Mr. WILSONasked the Home Secretary whether he will give the number of committals to approved schools during the last five years; and to what causes the increased number of committals is mainly due?
§ Sir J. SIMONThe number of boys and girls ordered to be sent to residential approved schools in the last five years 1931–33 is respectively 1,767, 1,819, 1,884, 2,825 and 3,133. The chief reason for the rise in 1934 and 1935 is the raising by one year, as provided by the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, of the age of boys and girls who may be sent to these schools, 542 boys and girls of 16 having been sent there in 1934 and 534 in 1935. Other reasons may be found in the high birth rates in 1920 and 1921 which mean that the number of boys of 14–16 in the country unusually high at present, in the wider definition contained in the Act of 1933 of boys and girls in need of care or protection, in a greater interest in the work of the juvenile courts, and in a growing appreciation of the value of the training given in these schools. While the per- 1837W centage rise of the figures is high, the actual rise in relation to the number of boys and girls in the country is negligible.