Offensive Weapons Bill

Lord Bishop of Newcastle Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak against this group of amendments. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, said that he supported the amendments but then went through a number of reasonable concerns. That shows that the process has not been consulted on adequately; indeed, it has been consulted on only with police forces directly and not on a wider scale with the large community of people concerned about youth crime.

Previous speakers have made the same point as the many people who have approached me, and other noble Lords, no doubt, about the possible unwanted effect—some people say that it is a certain unwanted effect—of criminalising young children who breach the order. Of course, many other forms of both statutory and non-statutory intervention are available to the courts, the police and YOTs.

I speak as a London youth magistrate who regularly sits at Highbury Corner Youth Court. I see the effects of knife crime very regularly. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Sater—she is a friend but I will refer to her as “the noble Baroness” for today’s purposes—who sits in the same court as me. I know that she has true expertise in this matter. It would be easy for me to give a long, bloodcurdling list of the sort of offences I have had to consider in Highbury but I will make two simple points.

First, in the youth court, we deal with children. The court’s primary purpose is to prevent reoffending. The offenders are still children, even when they are well over six foot tall and have committed knife offences. Secondly, a large proportion of the young knife offenders I see are also victims on multiple occasions. They are frightened, as are their families. In court, they tell me that they carry knives for self-protection. They are more frightened of being attacked with a knife than they are of the possible consequences of a court intervention of one sort or another. I understand that the Bill’s purpose is to be preventive in order to break this deadly cycle of knife offences.

As I am sure most Members of the Committee have done, I read the Lammy report. Its central theme was a breakdown in trust, particularly between the BAME community and the police. I want to make a slightly different observation to that made by David Lammy. My observation of young people is that they tell adults when they feel in danger. Sometimes, but not often, they tell their parents. They tell youth workers, YOT officers and social workers. They tell people they come across in the street. If they are in school, they may tell teachers. In my experience, they even tell police officers because the officers are often—always, in fact—embedded in YOTs and tend to be very good at building good relationships with the young people who come into the YOT offices. Those officers are told when young people feel vulnerable.

This is a political forum, so it is fair to make the party-political point that the number of police officers, YOT officers, youth workers and street workers has been cut. Fewer of them are available to young people in their day-to-day lives. It is fair to say that the party opposite bears responsibility for that reduction in support for young people in Britain.

I have three questions for the Minister. In fact, she answered the first in her opening remarks, so I understand that these orders are appealable and reviewable. Secondly, are there any identifiable benefits of this order over the multitude of other orders available to us? There is no shortage of legislation. Thirdly, if this order got on to the statute book, would it be appropriate for it to be applied for after a failed criminal prosecution? We do this in other scenarios. If a domestic abuse prosecution fails, the CPS often applies for a restraining order, often against the man, and often that order is put in place. Is it possible—as far as I know, nothing prevents it—to apply these orders when there is a failed criminal prosecution?

I have received the same briefings as other noble Lords, but I thought that the one that summed up the position most succinctly and persuasively was that from the Association of YOT Managers, which made two points. First, these orders could fast-track children into having a criminal record—it will not necessarily be a sentence of two years, but a breach of the civil order will still lead to a criminal record. Secondly—all the briefing that I received says this—there may well be disproportionate effects on BAME youngsters.

[The Lord Bishop of Newcastle]

Before becoming Bishop of Newcastle, I was an archdeacon in south-east London. In my archdeaconry, sadly, was Eltham, where Stephen Lawrence died. I do not, therefore, underestimate the sheer heartbreak and devastation of knife crime, particularly when young people are involved. This crime is growing and growing. I have sat with families whose children have been victims of knife crime. I have officiated at a funeral where that has been the case. The circles of devastation and heartbreak just go on and on. I do not underestimate the seriousness of this problem; nevertheless, I object to this amendment and hope that it will be withdrawn, so that there is more time to reflect on it.

I wish to make two points. First, a legal process that treats children and adults in exactly the same way cannot be right. We have learned a lot as we have come to see how we were blind to what was happening in cases of the sexual exploitation of children. The girls who were involved—it is not always girls, but it often is—were just seen as bad girls, who had absconded from care and were drinking and taking drugs. These children were not seen as children in desperate need of our protection and were not seen as victims. I think about the situation in which a child of 12 is carrying a knife, probably because they are terrified, and then I look at the purpose of this measure, which is to protect the general public. Of course we need to protect the general public, but we, the general public, have a duty of care to the children in our society. We owe a duty to protect some of the children who might be caught by this legislation. We need to see what is happening when young teenagers are in this situation, where they are being seen as perpetrators but they are, as has been said, at least as much victims. I hope that we will look at the age-blind element of this proposal, as it cannot be right.

My second point is more general, although it still applies to children more than to adults. Up in the north-east, I have been seriously engaged in meeting governors and chaplains in our local prisons— HMP Durham, HMP Northumberland and HMP Low Newton, the women’s prison. One thing that I have been told again and again is that sentences under 12 months are disruptive to people’s lives in a completely dreadful way but serve no rehabilitative purpose. All the evidence shows that to be the case. The proposed sentences go up to two years, but that maximum may not often be applied and, as I said, a sentence of 12 months or less has no positive effect. If that is true for adults, it is even truer for young people. I hope that the sentencing structure can also be looked at again.