 House of Commons |
Session 2006 - 07 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Criminal Justice and Immigration |
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan
Sandall, Committee
Clerk
†
attended the
Committee
WitnessesGraham
Robb, Acting Chair, Youth Justice
Board
Ellie
Roy, Chief Executive, Youth Justice
Board
Brendan
Finegan, Director of Strategy, Youth Justice
Board
Bob
Reitemeier, Chief Executive, Children’s
Society
Simon
Hickson, Policy Advisor, Children’s
Society
Public Bill CommitteeThursday 18 October 2007(Morning)[Sir Nicholas Winterton in the Chair]Criminal Justice and Immigration BillFurther written evidence to be reported to the HouseCJ&I 231 Youth
Justice Board
CJ&I 211 Ian
Bensted
CJ&I 212 Jim
Fear
CJ&I 215 John
Humphrey
CJ&I 220 Cilla
Long
CJ&I 223 Maria
Adams
CJ&I 225 Mark
Withers
CJ&I 227 Tony
Bond
CJ&I 229 Rev Nicholas
Sykes
CJ&I 238 Damian
Selby
CJ&I 239 Eunice
Reid
CJ&I 240 Itunu
Oluremilekun
CJ&I 245
Stephen Watt
CJ&I 257 LC
MacCabe
CJ&I 258 Rosemary A
Luff
CJ&I 260 SM
Parker
CJ&I 263 Ian M
LaRiviere
CJ&I 265 Ms LS
Nollard
CJ&I 268 Joanna
Brown
CJ&I 269 John
Morgan
CJ&I 272 Christian
Council of Britain
CJ&I 274
John Rawding
CJ&I 301 John
Etherton
9
am
The
Committee deliberated in
private.
9.6
am
On
resuming—
That the Order
of the Committee [16th October] be amended by the
substitution of the following Table for the table referred to in
paragraph (2) of that
Order—
As I indicated on
Tuesday, and following discussion through the usual channels, I am
happy to accommodate the submissions from the Evangelical Alliance and
to add their representatives to the list of witnesses. The amendment
which the Committee approved on Tuesday does exactly that and extends
the session this afternoon from 4 o’clock to half-past 4, to
allow the Evangelical Alliance to present evidence to the Committee. I
hope that that is acceptable to the
Committee.
I
understand that it is again a long session of some three and a half
hours and I believe that you, Sir Nicholas, may use discretion, should
you so wish, to allow a short suspension of the Committee, if it seems
appropriate. I hope that the efforts of “the usual
channels” and the Evangelical Alliance’s preparedness to
present evidence this afternoon is acceptable to hon. Members, and I
commend the motion to the
Committee.
Question
put and agreed to.
The
Chairman:
This morning we will hear evidence from
representatives of the Youth Justice Board and the Children’s
Society. Our witnesses are very welcome to the meeting. As you know,
this is a new procedure for the House of Commons, but I believe that it
will be helpful in dealing with legislation and, therefore, we will
welcome the evidence that you give us today. Please introduce
yourselves to the
Committee.
Graham
Robb:
Good morning. I am the interim chair of the
Youth Justice Board. I am accompanied by Ellie Roy, who is the chief
executive, and Brendan Finegan, who is the director of
strategy.
The
Chairman:
Mr. Reitemeier, you are the chief
executive of the Children’s Society. Who is your
colleague?
Bob
Reitemeier:
He is Simon Hickson, the policy adviser
for children in trouble with the law—that is, our work in youth
justice. The Committee may also wish to know that I am a member of the
Youth Justice
Board.
Mr.
Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con): Thank you all for
coming. I will begin by asking both sets of witnesses to what extent
they were consulted before the Bill was
printed?
Graham
Robb:
It would be most helpful if I invite Brendan
Finegan to talk about that, as he has been involved from the earliest
stages of the
process.
Brendan
Finegan:
We were involved in the early consultations
over “Youth Justice—The Next Steps”, from which
these legislative proposals emerged. We have had continuing
conversations with officials in the Ministry of Justice, or the Home
Office, as it
was.
Brendan
Finegan:
Particularly in relation to part 1,
regarding the youth rehabilitation order and the principles of
sentencing, but as the other clauses emerged, we have also been
involved in discussions and consultations with the
officials.
Bob
Reitemeier:
My answer is similar. Following the
publication of “Youth Justice—The Next Steps”,
which followed “Every Child Matters”, we were consulted
by the Home Office, which was then responsible for youth
justice.
Q
194
Mr.
Garnier:
Representing the Children’s Society and
the Youth Justice Board, are you both broadly happy with the shape of
the
Bill?
Graham
Robb:
We broadly welcome the Bill. The starting point
for the Youth Justice Board is that you look at the whole child.
Children have multiple needs and it looks as though the generic order
allows courts to deal with those multiple needs, as long as it is based
adequately on clear identification through the assessment routine that
youth offending teams use, and as long as the pre-sentence report
guidance from youth offending teams to sentencers is sufficiently
robust and clearly required by the Bill. We are broadly content that
the Bill provides opportunities to meet the needs of youngsters in a
more flexible
way.
Q
195
Mr.
Garnier:
Are you able to tell us—I address this
question to both sets of witnesses so feel free to
interrupt—your opinion about whether the Bill is likely to
result in more children and young people going into
custody?
Graham
Robb:
Our assessment is that it looks as though there
will be a modest reduction, but that takes into account the provisions
in the Bill for other developments in the criminal justice
field—policing strategy and so on. It looks as though there will
be a modest reduction in the under-18 numbers. That will depend on, for
example, the way in which local authorities take up the intensive
fostering opportunities and the other alternatives to custody, but a
key element in that take-up will be the funding that is available at
the local
level.
Q
196
Mr.
Garnier:
While we are on the matter of intensive
fostering, you will notice that the schedule dealing with the
availability of these answers to the cases that will be imposed upon
youth courts states that such solutions will not happen unless the
Secretary of State certifies that a particular resource is available.
This may look nice on paper, but how do you anticipate it working in
practice?
Graham
Robb:
On intensive fostering, a lot of local
authorities are interested in intensive fostering and they may make a
local decision that that is the route that they want to take. We have
been supporting a pilot on intensive fostering for three years, and the
early results are encouraging in terms of the reducing re-offending
outcome, but we know that there are issues with sustaining its
development at local and national levels.
Q
197
Mr.
Garnier:
One of the real issues that emerges, which may be
something for the Children’s Society to deal with, is that we
already know that 27 per cent. of people currently in custody, both
adults and young offenders, have been through the care system. I am
concerned that compulsory fostering, which some have described as the
nationalisation of children, could amount to a further catalyst towards
keeping people within the criminal justice system and
instead of getting them out of trouble, persuading them to stay in
trouble. Is that a fear that we need to concern ourselves with or is it
an
exaggeration?
