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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his full reply. He has striven hard to convince me of the error of my ways and I at least appreciate the effort that he has put into it. However, I remain totally confused as to why the Government should have picked out one low-level requirement—reparation —rather than a number of others, such as, as I said, limited attendance centre requirements or limited activity requirements, and given it a status on its own, independently of the YRO. I had understood the Government to be marketing the YRO as a new beginning: a generic order that effectively embraced all the disparate orders that applied to young people in one provision, where the justices and the judges could specifically select a menu for the offender before them. I accept that, because of paragraph 8(2) of Schedule 1, one item in that menu, via the activity order, would be a reparation order. Under the YRO, you can indirectly make a reparation order. However, that reinforces my concern about why there should be, quite independently of the YRO, a separate, distinct provision for the reparation order. I am aware that the various organisations that take an interest in this matter are not entirely of one mind about the desirability of the Government’s approach. For example, the Magistrates’ Association shares my view, but one or two other organisations take the Government’s point of view. Given this division of view among real experts in the field, I am not inclined to press the amendment to a vote. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 2 not moved.]