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Session 2006 - 07 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Criminal Justice and Immigration |
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan
Sandall, Committee
Clerk
†
attended the Committee
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 23 October 2007(Afternoon)[Mr. Edward O'Hara in the Chair]Criminal Justice and Immigration BillClause 1Youth
rehabilitation
orders
Amendment
proposed [this day]: No. 167, in
clause 1, page 2, line 10, after
‘Schedule),’,
insert—
‘(ma) a substance
treatment requirement (see paragraph 23A of that
Schedule).’.—[David
Howarth.]
4
pm
No. 168, in
schedule 1, page 98, line 18, at
end
insert—
‘Substance
treatment
requirement
23A
(2) In this Part of the Act, “substance treatment
requirement”, in relation to a youth rehabilitation order, means
a requirement that the offender must submit, during a period or periods
specified in the order, to treatment, by or under the direction of a
person so specified having the necessary qualifications (“the
treatment provider”), with a view to the reduction or
elimination of the offender’s dependency on or propensity to
misuse substances.
(3) A court
may not include a substance treatment requirement in a youth
rehabilitation order unless it is
satisfied—
(a) that the
offender is dependent on, or has a propensity to misuse, substances,
and
(b) that the
offender’s dependency on or propensity is such as requires and
may be susceptible to
treatment.
(4) The treatment
required during a period specified under sub-paragraph (1) must be such
one of the following kinds of treatment as may be specified in the
youth rehabilitation
order—
(a) treatment as
a resident in such institution or place as may be specified in the
order, or
(b) treatment as a
non-resident at such institution or place, and at such intervals, as
may be so specified, but the order must not otherwise specify the
nature of the treatment.
(5) A
court may not include a substance treatment requirement in a youth
rehabilitation order
unless—
(a)
the court has been notified by the Secretary of State that arrangements
for implementing substance treatment requirements are in force in the
local justice area in which the offender resides or is to
reside,
(b) the court is
satisfied that arrangements have been or can be made for the treatment
intended to be specified in the order (including, where the offender is
to be required to submit to treatment as a resident, arrangements for
the reception of the
offender),
(c) the requirement
has been recommended to the court as suitable for the offender by a
member of a youth offending team or by an officer of a local probation
board,
and
(d) where
the offender is aged 14 or over at the time that the requirement is
imposed, the offender has expressed willingness to comply with the
requirement.
(6) In this paragraph “substance”
means any substance, whether in liquid, solid or gaseous
form.’.
No.
182, in
clause 7, page 5, line 48, at
end
insert—
‘“substance
treatment requirement”, in relation to a youth rehabilitation
order, has the meaning given by paragraph 23A of Schedule
1;’.
I
understand that it would be for the convenience of the Committee if I
were to expand the group of amendments under consideration to include
the following further amendments, standing in the name of the hon.
Member for Enfield, Southgate: No. 105, in
clause 1, page 2, line 11, at
end insert—
‘,
and
(o) an alcohol treatment requirement
(see paragraph 24B of that
schedule).’.
No.
106, in
schedule 1, page 99, line 2, at
end
insert—
‘Alcohol
treatment requirement
24B
(1) In this Part “alcohol treatment requirement”, in
relation to a youth rehabilitation order, means a requirement that the
offender must submit during a period specified in the order to
treatment by or under the direction of a specified person having the
necessary qualifications or experience with a view to the reduction or
elimination of the offender’s dependency on
alcohol.
(2) A court may not
impose an alcohol treatment requirement in respect of an offender
unless it is
satisfied—
(a) that he
is dependent on alcohol,
(b)
that his dependency is such as requires and may be susceptible to
treatment, and
(c) that
arrangements have been or can be made for the treatment intended to be
specified in the order (including arrangements for the reception of the
offender where he is to be required to submit to treatment as a
resident).
(3) A court may not
impose an alcohol treatment requirement unless the offender expresses
his willingness to comply with its
requirements.
(4) The period
for which the alcohol treatment requirement has effect must be not less
than six months.
(5) The
treatment required by an alcohol treatment requirement for any
particular period must
be—
(a) treatment as a
resident in such institution or place as may be specified in the
order,
(b) treatment as a
non-resident in or at such institution or place, and at such intervals,
as may be so specified, or
(c)
treatment by or under the direction of such person having the necessary
qualification or experience as may be so
specified;
but the nature of
the treatment shall not be specified in the order except as mentioned
in paragraph (a), (b) or (c)
above.’.
No.
108, in
clause 7, page 4, line 31, at
end insert—
‘“alcohol treatment
requirement”, in relation to a youth rehabilitation order, has
the meaning given by paragraph 24B of Schedule
1;’.
Question
again proposed, That the amendment be
made.
Mr.
David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): Welcome to the
Committee, Mr. O’Hara. You and I share some areas of
mutual interest—normally in relation to Cyprus. I hope that the
Committee can likewise reach some consensus on the need for alcohol
treatment.
I speak in
support of amendments Nos. 105, 106 and 108, which were tabled in my
name and those of other Opposition Members, and which would require an
alcohol treatment option as part of the generic youth rehabilitation
order. I endorse the comments that have been made about the need to
widen the restricted list of requirements in the Bill to cover alcohol
treatment explicitly, and to address the misuse of substances that
cause many offences. I refer particularly to the case made by my hon.
Friend the Member for Kettering in relation to volatile substances and
their connection with
crime.
The
amendments relate first to the points of principle on how to
differentiate the treatment of adults and the treatment of youths.
Previous debates have recognised the need for different treatment of
young offenders, for proper coverage of their needs and for sentencing
options that are tailored so that young offenders who come before the
courts are diverted from reoffending, as all of us in the Committee
would wish. My experience is that in all too many cases, young
offenders become trapped in the “revolving door”, getting
locked into the system as they graduate through different levels of
crime. The aim of youth rehabilitation orders and of the treatment
requirements is primarily to meet their needs.
The Opposition are concerned
about the fact that there is a different set of requirements from that
which is available for adults. Let us consider the history of the
legislation. In July 2001, the Halliday report set out the need to deal
with community orders holistically and generically, and to move away
from the proliferation of different orders of which I, as a
practitioner, had been much aware. Even at that stage, efforts were
being made to try to straddle the many different elements of orders and
legislation to bring some sense from the madness. The proposal at that
time was to scrap the distinct orders and present them as requirements
within a single, generic, community sentence.
That was the genesis of the
provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which overhauled the range
of community orders for adults and substituted community sentences.
Significantly, the range of requirements for generic orders available
for adults included unpaid work, curfews, drug treatment and alcohol
treatment. The first question, therefore, is why that menu of options
is available for adults but is not reproduced in the Bill for young
people.
In
September 2003, the Green Paper “Youth Justice—The Next
Steps” was published. At that stage, the proposed action plan
orders were to include a number of different menus of options,
including options relating to drug and alcohol awareness measures, drug
treatment and testing, and alcohol treatment. The question is why we
have, in many senses, moved backwards from that stage by not including
an alcohol treatment requirement in the Bill.
During the evidence-taking
sessions, we heard from Brendan Finegan from the Youth Justice Board,
who informed the Committee:
“The Bill in its current
shape probably does not allow us to have that alcohol treatment order.
We would support the addition of an alcohol treatment
element.”
Referring to his
colleague, Graham Robb, Mr. Finegan
added:
“Graham’s
view was that the board’s approach to substance misuse and the
misuse of substances, whether licit or illicit, is that we would wrap
them up in a general concept of substance misuse, so that misuse of
tobacco as much as misuse of proscribed drugs can be wrapped together.
In terms of the Bill
itself, we accept that an amendment for alcohol would allow that problem
to be tackled.”——[Official Report, Criminal
Justice and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2007; c.
97, Q211.]
We welcome that
comment from the Youth Justice Board in favour of such an
amendment.
