Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, as someone who has put her name to amendment after amendment on this issue of why on earth we did not include women in a Bill on crime and courts, I hope that the Government will do something about it. The Corston report is totally brilliant. We have all agreed that. It set out the areas that needed attention and not just that: we all know that there were many reports before it. It is not just a question of five years, but of report after report making special recommendations about the needs of women offenders. We all know the degree of mental health problems and sexual and other forms of abuse that these women have had over the years. Equally, we know of the terrible damage to children when families are broken up and children taken into care.

Returning to what my noble friend said about young offenders, I was looking at a report by the probation inspectorate. Ofsted and, I think, Estyn did a sample looking at the support that these young people had. Many of them have, no doubt, come from homes such as this, and have been in care for goodness knows how long. More than a third of these children examined by the inspectorate were placed more than 100 miles from home, and a lot of them were found in situations where they were almost next door to offenders. One was found having sex with a 15 year-old boy in a children’s home. It is not exactly a pretty picture.

Although we did not manage to reach these amendments on the days that we were promised they would be reached, and therefore could not vote on them and cannot vote on them now, will the Government please think very hard about making these changes? I have waited a long time this afternoon and have not taken up time on other amendments. We should not wait just because we have a brilliant Minister; I am sure that she is brilliant. Above all, I hope that we can now ensure that mention is made in the Bill of the needs of women, who are a very important group.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I hope I will be forgiven if I contribute briefly to this debate because I have taken little part in it hitherto. However, I cannot resist rising to speak strongly in favour of Amendment 10.

I started my life in the legal profession traipsing around the magistrates’ courts of eastern England. For several years, I said to myself at the end of every day that there but for the grace of God would I have gone. We are an extraordinary race. We are so intelligent and forward-thinking in many ways, yet when it comes to penal affairs, we have an extraordinary ability to fail to see our own best interests. Today, we would all agree that community life is at a low ebb, and the weaker that the communities of this country are, the greater the likelihood of certain groups of young adults casting themselves adrift and offending against the mores of society, which, unfortunately, they often do.

We are in a society obsessed with money, celebrity and sex. There is a group of young men and women who think nothing of themselves and are thought nothing of. They have succeeded at nothing and failed at everything. Educationally, they are a failure. They have little prospects, little ambition, little self-esteem and no respect. It is this group who Amendment 10 seeks to help. Again and again, we allow our distaste for the behaviour of many of these young people to stand in the way of intelligent redress. It is in our self-interest to ensure that this amendment, or something like it, is passed and that Governments of all persuasions are required to do something specific about it. It is for those reasons that I strongly support Amendment 10.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, as we have heard, many of these women will, as children, have been abused in their own homes. A disproportionate number will have then entered the care system, and a disproportionate number of those will then have their children taken into care. A disproportionate number of the young people we have been discussing will have been abused in their homes when they were children and will have been taken into the care system. Although there have been improvements in that system, many will have experienced multiple foster placements—as many as 30, and some more than 30. They will often have experienced many changes in social worker.

I commend these amendments to the Government and I particularly commend the words of my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham when he said that what these young people need is a long-term, enduring and reliable relationship with a responsible adult. Again and again, reports into the care system identify that continuity and reliability is the key to improving outcomes for these young people. I hope that the Minister can give some encouraging response to these amendments, as I am sure that he will.