Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Ramsbotham

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I too support the amendments. I was at the speech given by the Secretary of State for Justice last Monday, in which he said that in the last five years, there have been just over 250,000 custodial sentences of six months or less, and over 300,000 of 12 months or less. He went on to say that nearly two-thirds of the offenders had gone on to commit further crime within a year of being released. He also said that the Government were now taking a more punitive approach than at any time during the Thatcher years, which I thought was a strange admission from him. I wrote to him pointing out that this Bill appears to be him against the Home Secretary, and he replied today that “work in the area will require careful collaboration with other government departments to ensure a consistent approach to sentencing reform which reflects my ambitions and, most importantly, keeps the public safe”.

Everything has been said about the growing body of evidence that diverting children away from the formal justice system is more effective at reducing offending than punitive responses, and I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on that. I also deplore the removing of judicial discretion, which works against the Sentencing Council’s guidelines. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child resolved that the interests of the children must be placed first. Mandatory short prison sentences have been proved to be ineffective—I have seen them to be ineffective—because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, there is nothing happening in any young offender institution which is worth the while, and if people are there for a short time, nobody has time to establish their needs, let alone tackle them. Therefore, I strongly support the amendments.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I also support these amendments, particularly Amendment 32, which would remove Clause 8. I worked in an intermediate treatment centre many years ago. It was an astounding institution. May I say how grateful I am to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for leading this extraordinary work?

I am a trustee of a mental health service for adolescents, a charity that works with a local youth offending team, and also works in schools with young men, mostly BAME boys with behavioural issues. It is called Sport and Thought, and it can transform lives; teachers are shocked at the difference that this intervention can make. It involves working with a therapist and a football coach. There are such good and effective ways of turning these young peoples’ lives around, so I really do share the concerns voiced.

Crispin Blunt, the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Prisons and Youth Justice, was speaking at an open meeting three weeks ago. I raised the question of mandatory sentencing. He said that it does not work, it inflates the numbers of people going into prison and is completely counterproductive. To have mandatory sentencing for 16 and 17 year-olds is against logic.

We must remember where we came from. About 10 years ago, we had 3,000 children in custody, by far the largest number in Europe. All parties were very concerned about this, and thanks to the work of the coalition Government, we reduced it to 1,000. We do not want to go back there. I recognise the deep concerns about this terrible offence of throwing corrosive substances at people. Yes, there must be a robust response, but in trying to protect children from these offences, let us not put them in harm’s way.

I visited a prison four or five years ago with the chair of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales. She said that because we had been so effective at reducing the numbers of children in custody, those in prison now are the very toughest and most challenging children. She said that by obliging courts to put many of the children subject to this offence into custody, they are very likely to be bullied or to traumatise themselves. It makes them into more hardened criminals in the longer term if we do this.

I have to think about our responsibility in this area. It is very easy to appoint blame but let us look at the very high rate of exclusions from schools at the moment. I think that we are still waiting for Mr Timpson’s report, but when children are excluded from school, they are so much more likely to get involved in this sort of activity. Look at the cuts in funding for early intervention services; as an officer of the All-party Parliamentary Group for Children, I know very well how all those important services for supporting families have been deeply cut, due to understandable financial and economic circumstances—but they have been cut to the bone. So many children’s centres have been closed down.

Another issue, which perhaps does not get talked about enough, is that many of these children—many boys—are growing up without fathers. In certain ethnic groups, 60% of these boys grow up without fathers in the home. My noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe was talking about investing more in mentors for such young people, which can make a huge difference in their lives.

When dealing with challenging young people, my experience from a long time of working with troubled adolescents is always that it is so tempting to come in hard, perhaps if you are working in a children’s home and a child provokes you. The extreme is known as pin down, where one might chain children to beds or whatever. It is always tempting to come in hard but the thoughtful, considerate, effective professionals stand back and try to be dispassionate. They try to do what is most effective, not what appeals most to the emotions.

I recognise the difficulty that the Government are in and that they wish to make a robust response, but perhaps they might listen to the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I strongly support Amendment 32, which would remove Clause 8 from the Bill.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

I rise to oppose the KCPO proposal, as I did in Grand Committee. I shall not repeat all the arguments that I raised then, because other noble Lords have already mentioned them. However, I ask the Minister: who dreamed up these KCPOs? Were they a Home Office invention? It appears that the Youth Justice Board, the Children’s Commissioner and local government services were not consulted. The Magistrates’ Association, the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers, the Local Government Association, The Children’s Society and the knife crime APPG are all opposed to it. We hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that the police and crime commissioner in Durham is also opposed to it.

