Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Earl of Listowel]

12: Schedule 2, page 138, line 34, leave out paragraph (b)

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak also to the other amendments in my name in this group. Amendments 12 and 13 to Schedule 2, and Amendments 34 and 35 to Clause 37, seek to remove imprisonment as a sanction for children breaching their IPNAs or failing to comply with police dispersal orders respectively. Schedule 2 provides for supervision orders to be made against children breaching their IPNAs. This is adequate for dealing with children of all ages. There is no need to introduce detention as an additional sanction for over-14s. The case for why this is necessary has not been made. Will the Minister explain why this is seen by the Government as necessary?

Amendment 34 removes imprisonment as a sanction for children failing to comply with a police dispersal order. Amendment 35 sets out a range of alternative sanctions for such children. These measures aim to ensure that the discretion of the court is not fettered. I am grateful to the Minister for allowing us an opportunity to meet yesterday to discuss my concerns in this area. I will come to my final Amendment 86 in this group, which is on youth services, when I have discussed the other amendments.

There are two key reasons why imprisonment should not be available for children breaching their IPNA or failing to comply with a police dispersal order or power. First, imprisonment is expensive, ineffective and counterproductive. In 2010-11 the reoffending rate for children leaving custody was 72.6%. Youth custody is expensive. The average cost of a place at a secure training centre is £178,000 per annum. There is clear evidence to suggest that for many children, incarceration increases the risk of recidivism. Imprisoning children, even for a short period, can introduce them to criminal networks that become impossible to escape later.

I fear that we may be introducing more children to schools of crime and preparing them for later universities of crime. I have visited many young offender institutions and secure training centres. I visited Feltham young offender institution 13 or 15 years ago, and then visited it recently with a number of chief executives from London local authorities and the chair of the Youth Justice Board, Frances Done. It was striking how much things had changed in that time. Thanks to this Government, there are far fewer young people in custody, which is very much to be welcomed. Those young people who are left are very challenging, tough and difficult to work with. In the Bill, we are considering bringing in some young people—children—who have not even committed a crime to spend three months or so in detention with these very hard nuts. Do we really want to mix such children with such children?

From that visit to Feltham young offender institution, the concern of the chief executives of the local authorities in London about gang violence also became clear. We heard a transformation from my first visit to Feltham. No longer were two young people getting into a fight with one young person, but 13, 14 or 15 young men would be attacking one or two boys because they were not in the right gang. It was important for the secure estate to know from the local authorities which gangs their particular boys came from, so that they could manage the risks around that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am most grateful to all those who have spoken: the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Smith of Basildon, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris Haringey. I am grateful to the Minister for his careful reply, particularly for giving some detail about the training of the judiciary and other people in contact with young people in this regard. That is terribly important and a place where we fall down to some extent. Again, I encourage the Government to think about the use of mentors in this kind of training of professionals working around young people. It is so important to develop an understanding of young people in front-line police officers who work on a beat and regularly come into contact with such young people, and other workers. Allowing and supporting them to become mentors to a young person for a period of three to six months, and helping them to reflect on that and how it works, benefits them but also benefits the young person who often needs that kind of relationship.

The Minister made a number of other interesting and helpful points. I express some concern about the placements—the disposals, if you like—within the secure estate. Because of the Government’s success in reducing the number of young people in custody, a number of secure children’s homes have been shut down. I am not sure if the secure training centres have also shut—I think places in them have been reduced. The courts have less range and freedom in choosing disposals. Sometimes, they will simply be driven to choose what is available, even for a fairly vulnerable young person. One recalls the suicide of a young person who was recognised as being vulnerable but was sent to a secure training centre because there was no space available in a children’s home. Shortly after that, he hanged himself. That was about five years ago. There are difficult decisions to be made. This is an area we will have to agree to disagree on.

I was really pleased to hear that there will not be the detention of children under breach of dispersal orders, if I understood the Minister correctly. That is very good news. I will not keep the House any longer at this time. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 12 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

I therefore want to press the Minister for some guidance. Will he consider discussing with magistrates and district judges sitting in the youth court the need to consider a Section 39 order in each case where ASB proceedings are taking place? How will they ensure that the youth court considers whether to impose a Section 39 order in every case of a child involved in ASB proceedings? The guidance for front-line professionals accompanying the Bill should advise them to make a Section 39 application to the court when they believe that a child’s details should remain anonymous. Privacy for a child affects him or her not just at that moment but for the rest of their lives. It is something that we ought to take great care about removing. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support the right reverend Prelate. I was grateful to the Minister for the chance to discuss this matter yesterday, and I understood from what he said that he expected the courts to use naming and shaming to a very limited extent. That is comforting to some degree, but I worry about this, because many young people who will be drawn into this procedure are the sort with whom I am familiar from my parliamentary work with young people in or on the edge of care. The familial experience—the father often absent from the home, often violence in the home, often alcohol or other substance misuse in the home—has left many of them feeling deeply worthless and very guilty about themselves. We all know, I think, that when a young person sees a parent desert them, they do not think, “This is a very irresponsible adult”; they think, “What have I done to drive this person away from me?”. The risk is that, by the state coming along and publicising their name in the newspaper as a bad boy, they will think, “Yes, look, even the local newspaper thinks that I am useless, worthless, a bad boy and there is no good in me”. That is one area of concern for me.

The other is that when these young people grow up in a family where there is little love or attention and they are not listened to, sometimes, if they cannot get any fame, at least notoriety—their ability to be notorious—is something that they can chase after. If they will not be listened to in their home or anywhere else or given attention in school, at least if they cause a lot of aggravation they can see their photograph in the local newspaper. There are real reasons to be concerned about this. I am very grateful to the right reverend Prelate for tabling the amendment and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, in Committee, I tabled an amendment on the clause which was an attempt to suggest a compromise before we had even discussed it, because I knew that the Government would be keen to stick to the general approach. That amendment would have meant that the clause applied only to 17 and 18 year-olds.

As the right reverend Prelate said, the existing provisions are not absolute. I have some questions for the Minister arising from them. Given that there is currently discretion to allow reporting that is in the public interest, and given the public policy underlying the Bill, would that not be a strong indicator to the court on how to view the public interest test? Would not reversing it, so that the individual is named unless the court decides otherwise—apart from the consequences for the individual; I entirely take the points that have been made—mean additional process for the courts?

I suspect that there would have to be a pre-trial application for anonymity. If I am right, how does one ensure anonymity before that or in the listing of the application? The right reverend Prelate made the point that that would overturn the culture—in fact, the practice—of the youth court. It would be much easier for it to be able to continue with its current practice.

The existing provisions contain a lot of detail about lifting restrictions. Conversely, if one has reversed the presumption, what is the trigger for restriction to apply? What would be pointed to in an application to restrict reporting? Another question is whether any stakeholders have argued for the provision that we see in Clause 17.

Finally, what consideration have the Government given to how communications have changed, particularly with Twitter, which spreads information almost faster than a heartbeat and certainly before restrictions could be applied? Ironically, the law brought into effect in 1933 seems more appropriate for the age of speedy communications, where you start with restrictions and then consider whether to lift them. That would work much better for communications 80 years on.