Report stage in the Lords
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Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 14:
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Lord RamsbothamCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I am very glad that the amendment has come back. In Committee, when we were discussing the subject of emotional maturity, we drew attention to a notorious case, which the world knows as the Venables and Thompson case, involving the murderers of young Jamie Bulger who, although aged 10 with developmental ages of four, were tried in what was virtually a High Court. That was a clear example where the maturity of the young offender had not been taken into account. I realise that there is a borderline, which has already been mentioned this evening, between being too descriptive in legislation, putting too much down, and not putting enough, and whether we should put some things in the Bill or in legislation or regulations that go with it. I understand that a whole body of advice goes out to sentencers in a variety of ways instructing them to take those aspects into account. However, one finds a number of cases in young offender and other institutions of people suffering from serious mental health problems that have not been identified during the process until then, because there has not been a diversionary scheme in place. In that regard, I welcome the inquiry being carried out by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, to whom I have spoken and pointed out that, quite apart from the problems in arranging diversionary schemes for adults, that will be far more difficult for youngsters because of the shortfall in forensic psychiatric nurses and doctors in the system who will be able, first, to carry out the diversionary scheme and, secondly, to make certain that there is treatment to follow up whatever is assessed to be a need. I support the amendment because, in view of that, it is essential to make certain that those aspects of dealing with that very vulnerable group of young people are always put before people who have to make a decision—not to allow them to resort merely to referring to the offence and whether it is prevalent but to remind them that each one of those people is an individual whose needs have to be assessed.
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The Earl of OnslowConservative- Quote
- My Lords, at yesterday's meeting, some people called CAMHS, of whom I had never heard before, floated into my vision. I am told that they are in the child and adolescent mental health services. I am also told that in some parts of the country, they are absolutely terrific; in other parts, they are practically nonexistent. I am also told that they come under the budget of the Department of Health. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, having left the Department of Health, is in a situation rather like Churchill and the Home Secretary when they switched sides over dreadnoughts in 1908, when the hats change and a different voice says the same thing. We will put the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, as a Churchillian First Lord of the Admiralty, saying, “We want eight for dreadnoughts”—or, otherwise, CAMHS. What happens is that the Department of Health budget goes up and the benefit goes to the Ministry of Justice, which finds that it is saving money by looking after people’s mental health properly rather than having to lock them up in prisons. The Minister would then have some money for his legal aid people, which he says he does not have—we will let him get away with that. There is a wonderful example here of the failure of one part of government to talk to another. I am in no way saying that this would not happen under a Conservative Government, because of course it has and it will; there is no doubt that these sorts of things are inherent in the structure of government. My name is on Amendments Nos. 19 and 22 in the group, and I am very pleased that I put it on them, even though I can see what I think was called the Denman argument that if you include too many lists, it rather defaults from it and puts in some pecking order. We were, however, right to bring it up and to press it, and we are right to see whether we can get from the Minister a little picture of how CAMHS works. I rang the Minister’s office this morning, so he has had advance warning and I am sure he will thrill us with his answer.
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Baroness Butler-SlossCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I add to what the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, said about CAMHS, as that has been mentioned. I endorse what he says. Indeed, I think I was the one who brought it up at the meeting with the Minister yesterday. CAMHS is an excellent institution. It provides an excellent service where it is sufficiently resourced and in the places where it is doing well, but it is, as far as I know, inadequate in certain areas. I know from my previous experience as a judge that there were areas where children and young people who needed help had to wait sometimes 12 to 15 months. No group of young people is more in need of help than those who are going through the criminal justice system and who can be diverted from a lifetime of crime if their very real mental health needs of a wide variety can be met early on. It will be very costly to the country and devastating to the young person if those needs are not met early enough to prevent years and years of criminal offending that starts with a mental health problem that has not been met. I know that the Minister understands this, and that he knows from his previous experience at the Department of Health exactly what I am saying, but we on this Bill need the help of the Department of Health to push for the better resourcing of CAMHS so that there is far greater opportunity to access it much more quickly, because however much it is needed in the family field, it is needed in the criminal justice field even more.
