Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Warner Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Warner]

20A: Schedule 1, page 16, line 23, leave out “Youth Justice Board for England and Wales.”

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I rise to move the amendment in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Elton. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds intended to add his name to the amendment but just missed the deadline for the Marshalled List. I am sure that the House will want to hear his views on this matter at a later stage.

Across the Benches Members of this House are saying that the Government are wrong to seek the abolition of the Youth Justice Board. The same position appertained in Committee, with no speaker supporting the Government and five former Ministers, including three from the coalition Benches, saying that the Government were wrong about this. I will not repeat all the arguments made in Committee other than to remind the House that a series of independent reviews have said that the Youth Justice Board has done a good job, with the PAC recently saying that there was no foundation to the Government’s case for abolition.

The nub of the Government’s argument is that the YJB has done its job and youth justice can be left to local youth offending teams and Ministry of Justice civil servants and Ministers. The five former Ministers made it clear in Committee that leaving this specialist programme delivery work to generalist civil servants who move from job to job carries no credibility in terms of good government. Depending on locally financed YOTs, unaided at this time of severe financial retrenchment, is a recipe for youth justice sinking once again to the bottom of the pile, in terms of priorities, which is why the Youth Justice Board was set up in the first place.

Since the Committee stage, four of us—the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and myself—had a meeting with the Minister and his colleague, Mr Crispin Blunt, who is responsible for youth justice matters. It would be a masterpiece of understatement to say that this was not a meeting of minds, despite the best endeavours of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who, throughout this sorry saga, has tried to retain a balanced and helpful stance. Particularly worrying has been the absence of any sensible ministerial response to the incisive questioning of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on why ministerial powers under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 for holding the YJB to account are insufficient for discharging ministerial responsibilities to Parliament and the public.

In Committee, I teased the noble Lord, Lord McNally, about falling into bad company. I have to say that the more I learn of the Government’s thinking on this issue, the more it seems not unlike the stories of Richmal Crompton in Just William and the Black Hand Gang. It is at about that level of intellectual competence. In Committee, several Members set out the YJB’s success in reducing reoffending and the entry of juveniles into the criminal justice system. Since then, new figures on reoffending have been placed in the public arena. They show a further reduction in the number of juvenile reoffenders by 0.4 per cent in one year between 2008 and 2009—a number that continued in that downward trajectory throughout 2009.

Alongside these achievements, the YJB has significantly cut the number of young people going into custody. The board’s abolition puts all this at risk. Given my considerable experience in this area, I say that the abolition of the YJB is likely to mean an increase in the number of young people being placed in custody unnecessarily—at great cost to the taxpayer and likely damage to young people.

The Government have totally failed to make the case for the abolition of the YJB and we should ask them to think again by passing the amendment. That is my overwhelming preference, and it is in the best interests of vulnerable young people and of the public purse. However, if it turns out that we are unable to achieve this, the second amendment in the group, Amendment 21B, becomes important, because it prevents the YJB’s functions disappearing into the maw of the Ministry of Justice and, probably in reality, into the maw of NOMS, without any clear focus on youth justice issues. Having a separate agency with two independent non-executives is better than any ministerial warm words, particularly when one realises that the Ministry of Justice has accepted this model for prisons and the Courts Service. We should retain the Youth Justice Board and its name should be removed from Schedule 1. I beg to move.

[The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)]

I have to inform the House that if the amendment is agreed, I cannot call Amendment 21B, by reason of pre-emption.

--- Later in debate ---

I am not sure that either eloquence or a peroration will work on this issue. I hope that I have met the points that were made and explained how people can come honestly to a different view. It is not—I hope that here the case for the prosecution has been dismissed—a callous act of vandalism by the Government. There is an honest difference of opinion in the House about how to build on the success of the past 10 years of the YJB. However, honest differences can exist in a framework of mutual respect, and I hope that that will remain. I certainly respect and appreciate the many contributions that have been made to this debate today.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I am grateful to everybody who has spoken in this debate. There have been many powerful speeches this afternoon, particularly from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. My experience of the utterances of the senior judiciary, whether serving or retired, is that they do not use words like sacrilegious and sacrilege lightly, so the Government would do well to reflect on what the noble and learned Lord said.

The Minister says that he wants to build on the work of the Youth Justice Board. If I thought that he was going to do a loft conversion I would not be too bothered about this, and I certainly would not have moved this amendment. However, he has sounded consistently like a man on the phone to the JCBs, and it is that which has caused great concern, however much tribute he gave to the work of the YJB in the past.

I do not think that we have learnt much more about the case that the Government can marshal on this decision to abolish the YJB. The Minister has been honest and straightforward about it but I emphasise that he and the Government will find that, if they abolish the board, the cost of custody and the cost to the system will rise substantially. I do not think that anyone who has spoken in favour of the amendment wants the Government to be under any misapprehension —that will happen if they get rid of the board and take the functions inside the ministry. It will not only cost the taxpayer more but will do a lot of damage to a generation of young people who get into the criminal justice system and who are both troublesome and very troubled. I have heard the arguments and I wish to test the opinion of the House.