Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Bach(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bach
My Lords, the House will be delighted to hear that I intend to be brief. It owes a huge debt of thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, for having persistently come back with her amendments on this absurd clause, which, as the noble Lord who has just spoken said, does not fit in. “Cuckoo in the nest” is a polite way of putting it. The clause does not fit into the Bill at all and makes one wonder why on earth the Government ever included it.
If the noble Baroness were to test the opinion of the House, we, the official Opposition, would support her because she is clearly right. Everyone who has spoken on the substance of these amendments has said that the current clause is unsatisfactory, wrong and completely unnecessary. Why is it there? There is no need for it to be there in terms of criminal offence. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, and others that legislation already exists that covers the point completely. The clause is there to placate the right-wing press and right-wing prejudice. That is something that the House should bear very much in mind when considering this issue.
The Law Society, the Bar Council, ACPO and the Metropolitan Police—all those groups who have had the courage to speak out, as has the noble Baroness against the clause—are not exactly groups associated with squatters. They are independent, able groups that have come to a view about a brand-new criminal offence that is planned. Unless we do something about it this evening, it will almost certainly become law comparatively shortly.
The irony of our proceedings is that if the noble Baroness were to test the opinion of the House this evening, it would very likely be her own side who made sure that she did not win.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, at Report, I explained the role of the new squatting offence in giving greater protection to owners and occupiers of residential property who encounter squatters living in their properties. Various noble Lords have asked whether that is needed. Interestingly, only yesterday I received a letter from the deputy leader of the London Borough of Redbridge. He states:
“In one recent case in Ilford, a house owned by someone who had died became a squat during the eighteen months it was taking for lawyers to resolve her estate. In a second case a homeowner was no longer able to manage their own affairs and had been taken into care. In neither case was there an ‘owner’ able … to address the problem”.
The noble Lord is quite right to say that there is protection for a level of squatting, but, as I explained at Report and put in a letter, so I will not go into it again, the provision covers a number of additional areas where it is difficult to deal with squatters.
I know that many noble Lords, especially my noble friend Lady Miller, are concerned about the impact that a new offence might have on vulnerable people who squat. I thank my noble friend for meeting me last week, and my noble friend and my noble friend Lady Hamwee for meeting my honourable friend Crispin Blunt, my noble friend Lord McNally and me earlier today. Then and at the earlier meeting, my noble friend Lady Miller expressed concern about the possibility of a rise in demand for local authority homelessness services when the new offence comes into force.
We have already given assurances on the Floor of the House that we will work closely with the Department for Communities and Local Government to liaise with local authorities and the enforcement agencies prior to commencement to ensure that they are aware of the new offence. That is extremely important. We take very seriously mitigating any problems and we share my noble friend’s concern about the welfare of vulnerable people. However, allowing squatting to continue, sometimes in dangerous and unhealthy premises, cannot be the answer. Instead, we intend to continue to work with other departments, local authorities and homelessness services to ensure that vulnerable people are given the help and support they need to find alternative forms of accommodation.
Of course, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, emphasised, a number of those in that situation are suffering from mental or other problems. We have an obligation to them, as vulnerable members of society, to be properly housed. In squats, they have no protection. That cannot be right. The Government have already demonstrated our commitment to preventing homelessness by maintaining investment, with £400 million available over the next four years. We recognise the issues that single homeless people, in particular, face, and we are prioritising improvements in the help that they receive. The ministerial working group on homelessness has for the first time pledged that no one should spend more than one night out on our streets, supported by the new £20 million homelessness transition fund. The working group will publish its second report on preventing homelessness more broadly later in the spring.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Bach(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bach
My Lords, from the opposition Front Bench I thank the noble Lord for the impressive way in which he moved the amendment, and an impressive amendment it is too. He could not have put the case better. We look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in reply, and we would be very surprised if it is not sympathetic.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Sharkey for putting his case, and indeed I have deep sympathy for it. The amendment appears to extend the provisions contained in the Protection of Freedoms Bill so that they are also available to those who are no longer alive. The provisions in that Bill allow a person to apply to have his historic convictions for consensual gay sex with over-16 year-olds deleted from official records, the effect of which is that those convictions will no longer affect that person’s life or career. This was a commitment made in our programme for government. However, the objective is not to rewrite history. The provision in the Protection of Freedoms Bill does not state that the person was wrongfully convicted, nor does it pardon them. It is just that they can now be treated for all purposes in law as someone who was not convicted of those offences.