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Baroness Howe of IdlicoteCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I too shall add a few words here. I was at the meeting last night and was impressed by the attention that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, paid to this issue. I see the argument against putting everything into the Bill. It can be argued that this would push certain other areas of great importance if not out of sight then lower down the pecking order, but we have heard again and again—my noble friend Lady Butler-Sloss pointed this out earlier in our debates—that some 60 per cent of those in care who are in institutions are suffering from mental health problems. That is a pretty appalling figure. If there is some way in which this can be drawn to the attention of those with greater resources and made a higher priority for the National Health Service in its budgets, and if more research can be done into finding out exactly where these gaps are, that would be a great help and a step in the right direction, because this is something that we all want to tackle. It is pointless to treat children who have learning difficulties and mental health difficulties as though they were fully in command of their faculties, because quite clearly that is not justice.
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Lord JuddLabour- Quote
- My Lords, I am glad to support the amendment for the straightforward reason that it is about rehabilitation. It is as plain as a pikestaff that it is not possible to tackle the task of rehabilitation unless you have looked carefully at the person for whom the rehabilitation is being provided. The rehabilitation must meet the needs of that individual. Therefore, the maturity, the intellectual ability, the ability to learn and the rest of the youngster concerned are absolutely crucial and central to the task. While I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that it is not possible to include everything, this seems to be essential. If one is talking about rehabilitation being in the Bill, one should be talking about this, because rehabilitation without this is a nonsense.
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Baroness SternCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I support these amendments, which get to the heart of one of our concerns about youth justice legislation. To a certain extent, that concern has been understood and answered by the Minister, but there is still some way to go. A number of times we have raised the point that in some cases we are punishing children for whom punishment is quite inappropriate because their lives until now have been nothing but punishment. There is a large body of evidence on the strong link between the past abuse of children and their subsequent disturbed behaviour. The Minister may be aware of the history here. The Youth Justice Board commissioned a report on the past abuse histories of children in custody and then decided not to publish it for a considerable period, although that decision was later reversed. I am sure that the Minister had a hand in that in some way. Recently, I attended a conference of people who were supposed to be, and seemed to be, the leading experts on the consequences of a childhood of growing up in a home where there is domestic violence and the children experience abuse, violence, sexual abuse and so on. It should not be concluded that all children from such backgrounds go on to behave violently. However, many children who behave violently come from a background of abuse, violence and suffering. At quite a large conference of youth justice workers, there was a feeling that past abuse does not figure enough in assessments and decision-making. From that perspective I welcome these amendments. As other noble Lords have said, they attempt to look at each child as an individual, to take more account than we seem to have been able to of what has brought them to the position that they are in, and to consider, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, what is likely to get them to a point where they might be able to throw off their past experiences and to lead a law-abiding life. I support these amendments, which attempt to remind us that many of the young people whom we are dealing with are from such backgrounds.
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Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour- Quote
- My Lords, that was an interesting discussion. What might have been a rather technical debate has proved to be a debate of great substance. I am sure that, in relation to the practice of sentencers and the interrelationship between mental health services in general and children and adolescent mental health services in particular, the argument for the recognition of the importance of early access to high-quality CAMHS for these young people is wholly persuasive. I hope that I can convince noble Lords that the Government recognise that. Indeed, we are taking action to ensure that this happens. I know that there is concern that the sentencing process may not sufficiently take into account what is described as the intellectual and emotional maturity of the young person, but we should recognise that we have embraced a lot of different factors within that term. We believe that, as far as the technical answer is concerned, a young person’s age and maturity are factors that are embedded in general sentencing practice. We also believe that the court should take into account factors such as age and emotional maturity when making any sentencing decisions. They are important factors, which a court always ought to take into account when deciding which interventions should be made and for how long, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, said. The courts will always consider the extent to which age and maturity may be a mitigating factor. More than this, they will often amount to mitigation. The Court of Appeal stated in the Queen against Howells in 1991 that youth and immaturity, while offering no defence, will often justify a less vigorous penalty than would be appropriate for an adult. Youth offending teams, in courts up and down the country, will be key in ensuring that this is implemented effectively. As part of the assessment process, a youth offending team must look at the age and maturity of the individual to determine what their needs are and how those needs can best be met. This applies across the piece. It also ought to inform any breach action that may be taken. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, that we will ask for factors of age, maturity and other matters of personal mitigation for a person aged under 18 to be addressed in the sentencing guidelines that will be provided to sentencers before the youth rehabilitation order is brought into effect. I know that the noble Baroness has, in general, welcomed the consideration that has led to the YRO being brought forward in this legislation; nevertheless, she has concerns about how this might impact in practice. Clearly getting the guidelines right will be important in ensuring that we get the benefits of the proposals without some of the perverse incentives that she and other noble Lords have referred to in our days of debate. We will ensure that the Sentencing Guidelines Council is asked to produce these guidelines, which will be subject to wide consultation before they are brought into effect. The comments that noble Lords have made about diversion and the role of mental health services are crucial to the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the review being undertaken by my noble friend Lord Bradley into diversion generally in mental health services. It is an important review, which I hope will help to deal with the long-standing problem of people within custodial settings being in the wrong place when they ought to be within appropriate NHS facilities. A great deal of progress has been made over the past few years, but clearly more needs to happen. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, on the budgetary points that he made. Unlike with his rather ambitious ideas for my legal aid budget, he is right that, if more money can be invested up front in appropriate mental health diversions, that must have a wholly beneficial impact on many of the people whom we are talking about and, it is to be hoped, on the resource position of my department. That is the very meat of the review that is being undertaken by my noble friend. I am grateful to the noble Earl for giving me notice of this because I have been able to obtain some information for today’s debate. The performance indicator for youth offending teams is to ensure that all young people who are assessed as manifesting acute mental health difficulties are referred by youth offending teams to CAMHS for formal assessment, commencing within five days of receipt of their referral, and that non-acute mental health concerns are referred by the youth offending teams to the appropriate CAMH service, where assessment and engagement should commence within 15 working days of referral. The figures that I have show that, during 2006-07, 91.2 per cent of young people with both acute and non-acute diagnoses were referred to services within the target timeframe. Five hundred and twenty-three people were reported to be manifesting acute mental health difficulties, of whom 477 were referred within the required five working days.
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- The Earl of OnslowConservative
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- My Lords, the Minister has said that there are very serious geographical differences. Have those been identified and what can we do about them?
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- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- My Lords, I do not think that I said “very serious”; I said that I thought that there was a patchy performance. It is clear from the figures that I have quoted that, in the main, the initial targets are being met, but within that there is a proportion of areas where they are not. That issue has to be confronted. I was going to say that, in addition to the performance assessment, the Children’s Plan, published last December by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, contains a commitment to commission an externally led review of CAMHS. The commitment is to carry out a review of how it can be ensured that mainstream universal settings are meeting the educational care and support needs of children and young people at risk of, and experiencing, mental health problems, as well as meeting the needs of children and young people with severe and complex needs in a more integrated way. That is an excellent basis on which to take this forward. The terms of reference of the review will be to take stock of progress to date and I have no doubt that the review will identify where there are areas of patchiness and which areas need to be improved. My understanding is that the final report will be submitted to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families and the Secretary of State for Health by the summer of 2008. That will fit neatly with the timeframe of my noble friend Lord Bradley in terms of the more specific review that he has undertaken on diversion into mental health services. We have here an appropriate process through which to evaluate how well we are doing, what the gaps are and what needs to happen in a collaborative way, involving the Department of Health, the Department for Children, Schools and Families and my department. While I would never underestimate the challenges that we face in our mental health services, this measure should give us a great deal of optimism for the future. It is difficult to overestimate the huge improvement that has taken place in the past few years in healthcare in custodial settings since the National Health Service took over responsibility for it. Not only has the amount of money spent on health doubled, but the quality and professionalism have improved as people have been brought from outside into the custodial setting. I pay tribute to my former colleagues in the Department of Health and the NHS. They give me confidence that we have ways of dealing effectively with mental health services for young people. While this is not a matter that falls to be dealt with statutorily, I clearly recognise the issues, the problems and the improvements that have taken place. I also recognise that there is much more to be done in the future.
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- Baroness SternCrossbench
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- My Lords, before the Minister sits down, perhaps I may ask a brief question for elucidation. Is he satisfied that the assessment tools used by youth justice workers are designed in a way that enables them to report to the court on emotional and intellectual maturity and immaturity and on mental health needs? I was given to understand by a large number of youth justice workers that the assessment did not enable them to do so and was deficient in that regard.
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- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- My Lords, I am happy to consider that matter. If there are shortcomings that the noble Baroness can identify or point me in the direction of, I will be happy to look at them and see whether they can be played in to the work that I have mentioned. Where the assessment has taken place and a mental health need has been identified, it seems in most cases that a referral is able to take place and that the appropriate CAMHS team is able to undertake that assessment, which, one hopes, will lead to effective treatment. However, if there are specific concerns to which the noble Baroness can point me, I am happy to look at them.
