Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I said everything I wished to say about secure colleges and the proposals when I spoke to the amendments in my name on Monday. However, I associate myself with the positive suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Cormack, backed up by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol and others, that, given the very serious difficulties that face the present proposals for the implementation of the clause, this might be an opportunity for the Government to consider withdrawing it and coming forward with something else.

I repeat that we all applaud the proposal to give young offenders in the prison estate more educational opportunity. We all share the view that young people in the prison estate are there often precisely because they have not had educational opportunities in the past. In a sense, it is not what is in the Bill—the provision that the Secretary of State may provide secure colleges—that we object to; secure colleges would be capable of having all the aims that were set out in our amendment, but would be provided in a very different way from that which is presently proposed. Our concern, which my noble friend now understands is shared across the House, is that the proposal for implementation by the single pathfinder college that is now envisaged runs counter to all the evidence on the future of our penal system for young offenders. For that reason, I suggest the Government may wish to reconsider the whole future of the secure college proposal.

[Lord Woolf (CB)]

My Lords, I am not as expert in the matters raised as many who have already spoken in this important debate, but I have one advantage, which is that I am fully instructed by the Prison Reform Trust. The second is that, at one stage, I had to make a report—known as the Strangeways report—into deep problems in our prison system. Certain general lessons were set out in that report, which I think I am right in saying all those who are knowledgeable in this area still regard as being the right recipe for positive progress. We have had great advantage in hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, based in turn on what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. I urge the Minister to take the very wise course that is being pressed upon him. We do not want to make a mistake of the sort that has been indicated could happen.

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[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a very useful and well informed debate. It continues the debates we had on Monday. I respectfully ask those in the Chamber at the moment to read the debate on Monday in which I gave a reply—I think for more than 20 minutes—in which I dealt with a considerable number of the points raised, although I did not purport to deal with all points. Indeed, I said on that occasion that I was proposing to write to sweep up any points that on examination of Hansard I had not dealt with adequately. I adhere to what I said then and will include any further points that have arisen out of the debate today.

What has emerged—as my noble friend Lord Cormack quite rightly said—is that we all have the same concern about providing the most helpful outcomes for troubled young people. It was also common ground that the focus on education is most welcome. What there is a lack of confidence in at the moment is whether the secure colleges can provide precisely what all of us in this House would wish to achieve for young offenders. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is quite right, of course, that many of those who find themselves in this situation come from troubled backgrounds. Many have been in care and present particular challenges for whatever establishment is going to have them when they are serving the sentence passed by the court.

The clause which is the subject of this stand part debate is the statutory framework for the creation of secure colleges so that the Government can trial a new approach to youth custody. Clause 29 provides the Secretary of State with the power to provide secure colleges, which is a new form of youth detention accommodation in England, and replaces the current Section 43 of the Prison Act 1952 with the new section. The current section gives the Secretary of State a power to provide young offender institutions, remand centres and secure training centres. As your Lordships will know, there are no remand centres in operation. The new Section 43 will additionally give the Secretary of State the power to provide secure colleges in England and Wales. Clause 29 introduces Schedule 5, which makes a number of amendments to other legislation to reflect the fact that secure colleges are being introduced.

I remind the Committee of the context for our proposed reform of the youth custodial estate. At present, we pay around £100,000 a year for a place in youth custody, and yet almost 70% of young people go on to reoffend within 12 months of release. In the case of secure children’s homes—the advantages of which were very much emphasised by those in debate on Monday—the cost rises beyond £200,000 a place, and yet the reoffending outcomes are no different.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

Does my noble friend accept that the comparison of costs for secure children’s homes with other institutions is perhaps a little unfair? It is the nature of secure children’s homes that they take the most difficult and troubled children, so the costs per year of a place in such institutions is necessarily considerably higher.

[Lord Faulks]

It is true, and I am going to come on to deal with that. The different establishments are there, in the view of the Youth Justice Board, to deal with the different challenges that the individuals present. My point is that secure children’s homes are no panacea. The starting point is that the overall rate of reoffending is simply not acceptable. That is why we are introducing secure colleges.

I entirely accept the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that the Government should be aware of the long-term cost as well as the short-term cost. Indeed, the whole purpose of secure colleges is that, with the benefit of proper education, the Government consider that there should be a cost-saving in the long term because of the accrued benefit for young people who go to secure colleges.

