Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

107: Clause 32, page 30, line 42, at end insert—
“(d) secure children’s homes.”

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, this amendment is an appetiser for the main course that awaits us in the form of secure colleges, about which we will hear a good deal.

Secure children’s homes care for some of the most damaged children, necessitating intensive and, it has to be said, expensive care. The numbers have been reduced in recent years. There are now 138 places in secure children’s homes. In Committee, I suggested adding them to the facilities that might be provided by the Secretary of State alongside existing young offender institutions and secure training colleges and the secure colleges that the Bill seeks to establish.

In his reply, the Minister explained the failure to include secure children’s homes, on the list, on the basis that local authorities had the power to provide such homes, and the Secretary of State does not and never has had that power. He went on to say that it is for local authorities to provide sufficient places as are required in secure children’s homes, and we think it right that they retain responsibility for this.

However, the amendment does not require the Secretary of State to provide secure children’s homes; it gives him the power to do so. In any event, it is surely desirable that such provision is seen as part of a range of different facilities. Given the pressure on local authority budgets and the concerns that secure colleges, if they are to be included under this legislation, might reduce the demand for such places, it is surely reasonable for the Secretary of State to have some involvement—potential, if not immediately actual—with this part of what should be seen as essentially one service aimed at providing for these children of varying degrees of vulnerability and difficulty, albeit in different ways.

I hope the noble Lord will acknowledge that this is meant to be a constructive amendment, which does not impose a duty but opens up the possibility of having a whole-system approach to this group of young people. I beg to move.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a short debate about the place of secure children’s homes in the youth custodial estate. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, it is something of an appetiser for what I know is to come during the course of this afternoon and evening.

I recognise on behalf of the Government that much good work is done in secure children’s homes, and that they often accommodate some of the most vulnerable young people in custody. The Government are clear that we will continue to provide separate specialist accommodation for those who need it. We have also made clear that, while we believe the secure college model could cater for the majority of young people in custody—that is, a secure college rather than a secure children’s home—it will not be suitable for 10 and 11 year-olds or for some young people with the most acute needs or vulnerability.

This year, we have demonstrated our commitment by continuing to provide places in secure children’s homes by entering new contracts with nine homes to provide 138 places. I know that many noble Lords will have observed the decline in the number of places in secure children’s homes that the Government contract, but that, as was acknowledged on Monday in your Lordships’ House, reflects a substantial and welcome reduction in the number of young people in custody overall in recent years.

The current arrangement is that the Secretary of State may provide places in young offender institutions and secure training centres; the Bill seeks to give him the power also to provide secure colleges. In addition, he has the ability to enter into contracts for the provision of youth detention accommodation in secure children’s homes. Amendment 107 would change this by giving the Secretary of State the power to provide secure children’s homes directly. The power to provide these homes rests with local authorities, not the Secretary of State, and we think it right that this should remain the position. Secure children’s homes are created by different legislation with the purpose of ensuring that there is provision for children whose welfare needs are so acute that a court decides they must be accommodated securely. Meeting the needs of this particular group of children is the important distinction between secure children’s homes and other forms of custodial provision.

The Secretary of State has a duty to ensure that there are sufficient places in youth detention accommodation for young people remanded in or sentenced to custody, and in discharging this duty he continues to contract places in secure children’s homes for those young people who require them. We think that that is the right arrangement, rather than the Secretary of State providing secure children’s homes, which are intended to serve a greater purpose than simply accommodating convicted or remanded young people.

I recognise the concern about the future of secure children’s homes and we will no doubt come back to that when we consider the substantial group of amendments that follows this debate. The Government are clear that there continues to be a place for them in the youth custodial estate, but we consider that the position is adequately catered for by the current arrangements. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will be prepared to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, as I hinted when moving the amendment, I shall not divide the House on this issue. However, the Minister overlooks a key element in the case that I put, which is that local authority budgets are extremely hard pressed and it will be increasingly difficult for them to sustain the level of investment needed in this provision. Having said that, I shall not press the amendment, but I invite the Government, or perhaps the Minister, to talk to the Department for Education and the Department for Communities and Local Government about the financial implications of continuing provision in, I think, only nine local authority areas now, for which funding is under great pressure. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 107 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment contains two aspects which cause concern. One is the use of force—a matter of grave concern when dealing with young offenders—and the other is secure colleges, a new idea from the Government that fills us with despair and gloom.