I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, mentioned the cost, because there is no reckoning or details of the cost available to Members of this House. I question the pilot and am also worried about Amendment 63, because that seems to click in only if the KCPOs are approved. I hope that the House will not approve them.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I express my deep concerns about what the Government are proposing. I also felt that the Minister made a very strong speech, making it really clear to us again, sitting in this place, that this is about young people, usually on housing estates, being stabbed, bleeding out, dying and losing all that potential in their lives. This is a very grave situation.

That does not mean we should do anything that comes to mind to respond; we need to make an effective response. I am particularly concerned, as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked After Children and Care Leavers, about the criminalising of young people in care. My noble friend Lord Laming’s report two years ago focused on work to reduce the criminalisation of these children, who are so overrepresented in our prisons. The police have recently created a protocol for working with children’s homes to lower the rates of criminalisation. However, I feel certain that if this KCPO is introduced, we will see more children from children’s homes ending up in the criminal justice system. I strongly oppose what is being proposed.

We were recently briefed on county lines. Your Lordships will be aware that drug dealers are grooming children to send far and wide across the country to provide new markets for their drugs. The Children’s Society commented that it will often be children in poverty, from children’s homes, and in difficult circumstances, who are sent away to deal drugs. They will often be supplied with knives or will get them from doing this work. These are the kinds of children who get drawn into this.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Ramsbotham

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment because it advocates one public health approach, along the lines advocated in the serious violence strategy. The sad fact is, however, that too many of the intervention and preventive measures outlined in the strategy are not sufficiently resourced and may not materialise.

Last week, the drugs, alcohol and justice cross-party group that I co-chair heard about an initiative from Thames Valley Police, about which I immediately wrote to the Home Secretary, encouraging him to take an interest in it. It is a diversion scheme—modelled on the mental health diversion scheme so successfully introduced after the report by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley—requiring those found to be in possession of drugs to attend for voluntary treatment. The interesting thing was that the constables on duty in the Thames Valley streets reported that they found it extremely simple and clear to use.

As many other noble Lords have pointed out, knife carrying is a symptom of wider social issues. Many young people carry them because they fear for their lives. However, in confirmation of my warning that too many of the intervention and preventive measures outlined in the serious violence strategy are not sufficiently resourced, the Institute of Mental Health in Nottingham —I declare an interest as a member of its external advisory board—has found that only 18% of the community commissioning groups recognise that they have any responsibility for funding probation, which includes mental health and drug treatment. This emphasises the need for this significant programme of work—words used by the Home Secretary to describe the strategy—to involve a wide range of government departments, including liaison between the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Health on this issue.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. She referred to cuckooing, which is when a vulnerable adult has someone move in who then uses their home to supply drugs. I have heard of this happening in the past among care leavers. Sometimes a local authority will provide a young person leaving care with a flat but they are vulnerable and feel isolated, so it is very easy for people to take advantage of them and start misusing their premises in that way.

I attended the meeting yesterday with the former undercover detective and a senior detective from the Midlands police force. They were talking about drugs and county lines. I asked them, “Since we are dealing in Committee with knife crime and corrosive agents, do you have any advice relating to your experience on them?”. The detectives’ response was that dealing effectively with drugs would probably be a more effective way of tackling the problem than the legislation we are working on at the moment.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Ramsbotham

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the noble Baroness’s amendment, to which I added my name. I am very grateful to her for bringing this back and to the Minister for the good work that the Government are doing in this area.

I work with a number of people who have experienced care. In particular, I work with Dr Mark Kerr. He did not begin his education until he entered a young offender institution. He now has two degrees and recently obtained his doctorate. He is a great champion and academic working on the needs of young people in care and care leavers, and he always emphasises that mental health has been grossly underestimated in terms of meeting needs. If more young people are to be as successful as he is after coming out of care, we need to do far better at meeting their mental health needs. I am grateful for the work of the Minister and his colleagues in this area, but I think we need to support the noble Baroness if we are to make the difference necessary.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, added my name to the noble Baroness’s amendment, and I echo what she said about the many organisations which have supported it. Many times during the Bill’s passage, mention has been made of the postcode lottery regarding the performance of local authorities around the country. If this assessment procedure is adopted, who will perform the quality assurance of the delivery of the assessment around the country? It cannot be the expert advisory board, which has a completely different purpose.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Ramsbotham

