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In response to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others regarding Clause 40 and the processes in place under the Bill, let me reiterate first that enforcement will always be a last resort. If there were any reasonable explanation for a young person not attending, an attendance notice would not be appropriate and we would not expect one to be issued. When a young person drops out of learning or is found to be not participating, the focus will always be on supporting them to engage in learning, helping them to address barriers and personal difficulties, and identifying a suitable learning place that might be personalised. Clauses 39 to 40 provide for that.
However, as a last resort, if enforcement is required, robust checks and balances are in place to ensure that a young person is not given an attendance notice inappropriately. No action can be taken until the young person has been given the opportunity and support to engage voluntarily, and they must have no reasonable excuse for not participating.
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A local authority must give 15 days’ notice in writing of its intention to issue an attendance notice and, to give that notice, it must have ensured that the person has been offered suitable provision and the right support. The attendance notice will set out clearly to the young person, and to everyone who is involved in helping them to participate, exactly what is required of them. This will minimise any confusion or misunderstanding and provides a clear document that can be returned to if the young person wishes to dispute whether the provision offered by the local authority was appropriate. Young people will have a right of appeal against the notice to an independent panel.
Clause 41 ensures that where an attendance notice is issued, the learning specified in it must be appropriate and suitable to the young person. The requirements to attend the learning specified must be flexible enough to ensure that if the young person is working, this is taken into account, and training has to be agreed with the employer and provider, who must make necessary arrangements for it to take place.
Amendments Nos. 143 and 144 would classify the offence of breaching an attendance notice as a civil offence, and Amendment No. 145 would make the young person liable to a civil penalty not exceeding £200. We have considered these and other options in some detail, and concluded that a civil endorsement system would not work in practice. Civil penalties
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Persons under 18 may be sued in the civil courts but the system is not designed for them, so there are complex rules under Part 21 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, such as the requirement in most instances to be represented by a litigation friend, which complicates the process. While debts may be enforced using civil recovery methods—for example, recovery by bailiffs—in practice such methods are rarely used against young people under 18. In addition, the local authority would have to pay a court fee to pursue a civil enforcement method which, again, might not be appropriate in practice and would lead to mounting costs.
Court fees and costs are added to debts in the civil courts, so the debt constantly increases. This does not happen with a fine in the youth court. I reassure the noble Baroness that the maximum level 1 fine a young person could receive is already set at £200, as her amendment proposes. The maximum of a level 1 fine which has been set provides protection for young people by putting an upper limit on the penalty which a youth court can impose. I emphasise that the criminal sanction comes only at the very end of the enforcement process. The main sanctions in the Bill are administrative.
Amendments Nos. 147, 148, 149 and 150 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, concern the nature of the offence of failing to participate. The conviction of any young person under 18 fined in the youth court would currently be spent after two and a half years; it would therefore always be spent before they were 21 at the very latest. This is the standard length of time for all fines imposed by a criminal court on anyone under 18.
Lord Elton: Can the noble Lord assure us, either now or later, that convictions which are spent under the arrangements he has described are deleted from the national police database?
Lord Adonis: I think I need to come back to the noble Lord on the precise issue. Only offences that are punishable by imprisonment or specified in regulations as recordable offences are automatically recorded on the national police computer. The offence in question under this Bill is not punishable by imprisonment and we have no plans to specify it in the relevant regulations. It will therefore not be a recordable offence and will not be recorded automatically on the police national computer. Moreover, as I said in our earlier debates, it will not be routinely disclosed in CRB checks.
Lord Elton: I am a little worried by the word “automatically”. The noble Lord has not said that it will not be included in the national database, but that it would not be automatically included. That leaves routes to include it.
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Lord Adonis: It is precisely on that point that I will come back to the noble Lord. There are very limited circumstances in which such offences could conceivably be recorded on the police national computer. Even taking the tiny subset of cases that could end up in the youth courts with a conviction, only a tiny subset of those could conceivably be recorded on the police national computer, and there would be particular reasons related to the association of those offences with other offences that may result in a record on the database. That is my understanding, but I shall specify later the precise circumstances in which that could take place.
Let me stress again that it is always at the discretion of the local authority whether to take enforcement action. Any action in respect of failure to comply with an attendance notice or in respect of a penalty notice would be at the discretion of the local authority. Young people would never progress automatically to the next stage of the process, and they would always have the opportunity to appeal.
Clause 46 sets out all the restrictions on the circumstances in which a local authority can decide to move to the final stage of the enforcement process, which is prosecution in the youth court. The young person must have been given a fixed-penalty notice and not paid it, and they would have had the opportunity to appeal at that stage. The local authority must have consulted the attendance panel, which in turn must have given the young person the opportunity to explain their circumstances. These are necessary checks and balances to ensure that enforcement never proceeds inappropriately or without full consideration, and that is why we believe that these clauses should stand part of the Bill.
Amendments Nos. 152, 153 and 154, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, concern the nature of the fixed-penalty notices. We agree that the penalty on young people should always be appropriate, but it would not make sense to specify an amount for the fixed penalty in primary legislation, as this would make it unnecessarily inflexible. We intend the legislation to be in place for many years, so accepting the noble Baroness’s amendment would mean that to alter the penalty we would have to amend primary legislation. Putting on a limit in primary legislation without consulting would not be appropriate. We will set the amount of the penalty notice in regulations, which will be laid before the House. We have previously indicated that we think the fixed-penalty notice could be in the region of £50, and we will fully consider the amount closer to implementation. I can reassure the noble Baroness that we would want it to be significantly less than the maximum fine available at the youth court stage. As part of this consideration, we will look carefully at the circumstances many young people are in, including their income and the level of financial support provided in order to fix an appropriate financial penalty.
I agree with what I believe is the intention behind Amendment No. 155: to offer additional protection to the small number of young people who enter the enforcement system and who are not re-engaged before that system reaches the stage of prosecution. This
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I am sorry, that constitutes a slight correction to what I said earlier. Apparently it would be technically possible for a young person to be subject to an adult fine enforcement system, but in practice we think it is highly unlikely that that would ever happen. It could arise only if a young person received a fine from the youth court prior to the age of 18 and defaulted on the payment after reaching that age. We believe that this would occur in only a tiny number of cases. However, in no case could such action lead to imprisonment. On that basis, I commend these clauses to the Committee.
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Baroness Morris of Bolton: I thank the Minister for his response, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for her support and my noble friends Lord Elton and Lord Lucas. I was reassured at one stage that young people could not be pursued in the adult courts and now I am not. But there we go.
My noble friend Lord Elton was right to say that this is the most important part of the Bill. Even with all the Minister’s assurances, it is the part that causes me most concern. We shall definitely return to this issue on Report but, given the hour, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 123 not moved.]
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
- House adjourned at 7.11 pm.
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