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Mr. Hawkins: Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Sir Nicholas Lyell: I shall not give way, because I do not want to over-emphasise this point. I know and respect my hon. Friend's point of view, but I wish to persuade the Government on this matter.
I come now to the issue of enforcement in cases of breach. I have read clause 46 carefully, but I have obviously not read it enough. It is quite difficult to tell exactly what it will mean in practice. I shall outline my concerns so that Ministers and those who handle the Bill's detail can think about them.
If the conditions placed on a community sentence are broken, it is entirely right that the offender should be breached, as it is known in the trade, and brought back to court, which should be able to give appropriate punishment. However, we must be careful to leave the court adequate flexibility because offenders vary greatly.
Too high a proportion of offenders commit deliberate offences--they know what they are doing and the risks that they are taking. Such offenders are out to make a living from crime and they deserve any punishment they get. Other offenders doubtless deserve punishment, but, for one reason or another, they are incapable of being responsible for themselves. Although that fact should not let them off, there should be no unexpected or unintentional results that would make them more of a burden on the community or the Prison Service.
I refer to the type of offender who, as the result of drug taking or drinking too much alcohol, or because he is feckless and of low intellect, finds it difficult to comply regularly with the precise terms of the community sentence that has rightly been imposed on him. The court must have a degree of flexibility or discretion. Otherwise, probation officers may be reluctant to return to court someone who has breached the terms of a probation order because they fear that that person will be put in prison automatically and that that will be counter-productive.
I am in favour of a firm and tough approach, but I have always been in favour of leaving a significant degree of flexibility to the courts. Although it is not the subject of the Bill, if I were asked why I supported mandatory sentences for three-time burglars, I would reply that I was satisfied that multiple burglars--they usually commit more than three offences--caused a huge amount of trouble to the community and that the average length of sentence that they received was simply too short. That legislation, which is a precursor to the Bill and the modern tough approach to crime that the Government purport to follow--I encourage them when they do--was right to tackle that issue. My plea is for a proper degree of flexibility for the courts so that the punishment for breach can be appropriate rather than suffering from a certain automaticity, which would cause it to be counter- productive.
The Bill provides for the advent of new technology, which can be beneficial. Now that electronic tagging has been proved to work, it is rightly being used much more widely. However, when we seek to enforce probation by methods such as the new swipe cards, let us be careful to ensure that they work properly and that they are capable of being properly monitored. For example, it has been suggested to me that to tell someone to report electronically by use of a swipe card may sound very nice, but the card could easily be given to someone else. That other person could swipe the relevant monitoring point for the offender. That system may not be effective. When handprints can be used--they cannot really be concealed--technology may meet the purpose for which it is applied. I am much in favour of new technology, but let it be used with common sense.
A portion of the Bill deals with court welfare officers and guardians ad litem, and the transfer of responsibility from the Home Office to the Lord Chancellor's Department. It has not taken up a great deal of time during the debate. However, it is an extraordinarily difficult matter for any Government. It is not party political.
There is quite a difference in culture at present between court welfare officers and guardians ad litem. Court welfare officers deal with day-to-day work for particular courts and undertake valuable work. They are full-time employees. Guardians ad litem are somewhat differently trained. They are estimable people who largely work free
lance. It is important that the Lord Chancellor's Department should be sensitive in moulding the two services together.
It should be realised that the Home Office was probably not wholly altruistic in passing responsibility to the Lord Chancellor's Department in these often extremely contentious matters. The whole issue of child care when dealt with in the courts, and of marriage breakdown, which is so often the background, is hugely contentious and is known to lead to many complaints. I see the Minister of State, Home Office, the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), looking characteristically and charmingly happy at the thought that the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Lock), who is blissfully ignorant because he is not sitting in on the debate, will carry the burden in the future.
The Home Office is a rather large Department compared with the Lord Chancellor's Department. The Lord Chancellor may be pleased to be enlarging his empire, but let him ensure that the formidable reputation on which he relies is effective in the courts of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Otherwise, he will not have the budget to do the job properly. I wish him well, not only for his sake but for that of those in the service, who will depend on his success if they are to be able to do a very difficult job effectively.
Mr. Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre):
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate, but it is sad that the House is comparatively empty for a debate on an important Bill. It was sad also to hear the earlier claims of golden legacies which are not borne out by my experience or that of many constituents. We can all hark back to the past but it is essential that we try to face the problems confronting people at the moment and deal with them sensibly.
Mr. Hawkins:
If the hon. Gentleman thinks back a few minutes, he will realise that it was his colleague the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) who talked about golden legacies.
Mr. Dawson:
We can argue about such particulars, but anyone who has sat in the Chamber for the past hour or so will recall the extraordinary claims being made by Conservative Members.
