Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I speak as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on children and young people in care and leaving care. Half of young people in custody have experience of care: they have been fostered or have been in residential care. Many of those unfortunate young people, who are in that position principally because they have been abused by their families, are also likely to get tangled up in the law and in the situations with which we are concerned here.

I begin by putting two questions to the Minister. First, there has been concern in the past that the assumption relating to media reporting when dealing with children is reversed in these circumstances. One of the tabloid newspapers published a string of photographs of children and their addresses some time ago. This was a few years ago and perhaps things have moved on, but I would be grateful to the Minister if he could write to me on where things stand with regard to publicising the names and photographs of such children.

My second question relates to youth services. We all know that the devil makes work for idle hands. With the cuts that have come about, youth services have taken a very heavy blow. Research has shown that where there have been summer activities for young people, the crime rate among young people reduces. We need to think about the positive things that we can do as well as the negative things—the stick and the carrot, if you like—when we discuss this issue. What guidance and advice on protecting youth services are being offered by central government to local authorities at this difficult time? In particular, what advice is being offered to the new PCCs, which have a lot of resources and which could perhaps funnel some of them towards supporting youth services? I was very gratified to hear recently how much support the Government are giving to mentoring young people in the criminal justice system and in schools. That information would be helpful.

I am sorry to speak for so long but I should like to make just one point. Many of these young men—boys, I should say—grow up without a father in the home. We know that two-thirds of black boys in the United States grow up without a father in the home. According to the OECD, the level of lone parents in this country is even higher than that, so many boys here are growing up without fathers in the home. The risk is, and my experience shows this time and again, that such young men feel a sense of guilt. They are not rational in trying to understand why their fathers are not interested in their lives. They think that it is something that they did that caused it. I can think of an occasion when I was with a group of looked-after children in Parliament. Somebody popped their head in to ask a question, suggesting that somebody might have done something wrong, and there was an immediate look of guilt among them—“What have we done wrong? What are we to blame for?”. You hear from adults who have had such an experience that they are ridden with guilt and feel negative about their lives, even about the good things in it. The risk is that, by having a low age of criminal responsibility or by introducing these measures for people of such a young age, the state is coming along and saying, “Yes, there isn’t anything good in you. We will put your photograph in the local newspaper. You will be described as a bad person”. In that, we are reinforcing what their parents have told them and what their experience has been.

I remember as a boarder at school becoming particularly attached to my housemaster, who was with me for several years. When he moved on to be the headmaster of a new school, for several weeks I would ask myself before going to bed at night, quite unreasonably, what I had done to him that was driving him away. I felt guilt for driving him away. I cannot stress enough that my experience points to such a sense of guilt in these young people. Yes, they must be made to feel responsible; no, they should not be allowed just to be called victims. There are sanctions available but I worry that there may be a perverse outcome if we keep the age as currently proposed in the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, 10 days ago, a number of us debated in this House the Second Reading of the Age of Criminal Responsibility Bill, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. I commend some of the things that were said then about the ability of children of the age of 10 to comprehend fully all the businesses of the criminal justice system when they were motivated against them. During the debate I cited the fact that the well known 10 year-olds Thompson and Venables, responsible for the murder of Jamie Bulger, were said by the psychiatrist involved in the case to have a developmental age of four.

You cannot expect a child with the developmental age of four to be able to comprehend exactly what is involved in the criminal justice system, whether it is an injunction, which does not carry a criminal record, or an anti-social behaviour order, which does. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, introduced age very early in this Bill, because all the way through we ought to have at the back of our minds that we are talking about anything to do with children of the age of 10.

We are way below the United Nations recommendation that the age of criminal responsibility should be nearer 15. We are way below what happens in Scotland and countries such as China. I am not sure that it is civilised to throw the criminal justice system at children of 10. Therefore, while I am glad that the intention is not that the injunction should carry a criminal record, we ought to take seriously the question of whether 10 is an appropriate age to start whatever process we have, because within society there should be other ways of doing it. I know that these are not very satisfactory at present, but let us not forget the conditions in which a lot of these children live their lives. I have always thought that it was unfortunate that Mr Blair, in his famous statement about being,

“tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”,

rather lost sight of being tough on the causes. It seems to me that we have to get to grips with the causes, as much as anything else, when we propose the injunctions and so on that we are talking about.

The other thing that concerns me is that we have here a Home Office Bill that talks about children, while in the Moses Room we have the Children and Families Bill, which also talks about children. We learn there that the Department for Education is not actually the key organisation in the development of children initially, but the Department of Health. Then we find that the Department for Work and Pensions has a role to play in all this, as, of course, does the Department for Communities and Local Government. Therefore all sorts of initiatives are going on, all aiming at the same thing, which lack co-ordination. I feel that there ought to be a Minister of child development in the Cabinet Office, responsible for pulling all these threads together, otherwise we will go charging off in a lot of directions, which will be unco-ordinated, and the casualties will be the very people whom this Bill claims to protect.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps I might follow my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham on an issue which I raised at Second Reading: the position of the court granting an order. I raised the question of whether there was anything in the Bill that provided for rules to be made requiring the court to make sure that the individual understood the order that was being made, bearing in mind the consequences if the injunction was to be breached.