The position in relation to those who have been convicted of this type of offence and have since died is different. I understand the strength of feeling about such convictions, and the cruelty of the laws under which they were imposed, and I know that this is particularly true in relation to the conviction of Dr Alan Turing. As Gordon Brown said in 2009, while we cannot put the clock back, we recognise that his treatment was utterly unfair and we are all deeply sorry for what happened to him. He deserved so much better. That said, I do not believe that the provisions for disregarding convictions, which are concerned with the practical consequences of conviction, are an appropriate means of putting right the wrongs done to people who are no longer alive to suffer those consequences. As my noble friend himself points out, the numbers involved are potentially very large. I understand his aim, but I am afraid that we cannot agree to his amendment. I realise that he will be disappointed, but I am afraid that I must invite him to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, my noble friend Lord McNally has explained in previous debates why Clause 136 is important to the Government. If somebody stole a car, a handbag or a phone, most people would expect there to be criminal consequences if the offender were caught. Yet, where squatters deprive a person of their residential property, some do not regard this as a crime. We do not accept that logic. The occupation of other people’s homes causes misery, and squatting in residential property should be a criminal offence.
Baroness Northover
I will come to that in a minute. As I say, occupation of other people’s homes causes misery, and squatting in residential property should be a criminal offence just as the theft of a car would be.
Nor do we agree that squatting is a reasonable answer to homelessness, which is the key point here. In fact it is often dangerous and bad for health, and ideally people should be in mainstream services. We share my noble friend’s concern about homelessness, but squatting is not the answer.
We are therefore proposing a balanced approach: clamping down on the squatting in residential buildings on the one hand, while ensuring that genuinely vulnerable people who might be at risk of squatting or rough sleeping are given the support that they need to find alternative forms of accommodation. We are investing £400 million in homelessness prevention over the next four years, with the homelessness grant being maintained at 2010-11 levels. We also announced in December the first ever £20 million fund to prevent single homelessness. That will help to ensure that single homeless people get the help and advice that they need, and do not have to resort to sleeping on the streets or in squats.
We have also brought together eight government departments through the Ministerial Working Group on Homelessness to tackle the complex causes of homelessness. The group published its first report, Vision to End Rough Sleeping, in July 2011, which sets out joint commitments to tackle homelessness. The working group will publish its second report on preventing homelessness later this spring.
We are also tackling the number of empty homes that often attract anti-social behaviour, vandalism and squatting. We recently announced £70 million of funding to bring more than 5,600 homes back into use as affordable housing. We will announce a further £30 million shortly, including funding for community and voluntary groups.
My noble friend’s Amendment 157A would exempt squatters who occupied buildings that had been empty for a year or more. We believe that that is wrong in principle. We would not accept that after a year of non-use it would be defensible to deprive owners of their other assets such as cars or phones. Moreover, there are many legitimate reasons why a residential building might be left empty for a year or more—for example, when a property is inherited following a death and probate takes some time to be sorted out.
The amendment would also make the offence more difficult to enforce as it would enable squatters facing a charge to argue that the property had been empty for years even if they had no idea whether that was true. Instead of legal arguments turning on the true issue at stake—the criminal occupation of somebody else’s residence—this would muddy the water and put the focus back on the police or the home owner to show how long it had been empty for.
Amendment 157B would remove the definition of “building”, leaving it unclear what “building” in the offence covers and leading to legal arguments on this matter. Amendment 157C would delete the definition of “residential” in Clause 136 and replace it with a new definition. The only residential buildings which would be covered by the offence as a result of the new definition would be those which are used for the purposes set out in class categories C3 and C4 of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987.
The amendments would introduce confusion and complexity. The advantage of the existing clause is that any structure—permanent or temporary, moveable or immoveable—is covered by the offence if it has been designed or adapted for use as a place to live.
My noble friend’s Amendment 157D would further weaken the offence by exempting squatters who entered a building prior to commencement of the offence. This would clearly not be in the interests of home owners. It would not make sense if an offender who entered a property the day before commencement, for example, could not be convicted if they continued to live in the premises against the wishes of the property owner after the offence commenced.
