Offender Management Bill

I had not realised that my noble friend Lord Northbourne was going to be speaking to the amendment. I heartily endorse what he said, albeit that we cannot at this stage go into it in the detail that I would have liked. I am glad that we will have another occasion to do so a bit later. Our debate a couple of weeks ago on education and young people in custody showed the whole range of reasons why so many young people are in prison, with some interesting and impressive figures from the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen. The most horrendous was that 83 per cent of the boys had been excluded from school, with 41 per cent being aged 14 or under when last in school. It is clearly important that we reorganise our resources, as my noble friend has said, as far as we possibly can. I know that the Government are doing a great deal on this, with Sure Start centres and things of that kind.