Youth Justice

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for championing these issues. I hope that she sees an indication of what she seeks from the fact that two Ministers are working hand in hand and sitting on the interministerial group to direct this activity. There is more to do on education in the youth custody context and more to do on neurodiversity and its prevalence among this cohort of young people. We have to extend that work into communities and join up better with local child and adolescent mental health services as well.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I ask the Justice Secretary to explain a bit more about the intensive community placements to which he made brief reference? Can I put to him a particularly challenging scenario? Imagine that we have, say, a single parent—a single mum—who is very much afraid of her own adolescent child. She is aware that that child has been getting machetes and other violent accessories through internet-related delivery services. Let us imagine that she does what she is supposed to do, and what we would all think she ought to do, which is to report the child. Given that no offence has yet been committed by the child, what protection will be offered to her against potentially lethal violence from her own adolescent son?

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Member raises a very serious issue, and it lies at the heart of what we are discussing, because we are seeing young people, particularly this prolific cohort, becoming addicted—often addicted online and often groomed—and this is where the knives and, sadly, the terrorism come in. This is not a stand-alone policy; the work of Prevent, the police and social services matters. Here we have to do better to join up that work, and that is the signal we got following the Fulford inquiry into what happened in Southport. This is an attempt to move directly in that direction, recognising that we are seeing that addictive behaviour in a cohort of young people, and that they are often neurodiverse. We need to support parents to get this right, and an intensive supervision court can make a real difference and put a judge right at the centre of that ring.