Children: Secure Children’s Homes

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I know that I speak for noble Lords on all sides of the House in saying without reservation how warmly we welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Shackleton, to our midst. Her speech was significant and I shall return to it in a moment. First, let me just say that it is good to have with us somebody with such a powerful reputation in her career, and with so much insight into the legal dimensions of our society and, beyond that, into the stories behind those legal dimensions. I know that Exeter University has a tradition of producing strong and formidable women—my wife is one. It is small wonder that that university so wisely awarded the noble Baroness an honorary doctorate. Before long, I am sure we shall want to award her all sorts of plaudits for the contributions that she makes. We welcome her most warmly and look forward to her contributions.

In her speech, the noble Baroness made reference to the importance of family life, education and stability in the upbringing of children. It could not have been a more significant contribution to make to this debate, in which we are dealing with children who have lacked stability; children who frequently have not enjoyed any kind of family life; and children who have, for one reason or another, not had the benefits of continuous and sound education.

The noble Lord, Lord McNally, who will wind up, always admonishes me when I make this kind of point, saying, “Please remember that there are children from such backgrounds who make it”, and that cannot be disputed. However, what also cannot be disputed is something of which I became very aware during nine years as president of YMCA England, when I looked very closely at and came to admire the work being done with young offenders by the staff and volunteers. What became very clear was that so many of these young offenders had such horrific and sad stories behind them, with so much disruption in their lives, that it would have been a bit of a miracle had they not found themselves in trouble with the law. What is so important is that all who deal with such children are discovering that there is a need for them to be handled in a secure and intimate atmosphere, where it is possible to get behind the immediate situation that confronts us and understand where they come from and how they can be helped back into a productive role in society.

Any tendency to move still further away from secure homes of this kind is calamitous, not just because of the consequences for the children and the dangers of reoffending, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, but because it makes for economic nonsense. The Public Accounts Committee in the other place has estimated that the cost of offending by children is in the realm of £11 billion a year. That is an immense cost to society. We can get no satisfaction simply from punishing the young. We have to prevent them reoffending. If they are to stop reoffending, we have to get close to them in an environment that can ensure that they get back into a constructive role in society. The evidence is that in larger young offender institutions and other institutions of that kind this does not happen.

There is one other point that I must make, which is that as a society and state we ourselves have a responsibility for the children in our care. One of the most alarming and disturbing statistics that is seldom recognised on the scale that it should be is that, since 1990, 31 children have died in care in young offender institutions and secure establishments. Contrast that with the fact that there have been no deaths in secure children’s homes during that period. How is it that we can recognise that statistic yet move firmly in the opposite direction from the logical conclusion? On economic grounds and on humanitarian grounds—but very powerfully indeed on economic grounds—for any chance of being able to claim to be a civilised society in the treatment of our children, it is essential that we do the sensible thing. If we are going to strengthen anything in our penal system for the young it should be to strengthen, not diminish, the role of secure children’s homes.