bill. In my view, it is one of the most important of all the provisions of the Bill. I take the view that the essential problem with which we are dealing is the problem of the juvenile offender, and that within that problem is the fact that short terms of imprisonment seem to do him harm rather than good. If there were time, and if anybody wished it, I could give to the House many statistics to support what I am saying. But I assume that it is the general wish of the men and women who are interested in these questions to bring down to a minimum the number of sentences of imprisonment for young offenders. I agree with Lord Goddard that that at once raises the question of alternative punishment. None of us wish the young offender to get off scot-free, and I propose to deal with certain aspects of alternative punishment in the next clause.
Meanwhile, let me say that I approve of the general proposal in the Bill to prohibit and to restrict the imprisonment of the young. What I do not understand, however, is the distinction drawn between courts of summary jurisdiction and Quarter Sessions and courts of Assize. When we considered this question nine years ago, it was the general view that the same conditions should apply in both, and if there was a restriction of age, if there were obligations placed upon courts in the event of their sending young persons to prison, those restrictions and obligations should apply to all courts, whether the higher courts or the lower courts. On that account, we proposed a general provision that would have taken the age of sixteen for all courts—courts of Assize, Quarter Sessions and courts of

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summary jurisdiction—and we made no difference between them. I look at the criminal statistics—particularly at the criminal statistics of the past two years—and I find (I say this with great deference, in the presence of the Lord Chief Justice and other distinguished Judges present) that what seem to me to have been some of the worst mistakes made in sending young offenders to prison were made in the higher courts.
I do not stop to give your Lordships actual cases and actual details, but if your Lordships will look at the last criminal statistics you will find a sentence there saying that many of the cases that were sentences of imprisonment ought to have had Borstal treatment. Those were cases, obviously, in the higher courts. That being so, I have put down an Amendment that would make the procedure uniform between all courts. It would make the procedure uniform, first of all, in the matter of age. I have taken the age of sixteen for all courts, rather than seventeen for the courts of summary jurisdiction and fifteen for the higher courts. I will not disguise the fact that if any noble Lord suggested that seventeen for both was a better proposal, I would withdraw mine and accept that. But in order not to make too drastic a proposal, I go back to what was actually proposed in 1938—namely, that the uniform age below which no one should be sent to prison should be sixteen. Secondly, I consider that the obligations placed upon the various courts, in the exceptional cases in which it is found necessary to send particularly depraved and unruly young offenders to prison, should be uniform. In every case of that kind, the court should make a written statement about the case. Your Lordships will see that at present that obligation is only imposed upon the courts of summary jurisdiction. I see no reason why it should not be imposed upon all courts.
LORD GODDARD: Quarter Sessions as well?
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: I beg the noble Lord's pardon. My proposal would be to make the obligations uniform. I think that the Orders in Council, under which it will be possible in the future to raise the age below which no young offender should be sent to prison, if and when suitable alternative accommodation
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can be found for there, should affect the higher courts as well as the lower courts. At present, as I read the clause, they relate only to the courts of summary jurisdiction. For these reasons, I hold the view very strongly that this differentiation between the courts is wrong, and that a more uniform treatment would be much more likely to get rid of some of the bad cases to which the criminal statistics refer—cases which certainly should have been sent to Borstal or to some other form of treatment, and not to prison. I do not move my Amendment now, because we are having a general discussion, but at a later stage I will do so.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: I hesitate to intervene in this debate which is rather a technical one, as indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, and the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, but I agree that the age of sixteen is probably the best age to insert in this clause. My reason for saying that is this. Some years ago there came into your Lordships' House a Bill presented by the late Lord Buckmaster, recommending an increase in the age of consent. I happened to sit upon the Select Committee. The age of consent at the time when that Bill was introduced was, so far as I recollect twelve years in the case of a girl and thirteen years in the case of a boy. Obviously, that was contrary to the practice in many other parts of the world which had gone far beyond us. I do not know how long this had existed, but probably for a century or two, and no step had been taken to alter it. We heard all sorts of evidence from different societies and we learnt in the course of the inquiry that the age of consent in Yugoslavia was eighteen, in another European country was seventeen, and so on. Finally we decided, having examined the whole question carefully, that the age should be placed at sixteen in the case of both males and females. It seems to me that that has a bearing on the question which is before us, and that if you place the age of consent at sixteen in the case of a boy, at least he should be subject to such punishment as the courts may wish to mete out to him. I would be prepared to accept what the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has said, that the age of sixteen in the case of both the higher and lower courts is the age which would be acceptable to us.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Viscount with great gallantry has taken his little sling and stones in this battle of giants and has made a contribution as useful and interesting as always. But I confess I do not understand what is the "age of consent" for males.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: Sixteen.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: But consent to what? I really do not know. I have never heard of it before—but I am not an expert on criminal law.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: If the noble and learned Viscount will translate it into legal language, noble Lords may understand what I have been trying to express.
LORD GODDARD: What I think the noble Viscount has in mind is this. Under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, sixteen was the age at which a girl could consent to carnal knowledge. But in 1925 the law was altered to this extent: that consent was no defence to indecent assault on either a boy or a girl under the age of sixteen. It remained after the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 that although consent would be no defence to carnal knowledge between thirteen and sixteen, it was a defence to indecent assault of a girl and also in the case of a boy.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I did not know. It just shows that the noble Viscount knows much more about this topic than I do. Seeing that I am responsible more than anyone else for the appointment of magistrates' courts, no one will interpret anything I am going to say hereafter as meaning that I have not a profound admiration for the work which the magistrates' courts do. When one thinks of the vast amount of work they do and the extreme efficiency and common sense with which most of it is conducted, one realises that it is a very remarkable tribute to those who carry it out. Equally I must confess that I have a very considerable opinion of and regard for His Majesty's Judges. I do not wish to place one against the other, but I am sure that training in the law tends to make those in the superior courts more likely to be able to cope with the difficult situations than are magistrates, who have had no such training. That Judges make many mistakes I do not doubt; but I think that, due probably
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to their training and experience and knowledge, they make fewer mistakes than if they had not had that training and knowledge. Therefore I would apply a different canon and a different standard to the superior courts from those which I would apply to the courts of summary jurisdiction.
There is another reason why I would apply a slightly different standard to the superior courts. It is because they are dealing with very serious crimes. After all, the magistrates normally deal with crimes the maximum penalty for which is six months. As the Lord Chief Justice said just now, boys of sixteen may commit the most grievous crimes; unfortunately, we know that to be true. This clause is founded on this basis: that we grant a wider discretion and a wider latitude to the superior courts, both by reason of their training, experience and knowledge, and also because they are dealing with more serious cases. The proposition which I advance to your Lordships is that it is right to have a differing standard, to grant a greater discretion to the superior courts than the discretion which is granted to courts of summary jurisdiction. I hope that no one thinks that I am saying one word against the way in which the courts of summary jurisdiction exercise their discretion. Therefore, we have taken the words of the clause as we have drafted it, and the critical phrase is this:
"A court of summary jurisdiction shall not impose imprisonment on a person under seventeen years of age; and a court of assize or quarter sessions shall not impose imprisonment on a person under fifteen years of age."
If that clause stands as it is, the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, will see that a person of sixteen could, of course, be dealt with, and, if necessary, be sent to prison by a court of Assize.
LORD GODDARD: You mean be sent for trial?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, be sent for trial; whereas he could not be sent to prison by a court of summary jurisdiction. Having said that and tried to explain to your Lordships why I personally think it right that there should be a differentiation between the two cases and why we should have a different standard in the two cases, I say again—and here I entirely agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood—that the