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, bringing to bear on this matter their greater expertise than mine. I am also grateful to the Minister for his full reply. We are lucky that he was in the Department of Health and then moved on to the Ministry of Justice, because that has left him well placed to comment expertly. As he rightly said, this is a work in progress. The Minister spoke mostly to Amendment No. 14, because it addresses young people before they are sentenced. As he said, the sentencing guidelines will be brought to bear on that. Amendment No. 19 relates to a young person who is already in the system and is in breach of their order. His reply did not deal with that as fully. In some ways, the situation to which it relates is the more worrying, because the young person concerned, having been sentenced, is failing again. However, as the Minister said, this is a work in progress. We will look forward to the Bradley report. I am sure that we will debate the issue further. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 15:
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Lord BachLabour- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 16:
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- Lord BachLabour
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- moved Amendments Nos. 17 and 18:
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- moved Amendment No. 20:
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- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness and I welcome the opportunity to debate again the breach provisions, which we believe are necessary. One would hope that the YRO system is so successful that there are no breaches and that therefore it is not necessary to use the relevant provisions. However, we should not be naïve about that. Except in what we hope will be exceptional circumstances, officers will be able to use appropriate discretion when operating the breach system. Warning systems will be in place and are designed to ensure that a breach is dealt with at an early stage without the consequences that the noble Baroness mentioned. She is concerned that the measure will lead to a lot of breaches, which will result in more young people ending up eventually in custody. I understand those concerns. However, I have noticed in my visits around the country that on the other side of the fence, if you like, community sentences can be seen as a soft option. They have not been viewed as a vigorous option and some believed that breaches were not pursued as effectively as possible. That view is changing but it is very important to have effective breach mechanisms to ensure that what we are seeking to do retains its credibility. I am clear that the general thrust of youth justice in the Bill has received a lot of support from noble Lords. I am in no doubt about that whatever. The breach provisions ensure that there are appropriate sanctions if young people do not fulfil the terms of the orders.
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Lord Thomas of GresfordLiberal Democrat- Quote
- My Lords, does the Minister consider it to be absolutely contrary to principle that you should have a more severe punishment for breach of a civil court order than for the offending conduct which caused that order to be made in the first place? Surely, we are concerned with a fundamental principle here. Breach of the civil order is being elevated way above the original offence. That must be contrary to Article 14 of the European Convention and, I am sure, to other articles in other conventions to which this country is party. I do not see how it can ever survive a challenge in the European Court.
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- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- My Lords, that is not the view of the Government. The context of YROs is that they are there to provide the courts with a community sentence, which includes, with a high intensity of requirements, viable alternatives to custody. It is critical that that has the confidence of sentencers and of the general public. That means that there must be adequate enforcement and appropriate sanctions for those young people who wilfully and persistently refuse to comply with the terms of an order. Having appropriate sanctions is critically important to the credibility of what we are seeking to do.
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- Lord Thomas of GresfordLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, is the Standing Committee for Youth Justice correct when it says that a more serious punishment cannot be inflicted on an adult offender for breach of a community order and this is confined to under 18s? That is ridiculous. Why should there be a distinction when you are dealing with children; that they can have a more serious punishment for this—can be sent to prison and can lose their liberty—when they could not be sent to prison for the original offence? If it is different with adults, as I am instructed it is, surely that must be wrong.
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- The Earl of OnslowConservative
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- My Lords, I will help the noble Lord out by saying that the Government have form on this; it is called ASBOs. If you breach an ABSO, you can be sent to prison for breach of the ASBO on hearsay evidence of doing something that may not in the first place even have been a crime. If that is of any assistance to the Minister, it is a fairly poisoned chalice. But that is the track down which we are going; and it is going to come up with violent offender orders as well.
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- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- My Lords, the heart of the argument is that if we were to accept the amendment, in practice it would mean that if a young person wilfully and persistently breached the terms of a youth rehabilitation order, they could be re-sentenced only to a further youth rehabilitation order. So you have a potential revolving door, with the young people who persistently breach feeling that in the end there are no sanctions. That is why we need the provisions. Noble Lords are ignoring the fact that there has to be a wilful and persistent breach of the first—
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- Lord Thomas of GresfordLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, am I not right in thinking that a YRO is imposed where a criminal offence has been committed? If there is a breach, it should be open to the court to punish the person for the criminal offence that is the subject of the order. Am I wrong?