This is one of the most sensitive and difficult areas of all offender management. The secure college rules sanction the use of “reasonable force” in three circumstances, and proposes a fourth. These are: to prevent injury to the young person or others; to prevent escape from custody; to prevent damage to property; and, lastly and worryingly, to maintain good order and discipline—otherwise known as GOAD.

Noble Lords have listed their own versions of such circumstances, including the last resort of,

“maintaining a safe and stable environment”.—[Official Report, 21/07/14; col.1046]

A comprehensive list was given by my noble friend Lord Marks, with such conditions as minimum force, minimum duration, minimum necessary and no techniques involving pain. All are agreed that force must not be used as a punishment, although it will most likely feel and seem a punishment to any young person who has the misfortune to experience it. It is highly undesirable and unjustifiable in almost every imaginable case that young people should experience this.

The acid test of really good management of young people who are characterised as being among the most damaged, the most difficult and often the most disturbed in their age group is that situations should not be allowed to reach such a point where force becomes an issue at all. Adolescent units in psychiatric hospitals present parallel situations, just as they often do in secure prisons, and control depends on very skilled management by well trained professionals. I have seen such examples in both situations—in prisons and in hospitals—where professionals do not need to have recourse to restraint because violent situations are anticipated and pre-empted. Once the possibility of force is accepted, it will be used.

The GOAD sanction seems the most concerning, partly because of the type of language used, including what is described as MMPR—managing and minimising physical restraint according to approved restraint techniques. GOAD—good order and discipline—is much broader, open to subjective interpretation and likely to be most widely used for that very reason. It is extremely worrying.

We do know that the JCHR recommended that only the first three circumstances of the college rules should apply, and that good order and discipline should not be included. It said categorically that secure children’s homes do not use force to maintain a safe and secure environment, and they have the same clientele. However, the MoJ has announced that it intends to allow the use of “reasonable force” to,

“maintain good order and discipline”—

which begs the question, of course, of what is “reasonable” where a young person is perceived to be posing a risk to,

“maintaining a safe and stable environment”.

The criteria are going to be so important.

Also, the MoJ does not consider it “necessary or appropriate” to set out in the Bill the circumstances in which custody officers are authorised to use force in secure colleges, and states categorically that,

“the Bill is clear ... a custody officer must be permitted by the rules to use force”.

This must be clarified further if the Government are to have some idea of the sort of regime they are sanctioning and for there to be confidence and trust in how these difficult and vulnerable children are being managed.

The JCHR’s most recent report on the Bill concluded that:

“We are concerned by the vagueness of the Government’s references to ‘maintaining a stable environment’ and protecting the ‘welfare’ of the child and others as permissible justifications for the use of force. The law is clear that the use of force on children … can never be justified for the purposes of good order and discipline”.

So there is a clear and currently unresolved difference of view, with each side apparently absolutely clear on the rightness of its position. However, what is clear is that the children and young people being dealt with here are recognised as being particularly troubled and vulnerable. If force is used on them, it confirms to them that violence is acceptable because that is what is being used by the authorities. Different standards and criteria are being used when it is deemed fit. I sincerely hope that such double standards will be rejected out of hand by the Government.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the Government’s plans for the largest children’s prison in Europe are,

“bad for children, bad for justice and bad for the taxpayer”.

Those are not my words but, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, pointed out, those of 29 signatories to a letter in the Daily Telegraph, which of course is affectionately known as the house journal of the Conservative Party. One would therefore expect the Government to pay particular attention to views expressed in it and by it. The signatories include the chief executives of leading children’s charities, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the chair of the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers, among other experts in the field. Today, the Daily Telegraph contains an article by Mary Riddell supporting the position of those who wrote that letter.