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sending to prison of a young person of that age, whether by a court of summary jurisdiction, by a court of Quarter Sessions or by a court of Assize, in nine cases out of ten—in fact, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred—means that the odds are that you will be doing much more harm than good. All Judges of all courts should be, as I have no doubt they are, fully alive to that consideration. I am sure they are. But a case may arise in which a Judge of great experience, who would, I am sure, assent to what I have said, would yet say: "The circumstances of this case are such that there is no course open to me but to do this. The case is not one that is fit for Borstal. The crime is one of such a serious nature that it must be dealt with and therefore I may have to do it."
Whether or not it will be desirable that the duty which is imposed upon a court of Quarter Sessions or a court of summary jurisdiction under subsection (3) should extend to the court of Assize is not a matter I have dealt with. The broad proposition that I advance here is that there is a case for differentiation. Having said that, I am sure that those who have had the experience of sitting as His Majesty's Judges would agree with me when I say again that, save in wholly exceptional cases, it is most undesirable, if it can possibly be avoided, to send a young person to prison. Circumstances may arise when a Judge feels: "I regret to say I have no option but to send this young person to imprisonment." That is the reason why I differentiate, both by reason of the greater experience of the superior courts and also by reason of the greater gravity of the offences with which they have to deal. That is my case, and I think it is a good case, for differentiation.
When we come to the age it is quite true that it is different from that contained in the Bill which Lord Temple-wood introduced. May I say to him and to your Lordships that I naturally pay the greatest attention to anything he says, because I know what care and attention and consideration he has given to all these problems and, if I may say so, I have come to regard myself as a disciple of many of the ideas which he has advanced. We may be wrong in the age we propose. If I remember rightly, under the last Bill his
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age was sixteen all the way through; we have put the age up to seventeen. I gather from what he has said that he does not mind that so far as courts of summary jurisdiction are concerned; but so far as the superior courts are concerned, for the reasons I have given, we thought it right to bring the age down to fifteen. That is a conclusion which, on the whole, after great consideration, I think I can Commend to your Lordships.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: I am obliged to the noble and learned Viscount for the conciliatory manner in which he has dealt with my observations. I am not prepared to press my objection upon the point of age, although I would have preferred it to be seventeen all round. I have put no Amendment down upon the subject, but I would ask him, between now and the Report stage to look into the other two questions—first, the reporting of these exceptional cases and, secondly, whether in the future all courts should not be treated alike in the matters of Orders in Council. He has given so impressive a picture of what he believes is the state of affairs now, and of the care that is taken to avoid sending young offenders to prison, that I hardly like to intervene with a single word of caution. However, as I said earlier, when I have examined the statistics the higher courts in recent years appear to have made quite a number of mistakes in not availing themselves of Borstal and other treatment and in sending young offenders to prison. These cases have very much increased in the war years. It may be that war conditions have made it inevitable that they should increase. None the less, I think it would be a wise precaution if, in every case and in every court where a young person within these categories is sent to prison, a written statement were made upon the subject. I hope therefore that the Lord Chancellor will carry out the undertaking he gave just now and will look further into this question between now and the Report stage.
LORD GODDARD: After the Lord Chancellor's remarks on this matter, I will withdraw my Amendment. I think the Lord Chancellor gave convincing reasons why there should remain a power in the higher courts. I myself have not come across any cases, either from Quarter Sessions or Assizes, of the nature that Lord Templewood thinks may have

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occurred. I know, of course, that great difficulties arose during the war. One reason is that there were not enough Borstal institutions. The only thing to do was to send the offenders to Wormwood Scrubs or Wakefield, or to somewhere where one was told there were boys' prisons, or places where boys could be satisfactorily treated. Another reason may have been—at any rate in the cases of boys of sixteen or seventeen—that considerable difficulties arose under the former Act because one could send boys to Borstal only when certain conditions were fulfilled. The boy had to have previous convictions, or had to be shown to be of criminal tendencies, or to be an associate of bad characters. Very often, however, there was no evidence of it. Then something had to be done.
If this matter is to be further considered, or Lord Templewood is to bring up another Amendment on the Report stage, I would venture to say, without in any way magnifying unduly the office of His Majesty's Judges, that I hope they will not be required to make a report of every one of these cases. It is not for me to say whether it is right for courts of summary jurisdiction. Probably some of your Lordships who are Chairmen of Quarter Sessions may have something to say on it. But, as I say, I hope that Judges will not be called upon to make a report on every one of these cases, to tell the Home Secretary what they have done and why they have done it. There are, of course, means of getting to the Court of Criminal Appeal, and I suppose the next thing would be that the Court of Criminal Appeal would be required to report on every one of these cases.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 17 agreed to.
CLAUSE 18 [Detention in a detention centre]:
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD moved to delete Clause 18 and substitute the following new clause:
("Provision of compulsory attendance centres and juvenile compulsory attendance centres.
—(1) If the Secretary of State is of opinion either upon consideration of proposals submitted to him by a court of quarter sessions or by the justices for any petty sessional division, or without such proposals, that it is expedient
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that there should be established attendance centres in accordance with this section,

(a) he may provide places to be called 'compulsory attendance centres' at which offenders of not less than seventeen but under twenty-one years of age may be required to attend on such occasions and at such times as will avoid interference so far as practicable with their working hours and be given under supervision appropriate occupation and instruction;

(b) the council of a county or county borough may with his approval provide places to be called 'juvenile compulsory attendance centres' at which offenders of not less than twelve but under seventeen years of age may be required to attend on such occasions and at such times as will avoid interference so far as practicable with their school hours and working hours and be given under supervision appropriate occupation and instruction; and any two or more councils may combine for the purpose of providing such centres.

(2) A court shall not require a person to attend at an attendance centre under this section if he has been previously sentenced to imprisonment or Borstal training.")
The noble Viscount said: This is a clause that raises the question of alternative punishments. I am sure every noble Lord will agree that if we are to restrict imprisonment of the young, and if, as I hope, we are going to abolish judicial whipping of the young, we must do our best to find alternative methods of dealing with juvenile delinquents. At a time when juvenile delinquency has increased to such a formidable extent as it has in recent years, it is particularly necessary to find these alternatives, but I admit at once that it is one of the most difficult problems that can face anyone who produces comprehensive proposals of this kind. As things are, and assuming that imprisonment of the young is prohibited or, at any rate, drastically restricted and that judicial whipping of the young comes to an end, the alternatives that under present conditions will remain will be probation, approved schools, and Borstal institutions. It is obvious that there will be offenders for whom these three methods of treatment are not suitable.
The question then arises how we are to fill the gap and what we are to put in the place of the short-term imprisonment and the whipping to which these offenders might have been liable in the past. In the drafting of the 1938 Bill we took into account a number of expert inquiries—for instance that of the Committee upon Youthful Offenders, in 1927—and we also considered a great variety of alternatives. We came finally to two conclusions. The first was that we needed some new form

