Age of Criminal Responsibility Bill [HL]

Lord McNally Excerpts

Friday 29th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, it is always an enormous pleasure to listen to and follow the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on any subject linked to the welfare of the child, not simply because he keeps a close interest in these matters but because, when he speaks to the House, he speaks from direct experience of talking to children and those who work with children, who give us a message of the reality at the sharp end of this. We are always in his debt for these contributions. Likewise, as I have put on record before, I am grateful to my mentor, my noble friend Lord Dholakia—I was going to say “old mentor”, but he gets sensitive about the term “old”—who, over 20 years or so, has been a constant prod to me on reforming the criminal justice system.

As is on the register, I am the chairman of the Youth Justice Board, but I am not speaking today in that capacity.

Another thanks must go to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, because what he said feeds into what I want to say, on his proposal to move the age of criminal responsibility into a wider context. If we are going to have a rational debate about that, we have got to put it in a wider context.

It is interesting that when we had the debate earlier today about drink-driving, the Minister was urged to look at Scotland as an example. Next month, the Scottish Government will receive the report of an advisory panel on raising the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland. That is something that Ministers, and all in this House who are interested in the matter, will be very keen to read. The Scots have gone for a slightly hybrid model so far; they have kept the age of criminal responsibility at eight, but no child can be brought before a court until the age of 12. The advisory panel has been looking at that and the suspicion is that it will advise a common age for both, but we will have to wait and see.

As my noble friend Lord Dholakia indicated, the long shadow of James Bulger’s murder on 12 February 1993 lies across any debate about the age of criminal responsibility. When I was appointed chair of the Youth Justice Board 18 months ago, I was interviewed by the magazine Children & Young People Now about how I saw the job, and I was asked what I thought about the age of criminal responsibility. I said that I was aware that the Scots were looking into the matter and thinking of raising it to 12 and that we could do likewise. The next day, a national newspaper rang James Bulger’s mother to ask her what she thought about changing the law so that James’s killers would have “got away with it”. It was a monstrous crime, but I think it intimidates proper debate about the age of criminal responsibility. The two boys who killed James would not have got away with it. However, the full trial, which began in Preston Crown Court on 1 November 1993, would not have been conducted as an adult trial, as it was, with the accused in the dock away from their parents and the judge and court officials in legal regalia.

I am well aware that since that time changes have been made to make trials involving young persons more child friendly. However, I spoke to a senior judge who visited Preston Crown Court recently and he told me that it had not changed in appearance since 1993. It remains virtually unchanged and, as he said, it is almost unbelievable that two 10 year-olds should face trial in such a place and in such a way. I know that it is Mrs Bulger who has received the life sentence, and I do not sympathise with the perpetrators at her expense, but much has happened in the past 20 years which has increased our understanding of crimes committed by children and our responses to it, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, so eloquently explained.

The Youth Justice Board was set up in 2000 following the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which in itself followed the ground-breaking report of 1996, Misspent Youth, to address the specific challenges of offending by under-18s—children in the eyes of our law. The clear statutory aim of the YJB was to prevent offending by young people. For that reason, the continuing fall in the number of children entering into the justice system—statistics yesterday show another 9% fall last year—and the secure estate, which, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, is now down to about 1,000, only 50 of them girls, all points to the right direction of travel under successive Governments.

These outcomes are not the result of the work of the Youth Justice Board alone but the work of many hands. It is still work in progress, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred to the very high reoffending rate of those who have been in the secure estate. Progress certainly owes much to the work of the holistic, locally-based, cross-disciplinary approach of the youth offending teams, which the Youth Justice Board established. It also owes much to the police “buy in” at national and local level of programmes and protocols aimed at diverting young people from crime and the criminal justice system. The liaison and diversion services championed by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, in his ground-breaking report mean that mental health needs are detected and dealt with sooner.

The Magistrates’ Association has shown vigour in looking at how best youth courts can adapt, and Mr Gove has recently expressed his interest in problem-solving courts. The Government’s Troubled Families initiative moves action upstream to tackle the multifaceted dysfunctionalities which are often the precursor of criminal behaviour, again as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, explained.

Work by the Disabilities Trust Foundation at the Keppel unit at YOI Wetherby has shown the benefit of identifying and treating brain injury among young offenders. Research by University College London, among others, has shown that the brain evolves and matures over a long period after the age of 10. That is why, as we have heard, most European countries have ages of criminal responsibility higher than ours. Most continental jurisdictions espouse a welfare approach to offences by the young. Over the past 20 years, a lot of the undercurrent of the approach to youth justice in England and Wales has been, as I have illustrated, to use welfare rather than criminal sanctions in dealing with young offenders. I was pleased that during my time in government the Transforming Youth Custody initiative was taken forward to double to 30 the number of hours of education. It is significant that Mr Gove has asked an educationalist, Mr Charlie Taylor, to conduct an inquiry for him into youth justice services. I put on record my appreciation for the thorough and comprehensive way in which Mr Taylor has carried out his inquiry. I have already discovered that youth justice is a field well populated with strong opinions, but I do not think anyone will be able to say that they have not been able to bend his ear by the time his report is published.

On the eve of this debate, I came across a report by Dr Di Hart, working through a Churchill Fellowship award and supported by the Prison Reform Trust, entitled Correction or Care? The Use of Custody for Children in Trouble. I intend to invite Dr Hart to the House to present her report more fully. I shall briefly run through her recommendations, because they tie into the wider debate on welfare or punishment in our criminal justice system, which I think Mr Gove is ideally positioned to undertake because of the confidence that he has won in all areas. The recommendations in the report include:

“Reconsider the separation of justice, welfare (and psychiatric?) placement models … Develop a shared understanding of the best model for meeting children’s needs … Regional commissioning … Pilot a new model of residential care”—

something that I think has a certain urgency to it—

“Develop a shared data set to measure experiences and outcomes … Establish an expert panel to advise on good practice … Maintain the involvement of sentencers in tracking children’s progress”,

which is something that I know the Magistrates’ Association is interested in taking forward.

This debate is taking place in that wider context. I think that we are moving towards a system of looking after young people and children, in particular the very young, from the age of 10 upwards, in a more welfare-based way, precisely because of the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. The present system does not work; reoffending is far too high, and it is expensive. Even the most hardened “lock ’em up and throw away the key” people have to concede that we are wasting public money. A new, broader look at the context of this may achieve a national consensus, but we need to do it in a rational manner in the light of research, of experiences in other countries, of advances in medical and other scientific understanding, and of other changes recommended when the Taylor report is produced. This Bill is before us at an opportune moment, and I commend it to the House.