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Gareth Myatt

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I was going to refer to that matter later, but as he has raised it I will take it on. There are wider issues relating to restraint not only in the secure training centre estate but in young offenders institutions and secure children’s homes. We need to look honestly at the policy and practice across the board. I have had discussions not only in the Ministry of Justice but with the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Beverley Hughes), and we agreed that we wish to set up a joint review of restraint issues. We will announce in short order—in the next week—further details of the content of the review and a range of issues that I know my hon. Friend will be interested in following up. I give that assurance to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North. As I said, a key lesson from Gareth’s death is that we need to review physical control and care. The Youth Justice Board has brought together a panel of experts to review the approved techniques. As my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North said, use of the double-seated embrace, the hold with which Gareth had been restrained, and which had been suspended on police advice shortly after his death, is now permanently discontinued. Those changes were vital, but the Youth Justice Board has also recognised the need to improve the management of challenging behaviour in all under-18 custodial establishments, not only secure training centres. In February 2006, it published a code of practice on behaviour management—an important document, not least section 10, which spells out the very limited circumstances in which physical restraint may be used. Paragraph 6 requires that restrictive physical interventions must be used only as a last resort when there is no alternative available and all other options have been exhausted. That wording is worth noting because it echoes the requirement in the secure training centre rules that physical restraint may be used only where no alternative method is available. Again, I say to my hon. Friend that there is a debate on the statutory instrument in another place. I am not in a position to withdraw it, but there will be a debate on it next week, and I hope that my noble Friend, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, the junior Minister at the Ministry of Justice, will be able to give assurances on the use of restraint.