Monday 11th July 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, before speaking to my amendment in this group I make clear that I support those noble Lords who call for the clause to be removed from the Bill. This is not the time to erode the rights of vulnerable children. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, we are facing a period of austerity. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has just removed his target to pay down the deficit by 2020 but we should certainly not think that that is the end of austerity; we can expect it to extend for many years to come. Unfortunately, that means that local authorities will continue to have severe downward pressure on their budgets, so I share the noble Baroness’s concern that whatever the good intentions of this clause, it might result in cutbacks on protections for children in order to save money.

The purpose of my Amendment 131A is, where a local authority has been exempted, to enable a child, his advocate or a professional to ask for the exemption to be released for that child. For instance, if the responsibility for putting in place an independent reviewing officer was removed, a child could, if he decided to do so, call for an IRO to be instated. The Minister referred to the role of IROs at Second Reading.

I draw your Lordships’ attention to research by the National Children’s Bureau. It has found that the area in which the IRO service has been seen to make the biggest difference is in ensuring timely reviews of the care plan. Nationally, the survey found that that was where IROs were perceived to have made the greatest difference, with 91% of IRO managers, 82% of IROs and 72% of directors of children’s services strongly agreeing that, since 2011, IROs have contributed to the timeliness of reviews. Another area in which IROs are seen to have had an impact is in ensuring that the care planning process remains firmly focused on the child and that the child’s wishes and feelings are taken into account. Nationally, the survey found that 90% of IRO managers, 72% of IROs and 73% of directors of children’s services strongly agreed that, since 2011, IROs had ensured that children’s wishes and feelings were recorded and taken into account.

Amendment 131B would ensure that there is excellent parliamentary scrutiny should Clause 15 continue to be in the Bill. Major voices from the children’s sector have been clear that innovation is necessary to ensure, in the face of increasing risks and challenges, that the sector can learn and improve. Like many, I share the concern of all the major children’s charities that the right safeguards should be in place to ensure that innovation is overseen properly and delivers for children and families without disruption to their lives. Such scrutiny is essential and should not be overridden. Local authorities should not be exempted from laws that have been developed and scrutinised with care and attention by both Houses without a comparable amount of parliamentary oversight of the potential impact of any exemptions. That is what the amendment seeks to achieve.

The amendment would ensure that only laws subject to the negative resolution procedure in their formation could be overridden by the same process. Whether in the process of seeking to innovate to improve services for children or otherwise, it is not appropriate or democratic that regulations introduced through a debate and vote in Parliament should be exempted without such a process. Our job is to hold the Government to account, and we should not be prevented doing so. It is imperative that our powers to scrutinise the safeguards needed to protect children from the impact of any exemptions are not disrupted by the desire to innovate to improve outcomes for children.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I return briefly to Clause 15, which is a classic example of regulation too far. I agree with everything that has been said so far. It is inappropriate and ought to be struck out of the Bill. Only two things are needed. One is the minimum list of tasks that must be done with children. If anything, the Secretary of State should seek to improve the list and to improve delivery if there is any failure to deliver what must be done, rather than remove any task. Secondly, as has come up over and over again, we are looking for consistency in delivery and to avoid the postcode lottery in the treatment of children all over the country. If there is a minimum list and machinery for looking at that, we will find, as many noble Lords have said, that individual local authorities will encourage improvement in the way those minimum requirements are operated. The way to improve things is by changing single practice somewhere to common practice everywhere, not by regulation. Therefore, I hope very much that, if not before then certainly on Report, this clause will be struck out.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I welcome the thought of a meeting but I would be grateful if the Minister could ensure that somebody from the youth custody arena attends it. I was extremely alarmed when he rather dismissed the example of the legal safeguard that could be lifted, of removing the looked-after status from children remanded in custody. That is very often the first time that they have had any stability in their lives and it would be tragic if it was removed.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and for the offer of a meeting, which I am sure will be very helpful for me. I should have said in my earlier contribution that I am the patron of the National Association of Independent Reviewing Officers, so I have an interest and some experience there. I hear what he says about independent reviewing officers; in my mind, there is certainly a question about tying up so many experienced social workers in one capacity. But one of the concerns is that when a child is in a long-term placement, it may go very well but things can suddenly go wrong. One of the chief concerns that often come up when children need advocates is that while they are in a long-term stable placement, a local authority may suddenly have decided that it is too expensive so they are moved on. There is particular concern that a child may be in a stable placement for a long time and he or she may suddenly need the expertise and professional capacity of an independent reviewing officer. However, I see that there is another side to that.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Ramsbotham

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, the amendment would ensure that information is shared and that notifications are made to relevant authorities when a looked-after child is placed out of area. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, referred to the amendment earlier. It concerns the fact that health services, in particular, are losing track of these vulnerable young people when they are placed out of authority.

