Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Elton Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, I am feeling rather good because, in the course of the past 20 minutes or so, I have given way, modestly, to every other section in the House, including the Bench immediately in front of me. So I think that I deserve some credit, and I am looking for it particularly from the right reverend Prelate.

I have only a modest speech to make, which is why I refrained earlier. I want just to make it clear to my noble friend on the Front Bench that those of us who expressed some concern at the previous stage have not melted into night but retain some concern. In my experience, which is not inconsiderable, even civil servants have a completely different mindset if they are serving a dedicated outfit, whatever is said about its independence, outside the department than if they are simply part of the department’s mainstream. It is an underestimated argument in some of these debates.

Lastly, I ask again a question that I asked on the previous occasion, and I shall try to do so even more crisply—it is the question that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and others have adumbrated: if youth justice was, by common consent, a mess before and has been made better by the Youth Justice Board, what is the case for believing that it will stay better if it goes back pretty much to where it came from in the first place?

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, I have moved behind my noble friend not to threaten him but because my voice is very uncertain and I think that otherwise he will not hear what I have to say. I start with an observation on the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater. She rightly said that we owe it to the young people who commit grievous crimes to do the best for them and to give them proper, constructive lives. However, I would say that we also owe that to the communities that they wreck and threaten and the families that they disrupt, and to a large extent that is the rest of us. Therefore, this is a popular, not a specialist, subject.

My second prefatory remark is that I was glad to notice that the other amendment in the group, Amendment 21B, has not really been dealt with because, to my mind, it is no substitute. If your Lordships, in the regrettable event of this amendment not being conceded or carried, were to accept that amendment, it would be wise but they would be gaining one slice, or at most two, out of a yard loaf. I shall keep it as short as that.

What have been, and are being, advanced as the reasons for getting rid of the YJB? The first one that we had right at the beginning was that Ministers should be directly responsible for what happens to young people in custody. To encapsulate what I have said before, Section 41 and Schedule 2 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 specifically say that the Minister is to decide who the members of the YJB are, who is to be the chairman, and who is to be sacked—and he can sack them with or without reasons, according to what is appropriate. That legislation says exactly what the YJB will do under 12 headings and in great detail, which one might think would tie the Minister’s arm behind his back. However, we then find that he can alter, add to, remove or change all the members at will with a statutory instrument. The Minister says what the members do, whom they do it to, how they do it, what they get for doing it and what they can spend on doing it, and, with those powers and those in local government legislation, he is capable of transferring those functions away from himself or, under the schedule, sharing them.

The second argument was that Ministers should be responsible publicly for what they do. The Minister is responsible for everything that I have set out, and also, under paragraph 8 of Schedule 2 of the Crime and Disorder Act, he has to lay before Parliament the YJB’s annual report so that Parliament is aware, in detail, of what he has been doing and can ask him to defend it—or praise him, if that be the case, although I notice that it is rare that when Parliament wants to praise the Minister it has a debate on an unnecessary measure.

According to the letter quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, the board members have full responsibility for the purchase of secure accommodation for children. I should tell your Lordships that I had that responsibility when I was a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Security. I shall detain noble Lords no longer other than to say that I heartily wish that I had had the YJB. It would have been a godsend to have had the Youth Justice Board with its insight and understanding of what was going on.

The next thing we were told was that the YJB is ineffective. A great deal has been said already about the change in offending rates and volumes and reoffending rates and volumes. All those are remarkably good figures, as your Lordships can remind themselves when they read Hansard, but in all respects they compare favourably with what is going on in the adult system, which is what this was drawn from in the bad days gone by.

It is argued that this is a single issue body. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has shown what single issue bodies are and they are not this: they are on the list that he gave about foreigners, the illiterate, sick, mentally ill and so forth. All those are single issues and affect single people, but being a teenager under the age of adulthood as recognised in statute is common to them all. This is a general issue of supreme importance.

I happen to have been a teacher. I taught in schools and colleges and noble Lords should not doubt that the behavioural and emotional responses of young people and adults are different. They have to be managed with tricks out of different boxes. We are talking about a specialism of enormous value to this country, which has produced enormous benefits already, which continue.

I have been told—and I dare say that other noble Lords have been told by the Minister—that the YJB’s job has been done and it should hang up his boots, thank you very much. To say that when the offending rates and numbers in custody are all still coming down is a matter of profound pessimism. Surely we must want this to go on. It has been said that the bureaucratic approach of the Youth Justice Board has always been an impediment although it was admitted that that had reduced in recent months. But it has been reducing over the past two years, so that is also an incomplete argument.

We have been told that this is part of the great national programme of localism. In fact, that has not been mentioned yet but I anticipate, with many apologies, what my noble friend on the Front Bench is likely to say to us. The Government are already committed to localism and to the youth offending teams. The youth offending teams are what determine the level to which functions can be delegated. The Government already acknowledge the need for what they call light-touch performance monitoring of them. Anyway, Her Majesty's Government propose to take all the powers back into themselves. What on earth is localist about that?

It is argued that the expertise of the Youth Justice Board will be preserved in the department when it gets there. I do not doubt my noble friend’s word or that of his right honourable colleagues, but they cannot foresee or commit themselves to who will replace those people when they retire, are promoted or simply, sadly, die. If they are part of the Civil Service, they will be replaced by people recruited from the Civil Service, which does not mean that they will necessarily have any of this expertise at all.

My last point in this overlong speech is about cost. I remind your Lordships that in the adult system in the past 10 years the population in prisons has increased by 32 per cent at a cost of £36,000 per head per year at current prices. Over the same period, the number of juveniles in custody has reduced by 27 per cent—almost as much. They are more expensive. My figures are slightly different to those given by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, because his have yet to be reviewed by the National Audit Office. Screening out all that, I reckon that it represents a saving in one year of £58,174 million. If that rather notional figure does not satisfy your Lordships, the decommissioning of 900 places, to which the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, referred, has saved £38 million net. I should add that administrative costs were reduced by 10 per cent as well.

When a car is running sweetly and the engine is doing what it should, you do not go to the garage and ask them to lift up the bonnet and take a piece out of the engine. This is not a bolt-on extra. This is something that has grown up with and caused the youth justice system to develop as it has, under the care of Ministers—which I greatly acknowledge. In supporting this amendment, which I do with fervour, I am trying to save my noble friends from making a catastrophic mistake.