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of quick, sharp, punishment that would not mean a break, or a serious break, in the young offender's life. Secondly, we came to the view that there was a need of residential hostels to which a young offender could be sent, say, for a period of six months, and at which he would have to live under supervision, but would be able to continue his work outside and avoid, in that instance also, a break with his normal life. For the first of these needs we proposed institutions that were called attendance centres. These were intended for the quick, short punishment, say, of the loss of a half-holiday. We had in mind that in certain areas that were suited to the experiment, centres should actually be started. In other cases—in country districts, for instance—it might well be that young offenders would be ordered to attend on Saturday afternoons at the police station and remain in attendance for two or three hours. Our object was to deprive young offenders of a half-holiday, to prevent their going to a football match or a cinema and, perhaps not less important, to make them ridiculous to their friends and relatives. That was the first proposal: putting it in a phrase, the loss of a half-holiday.
The second proposal was the residential hostel, but a residential hostel in which the young offender would still be able to go out into the world and do his work. For various reasons, those two proposals have disappeared from the Bill, and in their place is a proposal for what is called detention centres. At this stage I do not wish formally to oppose the proposal for detention centres, but I must say to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor that I regard the proposal with very grave apprehension. Moreover, my anxiety is shared by the Magistrates' Association, who have considered this question, and they also take the view that there is a grave risk of these detention centres becoming nothing more than little short-term prisons for the young. Unlike my own proposals, they do not draw a distinction between the younger and older delinquents. I drew a distinction between the fourteens to seventeens and the seventeens to twenty-ones. As I read the proposals for detention centres, all the young offenders from fourteen to twenty-one—a very wide range of age—are to be concentrated. They are to be taken away from their ordinary work. We have been told nothing about what kind of treatment
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they are to be given and what methods of training are to be used for the variable times of their detention, because the time will vary up to six months for almost every individual sent to a detention centre. I have a grave fear that these centres will simply become little prisons for the young. Whilst at one end we have restricted imprisonment for the young, at the other end we will be re-creating it with these new institution.
I am aware that the objection raised against these attendance centres and hostels has been that it would be difficult to staff them. I have the feeling that that objection is exaggerated. I do not envisage a complicated staff, I contemplate something quite simple—some place where the boy or girl could go for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. Nor do I think that the residential hostels should raise a greater problem of administration than the hostels contemplated in the Bill. I agree also that it may be necessary to start on a small scale and make experiments. In the case of a great many of these methods of dealing with criminals we are moving in the dark, and the more experiments we make the better. If the Government wish to carry out their proposals for detention centres I should like to see experiments made also with attendance centres and with residential hostels. I must warn the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, that I regard the present plan of detention centres to deal with a variety of totally different cases as a very dangerous one. I hope, therefore, without pressing him unduly to-day, that he will think again over this question and that he will bring to the attention of the Home Office what I have said. My views are not merely my individual views, nor the views of someone who regards his own proposals of 1938 as verbally inspired. They are shared by a great many magistrates and administrators in the country and are on the lines which the Magistrates' Association have actually proposed. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 18 and insert the said new clause.—(Viscount Templewood.)
LORD GODDARD: I share with my noble friend Lord Templewood the dislike of Clause 18 as it is at present drawn. It provides a method of dealing with these

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young offenders whom we do not want to send to prison, but we have to think of the expense of providing these places and the difficulties of manning them. But to my mind, leaving out the question of expense, a more legitimate objection is that this clause provides only for sending boys to these places for three months. I believe the effect of that will be to make boys of this age the victims of short sentences. There is nothing more deplorable among the criminals who come before the courts, week by week and almost day by day, than to find that they are people who have, perhaps, thirty or forty convictions, and who had repeated short sentences passed upon them. If you are going, to send boys to these detention centres, you should give the courts the power to send them for at least twelve months, or something of that sort. In the case of Borstal, the sentence may be for three years, but in these detention centres we might make it less than that, because the younger the boy the shorter the training which might be necessary. But if it is a question of sending boys there for three months it means the beginning of the vicious circle of short sentences, the result of which we see every day.
The noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has made a suggestion about attendance centres. If we accept that, we shall have at the end of this Bill remand homes, remand centres, detention centres, attendance centres—besides prisons. I have the greatest doubt whether we shall ever get these things going in anything like a reasonable time. May I make one contribution which magistrates might like to consider, of a course that was taken by a Bench of magistrates with whom I used to have the pleasure of sitting every now and again during the war, when I had to live out of London after my house was destroyed? They used to tell these young offenders under sixteen: "We will not send you to an approved school to-day. If we send you to an approved school, you will go there for a long time, and that means being sent away from homes. What we will do instead is to bind you over on condition that you attend at the police station every Saturday afternoon"—say for a month; it might mean four Saturdays running, or it might mean six—"and you will be there from two o'clock until six or seven o'clock"—whatever time the magistrates thought fit, and varying with the time
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of the year; in the winter they would let them go earlier. "You may take a book with you, if you like, but there you will have to stay as a punishment for what you have done." After all, that is not very much different from keeping them in after school. It had a wonderful effect. The juvenile crime in the district of the Bench of which I am speaking fell greatly.
You do not want any Statute to allow you to do that, because these young offenders are put on probation conditionally on their going to those places. If more use could be made of that method, I do not think we should need to go to the expense at the present time (after all, expense is something at the present time) of setting up special places. I have heard it said—I do not know whether it is correct—that the Home Office think the police would not be able to manage it. If an inspector of police or a station sergeant cannot manage four or five unruly boys on a Saturday afternoon, I should not think much of him as a police officer, I throw out that suggestion. It is a method which has worked, and I can speak of it from personal experience. If magistrates took some course like that, these boys would see that they were not going to "get away with it," and that would be a great thing. They must be made to understand that being put on probation, or being bound over, means something, and that they will get punished for the offences.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: I want to mention only one thing which your Lordships probably already know. It is that in a few days we shall be having the Second Reading of the Employment and Training Bill, dealing with the youth employment service. I mention that now, because the success or failure of that youth employment service will have a great bearing on the welfare of the young persons whose affairs we have been discussing. Therefore, I think we shall have to bear the considerations which have been brought up in this discussion very much in mind when we come to that Bill in a few days' time. I will not say any more, because I shall probably be out of order if I do.
LORD ROCHE: May I make one other observation before the Lord Chancellor replies? I remember that when the noble and learned Viscount had his Bill in draft we discussed this point at his invitation,