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[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 48B, as have my noble friends Lady Linklater and Lord Carlile of Berriew. We have also tabled Amendment 48F. However, the purposes of our amendment are identical to those of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, so I will be brief.

There are three purposes to this group of amendments. The first is to ensure the extension to electronic media of those provisions dealing with restrictions on reporting of offending by children—restrictions that in a previous era applied to newspapers and standard television broadcasts. The public electronic media should all be treated in the same way. The second purpose, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said, is to deal with pre-charge naming of children, which undermines the anonymity granted to them only later. Section 44 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 would deal with that but has not yet come into force. The purpose of the final subsection of the proposed new clause in Amendment 48B is to deal with that. The third point, as the noble Lord explained, is to amend Sections 39 and 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 to establish that anonymity given to children should last beyond their 18th birthday unless there is a substantial reason why the position should be changed. That would be subject to an order of the court. In those circumstances, I invite the Minister to accept these amendments and ask the Committee to do so, too.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, it would appear that in this area, as in others, we are short of information about the number of cases in which young offenders are named. There does not appear to be a dataset indicating how many of these young people are being named and, apparently, has there been no research of any great depth on the impact of being named on such young offenders or their families—as my noble friend pointed out, particularly in relation to their siblings.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as long ago as 1989, stated that as well as the right to privacy, “best interests” of the child should always,

“be the primary concern in making decisions that may affect them”.

It is striking that, although it is a matter for the courts whether the child should be identified, the applications tend to be made by the media on the grounds of public interest. The capacity of the media to identify their interests with the public interest is of course unlimited, but in this rather sensitive area it might be thought that the principles of the convention should be taken a great deal more seriously. Some of the ways in which the media have portrayed young offenders, complete with photographs—my noble friend mentioned a case where a child’s photograph was prominently displayed—and emotive language such as how “young thugs” should be dealt with, are not conducive to meeting the requirements of the convention, which we should all respect.

I understand that the Government are looking at the existing law on reporting restrictions and had indicated that they would be coming to a conclusion some time this year. They may not have done so, but I do not know whether the Minister is in a position to indicate when that review might be completed. It would be helpful to the House to know when that might occur. In fact, the Government—I should, in fairness, say successive Governments—have not responded to the UN committee’s report, which is dated as long ago as 2008. In addition to the general principle to which I referred, that report made the strong point that respecting privacy should extend especially to avoiding messages that expose the child to shame and are against their best interests.

This is potentially quite a serious issue. From my experience as a councillor and, indeed, as chairman of the social services committee in Newcastle in the 1970s, I recall very well the famous case of Mary Bell, who was a young child when she committed offences that became notorious. Rather like the subsequent Bulger case—or rather, those who were guilty of killing Jamie Bulger—she became exposed to a great deal of publicity. That made assimilation into adult life extremely difficult for her, as it has for other defendants, it would appear, including those in the Bulger case. This is a very sensitive area in which we need a clear position from the Government in terms of a response not only to the amendment but perhaps more importantly to the UN convention requirements of as long ago as 2008.

Of course, there may be public interest in knowing what is happening, but a public interest in knowing does not necessarily amount to a matter of public interest. The two terms become confused. I hope that that is not the position that the Government ultimately end up with. There are clearly issues here that can have a long-term impact on young offenders. I entirely take the Minister’s point: the whole point of dealing with these young offenders is to ensure they do not offend again and can assume their place in society. We should not facilitate making that any more difficult by permitting disclosure when it is not necessary. I hope that the Government will look sympathetically at the amendment moved by my noble friend and respond to the long outstanding report and recommendations of the UN convention.

None of us would say that people—even young people—who commit serious crimes should not be punished or go through the processes that the law prescribes. They should not, however, be subjected to public obloquy in addition to that. It is rather disconcerting that, at the time of the riots in London a few years ago, the Home Secretary seemed keen to publicise the identity of some of those, particularly young people, who were involved in criminal and quite disgraceful behaviour. I think that many of us would feel that, in that sort of case and for that sort of young offender, publicity might be regarded as almost a badge of honour and is therefore not to be encouraged from any perspective. I hope that that situation will not recur. In the mean time, we have a number of offenders, some of whom are involved in very serious offences, whose anonymity has been done away with in a way that cannot be conducive to helping them to reform and to assume a normal place in society.