Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
WEDNESDAY 20 MAY 1998
MR TOM
LUCE CB and MR
DAVID MATTHEWS.
Mr Syms
20. You have talked about the number of inquiries
picking up in the mid to late 1980s. Focusing just on Canada at
the moment, bearing in mind that child migration to Canada ended
much earlier than its Australian counterpart, is there any information
about inquiries from the Home Children in Canada concerning their
background and history during the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and onwards?
Can we quantify it?
(Mr Luce) We cannot quantify
it I am afraid. I think our impression is very much the same as
I have already explained. We have not been through every single
file. We have not found any inquiry. I cannot say there were not
any. We are certain that the level of inquiry sharpened greatly,
both in relation to Canada and in relation to Australia, in the
latter part of the 1980s.
Mr Walter
21. Just a very quick question really. Obviously
those children who were migrated would have some reluctance to
perhaps go back to the agencies that migrated them in terms of
seeking assistance and so on. I just want your comments on the
appropriateness of the Child Migrants' Trust as a body that should
be channelling that through, whether you feel there should be
a variety of organisations that you might wish to use or really
should we have a one-stop shop?
(Mr Luce) I think there
is a lot of sense in having what you might call an intermediary
body. One can understand the reluctance of people to resume contact
with an organisation, or I think one should in fairness say an
organisation that has the same name as the organisation which
emigrated them. One can understand that. It is going to be that
organisation, if any, that has the front-line, the really key
case records. I would have thought, while understanding the attitude
and sympathising with it, at the end of the day someone has got
to make contact with the sending organisation. There is, in the
case of Australia, an intermediary body which can be used for
that purpose but it is not necessarily a terribly good idea to
overload these intermediary bodies.
Dr Brand
22. A very similar question really. Have you had
much in the way of requests from the specific organisations, the
placing organisations, for long-term funding?
(Mr Luce) We have had
a number of discussions with them about what the appropriate response
to this situation is. It may be wrong to say that it took everyone
by surprise in the late 1980s, early 1990s when there were very
dramatic and powerful television programmes about it. I think
the sending agencies, not unpredictably, had a good deal of difficulty
in responding. If any body, any organisation, whatever its attitude,
however efficient, were suddenly asked to produce case papers
going back 30/40 years I think in quite large quantities they
could not. 23. I could as a GP. The question really is do you think
that this help, because undeniably there is help needed to help
individuals in finding their records and everything else, is best
channelled through the placing agencies or is it best done through
the CMT, or is there a departmental responsibility? I am quite
unclear about what is the best way forward. At the moment we seem
to be managing it in at least three different directions.
(Mr Luce) As I said, it
does seem to me that the most effective way is likely to be through
the sending agency. If people have a rooted objection to direct
contact with an agency that still bears the name of the agency
that emigrated them there are intermediary bodies. There is the
CMT which is principally, I think, engaged with Australian child
immigration, and there is the Canadian organisation which sent
an impressive memorandum to the Committee. We have tried, particularly
in the early 1990s, to help the sending agencies organise themselves.
We have not given them any money for this purpose and we cannot
remember receiving any request for money. 24. Before you give any
money would you require those sending agencies to come clean really
about their record, especially where there have been allegations
of child abuse, mistreatment of children?
(Mr Luce) If we were approached
by the sending agencies for financial help we would consider the
request extremely carefully. We would apply our normal criteria
for giving grants to voluntary bodies. Those criteria include,
first of all, a check on whether they really need our money, whether
they do not have alternative sources or what their reserves position
is. We would also not give money, except in relation to projects
that we approved and thought were likely to be helpful in the
circumstances. I doubt whether we would insist on public apologies,
that is not something for us. We have seen the memorandum put
in by Barnado's who explain why it is that they have some legal
problems about making huge public apologies. In this field there
have been some public apologies from rather different kinds of
bodies but we would not go beyond first of all making sure that
they really needed our money rather than somebody else's or their
own, and approving of the practical project that they wanted support
in. We would want to ensure that it was to high standards of counselling
and social work practice but I doubt we would make it a condition
that they should make some huge public acknowledgement of what
had happened in the past.