No one would argue with the intention to improve the education and thereby the life chances of young offenders, but the Government’s proposals for a secure college housing one-third of young offenders in custody bear all the hallmarks of yet another rush to misjudgment. With a site in Leicestershire planned for a young offender institution going begging, the Lord Chancellor’s latest notion was to engage a building firm to design a college housing boys and girls aged 12 to 17 and then to start a tendering process which would lead to potential operators effectively writing their own job description, with precious little information as to costs or the precise way in which the institution would be managed. As we have heard, last week the Government published their consultation on the rules that will govern the establishment, containing such revolutionary and transformative suggestions that inmates should be entitled to at least one hot shower a day. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has pointed out, the consultation will be concluded after the legislation is enacted, so Parliament will have no opportunity to consider the outcome or the Government’s response. That is a clear case of premature legislation for which no medical treatment can be prescribed.

Amendment 108 is designed to ensure proper scrutiny of this critically important part of the process. The amendment refers to the,

“mental or physical health needs”,

of young persons in secure colleges. As we have been informed by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, a report by the BMA on the detention of children is due to be published after the Bill has left this House. Given the seriousness of the issue, the novelty and controversial nature of the plans and the lack of detail as to how the college will operate in practice in terms of who will operate it and at what cost, why are the Government in such an unseemly hurry?

There are, as we have heard, serious problems about the proposals. Among the most worrying, is the notion of housing all 44 girls now in custody in England in one place, necessarily, potentially far from their homes, something which will also be true of many male inmates, and also remote from the local authority services with which they should be in contact. There will be no overnight residential visitor accommodation on the site.

The prospect of having 12 to 15 year-old boys in the same institution as 15 to 17 year-olds is also a matter of grave concern, even though they will apparently be housed in separate units on the site. The former vice-chairman of the Youth Justice Board expressed his misgivings about security with a high concentration of the latter age group. Today, the Chief Inspector of Prisons is reported as expressing concerns about a more concentrated mix of vulnerable, challenging and sometimes very violent boys, in the light of the fact that the number of children going into care is decreasing. It is becoming a more concentrated and a more problematic group. The older boys will potentially be in the same institution as these younger children.

Amendments 109 in my name and 117A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, in the next group, seek to deal with this matter. In Committee, the Minister indicated that no final decision had been taken on these sensitive issues, but, of course, that simply underlines the undesirability of giving the Secretary of State carte blanche to determine them without parliamentary scrutiny. It is also entirely unclear how the educational component, which is the ostensible justification for the scheme, will work, given that the population will be constantly changing. In Committee, the Minister said that,

“a sufficient bank of time in a secure college would be intended, with an individually tailored plan”.—[Official Report, 21/7/14; col. 1035.]

He failed to reply to my questions as to what sort of time we were talking about and who determined what sort of time would be ultimately allocated.

We are a country that criminalises children at a much younger age than most. We appear reluctant to inquire into, let alone learn from, the experience of other countries such as Finland, Spain—where, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, pointed out, Diagrama runs the best children’s custody centres in Europe—or even the US, where the Missouri model, with facilities containing no more than 50 beds, is becoming widely adopted. Has the Government even examined these or other models? Yet here the Minister described the measure in the Bill as providing a,

“framework for the creation of secure colleges so that the Government can trial a new approach to youth custody”.—[Official Report, 23/7/14; col. 1185.]

If they have not examined other people’s trials, then the notion of a trial here is somewhat limited. In any event, it is an odd sort of trial that encompasses a third of the total potential number of relevant young offenders and one that perhaps threatens the viability of existing facilities, including secure children’s homes, run, as we heard earlier, by local authorities.

The proposals contained in the Bill have attracted very little support. They embody the Government’s usual attachment to outsourcing. They are being pushed through with scant regard to the proper processes of parliamentary scrutiny. I entirely echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, in strongly suggesting that the Government would be wise to extend the period and allow such scrutiny to take place.

Amendment 111 would require secure college rules to be approved, should the plans go ahead. Amendment 111A in my name would ensure that no second college could be provided without a proper assessment of the first, should that go ahead. I urge the House to support these amendments in order to ensure that proper consideration is given to these and other issues before launching what is, at present, an ill-defined and untested project. In addition, Amendments 120A, 120B, 121 and 122 deal with the use of force. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has expressed its views forcefully, as have a wide range of organisations. The amendment in my name and in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, embodies the committee’s formulation.