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- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- My Lords, I am not sure that I follow the noble Lord.
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- Lord Thomas of GresfordLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, let me explain. The noble Lord said that all you can do is impose another YRO. But you could go back to the original criminal offence and impose another penalty for that criminal offence.
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- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- My Lords, the court can deal with failure in any one of the following ways. As a result of government amendment, it has the discretion to order the offender to pay a fine, or amend, “the terms of a youth rehabilitation order so as to impose any requirement which could have been included in the order when it was made … in addition to, or … in substitution for, any requirement or requirements already imposed by the order”. It can also deal, “with the offender, for the offence in respect of which the order was made, in any way in which the court could have dealt with the offender for that offence (had the offender been before that court to be dealt with for it)”. That sets out very clearly the options that are laid before the court. I do not see how that undermines the point that I am making; that we are surely all agreed that youth rehabilitation orders seem to be a very sensible way to deal with many young people. To make sure that the YR system works effectively, it is a very good idea if young people recognise that persistent breach has serious consequences. That is why the provisions for breach are there.
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- Lord Thomas of GresfordLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, this question is based on the briefing of the Standing Committee for Youth Justice. I am seeking clarification here—in case the noble Lord, Lord Bach, gets a bit worried about it. The briefing states that you cannot do this with an adult in relation to a community sentence. Why should you do it in relation to a child?
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- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- My Lords, my advice is that the standing committee is wrong on that. I am happy to set it out in more detail for the noble Lord, but that is the advice that I have received. I have also received advice that we consider that the provisions are, as he would expect, compatible with the ECHR. It is notable that the Joint Committee on Human Rights did not take issue with this aspect of the Bill. We think that we are covered in this regard. The point I was making was that for custody to happen, there has to be a wilful and persistent breach of the first youth rehabilitation order. The court can re-sentence and impose a youth rehabilitation order with intensive supervision and surveillance for that persistent and wilful breach. At that stage, custody is not available. The young offender then has again wilfully and persistently to breach the order. This time the sentence is imposed for the original wilful and persistent breach of the youth rehabilitation order for intensive supervision and surveillance. Only then is custody available to the court. The court can then impose a detention and training order for a minimum period of up to four months, but it does not have to. Perhaps I may refer in more detail to the comparison with adult community offenders. My understanding is that there is an equivalent provision on breach of adult community orders in Schedule 8 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Paragraphs 9 and 10 of the schedule provide the magistrates’ court and the Crown Court respectively with the power to impose a custodial sentence of up to six months on an adult who wilfully and persistently fails to comply with a community order imposed for a non-imprisonable offence. So similar provisions are available. In all of this, the emphasis is on what is specifically described as a “wilful and persistent breach”. That phrase is critical and should reassure noble Lords that we are not proposing to penalise young people disproportionately for minor misdemeanours, which was one of the issues raised in our debate in Committee. We are talking about the worst cases where the young offender is clearly and repeatedly not responding to or engaging with their community sentence. Ultimately, the thrust of all our debates has been to ensure that custody is the last option. The YRO structure is designed to ensure that that is the position. That is why it is important to have a vigorous approach to breaches. It is the justification for this structure, particularly in relation to wilful and persistent breaches. On that basis, I invite the House to accept that the proposals are indeed proportionate and acceptable.