Amendment 160B suggests that the Secretary of State should report to Parliament prior to commencement on likely costs of the new offence to the criminal justice system and local authorities. We published an impact assessment which included costs to the criminal justice system. The impact assessment also recognised that there might be an impact on local authorities if squatters approached them for support. Requiring the Secretary of State to report further on these issues prior to commencement is therefore not necessary.
I know that when my noble friend met the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Crispin Blunt, one of her main fears was that there would be a surge in applications for social housing in the days following commencement. We have taken my noble friend’s point on board. I can assure her that through the Ministerial Working Group on Homelessness, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office will work together to ensure that any local enforcement against squatting is carried out in partnership with local homelessness services to mitigate against an associated increase in rough sleeping.
We will also liaise with local authorities in advance of commencement to ensure that they are aware of the new offence if squatters approach them for help and to remind them of their duties towards homeless people. We will encourage authorities to make use of the good practice advice letter and an additional £20 million of funding to prevent single homelessness, both of which have been developed recently with input from Crisis.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, asked about the current law and why this was not sustained by what was already there. Why the need for a new offence? The current law can be improved so that it does more to deter squatters from entering and occupying a residential building without permission in the first place. We believe that there should be a specific criminal offence that protects people from those who squat in their residential buildings and that this offence should not be limited to cases where a squatter refuses to leave when required to do so. In addition, the offence under Section 7 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 does not protect residential property owners who are not displaced occupiers or protected intending occupiers. Currently, they may need to seek repossession of their properties in the civil courts, which can be time-consuming and expensive. That is why we feel that the law needs to be changed.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Bach(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bach
My Lords, in many of his amendments I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and I hope to do so later this evening, but on my understanding of his argument here I find it difficult to accept the amendment on behalf of the Opposition.
I shall make a general point. This is not a government amendment—but when there are government amendments dealing with a different Act, as in the case of this Bill, where we are amending the Criminal Justice Act 2003, Keeling schedules, which set out what the amended 2003 Act would look like if we passed this legislation, are incredibly helpful. Indeed, when we were in government, the opposition on all sides used to ask us where the Keeling schedules were—and they were often there. In this Bill, later on tonight or whenever we reach the 17th group, there are very helpful Keeling schedules in important government amendments. But they do not exist elsewhere, as far as I can see, although the Minister has been helpful in writing to noble Lords about government amendments. There is a value in having Keeling schedules in that the House can understand what is being amended.
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 states:
“If it is proved to the satisfaction of a magistrates' court before which an offender appears or is brought under paragraph 7 that he has failed without reasonable excuse to comply with any of the requirements of the community order, the court must deal with him in respect of the failure in any one of the following ways”.
The Bill changes that “must” to “may”. The following ways include,
“amending the terms of the community order so as to impose more onerous requirements”,
and,
“where the community order was made by a magistrates' court, by dealing with him, for the offence in respect of which the order was made, in any way in which the court could deal with him if he had just been convicted by it of the offence”.
I know that the noble Lord has no objection to those provisions, as amended by this Bill. It is sub-paragraph (1)(c) that his complaint is with. That sub-paragraph is not just about a breach. It refers to,
“where—
(i) the community order was made by a magistrates’ court,
(ii) the offence in respect of which the order was made was not an offence punishable by imprisonment”—
that is the noble Lord’s point. It goes on to refer to,
“(iii) the offender is aged 18 or over, and
(iv) the offender”—
and these are the crucial words—
“has wilfully and persistently failed to comply with the requirements of the order … by dealing with him, in respect of that offence, by imposing a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding”,
six months.
Provided that the Bill reads “may” rather than “must”, I can see nothing wrong with that. The danger is that someone who is given a community service order for an offence for which there is no imprisonment can get away for ever in breaching community service orders to the extent that he wilfully and persistently fails to comply, and the court will never have the power to deprive that person of their liberty. I agree with the Minister’s point from earlier that if community orders are to succeed—we want them to succeed because they are vital—they must be, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, “robust” community orders. There must be something there, eventually, if someone wilfully and persistently fails to comply with them. It is not just a breach in sub-paragraph (1)(c), but a wilful and persistent failure to comply, which is a step beyond a breach. Clearly, it is more than one breach; one breach would not be enough. Two might be—three might well be. In those circumstances, my case—I may be wrong about this—is that if we agree to these amendments, the result would be that someone who was given a community order for an offence that was not in itself subject to imprisonment could never be sent to prison, however wilfully and persistently he failed to comply with it. On this issue, which I concede is not a major one, I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for his support on this, the first group of amendments that I am dealing with on this Bill. That is extremely welcome. Maybe the issue to which he refers rather reflects upon the quantity of legislation that this House has dealt with over a number of years. I absolutely take his point about the need for clarity and for linking Bills one to another.