In Committee, I pointed out that Schedule 5 to the Bill contains a wide power under paragraph 10 for a custody officer to use “reasonable force” not only to,

“ensure good order and discipline”,

but to prevent escape and,

“to prevent, or detect and report on, the commission or attempted commission … of other unlawful acts”—

unspecified—and,

“to attend to their well-being”,

under paragraphs 8(c), 8(a), 8(b) and 8(d) respectively. In addition, paragraph 9 extends the possible application of force to the searching of detainees and anyone who is in the college or seeking entry. Those are very far-reaching powers, on which the Minister did not specifically comment. They will be entrusted to people whose training, qualifications and supervision we know nothing about.

The position is utterly reprehensible and I hope that, having listened to Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House, the Government will take time to think again. I repeat: we are all entirely with the Government on wishing to make the best provision in educational and other terms for these damaged youngsters, but we are heading down a road with no clear indication of the destination or, indeed, how we will reach it. The Government should take the time, look at other people’s experience, engage with those most involved with the service and with these young people, and come back with some revised proposals.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate on these amendments and to all those in the Chamber and beyond who have engaged with and helped to shape our proposals for secure colleges. It has been said during the debate that our proposals are rushed and ill thought out, and that there has been a failure to engage.

We have made considerable efforts to engage with a wide range of stakeholders and experts right the way through, from the gestation of this idea to bringing legislation before Parliament and developing plans for a pathfinder secure college. In our Transforming Youth Custody consultation, published in February 2013, the Government engaged with a wide range of organisations in the education, custody and voluntary sectors. Uniquely, we asked them to submit outline proposals for how a secure college might tackle the problems of poor education and reoffending outcomes. What I think there is complete agreement on in your Lordships’ House is that there is far too high an instance of reoffending by young offenders and that education is insufficiently catered for within the secure youth estate.

Those responses directly informed the Government’s response to the consultation, published in January this year. After the Bill was introduced in this House, I hosted an open event in July to outline our proposals, to share our latest plans for the design of the pathfinder secure college—the clue is in the name: pathfinder—and to listen to the views of those with interests and expertise in this area. Peers were assisted by iPads that gave a design and indication of the precise configuration of the secure college and how the various parts would work together. It proved a fruitful exercise, I believe, and the discussion that day with Peers led to substantial changes to our design for the pathfinder secure college.

Following that meeting, we secured additional land for the site, increasing its size by two acres and extending the range of sporting facilities and outdoor space. We also reconfigured the layout of the site to ensure that groups of the more vulnerable young offenders, whom we had already planned to accommodate separately, could access education and health facilities via a different route from older children at the site and would have separate sporting facilities. I was pleased to share those revised plans at yet another open meeting with Peers last week.

Noble Lords will also be aware that, following my commitment in Committee, last week the Government published a public consultation on our plans for secure college rules. It is a substantial document with a considerable amount of detail. I hope that those noble Lords who have felt it appropriate to comment on the inadequacy of the consultation will at least take the trouble to read carefully this consultation and realise the amount of detail that has been provided in order to come to the right final conclusion as to the rules.

The secure college rules set out the proposed policies which will inform those rules, and in respect of the use of force—clearly a matter of considerable importance to the House—set out draft indicative rules to facilitate greater scrutiny of our proposals. Noble Lords will also be aware that the Government have brought forward an amendment to make rules authorising the use of force subject to the affirmative, rather than the negative, procedure.

Throughout the process, Ministers have written to and met with a wide range of stakeholders to keep them apprised of our plans. Only yesterday the Prisons Minister, Andrew Selous, met a range of children’s charities and groups with an interest in youth justice. We also have been working closely with NHS England, the Department for Education and experts in education and custodial provision to test our designs for the secure college pathfinder. Our revised plans are now publicly available and are being scrutinised by Blaby District Council as part of the planning application for the pathfinder.

