Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Lord Elton and Baroness Meacher

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

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, I too want to say something controversial, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, will find more controversial than most. I was convinced, 35 years ago, on incontrovertible evidence, that a course of non-custodial treatment was more effective than a custodial sentence in curing people of crime. The people in question were young people, and since then I have devoted a great deal of my life to trying to stop young people getting into crime. For three years I was in charge of the Prison Service, and nothing that I saw there changed my mind. Thereafter, I became chairman of the National Fund for Intermediate Treatment, the function of which was to provide excellent treatment in the community for offenders, which was monitored. When government funding was withdrawn, I founded a charity to do the same thing.

Non-custodial treatment must be done properly—it is not about turning up and ticking in a book or sweeping the street; what you need is an experience that the young person has not had before. In a frighteningly high percentage of cases, what these courses—or whatever you like to call them—provide is the first experience a young person has of an adult who actually cares what they are doing and what they are doing with their lives, and that has an electric effect. It cannot be produced in custody. It can be produced in outward bound programmes, in a jazz band or in whitewater rafting. It depends on the adult and young person’s relationship. It works, it is far cheaper than custody and far more effective. I echo the words of the Secretary of State for Justice in support, which are powerful evidence:

“Why would we spend taxpayers’ money doing what we know does not work, and indeed, that makes us less safe?”


That is what is being advocated. I do not often fall in step with noble Lords sitting on the Benches opposite, but on this occasion, my lifetime’s experience means that I have to support them.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support these amendments. The one thing we know about short sentences is that people do not receive any education, training, therapy—anything at all, in fact, because, well, they are not there long enough to benefit. Therefore, as the noble Lord said, why on earth do we spend all this money only to create hardened criminals? I very strongly support these amendments.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Lord Elton and Baroness Meacher

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Meacher]

The noble Lord suggests that some of us are saying, “It’s okay to carry a knife”. I want to make it clear that I am not saying that. I have a feeling that noble Lords around us are not saying it either. It is not okay for kids to carry knives. The only issue is what we do to help them not to have to carry a knife.

[Lord Elton]

If I may go back to the noble Baroness’s speech, I am drawn to my feet simply to endorse her view of the inappropriateness of a short prison sentence and, with juveniles, of any prison sentence. For a time, I was Minister responsible for the welfare of young people, other than their health, at the DHSS, which simply meant juvenile offenders in secure accommodation and keeping them out of it. I then had three years being responsible for prisons in the Home Office. I therefore dedicated the next chunk of my life to stopping young people going to prison. You cannot do it when they are into crime; you have to do it before. You have to see that they are not frightened. They must feel safe at home, at school and on the streets, and you must see that they are not bored. The two spurs are fear—“To protect myself I must be armed”—and, “What on earth am I going to do? Let’s go and make trouble. Let’s take a car that does not belong to us and drive it very, very fast around Blackbird Leys in Oxford”. It is the buzz they have to get. We have to provide that by means other than punitive, by pre-emptive means before the event. We have to engage them. When they are on the edge of the event, we have to try even harder. One good way is to find a group of young adults with enthusiasm for almost anything, but preferably a team sport or team activity; for example, white-water rafting, jazz playing, football, canoeing or rock climbing, give them the small amount of money necessary to set up a group to do that and the bored young and the frightened young will come there in clusters. When we did that when I was in what one might call civilian life, the people concerned learned to get £5 of funding from elsewhere for every pound that my people were able to give them.

What I am trying to preach here is outside the terms of this Bill, and I apologise for that, but we are putting the money, as the noble Baroness says, in the wrong place, too late. If only we had enough cash to do a sensible job for our young people. Many of them have no male adult role model, and it is almost impossible to get male teachers into primary education now because the dangers of being sussed as having improper relations with pupils are so great. It is a risk to cuddle a child if they fall and hurt themselves, and we have the new phenomenon of mobile phones which are distracting young adults so that they do not pay attention to children at all. All of that has got to be remedied by the community acting together to give young people things to do which excite them, in safe places with secure adult supervision. That cannot go into this Bill, but I hope nothing which puts juveniles in danger of short prison sentences will go into this Bill, because that is wholly counterproductive.

Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Elton and Baroness Meacher

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am not in the position to provide the figures that my noble friend asked for, but certainly when we study the Portuguese system and documentation I will make sure that I write to the noble Lord—and indeed to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. It will be useful to share that information.

My noble friend is absolutely right. There are all sorts of reasons why people belong to gangs. Fear is one of them. I have made two visits now to Brixton to see how territory, people and circumstance combine to encourage the existence of gangs. We need to be proactive in the way in which we deal with this problem. It causes abject misery through drug dependency; it causes crime through theft; it causes violence; and it causes unnecessary loss of life, as much of the violence can result in fatalities. All of that needs to be addressed in any policy that deals with gangs.

That is why we need a process. In my view, gang injunction lies at the heart of that process. I would be reluctant to dilute that but it can be informed by processes that can be imported from elsewhere. I hope that I have given some idea of my thinking about the issue and I hope that the noble Baroness, as I have said already, will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Meacher]

I thank the Minister for his very considered reply, and also give a special thank you to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for his thoughtful intervention. I assure him that one of the key points in the Portuguese system is indeed the monitoring of the observance of the contract by the individual.

[Lord Elton]

I am sorry, but the word I used was “mentoring”.

[Baroness Meacher]

Indeed: mentoring. The idea in this system is that the referral to, for example, treatment ensures that the person is then mentored in the environment to which they are referred, whether it is residential or day-based or a number of different things. The idea is a comprehensive package for the individual, monitored—not mentored—by the dissuasion commission panel to make sure that the person really does receive all the elements that they have signed up to in their contract. As I said, it is not a soft option but it is an effective one. That is what we are seeking to at least discuss here. I am truly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, to my noble friend Lord Howarth for a very considered and important contribution, and to the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Hamwee. This has been a helpful debate.

I need to mention in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that Britain still has one of the highest levels of drug addiction and problems in Europe. We are in the top three countries. The tougher the policies, the worse a country tends to do. That is just a basic rule across many countries and is well understood in the field.

I am very grateful indeed to the Minister for agreeing that the department will look at—and, I hope, undertake a cost-benefit analysis of—dissuasion panels as an option for dealing with people with drug dependence problems. That is the point: it is cost effective and it is worth it. It produces results and it is cheaper. Rather than seeing it as a sort of two-tier system, one should think of it as dissuasion panels taking an awful lot of work away from the courts and dealing with that work more effectively: that is perhaps a better mental set in relation to this problem. With my many thanks to all those who have been involved, we will undoubtedly come back to this and, I hope, have further discussions with the Minister. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.