I will seek to clarify what we understand these two amendments would do and why we resist them. They would repeal some of the provisions giving powers to both magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court to deal with breach of a community order. The provisions that the amendments propose to repeal give the courts the power to imprison offenders for serious breach of community orders which have been imposed for offences which do not carry imprisonment. Noble Lords agree on that.
As it so happens, community orders cannot currently be imposed for offences which do not carry imprisonment, so these provisions may appear to be redundant and I can appreciate why the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, might have tabled these amendments. However, they were certainly needed in the past and it was only in 2008 that the community order stopped being available for non-imprisonable offences. Before then, a community sentence could be imposed for a non-imprisonable offence. When that happened, these provisions were the only way that a breach could be dealt with—by sending the offender to prison—so however serious the breach, there would have been no custodial disposal without these measures. As I have noted, since 2008 there has on the face of it been no further need for them to remain on the statute book because they are, in practice, no longer necessary.
However, it is not quite as straightforward as that, complex though that may seem. There is an unimplemented provision in Section 151 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 which, if it were commenced, would allow the courts to impose a community order on a persistent offender, in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has spelt out, who has at least three previous fines, even if the offence they committed was not serious enough to cross the community sentence threshold. If that provision in Section 151 were to be implemented, it would become possible once more for a community order to be imposed for an offence which did not carry imprisonment.
It follows that we would therefore need the provisions which the noble Lord’s amendments would repeal to ensure that a persistent offender who gets a community order because they have received at least three fines could be penalised by imprisonment in case of breach. Effectively, these two measures go together. While we retain the sentencing power, even if it is not in force, we also need the breach power. I should perhaps say that we have no intention at present to implement the sentencing power but, as I have explained, while this is still an option, we need the breach power against the possibility that it might happen in the future.
Lord Bach
I follow the noble Baroness’s argument, which she has made very clearly. Indeed, I was not aware that the law was changed in 2008 so that non-imprisonable offences could not receive a community order, but I see the noble Baroness's way around that. However, to describe it as a breach power seems to be wrong on the basis of how the 2003 Act is phrased. It refers to a person who,
“wilfully and persistently failed to comply”.
In one sense, that is about a breach but not a breach on one occasion. It is the court having to find that there has been a wilful and persistent failure to comply and I hate to see that lessened to a mere breach, if I may call it that.
Baroness Northover
I heard what the noble Lord said and was very interested in the points that he made. Perhaps it is best if I come back to him to clarify that point. In the mean time, I hope that after this incredibly clear explanation—
Baroness Northover
My Lords, the amendments in this group are minor, technical amendments to ensure that the extent of court-imposed foreign travel prohibitions includes territories as well as countries. I beg to move.
Lord Bach
Whenever I was sitting where the noble Baroness is sitting now and I began my speech on government amendments by saying that they were minor and technical, those sitting opposite me used to look doubly hard at those amendments to see whether they really were minor and technical. I am not saying that I have looked doubly hard at these amendments but they are clearly minor and technical and we have no objection to them.
Lord Bach
My Lords, the problems of drugs in this country are always in the news. The arguments about whether they should be legal, illegal or somewhere in between are a constant source of debate among talking heads—quite rightly too, as it is a very serious problem and issue. By comparison, the issues of alcoholism and too much consumption of alcohol have always taken, certainly in recent times, very much a second place in discussion. Of course, if we read our local newspapers, we will see one such case after another—often they are minor, but sometimes they are very serious, which I shall talk about in a moment. We hear of X being found drunk and disorderly at the very bottom end of it, or of criminal damage or damage to a person. Every week countless cases are there to be recorded by any enterprising journalist who goes along to the local magistrates’ court. It is a wonder that, over many years, we have allowed this imbalance to grow—as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, emphasised—in our discussion of drugs and alcohol. Alcohol when misused is a drug. There is no question or doubt about that.
