Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his degree of elegance in basically climbing down from the Government’s previous position.

Our position all along—particularly in the shadow of this summer’s riots, which involved many young people—has been that it is essential not to make precipitate decisions on how we handle youth justice. We continually warned that it would not be appropriate effectively to abolish the Youth Justice Board, which continues to do such excellent work, but that does not mean that it should not be reformed from time to time, or at least reviewed.

I therefore welcome the progress made in the other place on the YJB, which I am glad to see has now been removed from the Bill, but I have some reservations about the Minister’s comments just now, and especially those made in the other place by the noble Lord McNally, who, when speaking about the future of the board, said that

“there is a strong case for the reform of the YJB, and we will consider our options for achieving reform outside the Public Bodies Bill.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 November 2011; Vol. 732, c. 1074.]

The Minister’s words today were almost a precise repetition of that, and it sounds like a threat. It sounds as though the Government have made up their mind, and that what we have heard today is not so much a climb-down as a temporary retreat in order to attempt to do on another occasion the same thing that they intended to do in this Bill.

[Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)]

I get the impression that the shadow Minister is of the opinion that in this case any reform is unacceptable, and that the Government’s new line is just about doing the same thing but in another way. Is he against any reform?