The
principle should be shared. The Minister of State acknowledged a couple
of days before that evidence-taking session, during the preliminary
discussions and questions
that:
“There is
potentially a gap in respect of
alcohol.”——[Official Report, Criminal Justice
and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 16 October 2007; c. 11,
Q2.]
I am sure that we all agree
that it is important to tackle the problem of alcohol when dealing with
young people. All the evidence suggests that more alcohol is going down
fewer throats. On the issue of alcohol-fuelled disorder, it is clear
that teenagers and children are drinking to dangerous levels, with over
45 per cent. of 14 to 15-year-olds estimated to have drunk alcohol in
the past week. One survey showed that 54 per cent. of 15 to
16-year-olds had consumed more than five drinks on a single occasion in
the preceding 30 days, and 27 per cent. of them reported doing that
three or more times within the preceding 30 days.
Looking at
crime itself, the British crime survey—we do not always want to
rely on that—states that alcohol is a factor in 47 per cent. of
violent crime. That breaks down to alcohol being a factor in 45 per
cent. of incidents of domestic violence, 19 per cent. of muggings, 58
per cent. of incidents of stranger violence, and 51 per cent. of
incidents of acquaintance violence. That is the case whether adults or
young people are involved.
The primary
aim of the order for which the Bill provides is to intervene as early
as possible, which sadly sometimes has to be at the court order stage.
One wants to get to the heart of the problem of young people’s
offending, which affects the offender, their relationships at home,
which are often broken, and their relationships out on the streets. The
amendment is designed to put in place the provision that is already
available for adults. Basically, what is good for the adults should be
good for the youths. It also seeks to understand that this is a primary
problem for young people.
It is also important to see
whether treatment can be delivered in practice. The Minister will
probably say that there is nothing within the generic order to stop
voluntary activities of alcohol treatment being dealt with, but the
real question, which has to be answered whether or not we have an
alcohol treatment requirement, is whether the resources needed to
deliver a step change improvement in alcohol treatment are available.
When one looks at funding across the board, one sees that, compared
with drug treatment, alcohol is very much the Cinderella service, if
indeed Cinderella is even thought of. A recent survey following a
freedom of information request showed that alcohol treatment funding
made up only 6 per cent. of the funding that drug treatment services
receive.
The
opportunities available for an adolescent to seek treatment voluntarily
are limited. It is estimated that around 17,000 adolescents at present
are in treatment, but that can cover many different forms of treatment.
Often that does not include any sense of whether they are receiving day
treatment or residential rehabilitation. The reality is that there is
only one dedicated residential
service in this country: Middlegate Lodge, which has three beds
available. That is shocking given the statistics that I have
outlined.
All
hon. Members know the impact of alcohol on young people in their
constituencies. Whether we have the treatment requirement or not, the
resources to deliver treatment are very limited indeed. One cannot rely
on treatment taking place voluntarily. It is important, when cases come
to court which merit a treatment order, that that provision is
available. If the Bill is to contain a treatment requirement for
alcohol, as we suggest—the same argument can be made in relation
to drug treatment—it should be there not just for the headlines,
but for delivery. People have a right to expect that if an order is in
the Bill, it can be delivered. The £600,000 or so that will be
put in place to deliver training is plainly not adequate as a dedicated
resource to deliver proper
treatment.
The
situation in this country contrasts remarkably with that in other
countries. Very briefly, I would like to illustrate what is needed to
deliver an alcohol treatment requirement with an example from Sweden,
where there is more of a focus on adolescent services. This country
focuses more on adult rehabilitation. Treatment centres such as the
Maria youth clinic are fully state funded. It has 110 staff who see
2,000 families a year. Early treatment for addiction is crucial. In the
Maria youth clinic, treatment is available immediately. The clinic sits
in its own dedicated unit within a police facility and immediately the
offender is arrested and charged, they go straight to the clinic for
treatment, once it has been identified that drugs or alcohol are a
relevant factor.
The
Maria youth clinic
“aims
to achieve permanent sobriety in the young patient and straight away he
has individual counselling and his parents and the school are brought
in”.
The parents and
school being engaged at an early stage are crucial factors in terms of
any effective
treatment.
“Quite
often our youngster will stay in the clinic for a number of days but
will be required to undergo counselling for up to 10 weeks. The
emphasis in the counselling is the rebuilding of self esteem and the
tackling of depression—something that is often at the heart of
drug addiction in teenagers. Time after time the head of the clinic
stressed to me the importance of youngsters receiving treatment
immediately—waiting lists are not
acceptable.”
That is just
one example in Sweden. We cannot just replicate that provision, but it
gives an indication of how far we have lapsed in terms of providing
effective treatment for addiction in this
country.
My amendment
is designed to plug a gap, one that would properly be filled only by
the commitment of dedicated resources to produce an effective step
change in the treatment of addictions. Nevertheless, it is a gap that
needs to be plugged, given the position in which adults currently find
themselves. It is a gap that we see all too clearly in our
constituencies and in the
courts.
The
Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Mr. David
Hanson):
I welcome your to your first sitting in the Chair
following our evidence-taking sessions, Mr.
O’Hara.
I am
grateful to the hon. Members for Cambridge and for Enfield, Southgate
for the amendments that they have tabled. I am also grateful to the
hon. Member for Kettering for raising the issue of substance misuse
and, in particular, solvent misuse.
I will declare an interest as I
am currently vice-president of the charity Re-Solv, which deals with
solvent and volatile substance abuse. In fact, my last proper job
before entering the House of Commons was as a director of Re-Solv for
three years until 1992. I therefore have an understanding of the impact
of solvent and volatile substance misuse, particularly on young people.
As has been mentioned, there is a number of substances that are normal,
everyday household items that young people can and do misuse, which
give a temporary kick, but which can lead to instant death or long-term
problems. I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to examine
the substance misuse amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Cambridge
in conjunction with the alcohol misuse amendment tabled by the hon.
Member for Enfield,
Southgate.
4.15
pm
On Second
Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones)
intervened on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice
to raise the lack of an alcohol order within the youth rehabilitation
order. My right hon. Friend agreed to look at the issue with me during
proceedings on the Bill. I say to all three hon. Gentlemen that their
amendments are valuable. I am keen to look at them in great detail, and
I hope to produce an amendment at a later stage that meets their
objectives. I obviously need to reflect on matters carefully to make
sure that our definition will do the job that those who have spoken
want to be done. My right hon. Friend and I are keen to make
progress.
I noted that,
when giving oral evidence, the Youth Justice Board and the
Children’s Society felt strongly that there should be a
treatment requirement to cover substance misuse. I have undertaken to
look at that in detail, and I am ready to widen our consideration so
that we examine all substance misuse. If we get the definition right, a
provision on substance misuse could cover alcohol misuse as well as
solvent and volatile substance misuse. I shall certainly be considering
whether such a requirement is deliverable and, if so, how we can ensure
that it is appropriate to young
people.
To be fair to
the hon. Member for Cambridge, I need to examine whether his helpful
definition of substance misuse is appropriate for the Bill. I want to
consider whether it covers substances other than drugs and alcohol, and
how we can define substance misuse to ensure that we catch some of the
volatile substances that are subject to abuse, and whether we can have
a definition that covers the concerns that have been expressed
today.
I
want to examine whether the drug treatment requirement under the Bill
will or will not be subsumed by the suggestions of a substance misuse
treatment order, because we could consider tabling an amendment that
covers a generic substance misuse order and which would cover drug,
alcohol and volatile substance misuse treatment. I understand where the
hon. Members for Cambridge and for Enfield, Southgate are coming from,
and I have great sympathy with their aims, given both my professional
background before I came to the House and my ministerial
background.