We have heard some extraordinarily impressive speeches in a very impressive debate. From the opposition Front Bench we welcome the amendment and will support it all the way. I can be brief, as I know that people are waiting for other business to begin, but the facts are truly terrifying. There are 1.2 million alcohol-related violent incidents a year, including about half of all violent crimes. There are 360,000 incidents of domestic violence, a third of which are linked to alcohol misuse. There are all those arrests for drunkenness and disorder. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, talked about medium and serious crime. There are 530 drink-driving deaths—what a waste that is. There is also the appalling statistic that 58 per cent of rapists reported drinking, no doubt to excess, beforehand. They are horrifying figures for a civilised society and more needs to be done.
We are living in a time of austerity—it does not matter whose fault it is for these purposes—when more people are unemployed and people are probably poorer than they were. The figures for relationship breakdown are not exactly encouraging. Those are all factors that have been associated in the past with heavy drinking. We cannot be careless about the issue now. The cost each year is absolutely huge—£8 billion to £13 billion a year, as estimated by the Home Office in 2010. We have heard about the National Health Service and the ridiculous amount of money that it has to spend on people who constantly get drunk and then get hurt.
Of course I claim that the previous Government did useful and good things in this field, and no doubt the Government before that one did too, but that is no argument in itself. We have to do more and we have to take slight risks. We have to do more than we would otherwise think of doing. It is not a matter for some bureaucracy to decide that we can move forward on this step but not that one. This suggestion has been well discussed by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and her supporters, and I pay special tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, who speaks with such effect on all these matters. The argument has been so one-sided that is very hard to see any argument at all against the Government supporting, at least in principle, what has been suggested. I hope that they will support the amendment. We certainly support it—it would be a crying shame not to. It is, after all, a pilot that is being proposed. It is not a dramatic implementation across the country all in one go. A pilot has been proposed and I cannot think of one argument against adopting it.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, in responding to these amendments I am aware that these proposals were discussed previously in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act last year. I am very glad to say that we very much support the principle of the intention of the noble Baroness and other noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. It is very clear that alcohol-related offending causes a great deal of harm and there is an undeniable logic in tackling alcohol-related offending by preventing an offender from participating in the activity that has given rise to or exacerbated their criminal conduct.
The noble Baroness makes a very cogent case, and we all know how very damaging the abuse of alcohol can be. I can therefore confirm to the Committee that the Government will shortly be establishing two pilot schemes to test the principles and effect of enforced sobriety schemes as part of our effort to tackle and reduce alcohol-related crime, drawing on the success of similar schemes that have been trialled in the United States.
At the time of the policing Bill, the Government committed to testing sobriety schemes as part of conditional cautions within existing legislation. Since then, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office have developed further proposals to pilot sobriety as part of community orders within the existing law. There will be two pilots using tags and breathalysers because it is extremely important to assess the practical advantages and disadvantages of schemes such as this. The conditional caution pilot will focus upon offenders who commit high-volume alcohol-related offences, such as drunk and disorderly, common assault and criminal damage. Offenders will face the tough choice of accepting sobriety conditions or facing prosecution and the prospect of receiving a drinking banning order on conviction. Anyone failing to comply with these conditions would be prosecuted for the original offence.
The second pilot will test sobriety as part of community orders, which will target a range of more serious offences where alcohol is a contributing factor. We will be looking at making use of the latest technology through which to monitor an offender’s compliance with the terms of the sobriety requirements. Breach procedures will exist as they currently do. We will set out further details of these pilots in the Government’s forthcoming alcohol strategy.
We want to hear the views of the judiciary, professionals within the criminal justice system and the public on the proposals. We will therefore be consulting in parallel with the pilot schemes to ensure that we give full consideration to the purpose, effect and benefit of sobriety schemes as we develop work further. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, as a medical scientist, knows how important it is to evaluate evidence. In her introductory remarks, she flagged up some of the complexities in this area. It is extremely important that we learn from these pilots in order that we can take forward what works best.
Alongside this we are taking a range of other measures to tackle alcohol-related offending. Pricing is one crucial lever for tackling alcohol misuse and its associated crime and health harms. I have just mentioned that the Government’s alcohol strategy will be set out shortly. We are also rebalancing the Licensing Act in favour of communities by giving greater powers to police and licensing officers to tackle irresponsible businesses. We are also strengthening violence reduction programmes to incorporate a greater emphasis on tackling the impact of alcohol and drugs and gathering evidence from drinking banning orders that are being piloted in 50 areas across England and Wales.