Bob
Reitemeier:
Are we confident that the Bill will lead
to a decrease in custody, leading to the intensive nature of
intervention? We want to stress to the Committee that we must look at
the Bill in the context of the current political opportunity, in which
there is joint accountability for youth justice by the Department for
Children, Schools and Families and the Ministry of Justice. For that
opportunity to be made real in a way that changes custody levels, the
courts and the youth justice system must work closely and formally with
the social services and the Department for Children, Schools and
Families, through the children’s services directorates at local
authority level. We should not anticipate a decrease in custody levels
unless the youth justice system takes into account the welfare and the
well-being of children in its determination of sentences and orders.
That must take effect.
With regard
to intensive fostering, I would focus on the word
“intensive.” We all seek to change the behaviour of these
young people and to reintegrate them into society in a productive way,
and we know that that requires intensive engagement. Whether that is
fostering or an intensive relationship through another order, such as
an intensive supervision and surveillance programme, the intensive
nature of treatment for prolific offenders—people with
significant welfare and well-being needs—must be part of the
system. If we do it properly, we will have an opportunity significantly
to decrease the numbers of young people in
custody.
9.15
am
Q
198
Mr.
Garnier:
Do you not think that one of the problems that
many of you are concerned with, both as members of the Youth Justice
Board and as directors of the Children’s Society, is that these
young teenagers—we are predominantly talking about young
teenagers—are the children of very young parents? Obviously, to
me both the children and the parents seem quite young. By taking
children away from their parents, albeit young parents or parents who
may not live very organised lives, are you not increasing the
irresponsibility—I mean that not in a pejorative sense, but as a
factual description—of parents for their children? Surely we
should try to encourage parents to take responsibility for their
children rather than passing those children over to the
state.
I am not
impugning the motives of people who work for local authorities and deal
with the care of children, but is it not clear that the state, in
whichever guise you care to describe it, is not the best parent? We can
see that from the 27 per cent. of children who end up in
custody.
Brendan
Finegan:
You make a fair point. The intensive
fostering element is built upon the presumption that children will
return to their families. If a young person’s offending is
caused by the nature of their family circumstances, the content of the
order effectively gives them some time out and requires them to live
with a set of trained and specialist adolescent foster parents. That is
supported by a daily activity programme that helps the person to
adjust, meets their needs and reduces their likely harm to the
community.
Importantly, and I stress this
for the Committee, it also engages the family. It is a whole family
solution. It may appear that we are taking the child out of poor
circumstances and replacing those with the state, but the intention is
for the state to work with the child and its family to repair the harm,
fix the issues and reduce the likelihood of reoffending. It is a
holistic system that requires regular contact by the child and the
family with trained and specific adolescent foster parents together
with a team of support workers.
Q
199
Mr.
Garnier:
Are you confident that the Government and people
such as yourselves are keen that this should work? Are there resources
available to make it work? I return to my earlier question—this
looks nice on paper, but we know that the probation service is under
tremendous strain. I accept that the Offender Management Act 2007 may
outsource other levels of supervision, but we are talking about money
and people. This sort of activity is incredibly resource
intensive.
Brendan
Finegan:
It is resource intensive, but I assure the
Committee that the legislation already exists. The power to place a
child within this type of setting exists in the Anti-social Behaviour
Act 2003, and those are the powers that we currently
use.
Brendan
Finegan:
As Bob Reitemeier has already said, this is
an opportunity to place emerging activities at a local level between
children’s services and youth justice. It will allow them to
work together to tackle the most troubled and troublesome young people
and families in their community. The issue of resources is tricky, but
we already have measures for that in the Act and we will encourage
local areas to decide how to spend their resources in the best way. For
the children in some cases, we would advocate just such an intensive
fostering order as being the best way to invest that
money.
We are talking
with our colleagues in the Department for Children, Schools and
Families who are running a similar fostering model for young people who
are looked after. All too often, looked-after children are youth
offenders. We think that there are opportunities to join with
initiatives such as those used by the Department for Children, Schools
and Families to extend the
range.
We are having
conversations about extending the range at a national level, but we
also know that at a local level, choices can be made about how to make
the best investment. One option that we are proposing is that
children’s services and youth offending teams could work
together to invest their current spend in families that are
problematic. The evidence from the United States, from which this
research is developed, is very promising on crime and other social
policy
aspects.
The
Chairman:
Would Mr. Hickson, who I believe is
the policy adviser, like to comment on the questions that have been
put?
Simon
Hickson:
About £280 million a year is spent on
sending children into custody. A custodial sentence of a year, even if
only six months is spent in custody, can cost nearly £100,000.
From our perspective, there is a crucial need to look at the criteria
for custody and the Bill presents an opportunity to do so. There is an
opportunity to move to something of a virtuous circle, by tightening
the criteria for custody and using the intensive supervision and
surveillance programme or ISS order, as we would like to see it, and
the higher intensity measures as community
options.
Q
201
Mr.
Garnier:
My county of Leicestershire saw a terrible event,
fortunately some time ago now, in which a person who ran
children’s homes was convicted of serious crimes. He
subsequently died in prison. Other inquiries have been conducted as a
consequence of young children being injured or killed by their foster
parents. You know their names better than
I.
What modelling have
either of you done to see whether there are available resources to do
this fostering work, not just in terms of money, but the right sort of
people? If we get this wrong, it will cause more problems than we
intend to solve. I am interested in whether you think that there is a
collection of available foster parents who are not just kind and humane
and will look after, feed and clothe the children in their care, but
who have the expertise to deal with what are obviously very troubled
and difficult young
people.
Ellie
Roy:
We must bear in mind that this model is a very
specific way of working with foster parents and children. It provides
training for the foster parents and gives them a lot of ongoing
support. You are right that it takes a very special type of person to
do this, but unless they get the right support and assistance it can
become too difficult, even for special people. This model is rigorous
in its selection processes, so you do get the right people, but it also
offers the right amount of support, advice and ongoing work. For people
who have been involved in it, it is very satisfying because you see
changes. The emerging findings look quite promising and replicate what
we see in the American
studies.
Q
202
Mr.
Garnier:
Presumably the foster parents will be entitled to
some form of Government funding to assist them with their additional
duties. Is it your understanding that the money to fund the fostering
arrangements will come out of the Youth Justice Board budget, the
central Government budget or the local authority budget? I ask
this—it is not a party political point—because
historically Governments are good at imposing duties on local
authorities but not at sending money along the tunnel to enable them to
pay for it. So you get at county hall or borough hall the age old
argument: how are we going to pay for this and what will be cut in
order to achieve one or more, no doubt entirely admirable, public
policy aims? Where is this money coming from that is going to make this
work?