We need to discuss the matter
with the Youth Justice Board, the Department of Health and others who
will be responsible for examining some of the needs in respect of the
order. I am keen to do that and I hope that I have signalled to members
of the Committee that I am minded to table an amendment of the same
nature as those proposed. I am happy to discuss matters outside the
Committee with hon. Members before I do
so.
I cannot accept an amendment
today because our discussions and negotiations have not been finalised.
We need to look at the downstream consequences of the actual
phraseology used in the Bill. In principle, however, I agree to examine
such matters in great detail and in due course to table an appropriate
amendment that I hope will be agreed by the hon. Members for Cambridge,
for Enfield, Southgate and supported by the hon. Member for Kettering.
I hope that, on that basis, the amendment will be
withdrawn.
David
Howarth (Cambridge) (LD): I am very grateful for the
Minister’s remarks and I am hopeful that we can move forward on
the issue in the way that he has described.
The reason that the definitions
are drafted as they are in the amendment is, firstly, to ensure that
they depend on the nature of the substances, rather than the legality
or illegality of the substances concerned; and, secondly, so that they
take into account possible future developments. We are always behind
the curve when it comes to youth culture and what youths are
doing.
Mr.
Hanson:
One of the reasons why I want to reflect upon this
matter in detail is to cover that very point. In my experience of
solvent and volatile substance misuse, every item that is abused is
something that has a domestic day-to-day purpose and a legitimate use.
We phrase legislation in terms of the sale of those items to cover
their misuse; we need to ensure that we phrase the legislation, in due
course, to cover the misuse of items rather than their legitimate
use.
David
Howarth:
That is precisely the point. We
must ensure that we are looking at the effects of substance misuse on
young people and their communities, rather than sticking to narrow,
legalistic definitions of whether a substance is legal or used for a
particular lawful
purpose.
As
I said, it is very important to draft legislation so that we can catch
future developments. Our ability to predict the future in this type of
case is very limited. There have been a number of developments, as
mentioned by the hon. Member for Kettering, which were not predicted by
the authorities, the Government or anyone with a position of
authority.
With those
brief explanations of the way in which we drafted the amendment, and
with gratitude that the Government appear to be thinking in the same
direction, I am happy to withdraw the
amendment.
Mr.
Burrowes:
To deal with our amendments, we too welcome the
Minister’s saying that he is considering seriously an amendment
to encompass the elements of substance and alcohol
misuse.
I
add a note of caution. Back in 2003, it was indicated that there was to
be an alcohol treatment requirement. Obviously, time has passed, and it
would be interesting
to know why that was dropped from the list. We are subject to the
demands of the legislative timetable and there is limited time to come
up with an appropriate proposal. That is, in many ways,
regrettable.
I also
share the concern that the treatment requirement should be deliverable.
Within the amendments there is the important requirement that the court
must be satisfied
that
“arrangements have
been or can be made for the treatment intended to be specified in the
order”.
That is more
important if we take substance misuse generically. As I said earlier,
in terms of alcohol, a limited amount of treatment is available, and it
is important to be able to deliver what one promises and what the
courts would expect. With that said, if work is done on both the
definitions and what can be achieved, I will not press our
amendments.
Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
(o) a reparation
requirement (see paragraph 24A of that
Schedule).’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 104, in
schedule 1, page 99, line 2, at
end
insert—
‘Reparation
requirement
24A
In this Part of this Act “reparation requirement”, in
relation to a youth rehabilitation order, means a requirement that,
during the period for which the order remains in force, the offender
must attend an activity or activities involving contact between an
offender and persons affected by the offences in respect of which the
order was made and as may be determined by the responsible
officer.’.
No.
107, in
clause 7, page 5, line 39, at
end
insert—
‘“reparation
requirement”, in relation to a youth rehabilitation order, has
the meaning given by paragraph 24A of Schedule
1;’.
Mr.
Burrowes:
These amendments develop a theme that has
already been debated by the Committee, both in terms of the principles
behind the generic youth rehabilitation order and in relation to
hierarchy of
sentencing.
Amendment
No. 103 would make the reparation requirement part of the generic youth
rehabilitation order. In that connection, I want particularly to note
the comments of the Magistrates Association during our evidence-taking
sessions. The association expressed concern in evidence given on 16
October. In response to Question 61, Cindy Barnett, the chairman,
explained her concerns that a separate reparation order with the
generic youth rehabilitation order might lead to confusion. The
association was concerned to ensure consistency and clarity about
orders, both for the offender and for the
court.
To be fair, we
also heard that the Youth Justice Board did not share that concern. It
wanted to ensure that there would be an appropriate hierarchy of
sentences, going up the tariff. However, I suggest
that
the Government cannot have it both ways in the matter of hierarchy. They
argue that the intensive supervision and surveillance order should come
as part of a generic order and that there is an inbuilt hierarchy
within the generic youth rehabilitation orders; but at the same time
they still want to keep an element of separateness with the reparation
order.
There is concern about clarity.
From speaking to practitioners and others, I know that when they come
to court they want to know exactly what orders are in place. If we are
to move towards adopting a generic order, it is important that it is
all-encompassing, so that magistrates can deal with different levels of
seriousness of offences appropriately, and, if an offence is at a low
level and requires a first instalment of a youth rehabilitation order,
a reparation order should be made within that order. I concede that
there is an element of reparation already within the generic orders.
However, I share the concerns of the Magistrates Association that there
is still a need to deal with the matters together, by way of a generic
order.
To return to the
point that I made about the way in which the Bill has come before us
following the discussions about the 2003Green Paper, the plans at that
time for the action plan order entailed a menu to cover fines,
reparation and a range of other specified activities. It would be
interesting to know how we have moved on to keeping reparation orders
separate from other, generic, orders. There used to be other low-level
community sentences, such as attendance centre orders, which were kept
separate, but—properly, in many ways—the generic order is
now intended to include that element, by way of an activity
requirement. The question is why a reparation order cannot similarly be
part of the same order, for the sake of clarity, and for the sake of
magistrates, offenders, practitioners and the
public.
David
Howarth:
I read amendment No. 104 as
having a slightly broader effect than one of pure reparation. That is
why I support it. The only problem that I have with it is the name
given to the requirement, which should really be something like
“restorative justice requirement”, rather than just
“reparation requirement”.
Amendment No. 104 would provide
that
“the offender must
attend an activity or activities involving contact between an offender
and persons affected by the
offences”.
That
is not just reparation in the ordinary sense of payback. It includes
the element of an encounter, in controlled conditions, between the
offender and the victim. It is that encounter that is often the most
successful part of a restorative justice exercise. Reparation itself
can be part of the process, but the encounter is important as well.
That is what the order
includes.
4.30
pm
What we now
know about restorative justice is that it is successful. It is probably
the most tested criminal justice intervention of recent years, and the
evidence is piling up, not only of its potential, but of its actual
success. If we look at the research reported by Professor Lawrence
Sherman and Heather Strang for the Smith Institute, we see
scientifically validated evidence piling up in favour of that type of
intervention.
The intervention works, often in
surprising ways. For example, it works not just for property crime,
which is what people normally think of restorative justice and
reparation being about, but for some forms of violent crime. In fact,
it sometimes works better for violent crime than for property crime.
Perhaps even more surprisingly, it can work successfully for serious
offences as well as for minor offences.
That is probably because of the
element of the encounter. Offenders often have in their heads a series
of quite unacceptable excuses for their behaviour—excuses they
give themselves, which downplay the humanity of the victim and the
entitlement of the victim to live a safe life. A series of studies
shows clearly that those sort of excuses can be dismantled as a
consequence of the encounter between a victim and an offender.
Therefore, restorative justice works, but it works best for crimes in
which there is an individual
victim.
The other
important aspect of restorative justice is the good it does for
victims. Again, it is not just about the payback. Some work might be
done for the victim or some payment might be made, which the hon.