Dr Brand: Can we come back to that, Mr Chairman,
later on in the inquiry.
Mr Gunnell
25. On your funding to the Child Migrants' Trust,
which you have been funding I understand for the past 11 years,
I understand during that period you have only provided for them
less than half of the money which they sought for their first
three years. I wonder if you consider that your financial support
for the Child Migrants' Trust is adequate or whether it is something
which you would consider giving additional funding to?
(Mr Luce) By the end of
this financial year, by March 1999, we will have given them a
total of £191,000. That is grants over seven years from 1990.
There was no grant in 1991/1992 but there have been grants in
all the other years. In 1993/1994 we gave them £11,000 for
the purpose of buying a computer. 26. Would you give any consideration
to perhaps fully funding them for a set period, say something
like ten years, in order that they can perhaps conclude their
work over that period and do what they can for former child migrants?
Would you consider further funding them in that way?
(Mr Luce) My understanding
is that they have some funding from the Australian Government.
They have two offices, one in Perth and one in Melbourne, which
attract some funding from the Australian Government. It sounds
to me as if it might be approximately the same level as ours but
I do not know the details in relation to each office. We would
consider an application from them like any other voluntary body
on our usual terms, against our usual criteria. I think we would
be reluctant to commit ourselves to ten years forward because
who knows what is going to happen to any organisation in that
length of time? We are open to approaches from them just as we
are open to approaches from any other voluntary body and we will
apply our normal criteria. Clearly this is an area where
perceptions of the work to do are tending to rise. I say that
without prejudice of course.? 27. You would accept or you would
understand that their view would be a higher level of funding
would enable them to do a more thorough job with the level of
interest which there is in their work at the present time?
(Mr Luce) Yes, I do understand
that. There are, of course, other avenues which we have already
discussed into helping the child migrants but I understand perfectly.
Chairman
28. Could I put one of those avenues to you which
strikes me in listening to your answer to Mr Gunnell. My understanding
is that the Child Migrants' Trust is only concerned with tracing
family histories and connecting former migrants with their natural
families in the UK and, secondly, offering a counselling service.
One of the difficulties I believe they have got is that the records
are spread over voluntary organisations and various Government
Departments. Why has no attempt been made to draw all this information
together within your Department on one database?
(Mr Luce) The material
in Government Department files, the child care files, is relatively
as I explained. 29. Would it not have been easier for you to bring
together all the voluntary organisations and say "let us
have a central record so that we have one point of contact that
the Child Migrants' Trust or migrants themselves need to go to
and they will then know exactly where they came from and why"?
Why has this not happened?
(Mr Luce) I think, first
of all, it seems to us fairly unlikely that there will be a large
number of emigrated children who did not know which their sending
agency was. 30. But I have met at least half a dozen who do not
know where they came from. In one case he did not know who he
was.
(Mr Luce) If somebody
was emigrated by the Christian Brothers to a Christian Brothers
School in Western Australia they are likely to know what the sending
agency was. It is not particularly clear to us that it would be
sensible to try to collect all these voluntary body records and
put them on to one database. I doubt incidentally whether we have
legal power but that is a very secondary matter, if there was
a really strong case for it we could address that. It does not
seem to us that there is necessarily a very strong practical case
for that. The other thing I think one has to say is that if we
or somebody else actually did that there would be a period during
which the records would become more or less inaccessible because
they would all have to be gathered in and sorted. It is quite
a long and complicated business. While it was all going on probably
the standards of accessibility would fall. I think the other point
I should make is that it is not something that we would do ourselves.
If there was a case for it and if it were to be accepted that
it was Central Government's responsibility to make it happen what
we would do first is to try and persuade the sending agencies
themselves to set something up of their own. If that was not possible,
if we went to the ultimate extreme of, as it were, taking powers
that gave us some kind of rights over these records, which we
do not have at the moment, we would certainly contract out to
somebody the responsibility for administering it. In the kind
of institution that we are we could not effectively do that ourselves.