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and I told him I was in favour (and I still am) of something like his proposal for "keeping in." After all, the Lord Chief Justice's suggestion is to the same effect. But his suggestion will never get beyond this House to the magistrates unless there is something in the Bill about "keeping in." I am wondering whether, if the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary are thinking any more about this matter, there cannot be some combination of these things into one place and one arrangement. That is the suggestion I desire to make.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My instructions from the Home Office are to oppose this Amendment. Having told your Lordships what are my instructions—which I am going to carry out—I must say that the course of the discussion has rather made me wish that I had a little more latitude than in fact I have. I am attracted by the idea of taking these children to some place and keeping them in on Saturday afternoons when they want to see a football match. The actual Amendment is defective, because it provides for the setting up of these compulsory attendance centres but does not give any power to any court to send anybody to them. But that could easily be put right. The grounds upon which the Objections of the Home Office are based are three-fold; I can summarise them in three ways. First, there is really no chance of finding premises. Let me say, apropos the detention centre, that if it is to be merely a prison under another name, with all the vices, then it will do more harm than good. What we have to try is experimentation; we have to try to devise something which is not a prison, not run like a prison, but which does comply with what the noble Lord, Lord Oaksey, was talking about yesterday after-noon, a short term of rigorous training.
That is the scheme. And the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, will be glad to know that the detention centres contemplated will be centres which will most certainly differentiate between ages, and will not have one group of people all thrown together. After all, it will be a long time before we can build detention centres, but when we do build a detention centre, I am afraid it will be used all hours of the day and night. The prospect of building anything like a compulsory attendance centre where people will go for Saturday afternoons, is obviously
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utterly impracticable at the present time. We should have to use some existing building; and that is the first difficulty. The second difficulty is the difficulty with regard to staff. If this plan is to succeed, it has to be well done, and requires trained people. Of course, it is possible that you might get an inspector of police, and no doubt the ordinary inspector of police might keep in awe and subjection some half a dozen small boys. But they would be rather indignant small boys, for they would want to go to their football match. To tell you the honest truth, the difficulty is that on Saturday afternoons the inspector wants to go to the football match as well; and with the police so hard-pressed for men as they are at the present time, it will be difficult to find the really competent people—because we need competent people—to make this scheme a Success.
I must say that if we could get over those difficulties the idea of doing something unpleasant to these small children which does not in any way bring them into contact with the disadvantages of prison, has attractions for me. They may be rather sadistic attractions, but the idea has attractions, because I think it does bring these children "up against it." I confess that I am disturbed at the number of cases in which these naughty children are bound over, time after time, with nothing else done to them. I do think that is becoming a very serious matter. I have made all these observations, but I hope I have not unduly exceeded my instructions and that I shall not be subject to the attacks of the Home Secretary. If I am, I shall come and ask your Lordships to protect me.
The substance of the matter is that I will make a point of telling the Home Secretary that in various quarters of the House there is a good deal of feeling in favour of this idea. I was attracted by what the noble Viscount, Lord Temple-wood, said. Let us start this on a small scale. Let us start it here and there, and see if it works, and learn from experience. I will go back to the Home Secretary and tell him what has been said, and what noble Lords in all parts of the House think, and see what his reaction is. But I must say that the Home Office, who have considered this matter very much since 1938, have come to the conclusion

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that for the reasons I have indicated this scheme would not be satisfactory. For that reason, I think, the Home Secretary dropped this part of the 1938 plan. But on the lines which the noble Viscount indicated, it might be worth while to start the scheme. I think there is substance in what he said, and I will convey his views and your Lordships' views to the Home Secretary.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I should like to say one or two words, purely as a layman—I think that experts can exhibit too much expertise sometimes. I hope we shall not have an answer with which the Lord Chancellor would have no sympathy: I thought I detected, as the leit motif of his brief, that you cannot send half a dozen unruly boys to a police station to be kept in on a half-holiday afternoon unless you have some highly-trained person to look after them. I cast my mind back a long way, to my school days. I am bound to say that I do not think that at Winchester we were any more or any less unruly than at other schools. As soon as one became a prefect one had to look after forty boys, in what we called "toy time" and what others called "prep" I will not say that these boys were grossly insubordinate, but they were not blessed little lambs. But no "co-pre" worth his salt had any difficulty in keeping order in "toy time" I do not believe it is beyond the wit of any decent man of common sense, whether he be a station sergeant or anyone else, to look after half a dozen boys who have to be kept in on a Saturday afternoon.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: Once again, I am obliged to the noble and learned Viscount for what he has said. I hope that in this reconsideration he will draw a clear distinction between the idea of stopping half-holidays and the idea of training institutions. I think the fault of the present proposal is that it confuses the two. They really are two totally distinct proposals: on the one hand, keeping the young offender in for a half-holiday; and, on the other hand, some kind of hostel or institution in which he will live and undergo a period of supervision and training. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 18 agreed to.
9.58 p.m.
Clause 19:
Borstal training.
(3) Where a person is convicted by a court of summary jurisdiction for an offence for which that court has power, or would but for section seventeen of this Act have power, to pass a sentence of imprisonment, then if on the day of his conviction he is not less than sixteen but under twenty-one years of age, and the court is satisfied of the matters mentioned in subsection (1) of this section, the court may commit him in custody to quarter sessions for sentence in accordance with the following provisions of this section.
(5) Where an offender is so committed for sentence as aforesaid, the appeal committee or court of quarter sessions shall inquire into the circumstances of the case and may—

(a) if satisfied of the matters mentioned in the said subsection (1), sentence him to Borstal training; or

(b) in any case deal with him in any manner in which the court of summary jurisdiction might have dealt with him.

(6) Before a sentence of Borstal training is passed by a court of assize or quarter sessions or by an appeal committee, and before a person is committed to custody by a court of summary jurisdiction under subsection (3) of this section, the court or committee shall consider any report or representations made by or on behalf of the Prison Commissioners on the offender's physical and mental condition and his suitability for the sentence; and if the court is a court of summary jurisdiction and has not received such a report or representations it shall after conviction remand the offender in custody for such a period or periods, not exceeding three weeks in the case of any single period, as the court thinks necessary to enable the report or representations to be made.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is a drafting Amendment, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 22, line 14, leave out from ("offence") to end of line 14 and insert ("punishable with").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This also is a drafting Amendment, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 22, line 31, leave out from ("offence") to ("imprisonment") in line 33 and insert ("punishable on summary conviction with").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SCHUSTER LORD SCHUSTER moved, in subsection (3) after "sessions" to insert "or to any court of Assize whichever is the earlier." The noble Lord said: The object