Member for Enfield, Southgate mentioned. However, it is not just that.
Often victims want to know the answers to quite simple questions such
as, “Why me? Why was I the victim rather than some other person?
Was I being picked on for some characteristic of my own?” What
comes out of the encounter is that the victim discovers that they were
chosen at random. They were not being picked on in any particular way
because of who they were, but were chosen because of the circumstances
or the coincidence of events.
Mr.
Burrowes:
I support the hon. Gentleman and the
principle of restorative justice, which my hon. and learned Friend the
Member for Harborough also supports. My concern is that in practice,
some of the reparation orders made at present do not go as far as the
hon. Gentleman seeks to take them, which is properly to address the
issues of the offence with the victim of the crime. Instead, it can be
at a very low level. They might write a letter saying sorry, or make
something that gets sent to the victim, but it often does not go beyond
that and they do not take the opportunity to ensure that reparation
also leads to
restoration.
David
Howarth:
Yes, the amendment creates the power to do that,
which is a valuable part of it. The effect on the victim can be very
important. Studies show that the degree of mental illness that victims
suffer as a result of crimes can be reduced by this sort of restorative
justice encounter. I therefore support the amendment.
The one point to mention here,
which echoes a point made in a previous debate, is that resources are
needed for restorative justice to work. I would like to draw the
Government’s attention to the research finding that says that
restorative justice works far better when it is run by the police
rather than by social workers. If that is going to work, we must think
about the resources that go to the police for this sort of activity,
rather than for their other more usual
activities.
Mr.
Hanson:
Again, I am grateful to the hon. Members for
Enfield, Southgate and for Cambridge for speaking to the
amendments.
Let me state at the outset that I
believe that it is important that young people who have offended accept
responsibility for their actions and, where possible, do something
practical to offer reparation that will benefit the victim, or indeed
the community as a whole. That is why, in the Bill, we have included
reparation in the requirements of the youth rehabilitation order.
We also propose—this is the crucial difference
between the amendment and our thinking—to maintain the
reparation order as a separate sentence beneath the YRO for the courts
to exercise. We have done that for a number of reasons, which I hope
the members of the Committee will understand.
I believe that
reparation is very important. In my previous role as a Northern Ireland
Minister, I was responsible for the Youth Justice Agency there, where
restorative justice was a particular aim. My hon. Friend the
Under-Secretary of State for Justice also had a brief sojourn in
Northern Ireland for six weeks, following my departure, before moving
to her current post. She joined the Ministry of Justice to take forward
very positive activity too. The use of restorative justice has been
proved to show great benefits to the community at large and to the
individuals who undertake it. We are currently undertaking a number of
restorative justice pilots in England and Wales to see whether there
would also be benefits here. In my experience in Northern Ireland, the
victims of crime and, very often, the young people or others who have
been involved in crime benefit greatly from undertaking that process,
so I feel that restorative justice has merit.
The argument between us today
is, I believe, about whether we retain a separate reparation order or
simply subsume it into the YRO. I take the view that we should have a
separate order, because I want to see it used to prevent the escalation
of activity by young people who are made the subjects of such
orders.
I pray in aid
what the Committee heard last Thursday from the representatives of both
the Youth Justice Board and the Children’s Society. They
strongly supported retaining the reparation order as a separate
sentence. Indeed, Ellie Roy, the chief executive of the Youth Justice
Board, told the Committee
that
“there is value in
having reparation in its own right”.——[Official
Report, Criminal Justice and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 18
October 2007; c. 109,
Q229.]
Making reparation to the
victim of the crime is central to the youth justice system and I
believe that it can both assist the rehabilitation of the offender and
help the victim.
Mr.
David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): Will the Minister
explain one thing to the Committee? The Youth Justice Board and others
are being entirely consistent in their approach of saying that there
should be a hierarchy. The Minister is not being quite so consistent in
that he is now arguing the exact opposite of the position that he
adopted in respect of ISSOs. I wonder whether he could explain why he
now takes a different
view.
Mr.
Hanson:
I take the view that the
reparation order in itself can act as a useful tool to prevent further
reoffending and to prevent the ratcheting up of offending by the young
person. I accept that I have taken a different view with regard to the
surveillance requirements.
I think that, based on the evidence that we have, we can involve young
people in undertaking reparation, without ratcheting up the level of
the order that would be proposed for the
future.
Alun
Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op):
May I suggest that the answer to the hon. Member for
Somerton and Frome might be made easier if we put aside the idea of a
hierarchy, because I think that that sometimes gets in the way of
sentencing in the courts? That is because one ends up with
inappropriate sentences, due to the idea that the individual is
somewhere on an inappropriate hierarchy. By contrast, what we have is a
multi-faceted and serious option, which is the one that the Minister is
addressing. However, a youngster who had committed an offence that led
to a decision of guilt, but which was not a serious offence, might
nevertheless undertake reparation. Is it not better, as my right hon.
Friend the Minister of State rightly suggests, to make that provision
available than to trap people in
hierarchies?
Mr.
Hanson:
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his
contribution. The essential point that I am trying to make is that the
reparation order provides a separate sentence—in this case,
below the youth rehabilitation order—that is focused on
activities that will help prevent crime and deal with some low-level,
but significant, offences that young people might be responsible for,
such as graffiti, minor damage or poor behaviour in the community at
large. The reparation order would ensure that we focus on activities
that will reinforce principles such as personal responsibility and
ensuring that people learn about the consequences of their actions and
accept and understand the nature of the damage that they have
done.
It
is important that we retain the reparation order. The Youth Justice
Board and the Children’s Society indicated the same thing in
their evidence to us. Our experience is that the reparation order can
be effective in preventing the escalation of offending behaviour before
there is a need for the court to consider whether a youth
rehabilitation order should be imposed. Considering the types of
reparation that young people can undertake, such as graffiti cleaning,
repairing community facilities and innovative bespoke
schemes—including bike renovation for people involved in bike
crime and faith-based reparation in conjunction with local
churches—conservation work and community art work, and
considering the youth reparation order generally with regard to wider
restorative justice schemes, all those things have a value in helping
to prevent crime, which all Committee members are concerned
about.
Mr.
Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con): It is probably my
fault, but I have become a little bit confused about the agreement that
the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth seemed to be
advancing in favour of the Minister’s argument. I thought that I
agreed with him that it is far better to have a fairly open-ended
system whereby the courts could choose the appropriate remedy for a
particular offender without being bothered by the hierarchy, so that if
an individual were charged with a fairly low-level offence but none the
less needed to have his offending behaviour brought home to him, a
reparation order, as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for
Enfield, Southgate, might be sensible. What you call it and how it fits
into the Bill does not seem to make much difference; what is important
is getting the
offender to repair the damage, in some way or other, to the victim.
Whether that is done by a rehabilitation order requirement or by a
self-standing disposal, or a combination of both, and whether the
reparation order fits within both categories, surely does not matter
much, as long as the court has it at its
disposal.
Mr.
Hanson:
As the amendments are drafted, the proposed new
reparation requirement would duplicate the existing order. Provisions
for reparation that are already built into the youth rehabilitation
order and would cause confusion to the courts, the supervising
authorities and, crucially, to the young person. We are trying to
ensure that we have the flexibility of having the reparation order in
place for low-level offences and, equally, including it as part of a
wider youth rehabilitation order if need be. It is important that we do
that to prevent
reoffending.
I ask the
hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate to withdraw his amendment. I cannot
support
it.
4.45
pm
Mr.
Burrowes:
I have heard the
Minister’s comments, but I am not convinced by his rationale.