Currently, there are a variety of different procedures for placing children out of area, which are dependent on distance, the type of placement and the home nation in which a child is placed. There are also different information-sharing requirements, which means that in some areas crucial safeguarding partners are not always aware of vulnerable looked-after children living in their area and any risks that they may face.

As of March 2015, 37% of looked-after children were placed outside their local authority, with 14% being placed more than 20 miles away from their home authority. Sometimes, an out-of-area placement is important in keeping a child or young person safe—for example, where a child is targeted for exploitation in their home area.

Currently, a distant placement—an out-of-area placement that is not in an adjoining local authority—must be approved by the responsible authority’s director of children’s services and all other out-of-area placements must be approved by a nominated officer. I am grateful to the coalition Government for introducing this change, which means that the director of children’s services has to be involved in the process of sending children out of their local authority. Local authorities across England adopt their own notification processes, but a different approach has been taken in Wales, where a national out-of-area notification protocol is in place to ensure consistency.

Children living outside of their local area are more likely to be reported missing or absent: 50% of all looked-after children reported missing or absent are placed out of area. The Children’s Society sees in its practice many examples of the criminal exploitation of young people thus placed. It sees particular difficulties in ensuring an appropriate multi-agency response because of a lack of information sharing and confusion about responsibilities with these children. It is estimated that 60% of suspected child victims of trafficking in local authority care go missing and almost two-thirds of trafficked children are never found. Most victims go missing within one week of being in care, many within 48 hours and often before being fully registered with social services.

Given these significant risks, if information is not shared with partners before the placement is made there may be significant delays in responding to the child if they go missing or are targeted, while the police and other partners try to gather all the information about a child that they need to keep that young person safe. Does the Minister agree that the police and health services are as important as local authorities in making sure that looked-after children placed out of area are appropriately safeguarded? I beg to move.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment, and entirely agree with what my noble friend has said so far. I endorse his proposal that the Wales protocol should be adopted in England as well. The number of people they put on the informed list under that protocol is interesting, as it means that most people who are likely to need to know, such as the police, health services and the director of social services, are included.

This reminded me of something that happened when I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, when the chief inspectors of constabulary, the courts services, education, probation and social services were collectively worried about the lack of information flowing around the system. We published a thematic review of what each of our particular responsibilities needed of the others, what was readily available, what was obtainable only with difficulty and what was not obtainable. We presented this to our respective Ministers, who were interested, but the tragedy was that it fell on stony ground because no one Minister was responsible for cross-governmental working to ensure that all this information was shared by those who needed it.

To the categories mentioned by my noble friend, I would just add that of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, who are frequently moved from their port or airport of entry to local authorities all over the country in order to share the burden. We need to know where they are and what is happening to them, so the information mentioned in this amendment needs to be shared by many others—not just the directors of social services but immigration authorities and others covered in the Wales protocol. I recommend that, which is why I support my noble friend’s amendment.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Ramsbotham

Monday 4th July 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment. I do so because it reminds me of my experience of being acquainted with a young woman who left care some time ago. She did get access to mental health support and saw a therapist over a quite considerable period. She is thriving; she is doing well and supporting young people leaving care. When she spoke to me about her experience, she highlighted how important it was for her to have that access to a counsellor. So if this amendment helps her with that, I would definitely like to support it. We will hear from the Minister about the Children Act duties and I hope that will comfort the noble Lord, Lord Warner.