I hope, therefore, that noble Lords will recognise that considerable efforts have been gone into and opportunities provided for the views of others to inform our thinking. I have to say I was very disappointed to hear the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, whom the House of course greatly respects on this area, suggest in Committee that, notwithstanding our engagement, it was,

“both unreasonable and irresponsible of the Government to expect Parliament to rubber-stamp it until it knows more”.—[Official Report, 23/7/14; col. 1173]

The Ministry of Justice and my officials have worked extremely hard to provide information about secure colleges. There were also lengthy debates in the House of Commons. I hope noble Lords have had a chance to see them. I have read all of them. A great deal of detail was provided at that stage and then in your Lordships’ House in the lengthy Committee stage. The Government have attempted to give answers to all the various points that have been given to them. It is, therefore, with great disappointment, that we are accused of being in contempt of Parliament.

I will now turn to the amendments. They cover the use of force, secure college rules and the powers of the Secretary of State to contract out the running of secure colleges. I will start by addressing the amendment on the use of force, as this is relevant to the government amendment in respect of the secure college rules. Amendment 121 seeks to restrict the circumstances in which a custody officer may be authorised to use force in a secure college. I am aware that a similar amendment was recommended in the recent report on the Bill by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. While the Government share the view that force must only ever be used as a last resort, and that only the minimum force required should be used, we believe it is right that force be available in a wider range of circumstances than the amendment permits.

In addition to preventing harm, we believe that force must also be available to prevent escape, to prevent damage to property and for the purpose of maintaining good order and discipline. I recognise that it is the final category which has attracted most debate. During a constructive debate in Committee, I set out the Government’s view that custody officers in secure colleges should be able to use force for the purpose of maintaining good order and discipline, but that this use would be subject to stringent controls.

In our consultation document on our plans for secure college rules, we have gone into a great deal of detail about our approach to the use of force. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Marks made reference to the instances given on page 23 of that document of particular examples which he, I think, accepted were instances where there would, in exceptional circumstances, have to be force used in circumstances where one would not normally want it to be used.

We have clarified that force, in these circumstances, may be used only where a young person poses a risk to maintaining a safe and stable environment and where there is also a risk to the safety or welfare of the young person against whom the restraint is used or that of another young person. We have set out examples in the document of the types of circumstances in which we believe the use of force for these purposes would be justified. We are clear that force can never be used as a punishment.

The consultation document makes clear our position that the use of force for good order and discipline would be authorised only to the extent that it was strictly necessary and proportionate; that only authorised restraint techniques could be applied; that the use of pain-inducing techniques for reasons of maintaining good order and discipline will be prohibited; that only the minimum restraint necessary for the shortest possible time must be used; that the young person’s dignity and physical integrity must be respected at all times; and that the best interests of the young person against whom the force is used must be a primary consideration. We have also set out safeguards and procedures to be followed before, during and after any use of restraint for maintaining a safe and stable environment.

The Government recognise the sensitivity and importance of provisions relating to the use of force with young people. That is why we are consulting publicly and in great detail, and we will consider the responses that we receive. However, for the reasons that I have set out, we do not agree with the restrictions that the amendment would place on the circumstances in which force could be used in secure colleges.

As a further commitment to ensuring scrutiny of our proposals on the use of force, we are bringing forward an amendment to the process for approving secure college rules. In its third report of the Session, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee recommended that if the Bill is to enable secure college rules to authorise the use of force for the purpose of ensuring good order and discipline, then such rules should, to the extent that they authorise, be subject to the affirmative procedure. We have accepted that recommendation and brought forward Amendment 122.

This amendment will make the entire first set of secure college rules subject to the affirmative procedure, as they will contain provisions authorising the use of force. This will give Parliament additional oversight of the secure college rules, although I cannot agree to Amendment 111, which would require the rules always to be subject to the affirmative procedure—a requirement which does not apply to prison or young offender institution rules, for example.

[Lord Beecham]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I ascribed the wrong number to the schedule to which I referred earlier. It is Schedule 6 which is about the use of force. The Minister has referred to a number of instances which are certainly in that schedule, but he did not refer to paragraph 8(b), which talks about the use of force being permissible,

“to prevent, or detect and report on, the commission or attempted commission by them”—

that is, prisoners—

“of other unlawful acts”.

That seems an extremely wide definition. Nor did the Minister refer to paragraph 9, which relates to use of force in connection with searches.