The Magistrates Association, which gave evidence to us, said that its
involvement in consultation on this proposal was limited. At the very
least, the amendment has highlighted the association’s concerns,
which perhaps could have been listened to and taken on board at an
earlier stage. It is, however, worth repeating its comments in written
evidence, as it takes issue with the Minister and looks at whether
having the Bill as a separate order is less confusing. The association
points
out:
“This
separation will only serve to confuse young people. Whilst in its own
right it is not a community sentence, neither are many of the other
requirements in the new YRO and therefore the Association cannot see,
nor has it been
given”—
that is an
important point because the level of the conversation has perhaps been
limited—
“any good
reason why this order has been excluded and left
separate.”
Alun
Michael:
The Magistrates Association does not always get
it right; the hon. Gentleman should apply his own mind to the matter.
Faced with an offender who commits a mild offence, we might not want to
use the full panoply of measures in the YRO, but merely want to say,
“Put things right.” Surely what the hon. Gentleman seeks
would stand in the way of that.
Mr.
Burrowes:
As a defence solicitor, I do not suggest that
magistrates always get it right—indeed, I often try to convince
them to alter their pre-existing opinion of a particular defendant.
Nevertheless in a case involving a low-level offence, such as that
referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, it might be appropriate to
impose an activity requirement with an element of reparation, or a
measure that had an attendance centre requirement. Those types of order
used to be distinct and separate and were the lowest level of order
before we moved up the scale to supervision orders. Under the Bill all
those requirements are contained within youth rehabilitation
orders.
The menu of
options contains many low-level interventions that magistrates can use.
It is not clear how one can distinguish a hierarchy of measures such
as a limited attendance centre requirement or a limited activity
requirement and a reparation order. That is particularly true if the
Government’s position is that intensive supervision and
surveillance orders fall within generic youth rehabilitation orders; by
implication, there is a hierarchy that goes right up the scale to
intensive supervision and surveillance orders. Surely it makes sense to
have all the options available in a clear and methodical
manner.
I maintain my view, but do not
at this stage wish to press the matter further. I beg to ask leave to
withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
The
amendment provides us with an opportunity to talk further about the
regime of youth rehabilitation orders, particularly those that cover
fostering. Clause 1(3) allows a youth rehabilitation order to
include
“a youth
rehabilitation order with intensive supervision and
surveillance”,
and
secondly,
“a youth
rehabilitation order with fostering.”
It is governed by paragraph 4 of schedule
1, which lists a number of things that the court must consider. It must
be satisfied
“that the
behaviour which constituted an offence was due to a significant extent
to the circumstances in which the offender was
living,”
and
“that the imposition of a fostering
requirement would assist in the offender’s
rehabilitation”.
However,
“a court may not impose a fostering
requirement
unless—
(a) it
has consulted the offender’s parents or guardians (unless it is
impracticable to do so),
and
(b) it has
consulted the local authority which is to place the offender with a
local authority foster
parent”.
I
am not sure what “consulting” really means. I know what
the English word means, but I would be interested to hear from the
Minister what consulting the offender’s parents or guardians and
the local authority is intended to mean as a matter of the construction
of the Bill, so that a court knows what is in the Government’s
mind when it comes to consider a youth rehabilitation order.
I say that in the context of the
evidence that we heard on Thursday 18 October. Mr. Simon
Hickson, the policy advisor for the Children’s Society,
said:
“About
£280 million a year is spent on sending children into custody. A
custodial sentence of a year, even if only six months is spent in
custody, can cost nearly £100,000. From our perspective, there
is a crucial need to look at the criteria for custody and the Bill
presents an opportunity to do so. There is an opportunity to move to
something of a virtuous circle, by tightening the criteria for custody
and using the intensive supervision and surveillance programme or ISS
order, as we would like to see it, and the higher intensity measures as
community options.”——[Official Report, Criminal
Justice and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2007; c.
92, Q200.]
I
take it that he included within that the fostering requirement because,
clearly, if we could deal with a disaffected young person through
fostering and improve his behaviour, stop his criminality and reduce
reoffending through fostering or an ISS order, that would save a huge
amount of money.
However, Ellie Roy, the chief
executive of the Youth Justice Board also gave evidence on that
occasion. In response to a question from
me:
“Where
is this money coming from that is going to make this
work?”,
she
said:
“The
starting point for this is that a lot of money is being spent on these
young people anyway, through various parts of the system, whether it is
on care, social work or various services. This looks as if it is a more
effective way of spending some of that resource to get much better
results. If we manage to reduce the numbers in custody, the Youth
Justice Board would be able to invest more of the money that we
currently spend on custody. Simon Hickson quoted the amount for
custody. In some sectors it is much higher than that. Some of the beds
that we pay for cost up to £200,000 a year. A lot of money is
being spent anyway, particularly on the secure children’s homes.
There are issues about how local authorities identify the children who
are most in need and who are already costing a lot of money, and how
they spend the money that is already being invested in them. There is
also for us a challenge in terms of getting kids out of custody so that
we can spend the money spent on custody in other
ways.”
Then, Bob
Reitemeier, who is the chief executive of the Children’s Society
added:
“I
should like to encourage the Committee to take a long-term view in
addressing this question of finances. Reoffending rates hover between
75 and 80 per cent. for offenders who go to custody. It is not just, as
Simon Hickson pointed out, £100,000 a year, because you multiply
that every time the young person comes back into the system. So what
some of the interventions, such as intensive fostering or intensive
engagement with young people, are trying to combat is the reoffending
rate. It is working in a way that prevents these young people from
coming back into the system. So when you look at finances and the long
term, it sounds crude, but it is pay now or pay later, or pay now or
continue to pay. We need to take a long-term view of
that.”——[Official Report, Criminal Justice and
Immigration Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2007; c. 92-93,
Q202.]
I have set that out
possibly at too great a length, but it is important to understand the
context in which people such as Bob Reitemeier, Simon Hickson and Ellie
Roy are looking at finances and looking at the resources that it is
necessary to deploy if these sorts of responses to young criminal
behaviour are to work.
As I said in
the evidence sessions, I have concerns about the nationalisation of
children, as I rather dramatically put it. There are already
arrangements in the family courts for children to be put into the care
of a local authority outside the criminal justice system. Those
arrangements have good and bad results, as we know—I come back
to the figure that 27 per cent. of the people in custody have been
through care. Undoubtedly, however, there will be cases where sadly,
both for the child and for the parents, it is the only answer if the
child is to move into adulthood with any form of safety. If that is
what is required, we must harden our hearts and hope that taking the
child away from its natural parents and placing it in care is the
lesser of two evils.
The problem that I see arising
from intensive fostering requirement is again highlighted by Bob
Reitemeier’s evidence. I
asked:
“So who
will be responsible for co-ordinating this, or does that just fall
through the grating?”
That
is to say, would the co-ordinating of the resources and providing the
right answer for these youngsters fall through the grating? Ellie Roy
replied:
“It
should be the youth offending team at the local level. If they have
behind them the leverage of saying that what they are doing is a
requirement of the court, that will facilitate and encourage
discussions with local partnerships about to which
people priority should be given. If you get that right, you will get the
pay-offs that Simon Hickson described earlier. You can change behaviour
and that will save victims, communities and money in the future. That
is the ideal that we are heading for and I think that the YRO is a
strong lever for us in achieving
it.”
Mr.
Reitemeier agreed with her
about
“the critical need
for joining up these
services”,
but he
continued:
“A
point was made earlier about resources in a different context, but the
other reality experienced on the ground is that this is viewed as a
criminal justice problem, not a broader problem relating to children
and young people.”
He
reminded
us:
“The reality
for children’s services is that once a crime enters into the
life of a young
person”
children’s
services can move them off their book and place them in the criminal
justice resource system. I intervened on him and said,
“And out of their
budget.”
He
replied:
“It is
not really part of the Bill, but I was going to make the point that,
because the Youth Justice Board commissions and pays for custody, it is
not a local authority problem. The Committee may want to consider
that.”——[Official Report, Criminal
Justice and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 18 October
2007; c. 102-03,
Q221.]
