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Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, while I am gratified that the Minister will be writing to me--it is always a pleasure to receive a letter from the noble Lord--I am rather shocked that he did not come to this House today armed with answers to the questions about the reduction in the number of meat hygiene inspectors. That is surely absolutely pertinent to our discussions. The Government say that, in spite of unfortunate deaths, the whole thing is a success, and apparently that success is contributed to by cutting the number of inspectors in Scotland from 125 to 112. I hope that the Minister's letter will contain a very good explanation, not only for what happened but for his not being able to provide the answer today.

Lord Lucas: My Lords, I accept the noble Lord's criticism. It is a matter of which I should have made myself aware. Again, I apologise for the shortness of notice. This is a part of MAFF's empire which has been, and is, doing extremely well. The criticism that has blown up today was somewhat unexpected. My briefing is therefore limited to what I was able to learn this morning.

Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, is it not a little shabby of the Minister to blame Professor Pennington for not having asked for a report which he did not know existed? The Minister talks about an invitation to Professor Pennington. When was that invitation issued? Was it issued today, after these events?

Lord Lucas: No, indeed, my Lords, it was issued at the outset of Professor Pennington's inquiry. It was always expected that the Professor would take us up on it when he wished to do so.

Lord Harlech: My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that we are confusing issues, and that over the years there has been a great deal of regulation pertinent to slaughterhouses which has resulted in a very large number of closures as a result of the high standards

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required? Is it not the case that very often the disease chain is commenced after the product, the carcass, leaves a slaughterhouse which is highly regulated?

Lord Lucas: My Lords, it would be unfair to say that there have been a lot of closures of slaughterhouses specifically for hygiene reasons. By and large, overt hygiene problems are dealt with swiftly and effectively. Certainly there has been a great deal of pressure on slaughterhouses to improve, to go beyond the regulations in order to achieve better standards than those required by law. That is part of what the Meat Hygiene Service is doing. There is still a problem in slaughterhouses that needs to be addressed. There may be sources of contamination "downstream". However, that does not exempt slaughterhouses from improving on the present position.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, will the Minister tell the House on which date and in which publication Professor Pennington could first have read of the existence of this report? Is he seriously saying that someone doing research in relation to an issue as widely publicised as the E.coli outbreak, given that the report had been drawn to the attention of the Meat Hygiene Service, cannot expect the Government to make certain that it is made available to him?

Lord Lucas: My Lords, I do not wish to major too much on possible disagreements with Professor Pennington; I think they stem from questions he was rather bounced into at an early hour this morning. Clearly, Professor Pennington was going to want to know what the Meat Hygiene Service had to tell him: it is the main--indeed, the only--source of reliable information on what takes place in slaughterhouses throughout the country, what practices and problems there are and what is being done about them. Inevitably he will wish to have access to a very large amount of information that the Meat Hygiene Service has, of which this report is a minor and insignificant example. Indeed, it is probably rather too condensed and digested to form any useful part of Professor Pennington's evidence; he will wish to have a great deal more detail than is contained in this report.

At the outset of Professor Pennington's inquiry MAFF offered to make available to him any evidence that he wished to have. We are certain that he will take us up on that offer, but he has not done so yet. It is up to Professor Pennington when to ask for whatever he wants; he knows that we have it.

Lord Rea: My Lords, perhaps I may make it clear to the noble Lord that no noble Lord has blamed the Meat Hygiene Service for what has happened but rather the Government for their soft-pedalling on the information that they had and for having cut the numbers of staff of the Meat Hygiene Service, as a result of which it is less effective than it might be.

Lord Lucas: My Lords, the document we are discussing was at all times an internal Meat Hygiene Service document. It was never until today seen by

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Ministers; nor had Ministers any particular reason to see it, because it merely detailed something that they already knew about and which they had already taken action to solve by the creation of the Meat Hygiene Service.

I do not believe that there is any great fire behind all the smoke that has been generated today. As I said at the beginning of my answer to the Front Bench questions, this is a problem which the Government not only knew about but exposed to gaze within this House at the outset of the creation of the Meat Hygiene Service. There really was nothing new in the report other than details of the ways in which the problems were occurring.

Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Bill

4.12 p.m.

The Lord Advocate (Lord Mackay of Drumadoon): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.--(Lord Mackay of Drumadoon.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Viscount St. Davids) in the Chair.]

Clause 4 [Restriction of liberty orders]:

Lord Sewel moved Amendment No. 66:

Page 6, line 34, after ("person") insert ("of 16 years of age or more").

The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 66 I shall also refer to the consequential amendment, Amendment No. 74. In Clause 4 the Bill moves to the difficult issue of restriction of liberty orders. This amendment draws attention to the extension of restriction of liberty orders to those aged under 16 years.

This is a difficult area of the criminal justice system and of penology generally, particularly when what is called tagging is to be applied to people younger than 16 years of age. Surely it is incumbent upon us to proceed with care and due deliberation and on the basis of proper research before introducing a measure that is so different from anything that we have previously experienced within the criminal justice system.

I believe it is of value to trace the provenance of the clause as it stands. When the Bill was originally published in the other place it excluded those aged under 16 years. As I understand it, the clause as it now stands was a product of a change introduced at Report stage in the other place. At the time of the Committee stage and later, the Government indicated in the other place that consultations would take place with appropriate bodies in Scotland on their views as to the desirability of extending tagging to young people. As I understand it, there were 102 responses to the invitation to consult; again as I understand it, there was one response in favour of extending tagging to those under 16 years of age. I leave it to the noble and learned Lord the

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Lord Advocate to identify the person who was in favour of it if he wishes to do so; if he does not, perhaps I will help him later on.

A valuable part of the product of that consultation exercise was the views that were obtained from the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents and the Scottish Police Federation. I quote from their observations at the time. Referring to the proposal to extend tagging to those under 16 years of age, the Association of Police Superintendents said:

"Tagging would hugely divert attention from the positive purposes of supervision".

The Scottish Police Federation said something very similar:

"We do not believe that electronic tagging would be a positive incentive to a child to demonstrate greater responsibility and self-control".

The product of the consultation process was overwhelmingly against the extension of tagging to those aged under 16. The fundamental question has to be asked: on what basis have the Government determined to proceed with a measure that has no clear and demonstrable support in Scotland among the very people who will be affected at the hard edge of the criminal justice system? Was it on the basis of research carried out in Scotland? No. Was it on the basis of some pilot scheme somewhere else? No. There is no firm basis whatever on which this major change in policy can be founded.

Perhaps I may bring some of our concerns to the attention of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate. First, when this provision is applied to those under 16, it will be essentially discriminatory in its effects between boys and girls. One of the procedures advocated for tagging is the use of an anklet. If a girl who is subject to this provision is wearing a normal skirt--as part of a school uniform in many cases--the anklet will be clearly visible. The only way to avoid that would be for her to wear trousers all the time: to wear trousers during gym lessons; to wear trousers when perhaps the school's rules are that skirts should be worn. This girl would clearly be identified as an exception. We enter the realm of stigma. The provision is discriminatory and stigmatising. Clearly insufficient thought has been given to that aspect.

Secondly, there is the risk of the unintended consequence that in some quarters and some circumstances tagging will become virtually a badge of defiance. That itself would undermine the whole purpose because there would be a process of negative reinforcement. The young people involved may say, "Look I have one. Haven't I got one over on the system?", or, "Isn't this a clear signal that I'm some form of difficult trouble-maker?". We know that in some areas the value systems of young people in those situations do not reflect the value systems of the wider society. By offering the tag as a badge of defiance, it may well produce the opposite of what the Government intend.

As I said, there has been no adequate research upon which that change of policy can be based. The consultation exercise itself came out strongly against it

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from all quarters. There is a genuine risk that it will be discriminatory in its application. There is also a risk of it having the most unintended and negative consequences.

I believe that the decision to extend the age below 16 years, taken relatively late in the legislative process, was ill judged. There is very little that can be said that will make it possible for such an introduction and such change of policy to act in a positive way. I beg to move.

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