Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Sater Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and welcome him to this House. I will address my remarks to youth matters, and I declare my interests as set out in the register.

I very much welcome the Bill’s important extension of the position of trust to sports coaches, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, spoke passionately. I thank my noble friend the Minister for also bringing forward measures to finally enable over 80,000 deaf people across England and Wales to have the opportunity to participate in jury service. Disability should not be a barrier to anyone carrying out such an important civic duty.

I briefly share some concerns regarding the proposal to extend the use of video-linking, already mentioned by other noble Lords. During the pandemic, we have seen the benefits of remote participation in proceedings via live video or audio link. However, research by the Alliance for Youth Justice suggests that this can hamper the effectiveness of participation in court proceedings by children and can impact negatively on justice outcomes. There is little reference in the Bill to the youth court, or to provision for the welfare of the child with regard to the expansion of video-linking. I would therefore be most grateful to hear from my noble friend the Minister how she can help address these concerns and whether she would consider ensuring that the default position for children should always be that they never appear via video link for non-administrative hearings.

I also take this opportunity to bring to the attention of my noble friend the Minister the concerns around sentencing options for first-time offenders coming into the youth court. Magistrates in a youth court have only two sentencing options available to them for first-time offenders who plead guilty: a referral order or a detention and training order, for a minimum of four months. However, if a young defendant pleads not guilty and is found guilty, the options for magistrates widen and they can also give youth rehabilitation orders.

How can it be right that a defendant who has never previously been before a court and who pleads guilty—an act for which they would get credit in the adult court—can receive only a custodial sentence, in the form of a DTO, when a defendant who does not hold their hands up but is subsequently found guilty can be handed a non-custodial community sentence? Under these rules, the principle of welfare and rehabilitation that should be at the forefront of the youth court is lost, potentially creating more short-term custodial sentences and exposing hitherto non-offending young people to serious criminals in custody. This cannot be the answer.

I have spoken before in this place about my concerns that young people who commit an offence as a child but, through no fault of their own, are not brought to court before their 18th birthday are treated as adults in an adult court. Those defendants who get to court before their 18th birthday go to the youth court, where they benefit from the specialisation and expertise of the youth court, its practitioners and its focus on the defendant’s needs and welfare. This should not be a postcode lottery, but can be due to the multiple issues, including court scheduling, that can affect which court you end up in and, therefore, how you are dealt with. Reforming the system so that all defendants are dealt with at the age and time of the alleged offence would mean that youth justice principles would be followed. It would give all defendants the same opportunity and fairness of access to specialist youth services, which are designed to reduce reoffending.

It is widely acknowledged that, when given all opportunities and support to change their behaviour, many young people do so. I therefore ask my noble friend the Minister to consider these two extraordinary sentencing anomalies, and perhaps also to consider undertaking a wider youth sentencing review in the future.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Sater Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 17th November 2021 Lords Chamber

But the central point of this group is to lower the age of criminal responsibility. The Government should be in no doubt that we will vote on this on Report if the case for change is not accepted by the Government. Gone is the time for review, although I note and accept the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, on what has to be dealt with when the change is made. But the evidence is in the public domain. It is clear; it is all one way. We need no review; now what we need is change, and we should do all we can to shame the other place into accepting the need for change by accepting an amendment passed by this House.

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to Amendment 221B in my name, which is a probing amendment on the need for a review of youth sentencing. I would also like to refer to my interests as set out in the register.

I appreciate that this is a very extensive Bill, and as a former member of the Youth Justice Board and a youth magistrate I note that there has been little reference to the youth courts. It would be a real opportunity lost not to commit to undertake a review of youth sentencing, especially with the ever-evolving criminal justice landscape.

As I mentioned on Second Reading, I have several concerns relating to youth sentencing, and one in particular that I would like to refer to today, which is the unfairness in the treatment of the jurisdiction of young offenders under 18 years of age with regard to the dates of the offence and their first court appearance. Simply put, young people who commit an offence as a child but are then not brought to court before their 18th birthday through no fault of their own are treated as adults in the adult courts. However, defendants who do not get to court before their 18th birthday will go to the youth court where they will benefit from all the specialisation and expertise of the youth court, the youth court practitioners and the youth court’s specific focus on the defendant’s needs and welfare.

It should not be a postcode lottery of where you live due to multiple issues, including court scheduling, that can affect which court you end up in and therefore how you are dealt with. Reforming this now is important, so that defendants are instead dealt with according to their age at the time of the alleged offence, which would mean that youth justice principles would be followed and all defendants would be given the same opportunity and fairness in having access to the youth court services and the support that is so needed to reduce reoffending. We know that the adult court cannot offer the same specialist support as the youth court.

In February, the MP for Aylesbury, Rob Butler, introduced a 10-minute rule Bill on this issue in the other place, where he outlined how his proposals garnered a wide range of support, not only cross-party support but support from key stakeholders and organisations including the YJB, the National Association for Youth Justice and the Magistrates’ Association. There seems to be no common sense or fairness that these young people are treated so differently.

The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown up challenges and, in turn, some positive innovation in youth justice. At the same time, there remain outstanding anomalies in youth sentencing that pre-date the pandemic; I have spoken about some of those issues before in this place, and again today. All taken together, surely now is the right time to commit to a wide-ranging review and for the Government to bring forward a report. In doing so, not only can we address and meet future challenges, and keep under review the innovation we have seen, such as the use of video linking, to ensure that it results in the intended outcomes; importantly, we can also help to address the historical anomalies in the system that existed well before Covid-19.

I look forward to hearing from my noble friend the Minister and hope that he will consider this review, which I hope will help to deliver and improve outcomes in youth justice.

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

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness for speaking before her; I did not realise that she wanted to speak. I also apologise for erroneously referring to her as the noble Lord, Lord Sater.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I appreciate that there is a range of ages across Europe. We are at 10; some are at 12; some are at 14; some are at other ages. I have sought to set out why we believe that 10 is the correct age, given the way that our criminal justice system deals with children. I appreciate that what I have said will not have persuaded the noble and learned Baroness, but it is not simply a question of looking at the age but at how the criminal justice system as a whole responds to very young offenders.

As far as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is concerned, Her Majesty’s Government believe that we are in compliance with our international obligations. Indeed, as the noble and learned Baroness will know, that convention was the subject of a recent Supreme Court decision on the different ways in which England—or to be more precise, the UK—and Scotland, which wants to incorporate it into domestic legislation, have applied that convention.

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for his response. On the jurisdiction of under-18 year-olds, it does not address the fact that they will not get all the wraparound services and support from the youth court and youth practitioners. Furthermore, if they go to the adult court, they will still not get a referral.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for the question, and for taking the time to discuss it with me in the past. Because the offender is 18 at the time of the case and of the sentence, the system has to respond to the fact that they are now adult. It may well be, in some cases, inappropriate to lump that adult in with children. Some sentences and responses that the youth court can give to children would be inappropriate for someone who is now an adult of 18. I suggest that the fact that the court starts with the sentence that would have been appropriate at the time of the offence, and then takes into account all other relevant factors, means that we deal with these cases suitably, bearing in mind the time gap before sentencing during which the offender has reached legal maturity.