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Viscount Brookeborough: I support the amendments and would like first to comment on what the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said. He is right that Northern Ireland is not dominated by paramilitaries and that the system has been tested throughout the world. It is my understanding that wherever it has been tested, it has been done within the legal and justice system of that jurisdiction. Paragraph 9.15 of the criminal justice review, on page 193, refers to schemes within the criminal justice process, quoting one in Mountpottinger where the police were involved and another in Ballymena. It then goes on to mention schemes outside the criminal justice process, without passing judgment on them. The Bill talks about those criminal justice schemes being within the justice and legal system.

However, on the unofficial restorative justice schemes, the review says:

"Those running the schemes in Loyalist areas have generally made efforts to involve the police and operate in a way that is (sometimes loosely) complementary to the normal criminal process. Those in Republican areas have no contact with the police, although they have developed links with other statutory agencies, and have no links with the formal criminal justice process".

I am against both those systems, regardless of whether the loyalist ones talk to the police. They are both standing out on their own and coming to their own conclusions without the proper people necessarily being present.

As I understand it, restorative justice cannot occur unless the perpetrator pleads guilty. After that, neither of these systems can possibly have any link to the police without there being consequences further down the line. If, as we hope, restorative justice is to try to turn people away from crime and to administer some sort of rebuke or, when it works, to allow the courts to be more lenient, we cannot have youths or young people being punished twice—first by the paramilitaries or whatever. There can be only one reason for these two systems that have appeared outside the criminal justice process: they do not want the criminal justice system involved. Therefore, most

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people in Northern Ireland—by which I mean the law-abiding people—will see it as justice within a community being run by those who wish to run their communities by fear and disorder and terrorist means.

Lord Glentoran: I also support the amendments tabled by my noble friend, Lady Park. Earlier in the Committee I made the point that as we go through the Bill we must ensure that this criminal justice system, and in particular the youth criminal justice part, is maintained and clearly seen to be whiter than white. That means no sign, touch or feel of contamination. By contamination, I mean that people who have been exposed at some time in their lives as serious criminals and the like should not be allowed to be involved.

Amendment No. 187A would delete new Article 36A(4)(c). Paragraph (4) begins:

"Before making a reparation order, the court must obtain and consider a written report by—

(a) a probation officer;

(b) a social worker of the appropriate authority;".

That is a carefully thought-out provision, specifying proper people who ought to be expected to produce such a report. However, the thinking then suddenly stops with sub-paragraph (c), which merely says anybody else whom the Secretary of State might designate. That is not necessary because if the court requires to hear from anyone else, then the court will be aware of that. It will do the thinking and I am almost certain that—the noble and learned Lord will correct me if I am wrong—they will have the power to request that particular body to give them a report. Why then offer this unnecessary, open-ended and—I suggest with all due respect—ill thought-out statement?

Amendment No. 193A addresses paragraph (4) of Article 36D on page 33. Here we have a similar situation where a "responsible officer" in relation to an offender subject to a reparation order means one of the following as specified in the order. Again, it is thought out: the probation officer or the social worker of the appropriate authority. Then suddenly the thinking stops once more. Anyone else the Secretary of State, the First Minister or Deputy First Minister might think of may be appointed. No prescription of any kind has been made. Why is the Bill prescriptive up to a certain point and then suddenly not in any way prescriptive?

When we come to Clause 55 on page 41, we are considering the supervision of young people under custody care orders on probation. That must be a critical time in a young person's life; that is, coming through the supervision of a custody care order and the probation period. Again, the Bill specifies that the young person shall be under the supervision of a probation officer—a properly trained, accredited person. However, once more we encounter the strange phrase, "or such other person as the Secretary of State may designate"; or who may be designated by the First Minister or Deputy First Minister. What would they know about it? They should not know anything about

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it; they are miles removed. I suggest that my noble friend's amendments should be given careful attention by the Government.

4.30 p.m.

Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I do not have a new point to make. I seek only to add a little inadequate support to what has been said by my noble friend Lady Park and by those who have spoken in support of her. In particular, what has just been said by my noble friend Lord Glentoran draws attention to the point which ought to be at the heart of this debate. Nobody could possibly claim that the provisions in Part 4 of the Bill are other than carefully thought out. I am quite certain that they have been the subject of a great deal of consultation. Indeed, we know that to be the case. We see set out specifically the two persons who are to be eligible and amenable to making a report if the court wants it.

