---

Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 26: 26: Clause 5, page 4, line 6, after ““offender’s”” insert ““, or his immediate family’s,”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I tabled this amendment in Committee and have brought it back on Report partly because the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, said that he would go away and think about it. I have received a letter, for which I am extremely grateful, setting out the results of his cerebrations between Committee and Report. As currently drafted, Clause 5 places a duty on the responsible officer to ensure that, in giving instructions in pursuance of the youth rehabilitation order, they should not, so far as is practicable, conflict with the offender’s religious beliefs. My amendment suggests that we should extend the requirement to cover the religious beliefs to the young offender’s immediate family. My reasons for doing so are the following. You might find a situation in which a young offender could fulfil his or her community disposition only if there were transport facilities available to him, that they were provided by his parents, and that on certain days of the week—for religious reasons—his parents were unable to fulfil those obligations. I think that I said to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that I would be perfectly content with a statement from the Government Front Bench in lieu of a provision in the Bill. The letter from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, talks about the important role played by the responsible officer in dealing with an individual who is subject to a particular disposition. He wrote: "““The responsible officer will be able to take into account the full range of issues that may have contributed to an episode of non compliance. This can include issues which are beyond the young person’s control, such as hospitalisation and the actions of their parents””." He goes on to suggest that the particular situation that I raised in Committee is one of the factors that the responsible officer would normally take into account. I am looking for the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle from the Government; if they told me that the religious beliefs of the parents would be a factor that would exonerate a young person in those circumstances, I would be quite content. I beg to move.