I
am getting to the church by way of the moon, but the question that I
want the Minister to answer is as follows: if the court consults the
local authority, if the local authority has very few resources to
spare, it will say, “Criminal justice disposal? Yes
please.” The criminal justice system, whether it be the youth
offending team or the youth justice system, will then take over the
burden of spending public money on that child, as opposed to the county
council or other local authority departments. There will be an
incentive for local authorities, if consulted in a meaningful way, to
respond that the criminal justice procedure is the best way to deal
with it. Paragraph 4(3) of schedule 1 states:
“But a court may not
impose a fostering requirement unless ... it has consulted the
local authority which is to place the offender with a local authority
foster parent.”
The local
authority treasurer’s eyes will light up and he will say,
“You pay for it, youth justice system.” The fostering
system will still be provided, but it will come out of somebody
else’s budget.
I
have never served on a local authority in any guise, as many hon.
Members have—
Mr.
Garnier:
I have something in common with
the hon. Lady at last. In fact, we have two things in common: first,
neither of us has served on a local authority and, secondly, we want to
get the Bill right. Although she will not admit it in public, she too
probably thinks that the Bill is in a bit of a mess and that it needs
pulling together. There are always difficulties when a Bill is run by
two separate Departments and this is classic example. I look forward to
her co-operation with the Opposition in working to ensure that the
Bill—in so far as it emerges at all—emerges with some
degree of coherence. However, that was an aside.
I seek advice from members of the
Committee who know a bit more about local authority treasury activity
than I do. I ask them whether I am right, when I interpret what
Mr. Reitemeier said, in suspecting that we will see many
local authorities that do not have enough money to use in all sorts of
other areas saying, “Push this on to the youth justice
system.” I see that the hon. Member for Cambridge is going to
help
me.
5
pm
David
Howarth:
I shall speak as one of the team of former
council leaders on the Committee. Experience in another area—the
relationship between the health service and local
authorities—shows that there will always be a tendency for local
authorities and central government to have a bit of a contest to push
costs onto the other, unless a system is set up to ensure that that
does not happen. With enough thought, however, those problems can be
reduced.
Mr.
Garnier:
I am sure that they can be
given enough thought, and today we are seeking to provoke the
Government into thinking. If they do that, it will be a good thing. My
concerns are added to because the Ministry of Justice is new. Although
it may have all sorts of experienced officials and advisors who have
been in other Departments that have dealt with these matters before,
the culture of departmental government means that, by and large, once
one is in one Department, one is in a silo. It is quite difficult to
get the different silos in government to talk to each other. For
example, we are talking about young people who are engaged in the
criminal justice system. That will effect education, health, social
services, children’s services, the criminal justice system and
the police—a host of public authorities and agencies. I wonder
whether the Ministry of Justice yet has the clout, impetus and
experience to handle that. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice is
rising to the challenge of co-ordinating all those great public
authorities, and I hope that she is successful.
To be serious, there is an
organisational and administrative issue here, which will take a lot of
ministerial and political drive and leadership. I hope that we will see
that from the three Ministers who sit on the Committee. However, I am
sceptical and I am concerned that the Bill will fall in its
implementation because of those resource problems.
I wanted to describe that issue
to the Committee in moving amendment No. 2. I assure the Minister that
I will not press it to a Division because there is no point. I do,
however, want some sort of understanding from the Government about how
they think the Bill will work in real life. Local authority leaders on
both sides of the Committee room, practitioners, certainly on this side
of the room, and Ministers who have non-political experience in
children’s activities, such as
Re-Solv—
Mr.
Garnier:
I am sure that the Minister has
done many wonderful things in his life, but I was particularly
interested in his work as the director of Re-Solv. All of us have
different experiences and all of us know that things go wrong if work
is not co-ordinated. We all talk about demanding co-ordination, but
nothing ever seems to get done and how we then have to have another Act
of Parliament to cure it.
Finally, I ask the Minister, when
he is considering the amendments in the previous group that he said he
would reflect on—amendments Nos. 167 and 105—to find time
to read a book entitled “Wasted” by Mark Johnson. He may
well have read it already. It is clearly one man’s story, but it
a useful encyclopaedia of information about what happens to someone who
falls into the grips of addiction or substance abuse as a result of his
family not providing the support to him as a child that might have been
necessary. He became disaffected with education and with what I loosely
call “normal life”. He went right to the bottom and it
was very difficult for him to rescue himself or allow himself to be
rescued by
others.
“Wasted”
is about someone affected by class A drug abuse and alcohol. Its author
would use anything to get him away, in his head, from where he
was—that is to say, away from the street door or pavement in the
west end—and drugs were the travel system he used to get himself
away. He did not think that he was an addict. He knew that he was in
control of his drug habit, which was costing hundreds of pounds a day.
He stole money or stole goods to sell to raise the money. There are
some big issues in this book that are perhaps hidden by the
ordinariness of the black print of these
pages.
I urge the
Minister and his colleagues to read “Wasted”. The right
hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth seems to have read it, but I
urge other Committee members who have not done so to read it, because
it demonstrates the seriousness and the huge nature of the problem that
we are all trying to get to grips
with.
Mr.
Heath:
I am grateful to the hon. and
learned Member for Harborough for raising some important questions. I
do not think that he addressed his amendment at any stage, which is a
good thing because I do not agree with it and I might say why right at
the end of my remarks. Instead, he used his amendment as a vehicle for
expressing some proper concerns about the intensive fostering scheme,
which I think the whole Committee agrees is a bold, imaginative scheme
with enormous potential, if it is allowed to work and if it has the
resources to make it work. I do not want to suggest that it is not well
worth considering and including in the Bill. However, there are some
important questions, which we will discuss further in the context of
schedule 1 and which we have already discussed, albeit superficially,
in our earlier consideration of the Bill. The hon. and learned
Gentleman set out some of the
concerns.
Resourcing is
not peripheral; it is absolutely central to the operation of the
measure. I do not want to be unkind to the Minister, but I do not think
that he answered precisely the questions put to him this morning on
this subject. There was certainly no clarity about how the measure will
be funded, but that will be critical to its
operation.
My
local authority experience is years out of date. I was the leader of a
county council with social services responsibilities and, certainly in
my time, although almost any amount of resource could be put into
social services and it would be used effectively, they would still
require more to deal with vulnerable people. The limitation was always
the budget that was available, rather than the demands that the
services put on the budget. I am clear in my mind that any directors of
social services—although
they are not called that any more; they are called all sorts of other
things that reflect the Children Act 2004 and what flowed from
it—or any officer of an authority who has responsibility for
child protection will grasp an opportunity to shift significant amounts
of expenditure off local authority budgets on to a central Government
budget. However, I want to be clear that that is what is envisaged,
because although the Minister said this morning that his Department and
the criminal justice system would have responsibility for organising
implementation of the measure, I was not clear whether there would
still be a duty on the local authority to provide. If there is, that
would be an onerous duty for many local
authorities.
There is a
distinction—I come back to the point because I do not think that
we have clarified the position—between what is required for the
child’s protection, which is clearly part of the duty of the
local authority but is no part of a criminal justice disposal, and what
will be required in making orders under the Bill. The latter is part of
a criminal justice disposal and is therefore not purely for the
child’s protection, but its purpose, quite properly and
significantly, is to seek to provide an environment where the young
person is less likely to reoffend.
We need to understand the system
that will get us from A to B—that gets the young person into an
intensive fostering place in each local authority area in the country.