This woman has a younger brother in care and she is concerned about the access that he is getting to therapy. This is a real issue for many young people in care and care leavers, so I am looking for as much reassurance from the Minister as possible in his response.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Warner, in his amendment and particularly his plea that we should have some meeting to clarify the various amendments that have been tabled. In the next group, I shall refer to some of these amendments and it strikes me again that this is something that ought to be tied up between the Bill team and those of us who are taking part because otherwise we are in danger of having a thoroughly ill-constituted Bill to send forward to the other place.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s response and particularly for what he said about keeping an open mind and thinking further about the degree of the burden on local authorities from keeping in touch with and being proactive towards young people up to the age of 25. What he said about guidance on being proactive was very welcome. Are there currently issues regarding those up to the age of 21? Under the current duty, do local authorities express concern that the duty sometimes causes them to expend resources unnecessarily? Do young people feel a bit harassed by the current system? Otherwise, I am not clear why one should treat those over the age of 21 any differently from those under 21. If there are no current issues, I am not sure why it should be an issue to transfer the provision to under-25s. However, I am sure that that can be answered in subsequent discussions and, as I said, I am grateful to the Minister for his response.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I noticed that the Minister has kindly arranged a meeting with Mr Brokenshire, the Minister in the Home Office responsible for immigration. Will the provisions in Clause 2 apply to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children until the moment they lose the right to remain and have to leave, with them then appealing?

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly in favour of Amendments 75 and 135. It would be very helpful if there were a duty on the Secretary of State to address the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in the way that the amendment describes. It would be helpful if there were child rights impact assessments for every piece of legislation—for instance, on the housing legislation that we have debated recently. Low-income families have suffered most in the recent years of austerity. We heard earlier about the closure of children’s centres, which are a vital tool in transforming the lives of these young people. It would be very helpful if central government were more aware of the impact of every piece of legislation on children and families, particularly poorer families. There was hardly any mention in the housing Bill of the impact of homelessness. There was some mention of families in temporary accommodation but I suggest that not nearly enough attention was paid to their needs.

Moving to Amendment 135, I was very interested to hear from the Leeds deputy director of children’s services four or five weeks ago. Leeds had been a struggling local authority in terms of children’s services but that was turned around, and he described the process. First and foremost, the foundation of the change was to consider the UNCRC—it was the very basis upon which the change was made. Leeds recognised that to improve children’s services it was necessary to look at all the children in the city and to think about how to improve their lives, listening to their needs and wishes to understand them better. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 135, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has already quoted from the 2016 report by the observers from the UN Human Rights Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was very damning. I want to draw attention to the fact that in 2008 there was an earlier damning report and the Government’s response to that in 2010 was to say that they would give due consideration to the rights of the child in all new legislation and policy. I have to say that there has been precious little sign of that, which worries me.

The other thing that worries me about this is the comment made by the noble Baroness about the inequality that exists in the observance of the rights of the child in the various parts of the United Kingdom, with England consistently lagging behind. I really think that this Bill is an opportunity to do something about this, and we ought to seize it.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I omitted to say that there seems to be a real issue in the United States, France and this country about a large section of the population feeling left out. The success of globalisation has in many ways simply left them behind. This would be one helpful measure to ensure that those at the bottom of the heap are better treated and feel better treated.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Ramsbotham

Monday 18th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I speak as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on children and young people in care and leaving care. Half of young people in custody have experience of care: they have been fostered or have been in residential care. Many of those unfortunate young people, who are in that position principally because they have been abused by their families, are also likely to get tangled up in the law and in the situations with which we are concerned here.

I begin by putting two questions to the Minister. First, there has been concern in the past that the assumption relating to media reporting when dealing with children is reversed in these circumstances. One of the tabloid newspapers published a string of photographs of children and their addresses some time ago. This was a few years ago and perhaps things have moved on, but I would be grateful to the Minister if he could write to me on where things stand with regard to publicising the names and photographs of such children.

My second question relates to youth services. We all know that the devil makes work for idle hands. With the cuts that have come about, youth services have taken a very heavy blow. Research has shown that where there have been summer activities for young people, the crime rate among young people reduces. We need to think about the positive things that we can do as well as the negative things—the stick and the carrot, if you like—when we discuss this issue. What guidance and advice on protecting youth services are being offered by central government to local authorities at this difficult time? In particular, what advice is being offered to the new PCCs, which have a lot of resources and which could perhaps funnel some of them towards supporting youth services? I was very gratified to hear recently how much support the Government are giving to mentoring young people in the criminal justice system and in schools. That information would be helpful.

