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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

When we discuss the issues surrounding young people, the Government do not seem to recognise the fact that young people change quite fast as they mature. The noble Lord is a family man himself so he knows that very well. The young person being dealt with in one year may be a completely different person by the next. His attitude may change profoundly. Young people simply do not ask what is going to happen next in terms of the law. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, pointed out earlier that many young people are in a rather chaotic state at this point in their lives, and much depends on the way they are feeling at that moment. To give a young person another chance is something that we keep talking about but that the Government seem not to want to do, which makes me think that they spend far too much time reading the tabloids and too little time studying the development of young people.