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of this Amendment is, I think, fairly clear. It is simply to provide that an offender who is in prison or on bail should go to the quickest place of trial, wherever that may be. If there happens to be a court of Assize before there is a court of Quarter Sessions, then he should go to the court of Assize. However, I realise that the Amendment in the form in which I have put it down is defective. All I would ask the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor to do to-night is to say that he will agree to the principle of the Amendment, and if his expert assistants will put it into proper form I shall be much obliged. The difficulty is that there may, of course, be a notice of appeal given and it may be a notice of appeal to a court of Quarter Sessions. In that event, the matter ought to be dealt with in a court of Quarter Sessions and not in a court of Assize. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 22, line 37, after ("sessions") insert ("or to any court of Assize whichever is the earlier ").—(Lord Schuster.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will gladly do that. The trouble, however, is that, as the noble Lord anticipated in what he said, the magistrates may hear a case and realise that it is one in which they ought to send the man for sentence. At that moment of time, they do not know, and they cannot know for several days afterwards, whether the man is going to appeal or not. If he appeals, then, of course, there is no machinery at all for Assize, and therefore it has to be Quarter Sessions. The fact that it may have to be Quarter Sessions makes it difficult to see how this will work, because the magistrates, when they deal with a case., will not know whether there is going to be an appeal or not. Therefore, they cannot do what can be done when the dates of the Assizes are known—find out which is the convenient place to which to send the man. That is the first difficulty.
The second difficulty is this. Since the matters are going to be dealt with by an appeal committee of Quarter Sessions, equally the magistrates will not know the time at which the appeal committee will sit. I hope and believe that the appeal committee will be called back ad hoc to deal with particular cases. The magistrates will not know when the appeal committee is going to sit. On the broad general principle of sending anybody to
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a convenient place of trial—I mean convenient from the point of view of time—I must confess that I am at one with the noble Lord. Those are the difficulties and I will certainly discuss them with my advisers and see if there is any way out. For the moment, I frankly state that the difficulty about the possibility of appeal and the magistrates not knowing the time or whether there will be an appeal or not, seems to me a formidable obstacle in the way of sending the case to Assize. But I will see whether I can find any way out of that difficulty. However, on the broad general principle which the noble Lord has in mind, of not keeping a man waiting longer than is necessary to know if there is a convenient Assize court nearby to which to send him rather than send him to Quarter Sessions which may mean much delay, the noble Lord and I are at one. But the difficulties are formidable.
LORD SCHUSTER: I appreciate the force of the noble and learned Viscount's words, but I do not think that the difficulties are insuperable. However, I do not want to labour the point now. I am grateful for the action which the noble and learned Viscount proposes to take.
LORD GODDARD: The noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor said that we do not know when the appeal committees are going to sit. It is not only to appeal committees that these cases go; they go also to Recorders in boroughs. The reason why I was anxious that the noble Lord, Lord Schuster should move the Amendment and initiate this discussion was because of a case that came before the Central Criminal Court in which a most unfortunate state of affairs arose. It was nobody's fault, except possibly that of the Home Office. What happened was this. A boy had been committed for Borstal sentence to the Quarter Sessions for (I think I am right in saying) the Borough of Grantham, and at the tine the Recorder had unfortunately died. The office was vacant. For some strange reason, the Home Office did not fill that Recordership for nine months, and that boy was waiting in prison the whole time. At that time he could rot have been sent to the Assizes because the Assizes were over. He could not be sent to an adjoining Assizes because under the Act of 1925, a person can only be sent to the adjoining

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Assizes (if it is not out of the county in which the offence is committed) for trial; you cannot send him for sentence to Borstal.
I cannot help thinking that some provision could be made in this Bill under which, if the Assizes are going to take place within one month of the committal and a court has not had notice that the appeal committee or the Quarter Sessions are going to sit within one month, he may be sent to the Assize. No Judge would mind having these boys sent to him for trial. I am sure something should be done to obviate the considerable delay which may take place with the committal of a boy to the Quarter Sessions, when he could quite well be dealt with either at the Assize for the appropriate county or at a neighbouring Assize.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD RAGLAN LORD RAGLAN moved to add to subsection (3):
"Provided that a court of summary jurisdiction may pass a sentence of Borstal training if it has before it a certificate of the Prison Commissioners that in their opinion the offender is suitable for such training."
The noble Lord said: All those connected with Borstal are agreed that the sooner after conviction a lad begins his Borstal training the better prospect there is that that training will be successful. The Lord Chief Justice has spoken of the delays that arise in sending these lads to Borstal—sometimes very serious delays. Things are much better now than they were a year or two ago; in fact, I think one may say that Borstal has got over the shock it suffered to its system during the war. But even now a lad is sometimes kept up to six months in prison awaiting trial, or awaiting sentence and transfer, and, of course, not only is that time wasted, from his point of view, but he is acquiring the prison mentality, the avoidance of which is the whole point of the Borstal system. Other lads get through their preliminary stages very much more quickly.
What happens is this. The Borstal authorities think that in normal cases nine months is the usual period of training required, and that means that it is largely a matter of luck how long a man remains in custody awaiting transfer to the place where he is to be trained. Those who have the worst of the luck not
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unnaturally have grievances, if they see lads who are convicted long after themselves released before them, although they have behaved quite well while they have been in custody. I do not for a moment suggest that there is any panacea for this state of affairs, but I think there is a possible palliative—namely, to give courts of summary jurisdiction the power to send lads to Borstal. The danger, of course, is that these courts might send to Borstal lads who might more appropriately be given some other form of sentence—probation, for example. But that danger does not apply only to courts of summary jurisdiction.
Even Judges and Recorders sometimes impose Borstal sentences which cause considerable surprise to the Borstal authorities. Courts of summary jurisdiction, however, are far more likely to make mistakes than Judges or Recorders, and I think it would be only proper that, if the power to impose Borstal sentences were conferred upon them, some limitation should be placed upon that power. The limit that I have suggested in my Amendment is that they should not be allowed to impose a Borstal sentence unless they have before them a certificate from the Prison Commissioners that the lad is considered suitable for Borstal training. Those of your Lordships who sit at Quarter Sessions will know that this is not an entirely novel procedure. The Prison Commissioners now report to chairmen of Quarter Sessions, before those lads go before them that they might be suitable for Borstal, and I am proposing merely this extension of what is an existing practice. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 22, line 38, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Raglan.)
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: My noble friend, as the Chairman of a Borstal institution, and also as a Chairman of Quarter Sessions, speaks with great authority upon this question. He has attempted very gallantly to find a solution to a problem which has been the subject of a bitter controversy extending over a great many years. Half the world is in favour of allowing courts of summary jurisdiction to impose Borstal sentences and the other half is strongly against it. Anyone who is Home Secretary or Lord Chancellor, at any given time, is torn between these two views, each of which has a strong argument in its support. I have come to