I think I am right in saying that nothing in the Bill requires rules to be made to deal with that matter, but will the Minister tell us whether the guidance deals with the position of the child in court? Obviously, the guidance deals with the steps preliminary to taking this action against the individual. However, if the age of 10 is to be adhered to, it is extremely important—for all the reasons that the noble Lord has given—that the individual fully understands the consequences of the order, as well as the need to obey it.

If there are no provisions in the Bill about rules to be made, it comes back to the guidance and the responsibility on those who are guiding the individual to ensure that the order is fully understood, and that there is a reasonable prospect of the child fulfilling what he or she is required to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, in principle I am very keen on the idea that Governments should lay down what should happen and leave the how up to local areas to decide, because there will obviously be different local conditions. I remember that fairly soon after the ASBO was introduced, there was considerable concern about what great differences there were in how it was being introduced in different parts of the country. It was shown that there was something of a postcode lottery in it. I suspect that we have heard less and less of that over time because people have got used to the ASBO.

One reason for that is because the ASBO was quite tightly defined; the definition of what amounted to an ASBO was there. What concerns me about the injunction is that I agree with the Joint Committee on Human Rights that,

“conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person”,

is insufficiently precise. I fear that if there is no more precision in this initially, we shall have exactly the same as we had with the introduction of the ASBO: there will be a postcode lottery. If the injunction is to be enforced properly—I support the idea of it not being a criminal activity—there is a need to sharpen up the precision to prevent that and to give better guidance to the local authorities who will have to enforce it.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. All speakers have sought to be helpful to the Minister, perhaps seeking to protect the Government from themselves by this amendment—they were certainly not trying to be a nuisance or annoyance in identifying so many difficult issues that arise here. So I do not expect to have an IPNA taken out against us but, on the balance of the judgment that is in the legislation before us, I suppose we should wait and see. This debate strikes at the very heart of the issue, and the contributions that we have heard today reflect the balance of opinion at Second Reading.

The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, made a very powerful case and addressed a number of the concerns that were raised, including the concerns of those who have argued against the amendment. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, I spent a number of years as an MP, although not as many as he did. Anti-social behaviour was then and remains a very serious issue. I recall that many of those dealing with the problem welcomed ASBOs, despite some of the failings and problems we have heard about, and I think that ASBOs have improved with time and experience. The test of “harassment, alarm and distress” was rightly a higher bar than we see before us today, because it recognises the seriousness of the issue, but it also recognises the penalties for breaches of the order. That is an important point to make in the context of this debate.

I find it very interesting that, in the Second Reading debate and again today, the anti-social behaviour orders gained support from distinguished Members of your Lordships’ House with expertise in law, policing and the magistracy. There were criticisms, and I still have some criticisms about the implementation of anti-social behaviour orders and measures. There are those who do not understand how seriously and dreadfully victims of anti-social behaviour are affected. Unless you have suffered yourself or have spoken to people who have been through that totally debilitating experience, it can be hard to understand how that constant, unrelenting pressure of harassment, intimidating behaviour or excessive noise can leave people terrified of living in their own homes and very distressed. I remember one lady who I spoke to at great length on many occasions. She was so distressed by what some might regard as kids mucking around, but very seriously so, that she was terrified to live in her own home. We are now seeing ASBOs being more appropriately used and we have seen a reduction, as we have heard, in their breaches.

We have also heard that there can be injunctions for anti-social behaviour under housing legislation and that the test of causing nuisance and annoyance already exists, but that is in very limited and specific circumstances. The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, made that very clear in her comments. Anti-social behaviour injunctions were brought in in 2003 and have been used sensibly and wisely since then. Today, we have all had correspondence from housing associations—in many cases, very similar letters—explaining why they want to retain the power they have and explaining the benefits they have been able to bring to their tenants, in many cases, very vulnerable tenants, because of those powers. Their letters highlight a problem referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, a few moments ago, and by others; a problem which the Government have created by trying to rationalise the number of orders, procedures and interventions that can be taken against anti-social behaviour. Clearly, housing associations with very vulnerable tenants welcome the powers they have, but these are not appropriate for every single case of anti-social behaviour. We are not against all forms of injunctions but we are against making this test—on the balance of probability, for nuisance and annoyance—the test that should be applied in all cases where somebody complains about something that they consider to be anti-social behaviour.

In some cases there has been a misunderstanding that only small areas are covered; perhaps only social housing estates or council estates. In fact, anti-social behaviour, and certainly the test that the Government wish to apply, of nuisance or annoyance, is much wider spread than that. In many cases, injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance can involve similar and indeed wider matters than those raised in current ASBO applications. They can address relatively minor issues involving nuisance neighbours and minor disorder. Because as an order an ASBO can represent a serious slight upon the reputation of a respondent, as well as carrying serious consequences for breach, it is completely inappropriate for something of that seriousness to have a lower standard of proof to apply.