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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, given the time, happily this is a short amendment. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 established that people under the age of 17 years are to be treated as children and therefore have to be questioned or interviewed in the presence of an appropriate adult, but people of 17 years of age and up to 18 are not treated in the same way. The Government have dealt with what has been an anomaly about treating 17 year-olds as adults for the purposes of bail, and that has now been changed to lift the age to 18. It would seem to be consonant with that approach if the appropriate adult provision was also extended from 17 years of age to 18. This is a straightforward matter and I should say that the Prison Reform Trust, in which I declare an interest as a member of its advisory group on youth offending, strongly urges that this should be dealt with in the same way as the bail situation. Incidentally, the trust extends its thanks and praise to the Government, so if they want another round of thanks and praise, they merely have to accept this amendment. I beg to move.