Children: Secure Children’s Homes

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater of Butterstone, for this opportunity to discuss the impact of budget caps on the work of secure children homes in reducing children's reoffending rates. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Shackleton, on her excellent maiden speech, which I found personally moving. I am sure that we shall hear a lot more from her in future. The noble Baroness made a strong case for not closing secure children's homes. From my experience as a juvenile court chairman in inner London for 20 years, they have clearly retained their reputation of providing the best service for those children, for whom that kind of placement was essential.

I want to address how, by spending more resources at an earlier stage of those children's lives, there would be less need for the state to be locking up children. Keith Joseph's speech in 1978 on the cycle of deprivation was made more than 30 years ago, and still we have a pattern of families where we know, or strongly suspect, that early intervention, support and mentoring may have prevented the pattern of offending that is so grossly expensive in both financial and personal ability terms. It is certainly good news that the number of juveniles offending who have been imprisoned has dropped overall, but there are also counterproductive aspects to these statistics, if the result is that young people who are given custodial sentences are imprisoned so far away from their families that any form of effective family therapy is virtually impossible.

There are other concerning aspects too, some of which have been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, showing that the percentage of black and minority-ethnic youngsters is rising and that the proportion of young men imprisoned for the first time is up by over one-third. Another worrying aspect is the number of imprisoned juveniles—one-third of boys and one-fifth of girls—who have reported that they felt unsafe at some point. Indeed we have just heard cited by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, the appalling statistic which I will not repeat, but which I was going to use. The Youth Justice Board spends £268.9 million a year incarcerating children, which is 69 per cent of its spending. If you add to that that the estimated total costs to the UK’s economy of offending by children could be as much as £11 billion a year, there must be a case to be made for spending citizens’ money more productively.

The one obvious thing that we have not done, and still have no plan to do, is to keep records of just how far back in generation terms the pattern of criminal behaviour began in such families. It is almost as if as a nation we are too nervous of the results to do the necessary research. There is some research in existence showing that a staggering 63 per cent of boys with a convicted parent go on to offend and that children of prisoners are three times more likely to show delinquent behaviour. Surely the time has come to provide adequate research funding to ensure that these figures are available—and backward looking—in the future so that a sensible package of family support can be a first step.

Thankfully, all political parties have now accepted Frank Field’s and Graham Allen’s principle of early intervention as a necessary educational starting point and one which will save money in the long run, whether it is used for assessing and providing the support needs of children with SEN, who would otherwise fall behind their academic attainment level, or for deciding what support is needed for children from deprived or inadequate backgrounds. Funds for the necessary research to provide evidence of success rates among youngsters who have benefited from this kind of early intervention and support will also be essential. My own belief is that the sums saved will be considerable.

However, that should not of course mean that help and support for those who have ended up being imprisoned should be abandoned as if they were hopeless cases. Again, there are savings—financial and personal—that can be made, and why not follow up the idea suggested a year or two ago of setting up a young offender academy as part of the resources for this age group? The Government’s plans for more job training and actual work in prisons will be an important step in the right direction, but so, too, will be the need for help and support in finding a job and accommodation for those who have no families, particularly when they have served their sentence and need to settle back into the real world. This is another area where not nearly enough support is currently given.

On that note I shall end, as we are all much looking forward to hearing what the Minister will say in reply to this fascinating debate.