[Lord Faulks]

I could go through the entire section, which is very lengthy, and deal with all the various aspects seriatim, but I am not sure that that would be a particularly useful process at Report stage, given that I am sure that all those who have been listening to this debate will have had the chance to see the entire detail of the relevant section of the secure college rules. I think that I have summarised fairly the Government’s approach in the rules. I also referred to those two specific examples to which reference was made by the noble Lord, Lord Marks. There have been discussions at the various meetings that we have had. So I would rather not be tied down to specific examples of when force should be used. We believe that the structure is there. We are of course listening to the consultation carefully and we encourage all those who are concerned, of whom there are many in your Lordships’ House, to take part in that consultation to assist us further in arriving at a satisfactory position, which I am sure we will be able to do.

The publication of the Government’s consultation will also reassure the noble Lords and noble Baroness who tabled Amendment 108 that we will certainly make secure college rules before such an institution opens. These rules will be essential to ensuring that young people are detained safely and securely in these colleges, and that they are educated and rehabilitated effectively. However, I strongly believe that this does not need to be placed in the Bill.

It is in the context of creating secure college rules that I turn to Amendments 120A and 120B, which would set out in primary legislation the conditions governing the authorisation of the use of force. I welcome the noble Lord’s amendment, which adopts much of the approach taken in the consultation document. However, I believe that this is a case for the rules rather than for primary legislation. I have provided assurances on how they will come into effect.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

109: Clause 32, page 31, line 2, at end insert—
“( ) No female, nor any male under the age of fifteen, may be placed in a secure college.”

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I have effectively spoken to this amendment in dealing with the issue of girls and boys being housed together. I will not therefore take the time of the House for very long but will just report that today the Women’s Resource Centre and Women’s Breakout have issued a statement concerning this matter. It says:

“Government plans to allay the … safeguarding concerns … by fencing-off girls and vulnerable children are inadequate. Girls will still be held alongside boys in the separated area, so safeguarding risks remain. The proposed fenced-off area will be a ‘prison within a prison’, likely to be reminiscent of the claustrophobic … units in Young Offenders Institutions, which have … been closed down … Girls in custody are an immensely vulnerable group. A Prison Inspectorate survey found that 61% of girls in young offender institutions had been in local authority care, compared to 33% of boys. A Youth Justice Board report found that one in three girls had experience of sexual abuse, and one in five had experienced violence in the home. There are so few girls in custody that they can easily be accommodated in the smaller, and far more appropriate, Secure Children’s Homes. There is no need to hold them in a secure college”.

I adopt that view and invite the House to do so. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Faulks]

I am perfectly happy to accept the costs from the noble Lord. As regards the offending rate, one needs to look over a long period. He tells me those rates but I have not had a chance to see those specific rates or for how long a period. However, I am sure that there are variations within the secure college estate. It would cost around £100 million each year to do what seems to be suggested, which is not a viable solution. It is, as we know, easy to forget the deficit, but this Government do not do so.

Although the secure college pathfinder will have a capacity of 320, the site is composed of seven distinct accommodation buildings, with some broken down into smaller living units. Young people can be accommodated in distinct groups, a sense of community can be fostered in each, and the younger and more vulnerable groups can be kept separately if that is considered appropriate. Our plans demonstrate that big does not mean imposing and impersonal. The size will enable a breadth of services and opportunities to be offered.

It is a consequence of the welcome and significant reduction in the number of young people in custody that there are fewer custodial establishments and that some young people inevitably will be detained further from home. This is not a new problem and, for the reasons I have outlined, a network of small, local facilities is not, sadly, a viable alternative. However, distance from home remains one of the factors taken into account by the Youth Justice Board when placing young people in custody. I am sure that that will be very much a factor. Furthermore, there will be visits as well as technology.