I am sorry to speak for so long but I should like to make just one point. Many of these young men—boys, I should say—grow up without a father in the home. We know that two-thirds of black boys in the United States grow up without a father in the home. According to the OECD, the level of lone parents in this country is even higher than that, so many boys here are growing up without fathers in the home. The risk is, and my experience shows this time and again, that such young men feel a sense of guilt. They are not rational in trying to understand why their fathers are not interested in their lives. They think that it is something that they did that caused it. I can think of an occasion when I was with a group of looked-after children in Parliament. Somebody popped their head in to ask a question, suggesting that somebody might have done something wrong, and there was an immediate look of guilt among them—“What have we done wrong? What are we to blame for?”. You hear from adults who have had such an experience that they are ridden with guilt and feel negative about their lives, even about the good things in it. The risk is that, by having a low age of criminal responsibility or by introducing these measures for people of such a young age, the state is coming along and saying, “Yes, there isn’t anything good in you. We will put your photograph in the local newspaper. You will be described as a bad person”. In that, we are reinforcing what their parents have told them and what their experience has been.

I remember as a boarder at school becoming particularly attached to my housemaster, who was with me for several years. When he moved on to be the headmaster of a new school, for several weeks I would ask myself before going to bed at night, quite unreasonably, what I had done to him that was driving him away. I felt guilt for driving him away. I cannot stress enough that my experience points to such a sense of guilt in these young people. Yes, they must be made to feel responsible; no, they should not be allowed just to be called victims. There are sanctions available but I worry that there may be a perverse outcome if we keep the age as currently proposed in the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, 10 days ago, a number of us debated in this House the Second Reading of the Age of Criminal Responsibility Bill, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. I commend some of the things that were said then about the ability of children of the age of 10 to comprehend fully all the businesses of the criminal justice system when they were motivated against them. During the debate I cited the fact that the well known 10 year-olds Thompson and Venables, responsible for the murder of Jamie Bulger, were said by the psychiatrist involved in the case to have a developmental age of four.

You cannot expect a child with the developmental age of four to be able to comprehend exactly what is involved in the criminal justice system, whether it is an injunction, which does not carry a criminal record, or an anti-social behaviour order, which does. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, introduced age very early in this Bill, because all the way through we ought to have at the back of our minds that we are talking about anything to do with children of the age of 10.

We are way below the United Nations recommendation that the age of criminal responsibility should be nearer 15. We are way below what happens in Scotland and countries such as China. I am not sure that it is civilised to throw the criminal justice system at children of 10. Therefore, while I am glad that the intention is not that the injunction should carry a criminal record, we ought to take seriously the question of whether 10 is an appropriate age to start whatever process we have, because within society there should be other ways of doing it. I know that these are not very satisfactory at present, but let us not forget the conditions in which a lot of these children live their lives. I have always thought that it was unfortunate that Mr Blair, in his famous statement about being,

“tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”,

rather lost sight of being tough on the causes. It seems to me that we have to get to grips with the causes, as much as anything else, when we propose the injunctions and so on that we are talking about.

The other thing that concerns me is that we have here a Home Office Bill that talks about children, while in the Moses Room we have the Children and Families Bill, which also talks about children. We learn there that the Department for Education is not actually the key organisation in the development of children initially, but the Department of Health. Then we find that the Department for Work and Pensions has a role to play in all this, as, of course, does the Department for Communities and Local Government. Therefore all sorts of initiatives are going on, all aiming at the same thing, which lack co-ordination. I feel that there ought to be a Minister of child development in the Cabinet Office, responsible for pulling all these threads together, otherwise we will go charging off in a lot of directions, which will be unco-ordinated, and the casualties will be the very people whom this Bill claims to protect.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Ramsbotham

Monday 28th October 2013 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, before my noble friend does that, as I imagine that he may well do, I very much hesitate to speak in this debate. I have just been chairing a discussion on child development in schools. Attending it were head teachers, the former head of the TDA and a number of other experienced practitioners in the area that we have just been discussing. Unfortunately, I was four or five minutes late to this discussion so I hesitate to make any contribution to it. However, since the Minister referred to what is being done about the standards to ensure a better understanding of child development, which is very welcome, I should like to make two points.

First, in welcoming the effort by both the previous Government and this one in raising the status of teaching, and particularly in welcoming the advent of Teach First, we heard from the man responsible for Teach First in London. He said how successful the scheme is and that 30% of graduates were getting into the schools that needed their help most, so that really tough inner-city schools were getting these excellent graduates, particularly in science and maths. However, although he could speak only anecdotally, he said that he had met many of these teachers and they said they felt hopeless. They did not know how to manage the challenges presented by the young people they were working with. We need to get this right because otherwise we might lose the wonderful new crop of young teachers we are recruiting into the profession, who will make a huge difference to outcomes for young people.