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, there is unfortunately a parting of the ways and the philosophy here and we will not overcome it tonight. We still do not believe that custody will ever be the right answer, however wilful and persistent the breaches—for a series of what are still minor albeit highly irritating and antisocial offences. As the Minister will appreciate from previous debates, it has not been proven that custody solves anything in terms of causing reoffending rates to decline. We also have not discussed what form that custody will take. We have not discussed, for example, Amendment No. 44, which will allow us to debate what sort of secure accommodation there should be. I do not think that we will get any closer in terms of the basic philosophy that is dividing us tonight, and I am sure that we will come back to it. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 21:
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- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- moved Amendments Nos. 24 and 25:
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- Lord BachLabour
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- My Lords, I hope that by the time I finish speaking, the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, will think that I have made the necessary statement. His amendment seeks to broaden the responsible officer’s duty to consider an offender’s religious needs to include those of the offender’s immediate family. He is again exploring whether a young person would be in breach of a youth rehabilitation order where he was prevented from meeting the terms of the order by issues which had arisen that were beyond his control. In that event, and if that was proved to the satisfaction of the relevant officer—I am not talking about formal proof—then there would be no breach. There can be a breach only if there is no reasonable excuse. If there is a reasonable excuse, as I understand it, it follows that there can be no breach. The noble Lord went on to ask whether a young person would be in breach of an order if he was dependent on his family to fulfil the terms of the order—for example, for transport—and this was not forthcoming due to the religious beliefs of his family. The noble Lord kindly mentioned the letter that my noble friend Lord Bassam wrote to him. The letter emphasised, as we have tried to do consistently in debates on YROs, that the Bill assumes that local management discretion is essential if we are to deal fairly with issues surrounding breach. We cannot say that in all cases where an offender claims that a breach of a requirement was a result of his family’s religious beliefs, the responsible officer will at once accept that as a complete answer. The responsible officer may well nearly always accept such an explanation, but there may be circumstances where it will not be appropriate to do so and the matter will have to be considered individually. It might not be acceptable where, for example, the offender and his parents have different religious beliefs or one parent has religious beliefs different from those of the other. I may be accused of being far-fetched but the far-fetched examples show that every claim cannot automatically be accepted by the responsible officer. In other words, he would have to manage such an issue. We have ensured that the responsible officer has the flexibility to deal with the full range of issues that can arise when dealing with young people. The crux of the matter is that this includes the power to assess what constitutes a reasonable excuse for non-compliance. We have deliberately placed the responsible officer at the heart of the process. He knows the young person and his family and is able to exercise his professional judgment to take into account the full range of issues which may contribute to non-compliance. He can, and will, take into account those issues which may be beyond the control of the young person. Moreover, the parents of a young person will be involved in making the arrangements for the interventions under the YRO. The responsible officer will have contacted the parents and gained their agreement where they are required to play a significant role. Of course, it is right that the religious beliefs of the young person should be taken into account in the delivery of the requirements within the YRO. That is why the responsible officer must have regard to them when delivering those requirements. However, we do not believe that we should extend, in the statute, such a consideration to include the religious beliefs of the family of the offender. It is common sense that the duty of the responsible officer is to the young person. When sentencing, the court has to take into account the young person’s family circumstances, as well as the offender’s religious beliefs, before making a YRO. In practice, we would expect the youth offending team also to have regard to the young person’s family circumstances, in so far as that is practicable. I hope that I have done enough to satisfy the noble Lord that, in practice, what he wants will happen, provided that the claim made by the offender who has not turned up—to use his example—is genuinely based on something such as his parents’ beliefs.
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- 21:30
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- Lord BachLabour
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- My Lords, I shall attempt to answer the noble Lord’s persuasive case—persuasive as far as the officers are concerned, not as regards the offender. I want to separate those two. It is not so persuasive that I shall take it away for consideration. It is persuasive in the sense that there must be a complete record, of course, and I understand why the noble Lord says that. The real issue is whether that needs to be in the Bill. We believe that these matters are satisfactorily dealt with already in guidance. As I am sure was pointed out in Committee, I point out that the National Standards for Youth Justice Services set out what a responsible officer is required to do in respect of instructions to a young offender made subject to an order. Those instructions state that an agreement must be produced with the offender which should be in writing and signed and will include acceptable and unacceptable absence criteria, the right to be treated fairly and with respect, the requirement to behave acceptably, and time-keeping. The noble Lord may come back to me and say that those standards are not legally binding if they do not appear in statute, and therefore may not be followed on all occasions. Of course, that point is taken, but we believe that properly monitored and enforced guidance offers both a robust and flexible approach to this issue. The Youth Justice Board will monitor and ensure compliance and, importantly, guidance can be changed or tweaked to allow for future variations. If an officer does not do that and the case goes pear-shaped—if I can use that expression in your Lordships' House—which has been known, it is not likely that that officer will ever do it again. He will have breached the national standards and I understand that officers are obliged to behave under national standards. We believe that proper case management procedures are in place and I hope that they will remain properly adhered to in the future.
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- Speaker
- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 30:
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- 21:45
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- Speaker
- Lord Hunt of Kings HeathLabour
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- moved Amendments Nos. 31 to 34:
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- Speaker
- Lord BachLabour
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- My Lords, I beg to move that consideration on Report be now adjourned. Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to. House adjourned at 9.52 pm.
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