I recognise what lies behind these amendments. I acknowledge the very real concern of noble Lords about young people, whether they are under-15s, girls or more widely, but we genuinely believe that we have sufficient flexibility in the system. We do not think that these requirements should find themselves into law. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I shall be brief. If the proposal goes ahead, which it might, we will end up with two groups of about 40 young people, boys and girls, from all over the country, in one central location and in an establishment where the vast majority of young offenders, as we have heard from the chief inspector, will be extremely vulnerable and very difficult. The whole atmosphere of the place cannot be compartmentalised in the way in which the noble Lord describes. It is not a satisfactory outcome and I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I will be brief because much of what I am going to say has already been said, particularly in relation to the criteria. I would like to raise two points. First, I am concerned about the criteria, about which we know nothing, relating to the selection of application for contractors. I remind the House that there used to be in the Ministry of Defence every year an exercise called “basket weaving”. The Secretary of State laid down precisely what was to be done, and then the Treasury produced the money. Then the staffs had to look at the money that had been provided and see whether it allowed the Secretary of State’s direction to be delivered. Invariably, there was not enough money, so people listed in different baskets what was essential to have to carry out the task, what would be desirable to have and what would be nice to have. Those three baskets were then presented to Ministers, who were invited to decide what should not be done because the funding was not available, or to go and ask for more money. That was the decision that they had to take.

The reason I tabled this amendment is that we do not know what it is that the Secretary of State is requiring the contractors to provide, not least in the provision of the specialist staff, whom many noble Lords have mentioned today in connection with looking after this group of younger people. Therefore, my reason for putting down the amendment was to encourage the Government to release these criteria so that we know, and the taxpayer then knows, and can therefore judge, what is actually missing when the contractor puts in their bid. We will not have any say over the bid, but it would be very interesting to know what parts of the original intention could not be provided for these young people because of funding.

My second point relates to a practicality of the delivery of the sort of thing that I know the Minister intends in the secure college. In 1966, the Army’s secondary school in Hohne, in Germany, was achieving remarkable results with children who came or left throughout the term, to and from schools almost anywhere in the world because of the movement of their fathers. When I asked the headmaster the secret of his success, he said that he ran a comprehensive school: every pupil was assessed for their ability in different subjects, and their daily programme was dictated by their ability: top form in maths, bottom in English and so on. When I told him that if that was comprehensive education, I was all for it, he warned me not to hold my breath because streaming by talent was frowned on in England. It worked, because motivated, compliant children got themselves to and from their programmed classes—a total impossibility both in security and in practical terms with the cohort that is likely to be in custody in a secure college. Has anyone thought through the practicalities of limited staff numbers trying to conduct 320 difficult, disruptive and damaged children with fragile motivation and questionable compliance to and from 30 hours of unspecified education, plus myriad other health and social care requirements on this cramped site?

I include that, first of all, as an example of what might be done with all of these children with different needs and problems, as to how to get them to go to where it is most appropriate; but also because I am concerned that this House has not yet had the criteria on which the judgment should be based as to which bid is going to be able to meet them. I strongly support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, about limiting the contract to five, rather than 10, years because I believe that to tie future Governments for 10 years to this proposal—with all that has been said about it around the House today—is several years too long. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. My amendment is designed to avoid the situation that appears to be arising in relation to the awarding of contracts for the probation service. I do not know whether the Minister is in a position to confirm this or not, but it is said that the Government are deliberately proceeding with 10-year contracts for the outsourcing of that service, on the basis that, should a future Government decide to change the system, they would have, in effect, to pay up for the whole of the 10 years. In other words, it is really binding the hands of a future Government—in financial terms, if not necessarily in legal ones—in a way that is quite unacceptable. It would be quite wrong—perhaps, one could argue, even more wrong—to do so in this case, with a completely untried institution being set up. Whether or not that ultimately proves successful, in principle it would be entirely wrong. Five years is a perfectly adequate period within which to assess the merits of the proposal; that is, five years of operation, not just five years in chronological time, because the Minister has indicated that if the matter goes ahead, it will not be built until 2017. I hope that the Minister will accept both amendments, particularly the one in my name.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

121: Schedule 6, page 97, line 28, leave out paragraph 10 and insert—
“10 Secure college rules may only authorise the use of reasonable force on children—
(a) as a last resort;(b) for the purposes of preventing harm to the child or others; and(c) to the extent that the minimum force necessary should be used.”

[Lord Beecham]

I wish to test the opinion of the House.