§ Mr. Keyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, (1) pursuant to his answer on 9 February, Official Report, column 138, regarding corporal punishment, if he will take steps to prohibit corporal punishment in private nurseries covered by the Nursing and Childminders Regulation Act 1948;
(2) if he will take steps to prohibit corporal punishment in day nurseries provided by local social services departments;
(3) if he will take steps to prohibit corporal punishment in the youth treatment centres administered by his Department;
(4) if he intends to seek to revise the regulations applying to residential care homes and to nursing homes and mental nursing homes to prohibit the use of corporal punishment in these homes;
(5) if he will make it his policy that the regulations to be issued under the Children's Homes Act 1982 applying to private children's homes should contain a provision prohibiting the use of corporal punishment;
(6) when he expects revision of the relevant regulations to be completed.
§ Mrs. CurrieCompletion of the revised regulations governing the conduct of local authority community homes and of voluntary children's homes is planned for later this year. At the same time it is intended to introduce regulations governing the conduct of private children's homes. A provision will be included in all these regulations prohibiting the use of corporal punishment in each type of establishment.
We also intend to forbid this kind of punishment for children in homes registered under the Registered Homes Act 1984. In association with a number of current studies involving residential care homes whose reports are due over the next 12 months we shall be taking stock of the registration system and amending the regulations so as to ban corporal punishment. There are no circumstances in which corporal punishment would be appropriate for children attending local authority day nurseries or any premises registered under the Nurseries and Childminders Regulation Act 1948. This subject has not been covered in departmental guidance, but it is intended that future guidance on day care services for pre-school children will deal with the question of discipline.
Corporal punishment has never been permitted in youth treatment centres. It would be incompatible with the care and treatment which this service provides for the country's most disturbed boys and girls.