Youth Offending
Debate between Baroness Levitt and Lord McNally(3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Levitt (Lab)
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, for her work as a magistrate in the adult and youth systems. We have to be grateful to people like her for helping to keep the system going. I hope I have given sufficient assurance—it is certainly my intention to do so—that we really value the work done by the board. We want to use its skills and to ensure that it remains independent and keeps doing the great job that it does.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, I do not think that anybody doubts the Minister’s sincerity, but she should have a little tingle between the shoulder blades when somebody such as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and Members of all Benches express concerns about how the Government are going about fulfilling the White Paper. I think she would find much wider support if, as part of this package, there was not a complete emasculation of the Youth Justice Board and a shunting of it to the sidelines. It is not going to play a key part in this study, and it should. There are lots of people who have had experience of the YJB who would like to help the Government in fulfilling this White Paper. The Minister should get out of the cul-de-sac that she is leading us into.
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
My Lords, I respond to the noble Lord with a great deal of sadness because he played a noble role in the Youth Justice Board and in the transformation of youth justice generally. However, the context in which the system operates has changed profoundly since it was set up. The drivers of harm are different and the landscape of public accountability is different as well. That is why we are moving the oversight and funding elements into the Ministry of Justice, but the board will remain independent, doing what it does best.
Youth Justice
Debate between Baroness Levitt and Lord McNally(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Baroness Levitt (Lab)
That is an interesting idea. I do not think I am going to commit to it today, but I will certainly bear it in mind.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, the YJB is one of the great successes of government over the last 25 years and a great credit to those involved. I do not think the time is wrong for a thorough review of youth justice. As the Minister indicated, there is a whole range of new factors, not least the internet and online harms, since the YJB was created. What I find difficult to understand in this proposal is why, of all the various open-ended proposals and inquiries, it is the YJB that is most decisively sent to the Back Benches.
I urge the Government to appoint a full-time chair of the YJB, allow it to operate at full capacity and keep it outside the Ministry of Justice for the time being, because a lot of the matters will be judgments of the Ministry of Justice as well. I worry that this proposal is part of a long-standing ambition of the Ministry of Justice to take youth justice back into its concern, aided and abetted by the Treasury, which is looking for substantial savings by so doing. Am I being overly suspicious?
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
My Lords, I pay tribute of course to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and the Youth Justice Board, which deserves to be congratulated for the work it has done over the last 20 years in relation to reducing youth crime. We have no intention of abolishing the Youth Justice Board. Since it was established, it has made incredibly valued contributions to improving outcomes for children, and there are significant reductions that we can point to the Youth Justice Board for having achieved.
The noble Lord makes the valuable point that, in the years since it was established, children within the justice system now face different challenges and we need to take another look at it. Needs are now much more complex, so the plan is to refocus the Youth Justice Board so that it does what it is really good at, which is driving the continuous improvement of the services.
The Government wish to increase the democratic oversight of some aspects of what the Youth Justice Board is concerned with: funding, accountability and policy. But, as far as the delivery of that is concerned, the intention is that that will remain with the Youth Justice Board because of the excellent work the board does.