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think that a Borstal sentence was too serious a sentence for a court of summary jurisdiction to impose. I think there is rather a tendency to consider Borstal sentences as something not very serious, but to me any sentence that takes a young offender away from his own district and from his family for two or three years is a very serious sentence. That makes me think that we should hesitate to give this power to courts of summary jurisdiction.
At the same time, I am very conscious of the fact that, as things are now, and in view of the lack of remand homes, boys and girls are often sent to prison and remain there for a long time, awaiting the passing of a Borstal sentence at Quarter Sessions. It seems to me, therefore, that the only justification for extending these powers to courts of summary jurisdiction is the shortage of remand homes. If a sufficient number of remand homes become available, then we shall not have these deplorable instances of young offenders remaining in prison, quite often week after week and month after month, awaiting sentence. I can accept the present proposal only on the understanding that the Home Office and the local authorities will proceed vigorously with a programme for building and staffing more remand homes. I am quite sure that if more remand homes are not made available these scandals of boys and girls being kept in prison for weeks and months will go on. If that be so, I shall be driven to the conclusion which is suggested in the Amendment of my noble friend, and shall feel that it is essential, even in face of all objections, to give these powers to courts of summary jurisdiction. In the meanwhile, I would leave things as the Bill proposes. I urge upon the representative of the Government that the key to the question is the provision of remand homes.
LORD SCHUSTER: Perhaps I may be allowed, fully realising, as I do, how bitter the controversy has been and how long it has continued, to say a word in support of the Amendment which has been moved by my noble friend Lord Raglan. As Lord Templewood has said, there are not sufficient remand homes, and so far as we can see there is no early prospect of there being sufficient remand homes. If we have to wait until there are enough of these institutions so that
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boy and girl offenders may be put somewhere, we shall have to wait for a time which we cannot measure, not having the gift of prophecy. As I say, I fully recognise the arguments against this. But, meanwhile, what is the danger? The Prison Commissioners are accustomed, at the present time, to certify to the Chairman of Quarter Session, or to the Bench—I forget which—that "so and so" is fit for Borstal treatment. It is laying no additional burden on them to require them to report to the court of summary jurisdiction. If the court is unable to send a boy or a girl to Borstal unless it has such a certificate, where is the harm, or what great danger is involved? There is a difficulty of a different nature which is purely technical, but on broad merits I submit, and I fully realise the weight of the argument on the other side, that there is a great deal to be said for the Amendment, and it would avoid many cases which, when they do occur, are very troublesome.
10.15 p.m.
LORD HAZLERIGG: As one who has sat on a Quarter Sessions and petty sessions for the last forty-five years, I am getting a little tired of people getting up in this House and saying that courts of summary jurisdiction are not competent to do things. I know that the ordinary petty sessions have not the legal eminence of a Recorder or Judge, but the duty of a Lord Lieutenant in choosing magistrates is a very difficult one. After we have chosen magistrates, the Lord Chancellor and his excellent staff put them through a fine sieve and the magistrates who are appointed are people who are, nowadays at any rate, very keen on their work. They do it to the best of their ability, and they are generally advised by excellent clerks. I believe that a court of petty sessions would be able to carry out the provisions of Lord Raglan's Amendment. I believe that with the shortage of remand homes it would be a good thing if we could have something of this kind in future. As I am on my feet, may I say one thing about Borstal? We find a difficulty at our Quarter Sessions, because when we send lads to Borstal, though they are generally sent down for three years they are let out far too soon, and time after time we have people coming back to us who have been let out

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six months after they went in. I think that is one of the greatest scandals at the present time.
LORD GODDARD: I have great sympathy with the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, and of the noble Lord, Lord Hazlerigg. I am sure the noble Lord will acquit me of being one of those who attack courts of summary jurisdiction. One difficulty which would certainly have to be provided for is that of appeals. I do not know whether the noble Lord has any idea of the appeals from Borstal sentences that come before the Court of Criminal Appeal at every sitting. There are seldom fewer than six or seven, and in a fair proportion the Court of Criminal Appeal makes some alteration in the sentence, generally because it considers that a sentence of probation should have been imposed. The most common ground of appeal of Borstal boys is that they would rather go to prison than to Borstal, but we do not always oblige them. But if the court of summary jurisdiction has power to pass Borstal sentences, I would point out that to appeal to Quarter Sessions is much more difficult than to appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal. That is generally simple. The boy writes out something on a piece of paper. He says he does not like Borstal, or he would rather go to prison, or very often that his mother wants him at home. The shorthand note containing everything said in the court below is sent to the Court of Criminal Appeal so that it sees everything. It can all be done without the necessity of legal aid, because it is all done for the boy without expense to him. The court now acts on certain fairly well defined lines.
An appeal to Quarter Sessions from the court of summary jurisdiction is a very different matter. It is a far more difficult matter for an uneducated or friendless person to conduct such an appeal, and there are no means of sending the shorthand notes to the court which is hearing the appeal. No shorthand notes are taken in courts of summary jurisdiction. If this change is made—a change with which I have a good deal of sympathy—there will be a considerable amount of supplementary work to be done in connection with it.
LORD MERTHYR: I support this Amendment. I know that there is a body
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of opinion which holds the view that summary courts are not competent to discharge this duty of committing direct to Borstal; but the proper remedy for that is to concentrate everything on improving the courts of summary jurisdiction, so that they will be able to assume greater responsibility. I know that this cannot be done all at once, but if it were done over a period of years, by sparing nothing to improve their efficiency, I am confident that they could discharge this responsible duty of committing to Borstal, and it would have the great advantages which have been outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Raglan. I support the Amendment and I agree with everything said by Lord Hazlerigg.
10.22 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: This has been the subject of acute controversy for a long time, and the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has gone over the history of that. He has said that the world is divided into two halves on this matter. It is my unpleasant duty to inform the mover of this Amendment that the Government are on the side of the opposite half. There is one case in which the court of summary jurisdiction can send the lad to Borstal—namely, in the case of an escape from an approved school or a Home Office school or persistent misbehaviour in the school—but even so it is necessary to obtain the Home Secretary's consent, So long ago as 1927, the Departmental Committee on the Treatment of Young Offenders put forward the same suggestion as the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, and on the ground which he himself has taken to-night—namely, that the lad had to stay in prison until Quarter Sessions were able to deal with his case. Probation under this Bill provides for these remand centres, and in due course, this will get over that difficulty. It would not be right for me to say, however, that there is an immediate prospect of these remand centres being ready within any short time. The Home Secretary is as anxious as anybody that they should be ready as quickly as possible, because a great deal of the validity of the arrangements under this Bill depends on these homes and centres being ready with all speed. But it would be quite wrong if I suggested that they were going to be ready within the next months.
When the earlier Bill was before the House in 1938 it did, in fact, contain a