The noble Baroness has done a great deal to bring this issue to the Government’s attention, and I congratulate her for it, but as I have said, it is extremely important that we are certain of the effectiveness of this policy before it is put in statute, which is why I am very glad that we can take forward the pilots under current legislation so that the practical aspects can be properly assessed. There are some concerns not about the principles of the amendment but about the design of some of the elements. We feel that some safeguards are not quite as they should be.
The noble Baroness mentioned questions over the tagging equipment. It will be assessed, but I flag up that in 45 states in the United States it has been used for more than 5,000 offenders and has the confidence of the US judiciary and so on. There are a number of things that I can write to the noble Baroness about in regard to that, but as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, there are different views on some of the equipment which are slightly at variance with what the noble Baroness said. That shows how important it is to pilot and to see how these various approaches work.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Bach(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bach
My Lords, one of the advantages of these debates is that we will hear proposals for new ways to divert people from custody. Any amendment that carries the names of both noble Lords, Lord Adebowale and Lord Ramsbotham, needs careful and sympathetic attention because both their histories in helping particularly young people who find themselves in potential conflict with the criminal justice system are proud records, and they have a lot to teach us. We are sympathetic to the idea behind this amendment, not least because of its reported success in the pilot areas where it has been tried out.
Noble Lords will know that Section 177 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 includes a series of requirements for persons aged 18 or over who are convicted of an offence. Those requirements include,
“(e) a curfew requirement … (k) a supervision requirement”,
and the list goes all the way to paragraph (l). There are all sorts of different requirements, and there has been no reticence to acknowledge that divergence from custody and the treatment of the underlying issues—whether they be mental health or socioeconomic—are important and can be more effective than custody. It is not legislators who have been afraid of proposing alternative measures.
One of the problems is the availability of schemes which are often administered by local authorities, the probation services, youth offending teams or other diverse, multi-departmental agencies. The idea for a new community supervision requirement seems an amalgamation in one sense of powers (e) and (k) from the list that I read out earlier—but probably because it is a combination of the two, it is the stronger for it. It is a recognition that, in that transition to adulthood, a community sentence that helps to socialise people to realise that what they are doing is wrong can be a powerful and tough sentence.
There are two elements to the amendment that I want to touch on briefly. As has already been said, there is a growing recognition that there is not a cut-off point at 18 for beginning crime or carrying on with crime. The years between 14 and 24 are generally considered prime offending years, with delinquent behaviour tending to start in early teenage and tailing off at age 21 to 24. Perhaps these things are not entirely surprising; but because of them, it seems sensible to choose the ages between 18 and 25 for this new requirement. We are sympathetic to the amendment. If it has been as successful as has been claimed in the debate, the Government should be sympathetic, too. I look forward to hearing from the noble Baroness.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords for their amendment. Young adult offenders are a particularly difficult group and outcomes are not always as we would wish. I have a great deal of sympathy with the intentions here.
The amendment proposes a new requirement of the adult community order called,
“an intensive community supervision requirement”,
available for offenders aged 18 to 24. It is clearly intended to mirror the intensive rehabilitation order available for juveniles. I agree that we need to reduce the level of reoffending by young adult offenders and that more intensive engagement may very well have a role to play. However, we need to find ways of achieving this without further complicating the legislative framework and constraining how the needs of this age group will be addressed.
Affordability is, of course, critical. If we were to create extra burdens through statute by delivering intensive interventions, supervision and surveillance to this age group, the Government would not have the resources to deliver what we prescribed. We want to see more effective and efficient use of resources, with payment by results and competition being used to secure improved outcomes for 18 to 24 year-olds and other offenders. A range of interventions may be used to achieve these outcomes, and we wish to avoid prescribing which approach must be used with different age groups.
I heard about the problems at Isis, and the MoJ will be commenting in due course. I also note what noble Lords have said about intensive alternatives to custody. The Green Paper Breaking the Cycle said that the Government were looking at how the IAC principles could be extended nationally. The analysis of the reoffending rates of offenders who took part in the IAC pilots is under way at the moment. We will write to noble Lords as soon as the results are available. I hope that is useful to noble Lords.