I think the main point is that we would need to be convinced that
there is a really sound practical case, that there would be a
much higher level of accessibility than there is now bearing in
mind, as I said in answer to an earlier question, that we perceive
the sending agencies as really trying to get this problem sorted.
We are certainly prepared to have further discussions with them. 31.
You accept that in certain instances, which I think you have recognised,
certain former migrants would not want to go to those agencies
because of their experiences?
(Mr Luce) Yes, I would
accept that.
Mr Lansley
32. Mr Luce, in a sense in our early conversations
and questions we have been dealing with an historical record and
there is a difficulty there obviously in trying now to draw out
what happened in detail. In, let us say, the last ten years we
are dealing in a sense not with history but with the practice
of Government in responding to what even by your own response
to our questions became a much more obvious source of concern
because you received a large number of inquiries in the late 1980s.
If I could characterise, and take issue with me if you will, the
way in which you have responded to our questions it is essentially
to say that the Government's response has been passive over the
whole of that time, that it has depended upon whether organisations
have come to you in order to request funding, that where approaches
have been made essentially the sending agencies are the buffer
between you and the migrant children because the sending agencies
have all the front-line records. Indeed, in the discussion we
have just had, Chairman, in a sense it is "if somebody makes
a case to us". At any point from the late 1980s can you identify
a point at which the Department and the Government said "it
is our responsibility to look at this now and to take initiatives"?
What initiatives have the Government taken over the whole of that
decade?
(Mr Luce) I think that
it is in the nature of Government that as an institution it is
rather wary of taking initiatives of the kind that you have described.
What I would say is as soon as the position became clear to us,
I think mainly stimulated by the debate that the Chairman
had when John Bowis was Minister, as I understand, we did do a
good deal in advance of that debate to liberalise the access to
closed public records. That is one point I would make. The second
thing is that we have funded, though not at levels which satisfy
the recipient organisation, the Child Migrants' Trust. We also
took some initiatives to try to help the sending agencies shape
their response to these events when it became clear that the events
were upon them. I think that is what we have done. 33. Your memorandum
to us now says, and we are talking of what is ten years on in
effect from the point at which the Department was clearly, by
its own admission, aware of the problem: "The Government
is now concerned to ensure that former child migrants who want
to make contact with their families are able to do so. The British
Government has been, and will continue to be, active in addressing
this important issue". Having addressed it, what actions,
apart from the ones you have just mentioned of responding in effect
to the initiatives of intermediary bodies, is the Government going
to take to deliver that objective?
(Mr Luce) We will follow
your inquiry very carefully. I think we would be ready to take
further initiatives as and when it became clear what the most
sensible ones to take were. I suspect we would be prepared to
put more help into the system to try to deliver these objectives
but we need to judge it carefully. Others have roles, there are
the receiving governments and the sending agencies themselves.
I am sure that we would be prepared to increase the help now that
the level of understanding of this issue and its scale is at the
point that has now been reached. 34. So it would be fair to say
that if this Committee takes the initiative and presents a case
then the Government is willing to respond sympathetically to whatever
proposals we may make about delivering these objectives?
(Mr Luce) Certainly we
will consider it extremely carefully. 35. One last short question.
What conversations, discussions or agreements have been reached
between the British Government and the Governments of Canada and
Australia, in particular about responding to these issues and
dealing with them?
(Mr Luce) I am not on
sure ground in relation to the Government of Canada I am afraid.
David might know. In relation to the Government of Australia there
were discussions at ministerial level around, I think, 1994/1995.
Chairman
36. Was that Mrs Bottomley?
(Mr Luce) When Mrs Bottomley
was Secretary of State. I think it was John Bowis who actually
had contacts and Mrs Bottomley herself visited. 37. She went to
Australia?
(Mr Luce) Yes. I am not
quite sure how large an item this was on the agenda. 38. She indicated
that she intended to look at the former child migrant problem.
(Mr Luce) There certainly
were contacts at Government level around that time. 39. Could you
provide the Committee with some information as to what the consequence
of her visit was in respect of this issue?
(Mr Luce) What was agreed
at that time was that Australian and British civil servants would
keep in contact about the issue and work together to the extent
that was likely to be helpful.
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