I welcome the Bill, which is immensely significant. Apart from the final remarks of the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell), the debate has largely concentrated on the probation measures. However, the Bill is crucial for the 13 million children in this country whose protection it will greatly enhance and improve. It is enormously significant for the thousands of children who are caught up in public legal proceedings, care proceedings and the private law relating to divorce and issues of residence and contact, which are dealt with under section 8 of the Children Act 1989.
The Bill is enormously significant also for the comparatively small group of children who are dealt with by the Official Solicitor, who has the often grave
responsibility of resolving difficult moral, ethical and legal issues. Those children are sometimes caught up in the most extraordinary and damaging circumstances.
The Bill is also excellent for the public, who need a coherent system that will protect them from serious offenders. In many cases, their best protection will be dedicated probation officers. I am glad, as I think everyone is, that they will still be called probation officers, rather than being known by the bizarre acronyms that might have been foisted on them.
As other hon. Members have said, probation officers work in the most difficult, and occasionally dangerous, circumstances. They will have the opportunity to work under the new structures that the Bill will develop within the community safety framework established by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The Bill will present them with new opportunities to tackle the profoundly important issues at the heart of so much offending in this country. Those issues damage people, wreck lives, take the heart out of whole communities and sap the confidence of many of the people whom we represent.
Above all, this is a serious Bill. The Government are certainly taking a firm approach to the protection of children and the public. They are also creating a tremendous opportunity to enhance children's rights, and I shall return to that point later.
I give an unequivocal welcome to part II, which deals with the protection of children. It is a measure of the seriousness with which the Government address these issues that the Bill goes further than previous reports have recommended by creating two new criminal offences of working with children while disqualified from doing so and of offering such work to someone who is disqualified.
It is exceptionally important that the Government have defined work with children so that the Bill encompasses not only paid work but voluntary work and the full range of activities and circumstances in which paedophiles and people intent on harm can gain access to children. Experience has surely shown us that those who want to exploit and abuse children are cunning, ruthless and devious, and the Government are demonstrating that in protecting children they are prepared to be vigilant, thorough and severe.
I welcome the establishment of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. I could not think up an unlikely name for it, and I do not entirely take on board some of the quibbles about names that we have had this afternoon. Bringing together the family court welfare service, the guardian ad litem and reporting officer service and the official solicitor is necessary and possibly overdue. It is a good first step.
I accept the point about the difficulties of trying to assimilate different services, and there are many anxieties, particularly among guardians ad litem, who have rightly operated as independent contractors and who have had an informal employment relationship when carrying out their crucial role. They are concerned about how that role will marry up with the welfare service when it is included in CAFCASS, and we will have to wait and see.
Obviously it makes good sense to unite all those who report to courts in private proceedings, care proceedings and adoptions, where crucial issues relative to the care of children need to be resolved. The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire thought that the Home Office had played a bit of a blinder by passing the
service over to the Lord Chancellor's Department, and I am concerned about that transfer. I am concerned about any social workers being in the company of lawyers. I wonder how well a social work service will fit into the framework of the Lord Chancellor's Department.
CAFCASS, or whatever it will be called, needs to be a children's rights service. It needs to have an independent and powerful influence so that it can ensure that children's voices are clearly heard when courts are making crucial decisions about care, supervision, adoption, residence and contact. I am not sure that it is entirely appropriate to place that service within the Lord Chancellor's Department, where it will be subject to inspection by no doubt worthy officers of the magistrates court service.
A great deal of work will be needed to preserve the independence of that service and to ensure that it abides by fundamental social work principles and the basic principles of the Children Act. It must also be firmly grounded in the principles of the UN convention on the rights of the child.
The service must be able to carry out an important task that is in some ways delicate and in many other ways robust. That involves getting alongside children, sometimes in extraordinary situations, and understanding their wishes and feelings when they are caught up in a legal process. The service must be able to hear the very small voices of children in the often bewildering circumstances of divorce, parental antagonism, abuse and neglect.
For me, and for many other hon. Members, I imagine, the debate on the huge change to be introduced by the Bill properly raises questions about the necessity for a children's rights commissioner in this country, to attend to the basic rights of children and to ensure that systems always work in the interests of children. We must ensure that the voices of children are heard, and that Government agencies and Departments always work together in the interests of children who, by definition in this country, are powerless. They have no vote.
The message from all the child abuse inquiries and all the appalling cases about which we have heard is that as well as having no vote, children often have no voice. That is probably a debate for another day, but the service would sit more comfortably if such a commissioner were in place, and if the Government followed the logic of their tremendous commitment to children, to the United Nations convention on children's rights and to joined-up government.