That is not quite right. I am looking at page 31, line 20,

"Any person so specified"—

in the case of reparation orders—

"must be a person identified by the court as—

(a) a victim of the offence; or

(b) a person otherwise affected by it.

(4) Before making a reparation order, the court must obtain"—

this is the point that I wish to emphasise—

"and consider a report written by—

(a) a probation officer;

(b) a social worker of the appropriate authority; or"—

here are the words that my noble friend Lady Park wants to delete, as do I—

"such other person as the Secretary of State may designate".

I hope that, in his response, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams, will deal with two points. Who might be the categories of person the Secretary of State might be minded to designate? Could they be persons who have not as yet occurred to those responsible for drafting the Bill as being worthy of inclusion in this short list? The obvious people, as my noble friend Lord Glentoran has already pointed out, are the probation officer and the social worker with the appropriate authority. From whom else might the court need to see a report once the third category of person had been designated?

I also hope that the noble Lord will bear in mind the realism of what my noble friend Lady Park said about the practice of entryism by the paramilitaries on both sides. I am sure it is right that the Secretary of State will be acting upon advice in designating people. It is not unrealistic to suppose that, for reasons that genuinely seem good to a future Secretary of State—or even to the current Secretary of State—somebody will be brought in with very undesirable objectives. That does happen and I hope the Government will take seriously my noble friend's warning.

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I do not want to be wholly destructive—I thought that it might be possible to offer an alternative. Instead of a "must" there should be a "may" in respect of a third category. My alternative provision would state,

"may obtain and consider a report from such other person as in furtherance of the principal aims"—

or the furtherance of Clause 52—"they"—that is, the court—"may select". That might be a compromise way forward.

Lord Williams of Mostyn: The amendments have a common purpose. I will follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, by restricting my comments, by way of illustration, as he did, to page 31. Clause 53(4) states:

"Before making a reparation order, the court must obtain and consider a written report by . . . a probation officer; . . . a social worker of the appropriate authority; or . . . such other person as the Secretary of State may designate".

I think that the noble and learned Lord crystallised the questions in the minds of other Members of the Committee by inviting me to say what the thinking of the Government was about who might be in that third category of designation. I will happily reply. There are excellent bodies in the voluntary sector and partly in the statutory and voluntary sectors, which I shall enumerate, which might well be able to offer extremely valuable assistance—to take the example the noble and learned Lord—in terms of providing a written report.

I refer, for example, to NIACRO and the Northern Ireland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, with which I had the privilege of working very closely when I was a trustee of the NSPCC. Members of the Committee will know that although the NSPCC is a charitable and voluntary organisation, it enters into statutory partnerships for certain purposes with government agencies. A wide range of projects is offered across Northern Ireland under the aegis of the Juvenile Justice Board. I hope that those illustrations answer the noble and learned Lord's question. I am glad that we are having this discussion and that my response indicates the Government's thinking.

The court already has discretion about who it may ask for a report. The obligation is to obtain a report. There is no obligation to obtain a report from a probation officer—the obligation is simply to have a written report. Therefore, we hope that the explanation that I have given will satisfy Members of the Committee, although I fear that it may not. We are going to have a focused discussion in this regard later this afternoon—we shall later discuss amendments about disqualifications from certain positions. That will involve specific examples of what the noble Baroness referred to in her general introduction. I hope to assure Members of the Committee that only those who have the right skills and the appropriate contributions of the sorts I have mentioned will be designated for this important task.

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I turn to Amendments Nos. 209A and 209B. These provisions replicate the supervision arrangements for juvenile justice centre orders on which custody care orders are based. We would expect a probation officer to undertake supervision in most cases—I stress those three words—but we should maintain flexibility particularly—I also stress that—in relation to younger children.

On Amendment No. 217A, we want the flexibility to provide appropriate supervision arrangements. We do not intend to remove the general category in relation to custody care orders or to amend the 1998 order in relation to juvenile justice centre orders. I therefore hope that Members of the Committee will agree that the definition should remain as drafted.

I do not overlook the concerns that have been ventilated—they are real and legitimate. I hope that I have at least been able to answer the noble and learned Lord's questions.

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