§ Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will appoint a small committee to consider the immediate difficulties of remand homes and approved schools and their future provision, nature and supervision; and, in view of the agreement among informed social workers that corporal punishment is not a reclamatory discipline among juvenile delinquents, whether particular attention will be given by that committee to this question and the present power of inflicting excessive corporal punishment.
760W
§ Mr. H. MorrisonAs regards the first part of the Question, I would refer to the answer which I am giving to a Question to-day by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling). As regards the second part, the question of corporal punishment was considered by a Departmental Committee which reported in 1938 and recommended that birching as a Court punishment should be abolished but considered that corporal punishment by a schoolmaster, if used with proper discretion, could be a suitable method of enforcing discipline in a school. Corporal punishment in remand homes and approved schools is strictly regulated, and I have no reason to believe that it is improperly administered.