The spirit of the amendment ties in very well with work that we are already doing to improve community sentences generally. In addition to provisions in the Bill to strengthen community sentences, we want to deliver a step change in the way they operate. They must address the problems that have caused the offending behaviour in the first place: the drug abuse, alcoholism and mental health problems that noble Lords have referred to. They must also punish properly and send a clear message to society that wrongdoing will not be tolerated. We are hoping to provide sentences with a much improved community sentence offering a robust and credible punishment to deal with both young and old offenders. To this end, we are currently conducting a review of adult community sentences and hope to publish a consultation document shortly. I encourage noble Lords to feed into that. In the light of my comments, I hope the noble Lord will accept that this is not a necessary step to take at this stage and will accordingly withdraw his amendment.
Lord Bach
My Lords, our time in government retreats into the mists of time day by day, month by month, and my memory fails. I certainly am not in a position to answer the specific question that the noble Lord asks, but to say that there were not concerns about the probation service at the time would be to tell an untruth. Some of the cuts that our Government felt were necessary to make—as do the present Government, too—related to the probation service. One of the achievements of my then ministerial colleague, the honourable Maria Eagle, was to make sure that the cuts were not so great as originally planned and that the probation service had some extra resources that it was not expecting. However, I have to concede that it was not a period, particularly in the latter years, when the probation service was getting as much money as it needed to deal with the problem.
On costs, I think that the noble Lord’s noble friend Lady Linklater had it right, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. Comparing costs is very difficult throughout the Bill, not least in this particular area. I am sorry that I cannot help the noble Lord with more detail.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, I was very struck by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, dividing things between those which were desirable and those which were essential, and pointing to the need to prioritise. It has struck me that this Bill is above all about prioritising. It would be wonderful to be in government when there was a great deal of money to lubricate things but, even when that is the case, not all problems are corrected. We have just heard of an earlier period where, certainly during the early years, there was much more money to lubricate things yet problems persisted.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, I have listened carefully to the case made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, in support of this amendment. I am also aware of the arguments made by Citizens Advice and the Z2K Trust. There are essentially two issues as regards the amendment. The first relates to the current law relating to the power to withdraw warrants for non-payment of fines, which has not been particularly explored in these discussions but to which I will return.
The second relates to the practice of bailiffs enforcing those warrants particularly against fine defaulters, especially those who may be considered to be particularly vulnerable. I understand the concerns that many people have about bailiffs enforcing warrants. However, many people are concerned at the level of fines that remain unpaid. There is a balance to be struck between the need to have an effective way to collect unpaid fines, and therefore to enforce the orders of the court, and the need to allow for some flexibility in the treatment of fine defaulters.
The national standards for enforcement agents were revised last month. They set out specific standards—for example, for dealing with vulnerable and socially excluded people—and I hope that the noble Baroness has seen them. It includes a list of those who may be potentially vulnerable, including the elderly or people with a disability or where someone has a difficulty in understanding English. In addition, the contracts with bailiffs include several conditions relating to their behaviour and treatment of vulnerable people. The Government remain of the view that the national standards, guidance and contractual arrangements are the best and most effective way to ensure the appropriate use of enforcement powers.
With regard to the first issue under the amendment, which relates to the legal powers to suspend or withdraw warrants, the Government think that this area deserves further consideration. We do not think that there is any doubt that a court has the power to suspend a warrant that it issues but there is at least an ambiguity about the question of whether a court or a fines officer can withdraw or suspend a warrant issued by a fines officer. I am willing therefore to take away these points and to consider whether there is a need for a change to the primary legislation and whether that change can be made in this Bill or at a later stage. In the light of that, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.
Immigration: Advisory Service
Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Bach
Lord Bach
My Lords, will the Minister ensure that every case that is currently with the IAS will be transferred to a competent provider of legal advice and representation? I think she has already indicated that she will make sure that that happens. Furthermore, because of the Government’s proposals in the Bill, all immigration cases, except those of individuals in detention, will be outside the scope of legal aid, including cases of domestic violence. This means that in every case, however complicated, no legal advice or legal aid will be available. Does the Minister, who has a proud liberal reputation, not feel more than a little uncomfortable at depriving people of access to justice in this way?
Baroness Northover
How very kind of the noble Lord. On his first point, three IAS hub centres will be kept open for the moment: in Manchester, Birmingham and Bradford. They are facilitating the transfer of these cases. I am sure that we will have very interesting debates coming down the track on legal aid, but this has nothing to do with the proposed changes.