Is the Department going to maintain lists of approved intensive foster
parents for each criminal justice area? Will those individuals be
funded directly from Department of Justice funds for the very difficult
job that they will be doing? Alternatively, will the Department, at the
time of disposal, simply ask the local authority whether it has any
foster parents who might fit the bill and work on an ad hoc, or an ad
hominem, basis? Which is it going to be? It will require significant
resources, so what thought has gone into the
provision?
Without some
clarity it is hard to accept at face value that the disposal will be
available in every court across the country to every young offender who
would benefit from it. If it is not to be so, we shall have a postcode
lottery, to use a hackneyed term, in the disposals that are available
to particular magistrates benches.
Is it envisaged that the foster
parents who are engaged for the purpose will be in the same local
authority area as the young person, or indeed the court before which
they appear? Or is it the intention to take children out of inner
cities to a—for them—totally alien environment to remove
them from the temptation and pressures that they might otherwise
experience? There is an argument for doing that. There is a case to be
made for saying that the best thing one can do for a young offender in
Lambeth is to take them away from an inner-city environment to a
suburban or rural environment. That has happened in the past. There is
a school in my constituency that is intended for young people who
display behavioural difficulties. It is a local authority school, but
it is not run by Somerset local education authority; Bristol education
authority does. It is miles out in the country, although it is not in
the middle of nowhere. It is in a very sweet little village, but it is
certainly a long way from St. Pauls or Knowle West in Bristol, or the
other places where the children at the school might have come from. Is
that what the Minister of State has in mind?
If the Minister of State cannot
provide that clarity here and now, will he write to the Committee to
tell us how the scheme will work? It would put a lot of minds at rest
to know that sufficient thought has gone into its working, and into the
duties that will exist for local authorities, and to know that the
scheme has been discussed with the Local Government Association and
others, so that there is clarity as to the source of funding for
supporting particular
individuals.
5.15
pm
The placements
must be very special placements if they are to work successfully. It
will not do a young person much good to simply put them into a standard
local authority home—not a foster home—and expect that
that will do the trick of dissuading them from criminal behaviour. All
the evidence shows that it is unlikely to do so, despite the best will
in the world on the part of those who are trying to operate such homes.
We need clear assurances that there are sufficient numbers of people
who can address the problem and who have a high degree of altruism and
the ability to care for what may sometimes be disturbed individuals,
and that we have a way of funding them.
Let me return to the
amendment—
Mr.
Heath:
The hon. and learned Gentleman says that I should
not bother, and perhaps that is entirely sensible. I shall just say
that I have been consistent in my view that if a child is taken away
from their familial home by court order, that is a significant disposal
and should be done with proper care. The criterion that would be
removed by the amendment is that it should be done in relation to an
offence that would otherwise attract a custodial sentence. I think that
that is a necessary threshold for such a disposal. I do not wish to
remove it from the order and that is why I would not support the hon.
and learned Gentleman if he were to push the amendment to a vote, which
he is clearly not going to do. I hope that the Minister will be able to
respond to the cogent points that he made, which perhaps I have
amplified a little in my
remarks.
Mr.
Hanson:
I am grateful for the positive way in which the
amendments have been moved by the hon. and learned Member for
Harborough, supported in part by the hon. Member for Somerton and
Frome.
Let us be clear
what the amendment would do. It would remove the fostering requirement
from the custodial threshold. I strongly believe that the fostering
requirement retains a place as an alternative to custody provision
alongside the intensive supervision and surveillance provision, on
which we touched earlier this morning. The requirement is based on the
Youth Justice Board’s intensive fostering pilot, which offers an
alternative to custody and which is currently being examined. It may
help if I outline some of the thinking behind the pilot scheme being
operated by the Youth Justice Board, with a view to rolling it out if
the pilot proves to be successful.
The Youth
Justice Board is running small-scale pilots in Staffordshire, Hampshire
and London, funded by a grant of £1.5 million per year. Young
people involved in the pilot are sentenced to the intensive fostering
supervision order under section 88 and schedule 2 of the Anti-social
Behaviour Act 2003. Individuals are put in a foster placement for
approximately nine months, although it could be up to a year, with
potentially further time spent with a family after that.
At the moment, we are funding 13
placements on the pilot in those three areas. So far, 36 young people
have been sentenced to intensive fostering. We are monitoring the
pilot. Again, this is a generic provision in the Bill—we are
trying to prepare legislation in the event of successful roll-out. The
pilot is due to end in October 2008. It is being evaluated by York
university and the interim results show a very positive impact on the
young people involved, including a reduction in reoffending rates among
those who have been through the intensive fostering process.
I have to put in the caveat that
only a very small group have been involved in the pilot and we cannot,
as yet, assess its impact. For the reasons I mentioned earlier in
discussions with the hon. and learned Gentleman, there is a need for
intensive fostering where the circumstances of the home situation mean
that an individual needs to be taken out of that to provide all the
important things that fostering can provide, such as role models, love,
support, encouragement and a range of benefits that may be absent in
the original family home. It is not about nationalising young people
and children; it is about trying to meet the needs of what is a very
small group on the pilot, bearing in mind that, if the pilot is
successful, we may roll out the scheme in
future.
The very
important issue of resources has been raised. This morning I indicated
that we needed to look at that in the round. The Youth Justice Board,
the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Children, Schools and
Families will be accountable and responsible for setting standards,
encouraging schemes and looking at those matters generally. We are
discussing funding for intensive fostering with all three bodies. We
have not made any final decisions yet and I cannot give the Committee
any encouragement in that
respect.
However,
even if we did roll out the scheme nationally from the pilots, based on
the legislation, only a very small number of individuals would be
sentenced to intensive fostering. It is not to be confused with the
normal fostering that local authorities throughout the country provide.
Intensive fostering is significantly different in standard to the
fostering arrangements that are for local authorities to determine as a
welfare issue. Intensive fostering is based on an evidence-based model
delivered by a team who work directly with the young person and,
critically, with the family of origin, to try and ensure that we
prevent reoffending, which is the whole purpose of the
order.
A number of very
important points have been made by the hon. and learned Member for
Harborough in relation to the role of the local authority. Let me
assure him that, to date, we have only operated a pilot scheme; we are
looking at the implications of it before deciding whether to roll it
out. As he mentioned, paragraph 4(3)(b) of schedule 1 says a court may
not impose a fostering requirement
unless
“it has consulted
the local authority which is to place the offender with a local
authority foster parent.”
In practical terms, that will mean that a
court can impose an intensive fostering requirement only if the local
authority has confirmed that a place is available. I expect that, in
the event of both the pilot and the roll-out of the scheme proving
successful, it would not be a question of merely consulting the local
authority, but of a partnership with the local authority in which it
and the court would work together, as part of a general pre-sentence
report, to ensure that that place was available. It would not simply be
a matter of saying to the local authority, “We intend to impose
that order and you have to provide a place.” It would be about
consulting the local authority to ensure that a place was available
when the order was
passed.
Mr.
Nick Hurd (Ruislip-Northwood) (Con): I am sure that the
Committee understands why the Minister is not in a position to give a
funding commitment. In his comments, he suggested that he had some idea
of the parameters of how many children might be involved in a national
roll-out of intensive fostering. Could he be more explicit about the
scale that might be measured through a national roll-out and what broad
costs might be attached to
it?
Mr.
Hanson:
I cannot do that. At the moment,
as I have said, we are undertaking a small-scale pilot in
Staffordshire, Hampshire and London, with a cost of about £1.5
million per year. We have had 13 places available and approximately 35
people have passed through those places during the course of the pilot.
We are evaluating the pilot, which is undertaken under different
legislation. The purpose of this Bill is to subsume the provisions of
that legislation into a generic order to make that available. We hope
that the pilot will be evaluated and rolled out. I am discussing
funding with colleagues in the Department for Children, Schools and
Families and the Youth Justice Board. We will consult with local
authorities on those placements, but I have to say that local
authorities will almost certainly have to take up a large part of the
cost of those placements.