Ellie
Roy:
The starting point for this is that a lot of
money is being spent on these young people anyway, through various
parts of the system, whether it is on care, social work or various
services. This looks as if it is a more effective way of spending some
of that resource to get much better results. If we manage to
reduce the numbers in custody, the Youth Justice Board would be able to
invest more of the money that we currently spend on custody. Simon
Hickson quoted the amount for custody. In some sectors it is much
higher than that. Some of the beds that we pay for cost up to
£200,000 a year. A lot of money is being spent anyway,
particularly on the secure children’s homes. There are issues
about how local authorities identify the children who are most in need
and who are already costing a lot of money, and how they spend the
money that is already being invested in them. There is also for us a
challenge in terms of getting kids out of custody so that we can spend
the money spent on custody in other
ways.
Bob
Reitemeier:
I should like to encourage the Committee
to take a long-term view in addressing this question of finances.
Reoffending rates hover between 75 and 80 per cent. for offenders who
go to custody. It is not just, as Simon Hickson pointed out,
£100,000 a year, because you multiply that every time the young
person comes back into the system. So what some of the interventions,
such as intensive fostering or intensive engagement with young people,
are trying to combat is the reoffending rate. It is working in a way
that prevents these young people from coming back into the system. So
when you look at finances and the long term, it sounds crude, but it is
pay now or pay later, or pay now or continue to pay. We need to take a
long-term view of that.
On intensive fostering, you
said that we need the right people with both the right approach and the
right skills, and I completely agree. Our evidence, over many years of
the Children’s Society, is that the most important factor that
changes a young person’s behaviour is a relationship. Without
that relationship, we have little chance of making headway. It is not
just intensive fostering. Working with children’s services and
working with the voluntary sector in other ways, we can establish those
relationships.
But
again, I would remind you of the point that you made at the very
beginning: in custody you are looking at a very significant percentage
of young people who have been in the care system, so the state had
already made what is one of the most important decisions it could ever
make, which is to separate that child from the family. Once they are in
custody and once they leave the youth justice system, if they go back
into an environment that brought them there in the first place, we have
little chance of changing their behaviour. So we need to look at those
relationships. The thing that young people tell us is that they when
they finally come across someone who actually cares whether they
succeed or fail it makes all the difference in the world. Unfortunately
they do not get that until we engage with this intensive relationship
building much later in their
life.
Q
203
Mr.
David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): I entirely support
your view that such a programme in working order is better than
custody. The evidence is abundantly clear that that is so. I still have
a concern—I think this is the point that Mr. Garnier
was making—about whether there is a reasonable expectation that
local authorities across the country will meet the demands on the other
elements of the rehabilitation order. Do you really believe that in a
couple of years’ time every court will have these various
disposals available to
it?
Bob
Reitemeier:
I will start to answer the question and
Simon Hickson may want to come in. Let us consider the court system
specifically in respect of the Bill and make sure that the amendments
specify that the court brings in children’s services formally as
part of the process, so that children’s services will have no
choice but to provide an assessment of the young person’s needs
and welfare needs. That will provide an opportunity to make the process
work in practice and, in a couple of years, we should see a
difference.
Q
204
Mr.
Heath:
You think that a duty should be placed on the
children’s department of a local authority to provide those
things.
Bob
Reitemeier:
Yes, there should a duty to ensure before
sentencing that children’s services are brought in and that an
assessment is made. It would include the work of the youth offending
teams—YOTs—which is part of the youth justice system. It
can all be brought together. If we can put into practice that,
following that determination made by the youth justice system in
whatever capacity, there are follow-up reports about what happened, it
will give the courts and magistrates confidence that these types of
interventions actually do work. There is a missing link in that there
is not a follow-up
report.
Simon
Hickson:
We are looking for a balance. We are not
arguing that the courts should take over welfare functions. There is a
separate system: local authorities are responsible, and there are
family courts. The key is to have lines of information and
accountability at the point when the courts are considering a serious
sentence, particularly custody, but also community services. We would
like to see examination in the Bill of how the right information can be
given to courts so that they can make informed decisions and there is
some element of accountability and explanation by local authorities in
respect of what they have looked at, such as the risks that have been
examined and the services that they could
provide.
Q
205
Mr.
Heath:
Not looking at the new orders, but the existing
orders, in the experience of representatives of the Youth Justice
Board, do courts at present have available the different disposals that
they would want to use throughout the country—or is it patchy,
as I
suspect?
9.30
am
Brendan
Finegan:
In the current provision, parenting orders,
for example, are now broadly and nationally available to each court and
all youth offending teams. It would be wrong of me to suggest that it
was available from the first moment that parenting orders commenced.
There has been a growth over time of such a process. That is how we
would approach intensive fostering. As Ellie said, it will be as much a
matter of choosing to make different allocation decisions locally and
growing the process around intensive fostering as a matter of replacing
one old behaviour with a new behaviour. Fostering, as a standard
product, is currently available within
legislation.
Q
206
Mr.
Heath:
I was thinking in terms of the other possible
disposals, such as drug rehabilitation. In your experience, how
available is
that?
Brendan
Finegan:
The testing requirement is being piloted, I
believe, and it will be evaluated. The treatment provision will be
dependent on the local drug action team and primary care trust
provision of services for managing substance misuse. Drug treatment
will be available, depending on the different level in different areas
of drug
testing.
Brendan
Finegan:
But young people have different needs at
different times, and different areas will have populations that require
different provision. We would not be looking for an individual and
exact provision in every local authority because the nature of problems
will be different in each area. The growth and emergence of services
are dependent on the population the area serves, as opposed to the
desire to solve a problem. In relation to drug treatment, an area with
high class A opiate use will have a different service from an area that
has cannabis or alcohol
use.
Q
207
Mr.
Heath:
I simply do not accept that. All the evidence shows
that class A drugs are available right across the country. You are
saying that a child in Somerset with a class A drug abuse problem does
not have the same rights as a child in Lambeth. That does not seem
right to
me.
Brendan
Finegan:
I do not think that I can say that. However,
in terms of the detail, I will check with my colleagues and perhaps
provide that
information.
Q
208
Mr.
Heath:
That would be helpful. May I just move very
quickly, Sir Nicholas, to a wider issue about the youth rehabilitation
order? The YRO puts together a lot of different elements. Is there any
concern that that will engender tariff inflation from the
bench—that there will be a suspicion that the resulting order
will be out of proportion to the offence that is under
consideration?
Graham
Robb:
It is one of the concerns that we had. Our work
with magistrates last year and other sentences says to us that the key
issue here is about the training and sentencing guidelines that go
alongside the Bill, to make clear the tariffs and support that are
available to the young person. The feedback that we had from sentencers
was that they want to know that the best resources are available to
support the individual young person that they are dealing with.
Therefore, we have to ensure that youth offending teams have the right
assessment tools and the right support agencies to deliver those
support mechanisms. I will ask Ellie to talk about the
practicalities.
Ellie
Roy:
Graham Robb has already talked about some of the
mechanisms that will safeguard the processes here. I think that what is
crucial is the advice of the youth offending team to courts. We know
that courts depend on the youth offending team for advice on how they
can begin to address, and decide what should happen to, a young person
who appears before them. That advice will continue to be
crucial.
I think that the YRO allows the
courts to look at a young person at a point in time and say,
“These are the needs. If the young person arrives again, then it
is for the YOT to say whether the deterioration in behaviour has been
so far that custody is the only alternative, or indeed whether there
are other things that need to be done with this young person.”
Certainly, we know that with young people you have to continue over a
long period to work on their issues and problems and to encourage them
to change their
behaviour.
Therefore,
with the sentencing guidance and advice, with the guidance that will go
to YOTs and with the relationship that YOTs have with courts and the
advice that they can give to them, I would be confident that there
should not be sentence inflation. Indeed, in the Youth Justice Board,
one of our central tenets is that we should not lock up any child who
does not absolutely have to be in custody. If we thought that there was
any risk of that happening, we would not have supported the Bill coming
forward in the way that it has, and the
YRO.
Q
209
Mr.
Heath:
May I ask one more question, Sir Nicholas? I know
that Mr. Burrowes, my colleague, will want to pursue that
matter.
The YRO is now
really quite a serious disposal short of custody. A rehabilitation
order has a lot of elements and places quite a lot of demands on a
young person. Given that, should that young person have representation
by right? I see Mr. Reitemeier nodding.
Bob
Reitemeier:
Yes, we feel that that should be put into
the Bill, that legal representation should be provided before any YRO
is put forward. So we fully support that
position.
Q
210
Mr.
Nick Hurd (Ruislip-Northwood) (Con): I have one brief
question about the YRO. Do you regret the absence of an alcohol
treatment requirement from that package? My main question is in
relation to part 2 of the Bill, which is on sentencing, and the
proposal to extend referral. We heard from the Magistrates Association
that referrals have not proved effective penalties for young people
committing serious crimes, and I would be very interested in your view
about the proposal to extend them.
Graham
Robb:
If I can pick up on the alcohol issue first, we
are clear that youngsters come in front of the courts for a whole range
of substance misuse misdemeanours, and some of those start off with
solvent misuse at school or in the community, and so on. We are in
favour of a wider description of substance misuse, which picks up both
the issue of drugs and alcohol, and other emerging practices over the
years.
Bob
Reitemeier:
If the Bill were to make it an obligation
that the court formally notify the local authority and ask it to make a
section 47 investigation, looking at the need for safeguarding the
welfare of the young person, the alcohol treatment need or any other
kind of treatment need could be identified and addressed during that
process. I would encourage the Committee to consider a section 47
notification as a duty as part of this
Bill.
Q
211
Mr.
Hanson:
Do you believe that the Bill as drafted will allow
young people who are involved with alcohol to be examined under the YRO
as it stands, or would we need to make a separate amendment to consider
the question of
alcohol?
Brendan
Finegan:
The Bill in its current shape probably does
not allow us to have that alcohol treatment order. We would support the
addition of an alcohol treatment element. Graham’s view was that
the board’s approach to substance misuse and the misuse of
substances, whether licit or illicit, is that we would wrap them up in
a general concept of substance misuse, so that misuse of tobacco as
much as misuse of proscribed drugs can be wrapped together. In terms of
the Bill itself, we accept that an amendment for alcohol would allow
that problem to be
tackled.
Q
212
Mr.
Garnier:
May I ask the witnesses to look at amendment No.
106, on page 49 of the amendment paper, which was tabled by my hon.
Friends and me? If you have any views on the drafting of that amendment
we would be very grateful to have them—not now, but
later.
Brendan
Finegan:
May I take the opportunity to answer the
second part of that question regarding referral orders? You may be
aware that the referral order is the volume order of the youth court;
it accounts for the largest number of the orders made. It also has the
greatest success rate in reducing reoffending, so the board takes great
comfort from that process. We cannot see evidence from our custodial
figures that serious offences are being transferred directly into
custody and adding pressure to
it.
In conversation
with the Magistrates Association and others we have also advised that
the referral order should contain a contract that includes levels of
contact and requirements to attend a variety of processes that look
awfully like an intensive surveillance and supervision programme; those
elements would be placed within it. The only absence would be an
electronic monitoring requirement. We think the referral order could
provide the robust types of contract which would meet the concerns of
the Magistrates Association, and that is our advice to youth offending
teams, whom we consulted on this
matter.
The
Chairman:
On a point of clarification for us, have you
seen a copy of the amendment paper, which is a public document?
Mr. Garnier referred to amendment No. 106; it would be worth
your looking at it, so that in a moment or two, when Mr.
Hurd has finished his questions, you might comment with more knowledge
on whether you would be sympathetic to its content. Mr.
Hurd?
Q
213
Mr.
David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): I want to pick
up on the point about referral orders and the question whether
magistrates need to have more discretion to take a view on the more
serious
offences and on whether to impose a non-custodial option, rather than
going from a referral order to custody. Is not the concern also that
there are those categories of offence, even though they may be a first
offence, where a diversion—that is what we hope a referral order
will be—is not appropriate? The advantage of a robust community
disposal, which may ensure that a person does not reoffend, is also
that they will have a criminal record of a conviction rather than the
referral and diversion from the system which is warranted by less
serious
offences.
Brendan
Finegan:
As I understand it, the referral order
becomes spent on completion, which we are positive about. Other
elements within the Bill that we would support are those regarding the
use of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 in relation to children
under 18, particularly for reprimands and final warnings.
In terms of the referral order
activity, there is a proposal to allow the court to put in place
discharges and other actions to deal with exactly those low-level
offences on first-time pleas of guilt, so that young people can be
diverted through court action. It is not only the referral order or
custody that is considered, but the ability to make a discharge for
low-level
offences.
9.45
am
Q
214
Mr.
Burrowes:
We heard about the dilemma when the magistrates
court is presented with a relatively less serious—although still
serious—matter of robbery, which they do not feel it appropriate
to deal with by way of a referral order because it could lead to the
conviction being spent. However, they do not want to go up to a
custodial option; they want a robust community disposal that also
retains the element of a conviction from the court that will not be
spent.
Brendan
Finegan:
I am afraid that we have not considered that
point. That evidence is new and we will consider that
point.
Brendan
Finegan:
Yes.
Q
215
Mr.
Burrowes:
As a practitioner in youth courts, the dilemma
is often that you know that an offender will likely receive a custodial
sentence, because magistrates do not want to see them get off by way of
a referral order that would be spent, so they ratchet it up into the
custodial
system.
Picking up on
the discussions about the availability of drugs and alcohol, a common
concern is that young people, particularly if they have problem with
drugs and alcohol, receive treatment immediately. Whether in the Bill
or generally, do you know of an approach that could lead to a more
immediate disposal in terms of referral to drug or alcohol treatment,
whether through more availability of youth drug courts or more
immediate treatment? To back up that point, there is a concern that
referral orders do not necessarily lead to immediate action and
activity, and that there is a time lag before they receive that
rehabilitative
assistance.
Brendan
Finegan:
I think that there is a consideration
regarding the requirements of the referral order being fair in that
process. In terms of a young person’s first appearance and
pleading guilty, we would expect youth
offending teams to work with the panels and the courts to build a
contract. Our current view is that the referral order allows for that
contract to be built. That differentiates it and other community
orders.
The
willingness of a young person and their family to engage with services
is somewhat constrained by the ability of local partners to meet the
requirement for those services immediately, but that does not stop the
referral order contract from saying that those services ought to be
engaged with. Our advice to youth offending teams is that they will
work with their local partners to ensure that those services are
delivered. Part of the arrangement through youth offending teams and
their multi-agency partnership in the local area is to meet the
requirements of court
orders.
Simon
Hickson:
Yes. I should like to add one or two points
on referral orders. It is absolutely right to say that sometimes it
takes a while for the referral order to bite, but that is because of
the underlying problems in the young people’s lives. They may be
sofa surfing, on drugs or whatever. It can be quite difficult to get a
contract working quickly. Nevertheless, as Brendan said, the overall
evidence in terms of the reconviction rates—that is the ultimate
benchmark—is actually very good. It is by far the best of all
the court disposals, lower tier and higher
tier.
We should like
to see a bit more flexibility in the use of the referral order. We
would like, first of all, to see the option to extend it by three
months where the process of restoration has kicked in, but a bit late.
We would also like to see discretion, if a youth offending team has
recommended it, to have a second one where the circumstances are
different.
The
Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 was mentioned. We would also argue
that, for minor and non-repetitive offences, there should be a cut-off
at the age of 18: a fresh start for the young person. We have proposals
that, in a slightly different way, would deal with the question of
things getting into somebody’s
record.
Mr.
Garnier:
I wanted to pick up on an answer that was given a
moment ago, but perhaps Mr. Burrowes would like to finish
his line of questioning
first.
Q
216
Mr.
Burrowes:
On the discussions over the hierarchy within the
youth rehabilitation order, it is conceded, is it not, that the
requirements vary in their robustness and, essentially, their severity
and would perhaps be treated by the court in that manner, so there is a
hierarchy within the order. Why then, in your evidence, does the Youth
Justice Board make the point that it is important to have the
reparation order separate from the rehabilitation order, and to have
that hierarchy, if there is indeed a hierarchy inbuilt within the
rehabilitation order? In one sense, that hierarchy has already gone by
the removal and attendance centre order through to a supervision order.
I do not see the logic of that argument.
Brendan
Finegan:
The level of the hierarchy is critical for
those young people who may not need the continued
supervision—the superstructure of the youth rehabilitation
order—in terms of continued community action. We wish to
continue to allow a reparation order to sit alongside the referral.
There may be occasions when young people are required to do between 12
and 20 hours of work, and when the court feels that that would complete
their whole repayment back to society and make amends to the victim. We
have added through the activity requirement the ability of the youth
rehabilitation order to add reparation within that order as well. It
has become a tiered approach to referral orders for first-time guilty
pleas with those contacts; the opportunity for reparation order for
somebody who may not need continuing contact—and needs just to
pay back those hours of work and contribution to their
community—is necessary; and then the youth rehabilitation order,
which again is tiered to ensure that we deliver a robust response to
the risks that they pose to the community, and also to their needs.
Within that there will be an element of reparation.
Bob
Reitemeier:
The question of hierarchy is a very
important one. We would like the Committee to consider that, in terms
of hierarchy, it would be beneficial to have a separate intensive
supervision and surveillance sentence—an ISS
programme—standing above the youth rehabilitation order, so
that, in principle, custody is a last resort, which is already
enshrined in legislation. We would argue that that is not witnessed in
practice. That would be one way in which that would be very beneficial.
For an individual support order sentence to be put in place, we would
say equally that a detention and training order should not be
considered unless an ISSP has already been
considered.
Bob
Reitemeier:
In terms of the Bill, the ISSP would be
part
of—
Bob
Reitemeier:
In terms of the hierarchy, the point that
we have been trying to make is that there far too many young people in
custody already. Custody does not work in terms of re-offending
statistics, so we must consider that piece of the hierarchy where
people would have to go through an ISS programme before getting to a
detention and training order.
Simon
Hickson:
The present ISSP scheme is not statutory; it
has been built up within other community sentences, and there is no
barrier to a court moving straight to custody if it thinks fit. It is
also the case that, at the moment, IS is sometimes used where actually
another community sentence ought to have been used. That is not very
desirable in terms of resources. We are arguing that the Bill should be
a lot clearer about the status of the ISS scheme—because it is a
bigger, much more intensive disposal anyway—and that there
should be much clearer criteria pointing away from custody unless it
has been used.
Q
218
Mr.
Burrowes:
Part 5 deals with the alternatives to
prosecution and the youth conditional cautioning approach. What
involvement do you envisage for the youth offending team, and how
encompassing will those conditions be in terms of
rehabilitation?
Graham
Robb:
We feel it is critical that the youth offending
team should be involved in the assessment process on youth conditional
cautions. As I said at the beginning, this is about detection, then
assessment, then interventions. The youth conditional caution, in our
view, should have a clear requirement for the involvement of the youth
offending team in that assessment
process.
Q
219
Mr.
Garnier:
Arising from one of the answers that you gave a
moment ago about the number of hours of work that can be imposed upon
young people, do you think that the Bill has the range of hours that
can be imposed about right, or do you think that it should be left
entirely to the discretion of the court? If it thinks that more than
the maximum, or some other disposal, is the right answer, should the
court have that
power?
Bob
Reitemeier:
The main issue for us, which was raised
earlier in the question of the consequences of ratcheting up the
system, is that there should not be an overload of orders within a YRO.
The reality of the age group about which we are talking is that they
find it difficult to comprehend and to work with a large number of
different implications on their behaviour and their
activity.
Linked to
that is what happens when an order is breached. Obviously, the more
activities that are involved in an
order—
Bob
Reitemeier:
You are setting the offenders up to fail.
I think that that should be taken strongly into
consideration.
Brendan
Finegan:
We had also hoped that the Sentencing
Guidelines Council would give clear guidance on the number of
requirements in sentences. As you will know, the Youth Justice Board
will be proposing in its advice to youth offending teams to limit the
requirements to those that are most effective and most likely to
succeed, so that we reduce the danger of making young people fail. It
is not in our or the community’s interests for young people to
become disengaged from work that will help them to change their
behaviour.
Q
220
Mr.
Garnier:
I sit as a recorder. I sentence and try people
over the age of 18. I have no experience of the youth courts, unlike
David Burrowes. One of the problems I find with sentencing offenders to
community sentences, particularly if they are utterly disorganised
people, addicted to some noxious substance or other, is that they have
no understanding of how to run an organised life. You say, “Turn
up and meet your probation office at such and such a time,” but
they do not “do” telling the time. They do not
“do” Monday, Wednesday or Tuesday. They only
“do” light and dark, asleep and awake.
[
Interruption.
]
It is not a frivolous
point, I can assure you. Those are the sort of people that the courts
are dealing with.
Too often, Members of Parliament
know nothing about what goes on in the courts. That may be true of
Ministers too, I do not know. Too often, we pass laws that look
wonderful on paper, as I said earlier, but we fail to understand the
category of person that comes through the courts in industrial
quantities. It is important that, when we create those long menus of
sentences, we understand how they are supposed to be used, not only by
the court and the supervisors, but by the offenders. It is important
that we hear from you, as hugely experienced people, how the sentences
are likely to work with the sort of children and young people that
Mr. Burrowes and I have to deal with as
sentencers.
Ellie
Roy:
One of the advantages, or one of the challenges,
that we face at the moment in the juvenile courts is that many of the
most troubled children that the youth offending teams deal with when
they appear before the courts do not get a level of service locally for
precisely the reasons that you describe: they are chaotic. They come
from chaotic backgrounds; there is no organisation and so on; but it is
also because their behaviour can be very difficult. For example, they
are easily excluded from schools and they do not get back in again, or
they are not registered with doctors and they do not receive a level of
service in that respect. That has been very
difficult.
One of the
problems faced by the YOT’s is that, when they come to be dealt
with by the criminal justice agency, the other agencies step back and
seem to say, “It is one agency at a time; it is
sequential.” A young person is only with the justice system for
a very brief period in most cases, and we see it as an opportunity for
a number of the problems and difficulties that they may have to be
addressed.
Rather than
other agencies stepping away, they should be stepping up to the table
to say, “This is a young person at a time of crisis in their
lives; they need more medical assistance; they need services on mental
health; they need services on substance misuse; they need support to
get them back into education.” The requirements in the YRO, if
based on a careful assessment of the child’s needs and of what
is possible and feasible for that child, coupled with the work being
done on children’s services, gives us a real opportunity to
focus on these children and young people at a point of crisis in their
lives and to build services that encourage behaviour that will last
well beyond the period in which such people are engaged in
justice.
10
am
Ellie
Roy:
It
is.
Q
221
Mr.
Garnier:
So who will be responsible for co-ordinating
this, or does that just fall through the
grating?
Ellie
Roy:
It should be the youth offending team at the
local level. If they have behind them the leverage of saying that what
they are doing is a requirement of the court, that will facilitate and
encourage discussions with local partnerships about to which people
priority should to be given. If you get that right, you will get the
pay-offs that Simon Hickson described earlier. You can change behaviour
and that will save victims, communities and money in the future. That
is the ideal that we are heading for and I think that the YRO is a
strong lever for us in achieving it.
Bob
Reitemeier:
Ellie is absolutely right to point out
the critical need for joining up these services. I know that that is an
over-used expression, but in this example it is fundamental. If the
amendments to the Bill included a statement that the welfare and
well-being of the child or young person needs to be taken into
consideration, that would give a formal link for the courts or the
magistrates to ensure that that
happens.
A
point was made earlier about resources in a different context, but the
other reality experienced on the ground is that this is viewed as a
criminal justice problem, not a broader problem relating to children
and young people. The reality for children’s services is that
once a crime enters into the life of a young person they can basically
move that person out of their system and into the criminal justice
system.
Bob
Reitemeier:
It is not really part of the Bill, but I
was going to make the point that, because the Youth Justice Board
commissions and pays for custody, it is not a local authority problem.
The Committee may want to consider
that.
Q
222
Mr.
Garnier:
No doubt we would want to consider that, but it
is the Government who write the Bill. You have probably had more
contact with the Government than many people in this field and
certainly you have greater practical experience of what
happens.
I have
experience of what bits of legislation within the criminal justice
system look like when they are implemented by the courts. I am teased
constantly by my full-time judge colleagues at Judicial Studies Board
conferences and training sessions when they say to me, “Did you
know what you were doing when you passed this?” and, “Why
on earth did you pass this Act of Parliament in this way?” I
reply that we did not get on to discuss clauses 95 to 400 in
Parliament, because the Bill simply did not have time to be discussed
properly.
It is hugely
important, if this new system of evidence taking is to work, that the
real experiences of people such as yourselves and those whom you
represent can be fed into the Bill at an early stage. We start the
line-by-line Committee stage next Tuesday. If possible, I would very
much like you to rewrite the Bill between now and next Tuesday, but I
have a suspicion that that will not happen. Within the realms of
politeness and good manners, and understanding the constitution of our
country, are you concerned that this is yet another piece of
legislation that it will be quite difficult to make work, irrespective
of the no doubt wonderful motives of those who have written
it?
Brendan
Finegan:
In the context out of which this legislation
is emerging, as Graham and Ellie have said and Bob has acknowledged,
there are huge opportunities with regard to the arrangements that we
see emerging around the local authorities performance framework and the
new arrangements for local authorities. The public service agreement
and the arrangement between Departments give us strong optimism that
there will be a requirement that issues regarding young people who are
in trouble, excluded
and involved in crime be managed together—collectively. We had
complained previously that often targets fought each other. We now see
a possibility that targets will support each other.
Tackling crime will also
contribute to reducing the failure of looked-after children. The
potential is there for that to be gained. We are very confident, in
terms of the PSAs that we see have been negotiated and the local area
indicators, that they will support the efforts of crime, social
services and education in working together to tackle not just young
people in trouble, but young people who are likely to get into trouble.
That gives me optimism.
After 25 years in criminal
justice, I do not like too much legislation either, because it makes
the job much harder on the ground. However, the reality is that this
measure is arriving at a time when I am more optimistic that the
opportunity for us to deliver not only to young people who are in crime
but those who have been drawn into crime will
exist.
Simon
Hickson:
We agree that there are tremendous
opportunities in the current local authority reforms and there is a lot
that is positive. I am not sure that we would like to see this Bill
leave it entirely to trust that it will work consistently in all cases.
I think that it is a matter, certainly, of using the new mechanisms,
but also of having one or two selective mechanisms in the Bill to
ensure that courts can call local authorities to account where there
are big issues such as a child appearing to be at risk, or a child
facing custody. So, a little bit of each is what we are arguing
for.
Q
223
Mr.
Garnier:
But the local authority, if it is held to account
by the court, will simply say, “I am very sorry, but we have not
got any money,” or, “We do not have the
personnel,” or, “We do not have this, that or the
other.” What is the judge to do—sit there and break his
pencil?
Simon
Hickson:
It may do, but at the moment issues simply
go by the board. There is nothing requiring something to be drawn to
the attention of the local authority at all. It is not a formal court
recommendation; it is a purely administrative decision. If we get a bit
more exposure of the rationale, the risks and the issues considered,
and they can be brought before the court, that would help to
concentrate minds. I am not saying that that will solve all the
problems, but it would be a step
forward.
Q
224
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department
(Mr. Vernon Coaker):
May I move on to some of
the other parts of the Bill? I have seen the submissions that have been
made, both from the Youth Justice Board and the Children’s
Society, on a number of issues. I would just like some general comment
on the points that you have made about violent offender orders, on the
street offences with respect to prostitution, the antisocial behaviour
element and closure of premises, where you have made some points,
particularly as those measures obviously refer to young
people.
How do you think that the Bill
balances the needs of children as victims, in terms of being victims of
crime, and children in the sense of being offenders? I ask that because
there is a real issue here. I absolutely take the point that sometimes,
particularly from the point of view of the Children’s Society,
the perspective is of the child who may be an offender, to look at them
in terms of them being a victim. That is absolutely right, and we have
to identify and understand those children’s needs and do
everything that we can to support them. However, for many of us as
Members of Parliament, representing people, we also have a huge number
of young people and children who demand that we take much tougher
action than we actually do against some of these very young people who
are causing considerable problems. It is the issue of balance. I wonder
whether you would like to comment on all of that, both from a youth
justice perspective and from a Children’s Society
perspective.
Graham
Robb:
Let us start with the individual perspective
first of all, Minister. That is saying that one of the balance points
that we want to make is about the responsibility of safeguarding
authorities at local level for many of these issues. For example,
regarding the prostitution measure that you were discussing, we have
very low numbers of youngsters coming into the youth justice system for
prostitution charges. Where they do come in, our feeling is that those
charges ought to be key as a safeguarding strategy, and that should be
the first requirement; it is the welfare of the young
person.
In terms of
violent offender orders and the other measures, there are measures at
local level already, through the multi-agency public protection
arrangements particularly and all those other strategies, that give a
good structure for dealing with individual need.
Now, let us leave the
individuals aside and look at the other young people in an area. We are
doing a lot of work about gangs, guns and weapons and young people at
the moment. It seems to us that what you have to do is, first, to help
young people to feel safe in their communities—all young people.
Secondly, you have to help the communities feel safe with their young
people. That is about the wider social policy and about where young
people who might get into trouble go to and how they are supported and
how they are challenged. It is those two strands. It is the individual
safeguarding as well as the criminal justice measures, and then it is
helping communities feel safe with their young people which are really
important developments that we need to drive forward as the social
partners.
Bob
Reitemeier:
Thank you very much for the question. I
would agree with the view that children can be looked at as victims,
not just as perpetrators, but I would take a step back and argue that
children should be looked at as children first, not as criminals,
victims, perpetrators or any other label. The question is: what should
the youth justice system do as opposed to the criminal justice system
as a whole? That is a very important point. As everyone has said so
far, we need to ensure in this Bill that we are addressing the welfare
and well-being of children when addressing their needs.
You raise the
important point about public perception, which includes the perception
of children and young people themselves. I agree with you that a strong
component of the public and of children and young people want to see
punishment. They feel that that has to be part of the picture. What we
would say is that there is a real educational component to our work
that needs to be brought to the forefront. On the one hand we have to
address the inconsistencies, where we are looking at increases in
custody beyond points of any reasonableness, while in terms of youth
crime, the overall crime rates are not that alarming. However, there is
a particular issue with violent crime. Graham talked about guns and
knives. You have not said this, but I would agree with the point that
we have a culture of fear right now in the UK where people are
increasingly afraid of young people. Perceptions and reality are coming
together there.
In
terms of the educational component, we have to look strongly at the
persistent and violent offender. We can use the rule that people
understand—the 20:80 rule—which says that 20 per cent. of
the population has an impact on 80 per cent of what we understand is
happening. It is not 20:80, but a small minority of children and young
people are involved in this kind of very violent behaviour and there
are alarming indications that this is increasing and moving across the
country. Some concentrated effort is required there but the whole of
the youth justice system should not be wrapped up into one category. We
have to segment out the young people we are working with. Custody does
not work. It just does not work in terms of trying to address
reoffending. The public do not quite understand that. Children and
young people themselves do not quite understand that, so there is a big
educational component that has to be part of
this.
Mr.
Coaker:
This is a very interesting discussion because it
drives where you go to with the Bill and the points about the Bill. It
is this question of balance. I take the point about confidence. Let me
give you an example of the problem that we all wrestle with. Take the
premises closure orders, and this is the point that Mr. Robb
made about the need to have safeguards. It could be that you close down
premises with some children in it. In those circumstances clear
safeguards would be needed for those children.
I am a big supporter of
premises closure orders, but there are those who would argue that
because children are involved under no circumstance should any premises
ever be closed. I know that that is not what is being said. I am merely
setting the Bill in context. In my view the fact that such bad
antisocial behaviour has attached to premises over a persistent period
of time has an immense impact on other children in the area. Secondly,
if we get the safeguards that Mr. Robb and Mr.
Reitemeier were talking about, it will force the system to address the
needs of those young people in those premises, which sometimes appear
simply to bumble along without anyone saying, “This is now a
crisis. We are going to get hold of
this.”
Brendan
Finegan:
It does pose a challenge. We think that the
balance is right and that is part of our feedback. There are young
people who will cause harm to their communities and action needs to be
taken. In terms of premises closure, you are absolutely right, but
the challenge is for the Government and for local authorities to ensure
that they live up to the provisions in regard to places to go and
things to do for children. If we are to provide places to go and things
to do for young people—and premises will be around that
location—it behoves us to ensure that those premises are safe,
do not create antisocial behaviour and are pro-social rather than
antisocial.
10.15
am
Simon
Hickson:
If a child is involved in this way—I
agree that they can be—the Bill could provide for proper
multi-agency action and assessment of what to do with them and that
should bring in the local authority section 17 risk of harm assessments
or child in need assessments, and so
on.
Mr.
Coaker:
I think that the point is that the premises
closure order would be used at the point at which virtually everything
else has been tried. It will be the last resort element. You would have
expected all of that to have been done and to have almost failed. That
is the
issue.
Q
225
Mr.
Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): I have a general
question for the panel. You mentioned that child violence—youth
violence—was on the increase. First, why do you feel that that
is so? Why do you feel that, increasingly, we are hearing of young
people maiming and killing each other in society? What do you think is
the cause of
that?
Graham
Robb:
The answer to that is different in different
parts of the country. First, you have a different pattern of that
activity in Manchester compared with parts of London. That is usually
about the nature of the weapons being used. Secondly, it is to do with
young people’s perception of fear, as Bob was indicating. Young
people, as we know, are the most common group to be the victims of
crime committed by other people—that is the stats. So what is
happening to address that has also got to be based on what is happening
at local level, and that is about schools and their teaching youngsters
to relate to other people in a pro-social way and agencies working
together, and about communities making clear stands about what is
acceptable and what is not acceptable in their communities. That goes
back to the safe places argument that we were rehearsing a moment
ago.
A combination of
factors are driving some of these behaviours, but the solutions are
local solutions rather than, in my view, legislative solutions. We need
to respond to local
needs.
Bob
Reitemeier:
You ask a huge question and I think it
was very appropriately put. The answers do not lie in the criminal
justice system; the answers lie in society. When you look at what is
leading to the violence that exists and the movement from fisticuffs to
other weapons—to knives and guns—to murder, there are
some factors that we would want to highlight. There is a cultural, real
difference between the Anglophone societies, including the United
States, and other parts of Europe, where you do not see the same rates
of violence increasing.
If you look at the family and
the development of an understanding of a moral compass or a value
system for a child—however you want to describe it—that
has deteriorated and needs to be addressed. If you look at the
intergenerational disconnect in our society compared with other
societies, you will see that part of the fear culture is because a
large percentage of the older population is not in contact in any real
way with the younger population, and vice versa. If you look at
community and community cohesion, these are the factors. The overriding
factor for a lot of the young people that end up at the hard end of
criminal justice is poverty. Child poverty in this country, as we know,
is unacceptable. All of these factors lead to the criminal justice
system having to pick up the
pieces.
Q
226
Mr.
Walker:
It is just an observation, but talking to some
communities where antisocial behaviour is a problem, the overriding
message I get is about a lack of aspiration. The youngsters in their
community have no concept that there is something better and something
that they can aspire
to.
Bob
Reitemeier:
Absolutely, this is what “Every
Child Matters” was attempting to address. When we talk about
poverty, we do not talk only about material poverty but about poverty
of aspiration. Again, that comes back to those first few years in life.
A lot of the criminal justice system works with teenagers, because by
that point they are actually into criminal behaviour. But you have to
look at the early years, and that is why Sure Start was introduced to
try to address
that.
In terms of
aspiration, again, unfortunately, many of the young people that the
Children’s Society works with tell us that for the first time in
their life somebody is listening to them and actually cares what
happens to them. That is the fundamental basis of what we are
witnessing today.
Q
227
Mr.
Garnier:
A number of the Bill’s provisions are
designed to help young people and to reassure the public that the
Government are doing something about the matter. I return to the point
raised about closing premises. Is there a danger that the Bill suggests
that closing the premises is the answer? That is where the measure
comes to a halt. It fails to appreciate that you need to do something
after that.
Brendan
Finegan:
I said in my previous response that the
challenge on closing a premises is to ensure that an alternative
becomes available, particularly for those children and young people who
may be involved in it. If you shut a premises, it would be
short-sighted not to arrange other provisions—places to go,
things to do. It is a Government aspiration, through their
“Youth Matters” proposals, that alternatives should be
provided that are better suited for the community and for those young
people.
Bob
Reitemeier:
We could make an analogy with the
dispersal orders that have been used over the last few
years—curfew orders to try to break up groupings of children.
You cannot call them gangs, they are just groupings of young people
together. The research out this morning states that all that that does
is to move the
problems elsewhere. It is the same thing with closing premises. It does
not deal with what happens afterwards, it does not deal with the root
problem, and it could just move those problems to another
place.
Q
228
Mr.
Garnier:
Have you had discussions among yourselves and
with the Bill drafting team and the ministerial team about your
concerns?
Simon
Hickson:
We have expressed general concerns about the
implications of premises closure orders, particularly for children, and
the need for safeguards. That is as far as it has
gone.
Q
229
Mr.
Hanson:
In the short time left, Mr. Coaker has
asked me to say that he believes that crack house closures have been a
great success in terms of preventing drug abuse by young people, but
that is not the point. Given the time, I will respond quickly. We have
taken the decision to split the reparation order from the
rehabilitation order. I would like a short, one-word answer as to
whether both parties supported that split, and if they had any views
upon it.
Ellie
Roy:
We support the split and we have referred
briefly to that at an earlier point. We think that there is value in
having reparation in its own right, and it adds an extra tier for the
court as well as being used within the YRO.
Simon
Hickson:
We agree that reparation orders should be
separate from the other sentences. Our wider concern is about the risk
of escalation up the shorter tariff. There is additional reason for
having that extra step early on.
Q
230
Mr.
Hanson:
Yesterday, the Magistrates Association was very
strong in its view that that should be subsumed. Obviously it would be
a matter of debate in Committee, and I wanted to get a clear view from
you on whether you supported the Government’s approach, in the
30 seconds that are
left.
Brendan
Finegan:
My colleagues have looked at the amendment
that was mentioned previously. In general, we support the drafting of
amendment No. 106. However, we have an issue with the minimum level of
requirement because children are different from adults. We would be
happy to have a more detailed discussion on the guidance around that
matter. That would be the sticking point, but in general it was
okay.
Simon
Hickson:
I am sorry, I misunderstood which amendment
we are talking about. For amendment No. 106, we would favour voluntary
approaches.
Q
231
Mr.
Hanson:
I was not referring to No. 106—that is an
Opposition amendment that may find some sympathy in broad terms, but as
ever, I am sure that on examination it will have some drafting failures
within it.
The
Chairman:
I believe that I can call it 10.25 am. I am
obliged to adjourn the Committee until 1 o’clock. I thank our
witnesses very much for the evidence that they have all given. It has
been most helpful to the Committee, and I thank you on behalf of
it.
It being
twenty-five minutes past Ten o’clock,
The
Chairman
adjourned the Committee without Question put,
pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned till this day at
One
o’clock.
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