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provision of this kind, and when it was debated, there was a great deal of difference of opinion about it. It was made clear that large numbers of magistrates were not anxious to have these powers in courts of summary jurisdiction; indeed, the Magistrates' Association, as your Lordships know, advised against it, and in the light of the discussions in Parliament, and of the advice of that powerful body of magistrates, the Government's policy was changed, as the noble Viscount will remember. When the provisions for the present Bill were submitted to bodies interested, and to the Magistrates' Association, they did not withdraw from the position which they took up on the earlier occasion. Therefore, the Government have decided that, on the whole, the argument is still against the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Raglan. He has suggested that the difficulty can be overcome by a certificate from the Prison Commissioners which, as he has indicated already, is put before Quarter Sessions before they send a lad to Borstal. But that does not get over the difficulty, as all that a certificate from the Prison Commissioners does is to certify that the lad is physically and mentally fit for Borstal. The Prison Commissioners cannot decide whether it is a proper case for Borstal. That is a decision which can be made only by the magistrates. Therefore, if the noble Lord will permit me to say so, it really does not take him so far as he seems to think.
LORD RAGLAN: May I interrupt the noble Lord? I think the certificate from the Prison Commissioners goes further than that.
LORD GODDARD: Surely it is only the certificate which every court receives.
LORD CHORLEY: I am obliged to the noble and learned Lord. It really does not take us any further. In the circumstances, the Government find themselves unable to accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
LORD CHORLEY: The next Amendment is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 9, after ("of") insert ("a court of").—(Lord Chorley.)
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My noble friend Lord Llewellin is unable to be
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present to-night, but he asked me to point out that he thinks the English proposed in this Amendment is not so good as that which he is proposing. As a result of this Amendment the sentence will read:
"being the next practical sitting of a court of that committee."
If the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin's, Amendment were accepted, it would read:
"being the next practical sitting of that committee as a court."
My noble friend feels that his Amendment is much better than this, from the point of view of the English language.
LORD CHORLEY: I prefer our version to his. The Bill does provide that when the appeal committee is sitting it should be a court.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: Not "a court of a committee."
LORD CHORLEY: The Summary Jurisdiction (Appeals) Act, 1933, provides that the appeal committee of Quarter sessions shall act by the court consisting of not less than twelve members of the committee, and that courts so composed may sit for the hearing and determination of appeals. Therefore I suggest that it is perfectly right to make this drafting correction to insert the words, "a court of."
LORD GODDARD: How would it read?
LORD CHORLEY: The words which the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, suggests are, "as a court."
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I have no feeling one way or the other about it, but I have no doubt that the noble Lord, with his knowledge of English, has ample opportunity of finding in other Statutes "a court of a committee."
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CHORLEY: This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 12, after ("aforesaid") insert ("the following provisions shall have effect that is to say:—
(a)").—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CHORLEY: This is another drafting Amendment, preliminary to the rather more substantial one that follows. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 14, leave out ("the said subsection (1)") and insert ("subsection (1) of this section").—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CHORLEY: This is also a drafting Amendment of rather a more substantial character. It is really the reorganisation of the clause. It takes subsections (9), (10) and (11) out and puts them into this earlier part of the clause. It also relegates subsection (8) to Clause 26, where it is thought to be more suitably placed. It is just a question of re-organising words that are already there I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 18, at end, insert:
("(b) the Poor Prisoners Defence Act, 1930, shall apply as if the offender were committed for trial for an indictable offence, subject to the modifications that in subsection (2) of Section one the words 'after reading the depositions' and in subsection (2) of Section three 'and the costs of a copy of the depositions' shall be omitted;
(c) the Costs in Criminal Cases Act, 1908, shall apply in relation to the proceedings before the appeal committee or court of quarter sessions as it applies in relation to the prosecution of an indictable offence before a court of quarter sessions;
(d) if the appeal committee or court of quarter sessions passes a sentence of Borstal training, the offender may appeal against the sentence to the Court of Criminal Appeal as if he had been convicted on indictment, and the provisions of the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, shall apply accordingly;
(6) References to a court of quarter sessions or a court in any enactment as applied by the last foregoing subsection, or in any other enactment relating to persons dealt with by quarter sessions (including any such enactment contained in this Act) shall be construed as including references to an appeal committee of quarter sessions by whom an offender is dealt with under that subsection.").—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CHORLEY: This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 19, leave out from ("passed") to end of line 20 and insert ("under this section").—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CHORLEY: This Amendment is also drafting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 21, leave out from ("committed") to ("under") in line 22 and insert ("for sentence").—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD RAGLAN LORD RAGLAN moved, in subsection (6), to delete "three" ["three weeks"] and insert "five." The noble Lord said: The point of this Amendment is that under the proposed procedure, if a court of summary jurisdiction calls for a report, unless the report is received within three weeks the court must have the prisoner before it again. There are a great many courts of summary jurisdiction in the country—and I sit on one of them—which sit only once in each calendar month. There are also a great many juvenile courts which sit once in each calendar month. The result is that when any of these courts adopt this procedure they have to hold a special sitting of the court in order to deal with these cases. As noble Lords know, it is a matter of extreme inconvenience, especially in rural areas, to call special meetings of courts of petty sessions. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 29, leave out ("three") and insert ("five").—(Lord Raglan.)
LORD CHORLEY: The noble Lord has suggested that there should be a period of five weeks. The view in the Home Office is that five weeks is really too long a period for an offender to be remanded in this way, and that three weeks is ample. If at the end of the three weeks the necessary formalities have not been gone through, further application should be made to the court. The noble Lord has pointed out that there are some places where the court does not normally sit more often than once a month, and that clearly would give rise to a difficulty which my instructions do not cover. I should like to have the opportunity of giving the Department an opportunity to consider that case. If the noble Lord will take the usual course, I will put his observations before those who tell me what to say.
LORD RAGLAN: In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD CHORLEY: The omission of these subsections is consequential on a previous Amendment which was taken. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 37, leave out subsections (8) to (11).—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 19 shall stand part of the Bill?
10.35 p.m.
LORD SCHUSTER: This seems to me the only place where one can call attention to a matter which is becoming of considerable concern in some parts of the country: the treatment of persons who have escaped from Borstal. What is happening is this—I will take the Borstal institution at Portland which most affects the part of the country in which I am interested. We have escape after escape. The boys get out; they break into the little locked shops in Portland; they commit five, six, seven or even eight offences; they are apprehended and are brought to the Sessions, which are put in great difficulty. The boy always says: "Don't send me back to Borstal. Send me to prison." That puts the court in some difficulty, because one suspects that if the boy says "Send me to prison" it is probably better for him to be sent to Borstal.
On the other hand, you get a boy who has escaped two or three times from Borstal and you feel you must do something about it; thereupon you give him the only thing you can give him in the circumstances—a somewhat stiff sentence. Again and again, the Prison Commissioners have taken the boy out of prison and sent him back to Borstal, and the vicious circle begins again. The boy escapes again and is brought up, either in the same county as that in which he was previously caught, or elsewhere. He may be sent back to Borstal, or he may be sentenced to prison. If he is sentenced to prison he is later taken out, sent back to Borstal, and so it goes on and on. There is a general desire among several noble Lords that this matter should be brought to the attention of the Committee, through the Committee to the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, who represents the Home Office here, and through him to the Home Office. We would ask the representatives of the Government here to discuss with the Home Office authorities a cure for this particular evil. It is an evil and it requires a remedy, and I personally do not know what the remedy is. The Home Office have experts; they must have
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considered the matter; and we should be grateful if we could have some light and leading on the subject.
LORD GODDARD: I should like to support what the noble Lord has said. Last year when I was on the South-eastern circuit I was disturbed to find the ease with which boys escaped. I am thinking particularly of the Hollesley Bay colony. They seemed to walk away whenever they wanted to. I sent for the governor and talked to him seriously. He said it was very difficult: apparently the boys just went off when they liked. No doubt the institution was short of officers. In newspapers lately, I have seen that the boys are still walking away from Hollesley Bay colony; I have seen cases only this week. It really is a serious matter for the people who live anywhere near these colonies. In fact, these people are getting into a state, I will not say of panic, but certainly into a state of great resentment at the way their places are broken into by these boys who walk away. A great many do not walk away. I suppose it is the more adventurous, and therefore the more dangerous ones, who do walk away. However, according to reports that I receive, the situation in many parts of the country near Borstal establishments is becoming intolerable.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: I do not want to underrate the gravity of the question. At the same time I wish to keep it in its proper focus. I do not know whether the noble Lord who is representing the Home Office could give us, as an illustration, the number of inmates at Borstal at the present time and the number of escapes during the year. I do not carry these statistics in my head, but I have the idea that it works out at about one a day. I do not at all wish to underrate the gravity of that figure. At the same time it is a figure against which must be set the number of young men who unquestionably gain by this kind of open institution. That does not mean that I do not think the Home Office and the Borstal authorities should not take further precautions. I have always thought that what was needed was a greater differentiation between the various Borstal institutions. I can quite contemplate an institution established principally to deal with cases of this kind. I would suggest to the Government that that is the wise line of reform, rather than actually to