The measure is a good step, but it raises further issues that remain unresolved because the Family Law Act 1996 has not been fully implemented. A significant section of the 1996 Act relates to the breakdown of marriage, mediation, and the services required in those circumstances. The new service will not be fully developed until we have a coherent framework for mediation and the resolution of problems before they get to court. Many hon. Members are lawyers, but I hope that we all recognise that courtrooms are often not the best place to resolve crucial issues pertaining to the upbringing of children and their future.
The principle of independent advocacy needs to be extended further. The guardian ad litem service in relation to children facing care proceedings, coupled with the
independent representation of children in those proceedings, works. It ensures that the needs and circumstance of children are taken into account. Another unimplemented part of the Family Law Act 1996 deals with the independent representation of children in private law proceedings. I hope that that will be taken further, stimulated by the development of CAFCASS.
I have been in Parliament only a short while, but judging by my own experience I would be amazed if other hon. Members had not had parents, grandparents, and even children and young people coming to their surgeries to talk about the bad time they had had during the parents divorce. The children speak of their impression that they were not listened to by the judge, or by anyone who was part of those proceedings, about crucial issues such as where they would live for the rest of their childhood, and what contact they would have with their parents.
Until we address that fundamental issue, there will be continuing problems. For many children, childhood will be undermined, and they will not receive the attention and support that they palpably deserve. I hope that the new system will help us to put that right.
A tremendous training programme will be needed for the new advisory and support service, and its independence will have to be vigorously protected. People will be needed who can stand up for children and express children's needs in a courtroom setting that would daunt many adults.
A good management structure will be required for the new service, to ensure that the people carrying out the difficult task of listening to children and advocating their interests in a challenging setting are given the proper support, training and back-up. The social work service will operate in a legalistic milieu, and it is important that social workers have contact with other professionals working with children and families.
It is good that we will have a national probation service. I understand why some people are shy of the word "punishment", but I think they are wrong. The national probation service should take on board the fact that some orders contain an element of reparation, of making good and of service. That will be perceived as punishment by some people, but it is necessary, in addition to the advice, assistance and befriending which are the more traditional parts of the probation role.
It is essential that the programmes enjoy credibility with the public, the people carrying them out, and the people who are sentenced to them. The programmes must be seen as an effective way of making good with the community and moving on.
We have heard a lot of talk today about early releases, and what I considered inappropriate comments about reoffending. I hardly think that any of the victims of the crimes in question--some extremely serious--could feel happy about the fact that their horrendous experiences have been bandied around the Chamber. I do not believe that that had anything to do with concern for the needs of victims; I believe that it had a great deal to do with party political point-scoring, and I consider it deplorable.
If we are to move on, we must find a safe way of allowing serious offenders to return to the community, or to remain in the community. It must enable them to be monitored and to make good what they have done to society; above all, the public must be protected. But at the same time, it must enable offenders to be rehabilitated and
helped back into a more productive life. We cannot simply consign people to prison, let them rot there for years and then allow them back on the streets: that would be appalling and irresponsible. We must establish a policy which, while having community safety and public protection at its heart, will enable such people to become involved in programmes--my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) described some of them--that the Government are introducing to help people to emerge from social exclusion and gain a proper place in society through training, work and other opportunities.
It is commendable that the national probation service will be based on police boundaries: no sensible person could disagree with that. The introduction of exclusion orders, drug abstinence orders and curfew requirements in the case of community sentences is intrusive and demanding, but it is absolutely necessary if we are to establish an effective link between the Prison Service, the probation service and the police, and then enable them to use an intelligence-led approach to target serious criminals and reduce offending.
The Government's approach gives rise to great optimism. I shall be chided by my colleagues for mentioning the fine city of Lancaster yet again, but I must point out that it has experienced serious levels of crime. Unemployment, poverty and deprivation are by no means the sole causes of crime, but they are unquestionably at the heart of the decision of many young people to become criminals--or, perhaps, the lack of a decision: some people just fall into crime.
Lancaster has been given real opportunities by the new deal and the regeneration programmes--the single regeneration budget, objective 2 status and assisted area status. Those programmes are bringing new investment to communities containing vulnerable people, particularly vulnerable young men. However, the city will also be helped by the programmes that the probation service is being encouraged to adopt--programmes that clamp down on people's behaviour, while offering help at the same time.
I am thinking of, for instance, drug referral programmes for people who have been arrested, which attend to the most serious underlying problems experienced by those people at a crucial stage. They may be in a police cell, wondering where they go from there. It is important that nurses--referred to earlier--have been present in police stations. That must be a challenging experience for nurses who are used to working in hospital wards, but the results are extremely positive. People have responded tremendously well.
Serious drug abuse is clearly at the heart of much offending. Hon. Members have asked why the Government are concentrating on class A drugs; I think it obvious from my experience of my constituency--and I suspect the same is true of many others--that it is class A drugs that dominate people's lives, so that they must find money to fuel their serious drug habit.
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