---

Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, Amendment No. 81 is similar to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, in Committee. We had a full and passionate debate then, as we have had this afternoon in perhaps a smaller way. A number of concerns were expressed, with the emphasis very much on what remains to be done. Let me point out briefly what the Government have done over the past few years to ensure that young people under 18 are accommodated entirely separately from young adults and older prisoners. Perhaps the key development was the decision in April 2000 to give the Youth Justice Board responsibility for oversight of the secure estate for children and young people. The board immediately established a discrete estate for boys under 18—in other words, one in which they did not have contact with anyone in custody over that age. It was, and is, a diverse estate, comprising young offender institutions, secure training centres and secure children’s homes—three different types of accommodation catering for differing age groups and differing levels of vulnerability. Achieving similar separation for girls was much more difficult. Compared with the number of boys in custody, the number of girls is low. That presented problems if we were to succeed in providing establishments of adequate size in reasonably distributed locations. Anyone who was there will not forget hearing the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who is not in his place today, speaking to the equivalent amendment in Committee and recalling his horror at finding 15 year-old girls in Holloway prison when he inspected it in 1995 in his role as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons. The Committee agreed that that was not acceptable. Claiming a small amount of credit for the present Government, I should say that they are to be congratulated in small part on taking the steps necessary to ensure that that does not happen now. That was done by means of a phased programme, first removing all girls under 16 from Prison Service accommodation, then removing all girls under 17 and finally building a series of new special units for 17 year-old girls. Those units have a particular focus on the needs of the young women whom they accommodate and have been favourably reported on by Her Majesty’s inspectors. The current amendment proposes a single type of establishment for all young people under 18. The Government do not believe that that is either workable or desirable. Just as it was right to separate under-18s from over-18s, it is necessary to keep older teenagers apart from younger ones—indeed, in some ways, the difference between the average 14 year-old and the average 17 year-old is far greater than that between many 17 and 18 year-olds. We do not believe that appropriate separation is possible without a range of types of establishment. The diversity of the under-18s estate is a strength and not a weakness. That is not to say that the present arrangements are the last word; clearly there is scope for continued development in the field. For example, ministerial colleagues and I have referred to the work that is being done at Wetherby to build a new special unit for more vulnerable 15 and 16 year-old boys. I would simply ask that everyone concerned with this issue—and I know that the House is very taken with it—recognises not only the scope for further improvement but to some extent what has already been achieved. We have commented a lot on making sure that custody really is a last resort for young people of this age and we have shown our commitment to providing the courts with effective community interventions that offer an alternative to custody. I am advised that it is arguable—no more than that—that, because of a drafting error, the new clause that is this amendment would not achieve its intended effect of removing the Secretary of State’s power to specify by order additional types of custodial establishment in which a detention and training order could be served, a power that, if it still remained, could be used to reinstate young offender institutions and secure training centres. I mention that because it would be wrong of me not to say that I had received that advice. Because of the general arguments that I have employed this afternoon, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.