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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

In the spirit of what many noble Lords have said, I have just three observations to make in adding my support to the amendments. First, I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, mentioned the ridiculous Youth Justice Board target to achieve a 10 per cent reduction in the number of those in custody, as that highlights one of the problems. This area is bedevilled by a large number of silly and inappropriate targets, which deflect people from the real purpose. My second point is that, as I mentioned earlier, in our consideration of the Children and Young Persons Bill we have been discussing just this sort of problem in relation to children who are in the hands either of the Minister for Children, who happens to be in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, or of the social services. This shows up the lack of a joined-up approach. Surely if there is a Minister for Children and she really is responsible for them, she should be made responsible for pulling together all the people who have a responsibility in this area. We seem to have a totally fragmented approach, which I do not think is helpful. My third point reflects something that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said. I have said this on many occasions in relation to many other things. None of this will happen unless someone is made responsible and accountable for making it happen. You can have Ministers speaking and officials writing goodness knows what, but unless somebody is made to do it, it will remain as a spoken or written word. The amendments highlight the need to have doers doing things rather than talkers talking.