---

Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, that was an interesting discussion. What might have been a rather technical debate has proved to be a debate of great substance. I am sure that, in relation to the practice of sentencers and the interrelationship between mental health services in general and children and adolescent mental health services in particular, the argument for the recognition of the importance of early access to high-quality CAMHS for these young people is wholly persuasive. I hope that I can convince noble Lords that the Government recognise that. Indeed, we are taking action to ensure that this happens. I know that there is concern that the sentencing process may not sufficiently take into account what is described as the intellectual and emotional maturity of the young person, but we should recognise that we have embraced a lot of different factors within that term. We believe that, as far as the technical answer is concerned, a young person’s age and maturity are factors that are embedded in general sentencing practice. We also believe that the court should take into account factors such as age and emotional maturity when making any sentencing decisions. They are important factors, which a court always ought to take into account when deciding which interventions should be made and for how long, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, said. The courts will always consider the extent to which age and maturity may be a mitigating factor. More than this, they will often amount to mitigation. The Court of Appeal stated in the Queen against Howells in 1991 that youth and immaturity, while offering no defence, will often justify a less vigorous penalty than would be appropriate for an adult. Youth offending teams, in courts up and down the country, will be key in ensuring that this is implemented effectively. As part of the assessment process, a youth offending team must look at the age and maturity of the individual to determine what their needs are and how those needs can best be met. This applies across the piece. It also ought to inform any breach action that may be taken. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, that we will ask for factors of age, maturity and other matters of personal mitigation for a person aged under 18 to be addressed in the sentencing guidelines that will be provided to sentencers before the youth rehabilitation order is brought into effect. I know that the noble Baroness has, in general, welcomed the consideration that has led to the YRO being brought forward in this legislation; nevertheless, she has concerns about how this might impact in practice. Clearly getting the guidelines right will be important in ensuring that we get the benefits of the proposals without some of the perverse incentives that she and other noble Lords have referred to in our days of debate. We will ensure that the Sentencing Guidelines Council is asked to produce these guidelines, which will be subject to wide consultation before they are brought into effect. The comments that noble Lords have made about diversion and the role of mental health services are crucial to the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the review being undertaken by my noble friend Lord Bradley into diversion generally in mental health services. It is an important review, which I hope will help to deal with the long-standing problem of people within custodial settings being in the wrong place when they ought to be within appropriate NHS facilities. A great deal of progress has been made over the past few years, but clearly more needs to happen. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, on the budgetary points that he made. Unlike with his rather ambitious ideas for my legal aid budget, he is right that, if more money can be invested up front in appropriate mental health diversions, that must have a wholly beneficial impact on many of the people whom we are talking about and, it is to be hoped, on the resource position of my department. That is the very meat of the review that is being undertaken by my noble friend. I am grateful to the noble Earl for giving me notice of this because I have been able to obtain some information for today’s debate. The performance indicator for youth offending teams is to ensure that all young people who are assessed as manifesting acute mental health difficulties are referred by youth offending teams to CAMHS for formal assessment, commencing within five days of receipt of their referral, and that non-acute mental health concerns are referred by the youth offending teams to the appropriate CAMH service, where assessment and engagement should commence within 15 working days of referral. The figures that I have show that, during 2006-07, 91.2 per cent of young people with both acute and non-acute diagnoses were referred to services within the target time frame. Five hundred and twenty-three people were reported to be manifesting acute mental health difficulties, of whom 477 were referred within the required five working days.