Offender Management Bill

I recognise and understand the concern expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, my noble friend Lord Judd, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, that young adults should be kept apart from older offenders and remandees. The amendment would to do that in two ways: by repealing the legislative provision that abolishes the young adult sentence of detention in a young offender institution and by preventing 17 to 20 year-olds being placed in prison on remand. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, for indicating that this is a probing amendment. The Committee will be aware from my Written Statement on 8 May, in which I set out the actions that we are taking in relation to offenders aged 18 to 24 both in custody and in the community, that this is a group about which the Government are also concerned. I will not recite that Statement for the purposes of this reply, but that is why we made nine substantive proposals about how we could take things further. I hope that noble Lords found the Statement a helpful and positive indication of our direction of travel. In it, I said that taking account both of the constraints posed by current prison capacity and the need to undertake further work to test out an approach to young adult offenders, the time was not yet right to abolish detention in a young offender institution. The Government therefore agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, and others that DYOI should be retained for the time being. However, I know that the noble Baroness would wish to go further and repeal the legislation that abolishes DYOI entirely. That is her aspiration, hope and desire, but we do not believe that it would be right to do that—certainly not at this stage. In my Statement I explained the steps that we are taking to test the best approaches in relation to this age group; and it would not be advisable to repeal the legislation while that evaluative work is in progress. The noble Baroness also wishes to remove the power to place in a prison 17 to 20 year-olds who have been remanded in custody. That view is shared by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater. The law requires that, subject to an overriding power available to the Secretary of State, 17 to 20 year-olds who are remanded in custody must be placed in a remand centre, if one is available, or otherwise in a prison. In a strict legal sense, all remandees in this age group are held in prisons, because no establishments have been formally designated as remand centres. We need to hold that in our minds. However, while some of these young people are held in prisons, many are in young offender institutions, the accommodation in which they are placed having been formally designated as prison accommodation for the purpose of the law. Removing the power to place in a prison would therefore have far-reaching effects and would make the system unworkable. I know that that is not what anyone in the Committee wants. I can assure the Committee that unless there were wholly exceptional circumstances relating to an individual case, we would not consider placing a 17 year-old outside the under-18 estate. Those aged over 18 form a different category, and while it may be desirable to keep 18 to 20 year-olds separate from older inmates, an absolute rule would remove an important element of flexibility in dealing with population pressures. As I said earlier, we will have an opportunity to discuss issues about how we respond most effectively to this group of 18 to 24-year olds, but it is not now and it will not be on this Bill. We will have an opportunity for mature reflection in due course. Therefore, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment