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Ultimately, I argue that the proposed new clause is unnecessary, quite simply because the Home Secretary already has very wide powers under Section 45 of the Police Act 1996 to obtain the sort of data to which all speakers have referred. I know that that Act attracted some criticism from the Labour Benches when it was being pushed through Parliament, but we certainly did not have a go at it on the basis of the data of this nature which it was collecting, because clearly it is conducive to ensuring that we are all better informed about police work.
It might assist your Lordships if I say a few words about the work that is already in train to obtain the information which the proposed new clause would request. The Secretary of State has existing statutory powers to require chief constables to provide statistics on crime that are currently exercised under the police annual data requirement. Home Office proposals made under the annual data requirement for 2007-08 include requests for crime and incident data that include instances where homophobia and prejudice against race and religion have been identified as factors. I am more than happy to give an undertaking this afternoon that we are more than willing to add disability to the list in this proposal.
This April, the Chief
Constables’ Council of the Association of Chief Police Officers
also resolved to collect data on hate crime where race, religion or
homophobia were contributory factors. It has requested information from
forces from July 2006 onwards. This request does not have statutory
force, but ACPO is the stakeholder body which the Home Office consults
in determining the annual data requirement, so it would not be
difficult for the Home Office to ensure that this issue is picked up
actively as part of its approach. Provided that feasibility and
practicality issues that were raised in the initial consultation can be
overcome, it is likely that the collection of hate crime data for a
range of motivations, including disability and sexual orientation, will
form part of the 2007-08 annual data requirement, particularly given
that ACPO already supports such monitoring. This data collection will
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The arrangements for consultation on the annual data requirement with the Association of Chief Police Officers have been working well, and we do not believe that creating specific statutory data requirements outside these consultative arrangements is the best way in which to obtain high quality and reliable data. If it would assist all those who have contributed to the debate, I shall certainly ask Home Office officials to contact them to discuss our proposed approach to this.
I also advise the Committee that the Statistics Commission is conducting a review of crime statistics and is due to report in September. I shall ensure that today’s debate is drawn very carefully to its attention. As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, mentioned, a separate and independent review set up under the previous Home Secretary is planned to report in September. Again, I have no doubt that the review body will want to reflect carefully on this debate. I shall endeavour to draw out the salient points made by contributors so that those views are fed in.
In summary, the powers are there and we have consultation arrangements in train. I have given a commitment to ensure that this form of hate crime is added to the list. For those reasons, I do not think that an amendment of the type proposed would take us any further or add anything to that which we can do.
Baroness Harris of Richmond: I am very grateful to the Minister for the partial reassurance that he gives. I look forward to any approach from Home Office officials as it may enable them to understand a little more deeply and even encourage them to include amendments of this type in legislation. We have had a number of government Bills on these matters over the years, and it would be extremely helpful if this sort of amendment could finally be included in one to demonstrate an inclusive agreement that we are all keen to progress in these areas. I know that the Government have been very keen in the past to progress these matters. The amendment was an encouragement for them to do that little bit more, and to do so without having to be constantly reminded. Progress has been a little slow. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her support. I well remember our debates on successive Home Office Bills. In the light of what the Minister said, at this point I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone moved Amendment No. 116:
“Children subject to ASBO proceedings- Sections 1(10D),
1(10E) (anti-social behaviour orders) and 1C(9C) (orders in conviction
in criminal proceedings) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (c. 37) are
repealed.”
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The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 116 would reinstate the 70-year-old protection of reporting restrictions in the cases of children who are subject to ASBO proceedings or ASBO breach proceedings. There would once again be a presumption of reporting restrictions and therefore the protection of anonymity for the child. Article 40(2)(vii) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly asserts that children have the right to privacy,
Article 3 requires that,in all decision-making. Article 19 requires states to ensure that the child is protected from all forms of violence.Until the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, then reinforced by the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, reporting restrictions were in place under the Children and Young Persons Act 1932, consolidated by the 1933 Act. In other words, it was understood that children were in need of protection, even children in trouble. Have the Government really altered their view that children do not need this protection? The position was changed in 2003 when the deeply unattractive and damaging process of naming and shaming was introduced. It is a sort of modern-day version of putting someone in the stocks, and children at that. We argued against the process then but are even more convinced now as we have seen how uncivilised, uncivilising and seriously counterproductive the process has proven to be.
The Government argue that the orders are a way that communities can be told how children subject to ASBOs are being dealt with and that they encourage local monitoring of these children by identifying them. But there are plenty of ways of telling communities of strategies, programmes and services that are available to local children and families without targeting and publicising individuals. Indeed, local authorities are required by statute to prepare crime and disorder strategies and children and young people plans and to involve local people in their development.
I declare an interest as chair of Rethinking Crime and Punishment, where we are running an extremely positive programme of engaging local communities in the development and delivery of community penalties in the Thames Valley. We have seen how constructive such an approach is. However, the public targeting, publicising and inevitable demonising of young people is a quite different matter. In most cases it creates misery for the child and the family, often accompanied by bullying and ostracism. I think that we are all familiar with the sorts of press coverage given to children in such situations and with how some of the tabloids really go to town in making the most—indeed, the worst—of the sort of trouble that children have gotten into.
For a few, there is the
equally undesirable and counterproductive result where they acquire a
sort of badge of honour; and that is no better. Finger pointing and
targeting produces resentments and ultimately does absolutely nothing
to achieve what we
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This is the law of unintended consequences—unforeseen, I am sure, by the Government. But the least we can do is to protect these children from being labelled, then named and shamed. I do not know anyone working with children either within or outwith the criminal justice system who has ever supported such an approach. Furthermore, there has been no detailed evaluation or assessment of what ASBOs actually achieve in outcomes. We know that they criminalise young people earlier, but do communities feel safer? Are communities safer? Are ASBOs effective in combating low-level crime? Until we know the answers to these and many other questions, these children and the communities in which they live are being served very badly by being named and shamed in this way, as are we all by being complicit in what is going on. I beg to move.
3.30 pm
Lord Judd: I support the noble Baroness in her amendment and hope very much that my noble friend on the Front Bench will be able to look seriously at what the amendment seeks to do. The noble Baroness has put the case in her exemplary way. It is difficult to add to her argument but I would like to underline two or three points.
First, yes, I am as concerned as she is about the protection of the child. But I am also concerned about the effective protection of society. This is where we repeatedly become counterproductive. Punishment of course has a key place in penal policy, but I would suggest that punishment without rehabilitation has little to be said for it. The battle is to enable the offender to become a responsible and positive member of society. The difficulty with this provision is that, at a young age, a child is stigmatised within the community. Does this mean that we have given up hope of rehabilitation? If we have any serious commitment to rehabilitation, the concept of anonymity at that age is tremendously important. It allows us to get to work on the really demanding and tough job of working with the child to help him to become a responsible citizen. As things stand, I do not believe that we are helped in that endeavour.
Nevertheless, a
couple of other points need to be made. I always think that when we
discuss these issues, in this House in particular, we must be honest
with ourselves. Most of us do not suffer the kind of
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That makes it all the more important for us to be objective about what is really going to help: not just to express the frustration by naming and shaming, but to do something that will overcome a repetition of the problem in the future. I am one of those who is troubled that in so much of the execution of our current penal policy, whatever our high intentions, there is still a tendency to confirm a life pattern of delinquency and to aggravate the problem. It was not only a passing reference—a sort of marginal comment—to talk about the “badge of honour”. Among some young people, I think it would be quite an attraction to have all the publicity and their name in a newspaper. Is that going to help with rehabilitation and winning that child to an understanding of the damage—psychological and physical—and the harm that their conduct may be doing to others? There is a serious hard job of work to be done with such young offenders. It needs to be done by expert people working in confidence with the young child, and not in the context of a great media hullabaloo about the individual concerned.
From that standpoint, and simply because I believe in our responsibility to the communities that are suffering, I think that it is our duty to look very hard at what is actually going to be helpful and what is not. I do not believe the current situation is helpful. I believe that the noble Baroness is absolutely right to be seeking to correct the situation.
Baroness Stern: My name is also to the amendment. I rise to support the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd.
The naming and shaming policy introduced in the Crime and Disorder Act 1988 and extended in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act is opposed by the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, which is made up of 13 very respected children’s organisations, and has been criticised by the chair of the Youth Justice Board and by the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe. As the noble Baroness says, it clearly puts us in default of our obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, under Articles 3.1, 41 and others. A measure that has such heavyweight opposition and is in such clear breach of our international human rights obligations must bring enormous benefits in the prevention of crime and the promotion of public welfare if it is to be seen as a proportionate measure. There must be an enormously good reason for such a measure.
I
therefore hope that the Minister will be able to give us information on
the benefits which this measure has brought. I have searched for
information
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When the Government responded to the concerns of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member, about these measures to name and shame, they said that they would explore different avenues to ensure that courts were aware of Articles 3.1 and 40.1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I have searched for information on whether this has been done. I could find only a very recent guidance document, dated May 2006, from the Justices’ Clerks’ Society which sets out the law on publicity concerning youths in anti-social behaviour order proceedings. It makes no mention whatever of Articles 3.1 or 40.1 or any other aspect of the international human rights framework relating to such measures, nor does it make any mention of the concept of the best interests of the child or maintaining the child’s sense of dignity and worth.
I echo others in saying that these measures impose further misery on families whose lives are usually full of misery and failure already. They add to that the stigmatisation and vilification of their neighbours, and they impose a stigma on all their family members, whether involved or not, that cannot be erased because the information is in the public domain, on the internet, for years.
I also follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in putting on the record that everyone deplores the way in which some communities have become appalling places to live because of social breakdown. The solution, however, is not to give some people in that community the chance to stigmatise and vilify others; it is the opposite—measures to promote social cohesion and mutual respect; and we know what those measures are. The measures which allow those names to be put in the public domain do the opposite and add to social breakdown. In that sense, I wholeheartedly support the amendment.
The Earl of Listowel: I should like to express my strong support for the amendment and give noble Lords some figures from the Home Office. Between 1 June 2000 and 30 September 2005, 25 children aged 10, 58 children aged 11, 99 children aged 12, and 227 aged 13 have received anti-social behaviour orders. Of those anti-social behaviour orders, only 1 per cent has had a parenting order attached to them; only 1 per cent of children have received that sort of support.
When I see this policy, I feel so depressed by what we are doing to some of our most vulnerable children. It certainly puts in my mind the experience of our most vulnerable children in children’s homes when we neglected them as a society by not putting professionals in charge of them and many of them experienced abuse. I cannot say how distressing I find this legislation.
However,
I recognise, as have several of your Lordships already, the great harm
done to many of our communities
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3.45 pm
We are also talking here about publishing and spreading the identity of these children in the community. There are dangers of victimisation here, and child protection issues, which the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, raised under the previous amendment. Of course, many of these children are among our most vulnerable—and here we are distributing their photographs, places of address and schools among the local community. The tabloids pick them up and place them in the centrefold of their papers, as I have seen. The Minister is accustomed to being attacked. It is a difficult role to play in the Home Office, and we all admire the way in which she counters that. In my own business connection, I am used to experiencing some little vilification in the press. We can take that—but can 10 or 11 year-olds from such families really be expected to bear that?
The matter of rehabilitation was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. A little while ago, I hadthe pleasure of visiting a secure training centre with the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland. We met a young man, Paul, whom we spoke to. His wall was decorated with awards for best student of the week and posters of cars. He was rather small for his age, most articulate, proud of his achievements and very willing to speak in answer to our star questions. He offered us places to sit. He was an endearing young man, I would say. He told us that he had five siblings and that his mother had grown up in foster care. He was looking forward to reading to his mother and teaching his younger siblings to read. He had been out of school for many years and felt that he had more important things to do with himself. His reading had progressed by leaps and bounds over the period of his short stay. He said that the YOI he had attended was too severe and the local authority secure unit was too easy, but the secure training centre was a good mix between the two and had the right balance for him. He seemed to relish the discipline; he spoke of how he had been left in his stripped room for several days until he accepted entering education. He was also prompted by another boy to go into education. Clearly, this had been of great benefit to him.
We spoke to the teachers,
and we were very impressed by what they had done in that school. But
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I greatly value, as do we all, this Government’s approach towards restorative justice and the idea that young people can atone for the wrongs they have done. They can have forgiveness, receive absolution and move on. As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, this measure stands dead in the face of that. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness and her colleagues for the policies they have brought forward to produce better support for our families and better outcomes for our children. I warmly commend them for that. I see the difficulties of reassuring people in these communities that something is being done about this behaviour. But we should also look at the other side. These are children who have often been failed all the way through. From my experience I know that many of them have been badly let down. They may well have grown up without a father, but with a string of their mothers’ boyfriends. They may have gone to a struggling school before they started to play truant. Their social worker, if they were fortunate enough to have had one, may have changed several times and have been too overburdened to really assist them.
Many of these children deserve more consideration than they have received from their parents or from society. They do matter. I know the Minister will make as helpful a response as she can, and I look forward to it.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, for moving the amendment and giving us the benefit of her thoughts on this subject. It was a speech I have heard before, but no less interesting for that. The points contained in it are very interesting indeed. Ultimately, however, I do not find myself in great sympathy with the amendment, though I certainly understand the range of issues, and I appreciate the committed tone and the plea that come with it.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, in supporting the noble Baroness, put his finger on what is one of the more important issues for me: the desirability—indeed, the need—for us to express solidarity in society with the victims of crime, particularly of the sort of anti-social behaviour we have been discussing this afternoon.
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I acknowledge that there are difficulties, particularly in dealing with juveniles who can have their offensive behaviour glorified as a result of this process. I accept that there is concern about that. I also understand that there are times when the sort of publicity that some court cases involving young people give rise to can have a damaging effect and has the potential in some cases to make it harder for that behaviour to be addressed. We have to balance that against the potential for greater disorder by those in breach of anti-social behaviour orders, and the nuisance, aggravation and disturbance in communities that some of those individuals can create.
It is unfortunate that in some senses we lack crisper statistical data with regard to the outcome of publicity, but then it is a difficult area in which to make a value judgment. It is also a difficult subject on which to collect hard data. I come to these issues with what I would describe as a rather common-sense approach. I live in a very pleasant area that is not far from the seafront, but which is adjacent to a part of my city that people sometimes see as a harbinger of particular sorts of crime, although that is actually an unfair reflection. What I often get from our local community is a claim that historically insufficient attention has been given to issues of anti-social behaviour, and a plea for relief. Part of that is a desire to see that young people are not only brought to book but are seen to be brought to book and are clearly and visibly identified in a way that is sensitive to community needs and aspirations and community protection. That is the nub of this whole issue.
I want to make it clear too how the amendment would affect our legislative approach. As the noble Baroness well understands, it would simply repeal those sections of the Crime and Disorder Act that remove the automatic imposition of reporting restrictions but which give the courts discretion in the matter. That is the important point. That discretion operates in proceedings against juveniles who are in breach of ASBOs, or which relate to the making of ASBOs against juveniles on conviction of criminal offences.
It has to be said that publicity of these proceedings is often an integral part of local agencies’ efforts to tackle anti-social behaviour; there is no question of that. But there is no naming and shaming. ASBOs are made in open court and unless the court imposes restrictions, the media are entitled to report them, even if they involve young people. But it is for the court to decide whether to impose reporting restrictions. The courts recognise that these cases sometimes, perhaps often, need to be reported for two reasons: first, to let the community and the victims of anti-social behaviour know that something positive has been done to stop the abuse—that is important because communities need to have confidence in the criminal justice system—and, secondly, to publicise the prohibitions so that communities can help to enforce the order.
Publicity is
not aimed at punishing or shaming the individual. We need to remember
at all times that the anti-social behaviour of juveniles and, indeed,
adults—despite the statistics that are quoted we need
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However, the court can still impose reporting restrictions if it believes that the situation warrants it. The court will have had the opportunity to consider very carefully the circumstances of the individual—their background and any mental health problems from which they are suffering—because there is an absolute requirement on it to have regard to the welfare of the child or the young person.
The existing legal framework—of which we have had several years’ experience—is working well. Within that framework local authorities have a duty under various pieces of legislation to carry out assessments before the court comes to a conclusion. Support will be given if it is required. We always recommend a needs assessment to ensure that support services are in place. Although I heard what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said about the percentage of parenting orders, I would want to interrogate the data further before I passed judgment because they do not describe the full picture.
Ultimately we need to remember that the sole purpose of the order is not just the young person’s welfare. The harm that anti-social behaviour can inflict on an individual, a community and a locality has to be measured as well. If this Government have achieved one thing in the law and order field, it is to raise up the agenda and in people’s minds the importance of tackling anti-social behaviour in a precise way as it affects people in their homes and communities. I believe that we have the balance about right. I have heard the arguments and have listened to individual cases being recited, but, on balance, we need to protect communities and people in their homes and make sure that lives which have previously been disrupted and, in many instances, frankly, made hell, are properly respected. So I have ultimately come to the conclusion that we must reject the amendment.
Lord Hylton: I notice that there has not been a single supporter of the status quo in the debate. Will the Government encourage courts to use their discretion to protect the anonymity not only of children and young people with learning difficulties and mental ill health, but of younger children altogether, even if older teenagers should perhaps sometimes be named and shamed?
4 pm
Lord
Bassam of Brighton: It is for the courts to
decide. We, here, pontificating and arguing the case in the House of
Lords on a warm, sunny afternoon in the summer are not best placed to
decide. The courts need to have access to information about the
individual and they need to know the circumstances in the local
community. That evidence needs to be brought before the court, and the
court needs to make a judgment on whether it is in the best interests
of the
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