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change the basic principles of this class of open training. I should be happier if I felt that the Home Office were dealing actively with this urgent need of having some institution of this kind to which these cases could be sent, the result of which would be that we should be spared the kind of scandal, to which the noble Lord, Lord Schuster, and the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, have just alluded, of boys escaping time after time and apparently no effective punishment being available for them.
LORD SCHUSTER: Perhaps, with the Committee's permission, I may be allowed to speak again. I cannot produce statistics but I can produce certain facts. At either the last or the last but one Quarter Sessions at which I sat, we had four separate sets of boys who had escaped from Borstal. I do not want to be pinned to this as an actual statement of fact, because it is only vague memory, but I think that each of them had escaped more than once. Each of them had committed quite a number of shopbreakings in the town of Portland. I am not in any way criticising what the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has just said about the necessity for open Borstal. What I was trying to suggest was that it is rather hard on the inhabitants of Portland or the inhabitants of and residents near Hollesley Bay, that they should make this great contribution towards the rehabilitation of these men. In all humility, I am suggesting that some way should be found of dealing with the boys, when they do escape like this, which does not involve them in the same temptation, which has been before them every day and every hour, of walking away when they think fit.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There is a real matter of grievance here; there is no doubt about that. It has to be carefully considered. One of the headaches which the Prison Commissioners are having at the present time is to know how to cope with the situation. The dilemma is this. You cannot run a Borstal system on prison lines. If you do that then your Borstal experiment is really finished, and if you do not do that there must be this risk of escape. I asked if the Home Office representatives had the figures, but they have not, so I do not know what the figures are. I suspect from my own
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knowledge, however, that they are pretty high. I do not know what proportion they bear to the whole lot. When a lad is recaptured he may be sent for a time to Wandsworth Prison but, as your Lordships know, the conditions there, so far as training is concerned, are very primitive in character; it is not satisfactory. The boy is then allocated to the appropriate Borstal institution to continue his training. I have not the statistics with me, but I understand that, on the whole, these boys then do fairly well and behave themselves. All I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Schuster, is that we do not by any means treat this matter lightly. He has a real point here. It is a very difficult problem but it is one which concerns the Prison Commissioners and the Home Office very much, and they will do their best to see how they can best cope with it.
LORD SCHUSTER: I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for his reply.
Clause 19, as amended, agreed to.
10.46 p.m.
CLAUSE 20 [Corrective training and preventive detention]:
LORD CHORLEY: This is a drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 22, leave out from ("offence") to ("imprisonment") in line 23 and insert ("punishable with").—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CHORLEY: This also is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 36 leave out from ("offence") to ("imprisonment") in line 37 and insert ("punishable with").—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CHORLEY: This too is a drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 25, line 23, leave out ("assize or").—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, whether Clause 20, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD GODDARD: There is only one thing I should like to say on the question

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whether this clause shall stand part of the Bill. This is the clause which deals with two forms of imprisonment, one wholly new, and one not quite so new, because already, under, I think, the Prevention of Crime Act, passed in the earlier years of this century, one can sentence to preventive detention a man found guilty of being an habitual criminal. This particular clause makes it much easier to deal with a man as an habitual criminal, but I think that at some time very soon we ought to be informed what this new form of punishment called. "corrective training" is. There is no definition of it in the Bill and, if I may use a common expression, we are "taking this blind." I think judges and magistrates who have the duty of sentencing prisoners should know to what they are sentencing them. At present I know nothing about what corrective training will be, how it will differ from Borstal training, how it will differ from imprisonment, or what it is. Under this Bill I could, I think, send a man to preventive detention for four years, and therefore I would like to know whether there is any proposal on foot as to the treatment which people will receive under that sentence. The object of preventive detention is not punishment; it is to protect the public against persistent offenders. I should hope they will not be dealt with in the same way—at any rate for the whole of their period—as prisoners sentenced in the ordinary way to terms of what used to be called penal servitude but what is now, apparently, to be called simply "imprisonment." Corrective training worries me more than the other matter, because I have not the least idea of what it is.
LORD CHORLEY: I am afraid that I am unable to give the noble Lord a great deal of information on this matter, because it has not reached the stage at which one can do so. The noble Lord is aware that a strong Committee considered this question of persistent offenders and made a number of recommendations in a Report. That Report was published and I am sure that the noble Lord is familiar with it. The object of this clause is to enable the Prison Commissioners to carry out the recommendations of that Committee. I am afraid that I cannot carry the matter further than that at the moment. I have had the Report and I have read it, but
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I do not pretend to carry the recommendations in detail in my mind. Nor do I think it would be of much advantage, at the present late hour, to open a discussion on this rather wide problem.
LORD GODDARD: I would like to point out that although there is, I believe, a provision in the Bill that different Parts of it may be brought into force at different times, if Part I is brought into force as soon as the Bill becomes an Act, the courts will be asked to deal with these people and send them to undergo corrective training. I do not know what it is that I shall be asked to do, or what I shall be doing—nor will any court. Therefore, I think that we are entitled to know at the earliest possible moment of what this new form of punishment is to consist.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I would like to say a word in support of the Lord Chief justice upon this. I feel that before this Bill is passed and sent back to another place we should have some information from, perhaps, the Lord Chancellor, or certainly from the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, as to what exactly this corrective training will be. At the moment we are being asked to pass this clause which relates to corrective training. We hear from the Lord Chief justice that he and his brother judges are quite unaware what this is; and I think we are entitled to a statement at the earliest possible moment from the Government giving full information on the subject. If we are going to adjourn now, perhaps we could have some further information upon this clause on Monday. A number of noble Lords on these Benches take a considerable interest in this particular clause.
LORD CHORLEY: When the Report stage is reached, I trust that: I shall have fortified myself with such information as is available, and that I shall then be able to communicate it to your Lordships. I think that would be the most appropriate course to follow.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: With great respect. I do not think it would. It may be that this is altogether admirable. On the other hand, if there should be something arising on this clause (which cannot now be explained to us) which requires amendment, then that Amendment would have to be put down on Report. It is extremely inconvenient to put down

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Amendments on Third Reading. Surely the right thing to do when we are—as we are now—within two minutes or so of the adjournment, is to arrange to have a short explanatory statement made when we meet on Monday, giving whatever information is available to the House. Then the House would be able to dispose of the clause and, it may be, dispose of the whole business. But if we have to return to the clause, we can do so on Report stage, with full information. That is reasonable and makes for expedition.
LORD CHORLEY: If your Lordships prefer to have it on Monday, I will do my best to obtain what information I can for your Lordships.
House resumed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD AMMON: My Lords, may I take the opportunity of saying that the House
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may sit late on Monday? The House will sit at four o'clock.

HOUSE OF LORDS MANUSCRIPTS.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Calendar of the Manuscripts of the House of Lords, Volume IX (New Series), in continuation of the Volumes issued under the authority of the Historical Manuscripts Commission: The same was ordered to be printed.
PEABODY DONATION FUND BILL. [H.L.]
Reported, with amendments.

RAILWAY CLEARING SYSTEM SUPERANNUATION FUND BILL.
Reported, without amendment.
House adjourned at five minutes before eleven o'clock.