The other point to arise from this meeting is that a generation of teachers has not learnt anything significant about child development. That means that head teachers and lead teachers today will not have learnt much about child development in their training. So, while I welcome what the Minister has said about the changes in the standards, the challenge presented by this issue should not be underestimated. I hope there will be ongoing discussions about what we can do in this area, which is vital for the educational outcomes that we want to see for our young people. We need to retain our new, young, enthusiastic teachers on the front line, help them to understand why children sometimes behave so challengingly and enable them to engage with them effectively. I apologise to the Grand Committee for intervening but I hope that it has been helpful.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that positive response and all those who have contributed to the debate. The fact that there is a strategy for schools proves my point because it is the strategy for the early years being hooked on to the strategy for schools which seems to be missing. The strategy for after-school transition up to the age of 25 is also missing. You have local government, healthcare, business initiatives and skills and others all joining in on this; it is not only schools. There is more to it and education is not only about what happens in school.

Accepting what the Minister has said, I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss this issue. I suspect that not only will the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, the Communication Trust and the people I am involved with wish to take part in this but so will other Members of the Committee because this is an extremely important issue. With that, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Ramsbotham

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I put my name to this amendment for two reasons. The first was that earlier in the work on this Bill, my noble friend Lord Rix, who unfortunately cannot be in his place tonight, and I, together spoke with the president of the Queen’s Bench Division; he in his capacity as chairman of the All-Party Group on Learning Disabilities, and I as chairman of the All-Party Group on Speech and Language Difficulties. We were very concerned at the implications of people not being able to be properly represented, and, therefore, not being able to understand the court processes that they were likely to go through.

One reason why I have added my name to this amendment is because I have since learnt, from the chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, that there has been a very large increase in the number of out-of-court settlements. He quoted to me the fact that 50% of crimes of violence are now dealt with out of court. This worries me, as it worried my noble friend and I when we spoke to the president of the Queen’s Bench Division, because it is just as important that people are represented during those out-of-court engagements with the police as it is that they are in court.

I know that there is a resource issue, but like the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, I have to ask whether this is not a resource issue that we cannot afford not to tackle because of the resulting cost of not taking appropriate action on behalf of these defendants, who otherwise cannot take part properly in the court and out-of-court processes.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support this amendment. More than 60% of children in the youth justice system have communication difficulties. An inspectorate of probation report—published today, I believe, or at least reported by the BBC today—was very critical of the services for looked-after children in the youth justice system. Many of these children are placed away from home, apparently without good reason, and some young offender teams do not pay attention to the emotional impact on these children of being in care. The chief inspector said, in the BBC article:

“What we saw in this inspection really shocked us … All of these things are impacting on their life chances—what we are seeing for these children are very poor outcomes … Youth offending team workers’ aspirations for the children were ‘depressingly low’”.

The report said many staff had become “desensitised” and were “under-qualified”.

I am not sure whether looked-after children would be categorised as vulnerable defendants in this system. I am sure that many of them would because they have additional problems, which arise from their trauma. I hope that this emphasises the point that vulnerable defendants—particularly vulnerable young defendants—need proper intermediaries to provide them with assistance in the courts.

Education Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Ramsbotham

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

Before my noble friend replies, I thank him for the news of the statement this summer and I join the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in asking whether the draftsmen might keep a couple of points in mind. One is the importance of midwives, whom I omitted to mention. In my experience, if a midwife can make a relationship with a mother, particularly a vulnerable mother, there can be many beneficial results in terms of breastfeeding, for example. I am afraid that midwives often feel almost as if they are working in a factory; there is a very mixed experience across this country of what it is to be a midwife.

There is also concern about family support workers because of the cuts in funding to local authorities. I understand that local authorities are living up to their requirements with regard to child protection; they are focusing on the area that is most critical, but there is concern that funding for family support workers is being cut back. It would be good to have information on how that role is being impacted by the recession. Family support workers provide a crucial service for the most vulnerable families, as I am sure your Lordships will agree. I am sure that this will be a part of the statement in any case.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

May I say how much I welcome the announcement of the foundation years document? Will we have a chance to discuss it in the context of this Bill?