Once again, however, I would
like to refer the hon. and learned Member for Harborough and the rest
of the Committee back to our helpful evidence-taking sessions. During
our fourth sitting, Councillor Les Lawrence, speaking on behalf of the
LGA and replying to the hon. and learned Gentleman,
said:
“The early
indication is that the number of places and the resources, working with
the court and the other agencies, are sufficient at this point, as is
the number of places that are required to match the number of available
resources.”——[Official Report, Criminal Justice
and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2007; c. 141,
Q285.]
He was speaking in
relation to intensive
fostering.
I
am seeking the Committee’s permission to ensure in the
legislative framework that we have intensive fostering available as
part of the YRO. I hope that the Committee will understand that the
benefits for individuals who have experienced intensive fostering are
accepted. The pilot will run its course and be evaluated, but to date
it has been shown to be quite successful in preventing reoffending. I
hope that the Committee takes on trust my statement that the Government
are considering funding arrangements with the YJB and the Department of
Children, Schools and Families. However, in the event of this scheme
being rolled out, consultation will take place with local authorities
about the availability of places, if courts sought to exercise the
order.
I would again like to quote from
the YJB’s written evidence to the Committee. The YJB
said:
“It is
also welcome that the YRO will include a fostering requirement as
another clear alternative to custody allowing for use of the Intensive
Fostering programme currently being piloted by the
YJB.”
The clear intention,
as shown in the evidence to the Committee from the chief executive of
the YJB, is that an intensive fostering requirement will be an
alternative to custody. From my discussions with colleagues in
Committee, including Opposition Members, I know that one of their
objectives is to ensure that we keep young people out of custody. This
order, which is being piloted and examined in detail, gives the
potential to meet that objective, subject to the caveat that the local
authority would have to be consulted. In other words, in real terms the
local authority would have to agree to take on the burden of funding
that place and meeting that resource. We are looking to see what
guidance and support that we can give centrally, in terms of monitoring
standards, examining that provision and encouraging its wider
use.
Therefore, I hope
that the Committee will agree, not only with me, but with the LGA, the
YJB and others, that intensive fostering has the potential to make an
important contribution to the mix of community penalties that are
available to the courts, and to provide a robust and effective
alternative to custody. I hope that the comments that I have made have
reassured the hon. and learned Gentleman about the use of that
provision. I urge him to reflect upon what I have said and to withdraw
his amendment.
There is no
question—certainly not from the Liberal Democrats, nor from the
Conservatives, I think—that there is a recognition of the
utility of this disposal; it is transparently a good thing. However,
the questions about resourcing will continue to worry us.
What the Minister said still
prompts some really important questions in my mind about the level of
funding. He gave the examples of the pilot scheme and suggested that,
if we were to see a roll-out on the same terms, there would be about
four of these placements per county area, or per principal authority
area, because that is the level at the moment. Minister said that
providing those placements would cost about £500,000 per county
area—that was the figure for grant that he gave. He said that it
would be provided primarily by the local authority.
Frankly, that is why I could not
understand the rather sanguine attitude of Councillor Lawrence when he
was giving evidence. In any other circumstances, if local authorities
are asked whether they will shoulder a further burden of
£500,000 a year out of resources that are not there, they
immediately start banging on the door of the Treasury and the
Department for Communities and Local Government to say that they cannot
meet such requirements from existing budgets. Yet Councillor Lawrence
said that it would not be a problem to provide, on the
Minister’s figures, an extra £500,000 a year for
individuals for whom local authorities do not have a duty under welfare
legislation. It is an additional responsibility. The Youth Justice
Board said that the measure was a cheaper
disposal than a custodial sentence. That is correct, but the custodial
sentence is paid for through the criminal justice system from the
budget of the Ministry of Justice, not from local government social
services. That is what worries me.
I shall accept the
Minister’s assurances and accept that he is working on the
details, but we shall need greater clarity on this matter before we
reach the Bill’s later stages. We must be clear about how the
measure will be funded. If it is not funded properly, it will not
work.
5.30
pm
Mr.
Garnier:
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Somerton and
Frome and to all those who have contributed to the debate, whether from
the Labour or Opposition Benches. As I said, we must get the area under
discussion right, and there is not much room for party political
banter.
Like the hon.
Gentleman, I found the LGA witnesses the least satisfactory in the
sense that they were the least inquisitive, the least curious and the
least questioning about the Bill. I do not know enough about the
individuals who gave evidence, but I, too, was surprised when they
seemed to be fairly relaxed about the financial burdens that would be
placed on local authorities as a consequence of intensive fostering.
That might be a function of representing Birmingham and Coventry, which
are two large local authority areas, but Leicestershire, part of which
I represent, has a revenue budget of about £750 million for the
entire range of activities. I dare say that Birmingham has a larger
budget than that, but Leicestershire is always having to look carefully
at its annual budget to see whether it can afford the things that the
Government, by statute, require it to do already without having to face
a further bill for £250,000 to carry out a justice
function.
The Minister
said that the fostering requirement is based on crossing the custody
threshold. Let me put aside for one moment my worries about the
fostering arrangements and whether they are always a good thing. If the
requirement works for the more serious offences of those crossing the
custody threshold, why restrict it to that? Why not allow it to be used
to prevent the young person in a difficult family from reaching the
stage at which he does cross the
threshold?
I come back
to the book “Wasted” by Mark Johnson. He used to spend
weekends on an entirely voluntary basis with a married couple who were
teachers at his school in Kidderminster. During those
weekends—as he admits in the book—his behaviour improved
immeasurably. It was when he went back home that he fell into his old
habits. When his teaching family moved to another part of
Worcestershire, and he was unable to join them at weekends, things got
worse and worse. At that stage he had not done anything that would have
crossed the custody threshold, but clearly he was benefiting from
contact with that other family. I would be interested to know more
about the 13 placements and the 36 youngsters who have been sentenced
to the system in Staffordshire, London and Hampshire. Can I be assured
that those people were placed with real families, and not local
authority homes? There is a provision within the Bill, if foster
parents are not available, for children to be placed in the care of the
local authority, which would mean putting them into children’s
homes or other institutions and that would defeat the
object.
Mr.
Hanson:
I assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that all
of the 35 young people on all the 13 placements are with “real
families”.
Mr.
Garnier:
Good, that is reassuring and I look forward to
reading next year the York university evaluation of the system. It begs
the question whether we are introducing this too early—can we
delay, will we delay or is it necessary to delay the implementation of
this aspect of the Bill until the York university study has been
completed?
I am still
concerned about the multiplicity of Government agencies that will be
looking after the system. I now discover that the Department for
Children, Schools and Families will get its oar into this, as well as
local authorities and the Ministry of Justice and its subsidiaries,
such as the Youth Justice Board. There are far too many people running
the show. We need to have one agency co-ordinating the system and a
Minister of State driving it, because once the political drive and the
organisational coherence are lost, the thing begins to splinter and
people start empire building. It is we, the public, who lose out
because we, the public, are the ones who suffer from the reoffending.
The youngsters falling into the criminal justice system lose out as
well.
This has been a
useful debate, albeit it has nothing to do with the amendment. But
frankly, so
what?
The
Chairman:
Order. The Chair thought that the hon. Gentleman
was speaking entirely to the amendment.
Mr.
Garnier:
As we discovered from Sir Nicholas this morning,
you or who whoever sits in that Chair is always right, Mr.
O’Hara. Whether you are right as a Member of Parliament or not
is neither here nor there.
Let us try to get the
Bill right, let us try to make it work and ensure that it is adequately
managed and adequately resourced, and that it is implemented at the
right time—not too early, before things are ready to go, but
equally not too late, before other problems arise. That is my plea; let
us hope that the Government listen to it. I beg to ask leave to
withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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