Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Bach Excerpts

Friday 21st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, on achieving this Second Reading. I greatly admire his persistence in championing this Bill. He has shown huge patience, enormous restraint and, above all, a formidable strength of will to keep going with this legislation, which will for ever have his name marked on it. His reputation in this field goes before him. His work for NACRO and his work in this House on this important subject are widely known. For that and other reasons, the House is absolutely delighted that he recently received the honour of entering the Privy Council. This side of the House congratulates him very warmly on that achievement.

We have heard three wonderful maiden speeches, which formed an extremely impressive trio. I do not know whether three maiden speakers have ever sat side by side in the Chamber. They make an extraordinarily formidable combination. I do not wish to go into great detail but I was impressed by the fact that all three maiden speakers in their different ways demonstrated a huge passion for rehabilitation and breaking the offending cycle, and that they have all, in their separate ways, done a great deal in this field, not just spoken about it. The House enjoyed all the speeches very much indeed and looks forward greatly to their further contributions not just on this subject but on others, too.

However, we should not forget the more experienced speakers who have spoken in this debate who have shown their experience and expertise in this subject. It is a subject in which this House is particularly interested—I say that in the broadest sense. Sometimes that can be slightly uncomfortable for a Minister, to put it mildly, although perhaps not today. However, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, indicates that that is the case today as well. Speaking from personal experience, I can say that a Minister can feel uncomfortable in these debates. However, that does not take away from the fact that this House is extremely knowledgeable and takes this subject extremely seriously.

On this side, we welcome the fact that the noble Lord is reintroducing this Bill, and are, of course, happy to support its Second Reading. At a later stage—I think that that the noble Lord will thank us for this, rather than criticise us—there may be technical details that we will want to look into, as obviously the House will want to, to get the Bill right. One matter that was referred to the last time there was a Second Reading on this was the position with regard to Scotland. The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, will remember that the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is a devolved issue. However, I am sure that, like us, he believes that it is desirable to have similar schemes on both sides of the border. I look forward to hearing, perhaps not today, about the work the noble Lord has done on having a dialogue with Scotland on this issue.

I can be fairly brief. The rehabilitation of offenders is a subject of immense importance for our society. We were rightly warned by my noble friend Lord Judd that rehabilitation properly done is very expensive indeed. That has to be appreciated by Governments. It is not enough for them to say they are in favour of rehabilitation; they actually have to be prepared to put the money aside in order to see it through.

In our time in government, we did much to encourage rehabilitation in a number of ways. However, we also placed, as do the present Government, great emphasis on victims of crime. I want to comment on the linking of these two. For a long time, not enough had been done for victims of crime, and we make no apologies for the concentration that we placed on them. Part of protecting victims and potential victims is reducing the rate of crime, a reduction which I am delighted to say, from figures published yesterday, seems to be continuing. Secondly, it is of course important to stop people committing their first offence. Thirdly—this is where we come to the Bill—it is also particularly important that people who have committed previous offences have an opportunity of rehabilitating themselves without any more difficulty than the mere fact that they have had a custodial sentence or serious conviction. We believe that if you can successfully rehabilitate offenders, you are protecting potential victims of crime. That is how these two issues are linked.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. I promise him that there will not be a whole catalogue of questions for him to answer. The main question that the House really wants answered is: what do the Government intend to do with the Bill? Will they take it over and produce a government Bill, or make it part of a government Bill? Or will they give time to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, in order that the Bill can complete its stages in this House and then pass on to another place? The other question is this: the debate has rightly been very much centred on young offenders, and stress has been placed on what we can do about them. How can the proposed abolition of the Youth Justice Board possibly fit in with the Government’s clearly stated concern about rehabilitating young offenders and keeping them away from offending? The House deserves an answer. The Minister will know that there is a lot of concern around the House about the proposed abolition of the Youth Justice Board.

In conclusion, from this side of the House, we support the Bill in principle. We will do our very best to improve it, if it needs improvement. I congratulate the noble Lord once again. He can tell that there is widespread support for his Bill in this House and we thank him for moving the Second Reading.